ANNOUNCER: This isJustice in America.
And I'm Madeline McBride.
It has been 73 days since the murder
of 11-year-old Kaylee Nagle.
Kaylee was found sexually assaulted and stabbed to death
in her Westchester, New York home.
And while the police have yet to make an arrest,
there is one suspect from whom
we never hear.
I'm talking about Kaylee's stepfather,
Jeremy Brennan.
According to Jeremy's statement to the police,
he picked up Kaylee after school
at soccer practice and returned home.
And while Kaylee's mother was at work,
Jeremy claims he went on a bike ride
and returned less than an hour later to find
his stepdaughter dead on the kitchen floor,
her soccer jersey ripped open,
her shorts pulled down to her ankles,
and a kitchen knife
buried in her chest.
Well, apparently, the police are running out of ways
to get this man to talk, and that is why
I am asking you, for the 22nd night in a row,
to let Jeremy Brennan know that youneed to hear from him.
Youwant answers.
And he can't hide!
Let's keep up the pressure.
Let's bombard this man with our tweets.
Let's demand that he come forward
and answer some questions.
@JeremyBrennanRealty.
♪StopHidingJeremy.
Dr. Bull, Mr. Colón.
I appreciate you braving the pandemic
to meet me this morning.
For the record, I get tested every day.
The room is disinfected every night.
So feel free to leave your masks on
or take them off as you see fit.
You gentlemen know why you're here?
I'm guessing it's because
you have a Madeline McBride problem.
She's being sued by that family of the little girl
who was murdered. And they want her
to stop encouraging her viewers to harass the stepfather
on social media.
Please.
Well, you know... this Madeline McBride issue.
She's picking a fight with someone who,
who might be the guilty party, but also someone
who could certainly be perceived as the victim,
in that his stepdaughter was
the person who died.
Can't pay them off-- they don't want money.
Can't ask Madeline to stop what she's doing
without doing irreparable harm to her brand,
which, as you know, is
the tough-talking, acerbic,
defender of those denied justice.
Yada, yada, yada. Long story short,
we're going to court, whether we want to or not.
BENNY: So you think the jury
just might side with the family of the dead girl?
[sighs] Our whole business is based
on the assumption that the First Amendment gives
our air personalities the right to express themselves
without fear of retribution.
And I don't want to give the courts or a jury
any reason to second-guess that.
I'd just love to shut this down sooner rather than later.
If you two were inclined to lead the fight for us...
I'd certainly make it worth your while.
You ever watch that lady's show?
I have caught a little of it here and there.
It's hard to believe that's what the founding fathers
had in mind when they were cooking up the Constitution.
Are you trying to tell me you'd rather not be involved?
Madeline McBride is part of this culture of evisceration
that takes over cable television every night.
Whether it's politics or celebrity stalking
or true crime, it's just...
it's just mean, man.
Well, it might be mean, but Madeline McBride
and WNN are on the right side of this thing legally.
It's the First Amendment.
And the problem is...
if you don't stand up for the people you don't agree with
when they're being silenced, there might not be
a right to free speech when they come after
the people that you doagree with.
Right? No less a figure than George Washington said,
"If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent
we may be led like sheep to the slaughter."
BENNY: Your Honor, the law of the state of New York
is very clear-- an injunction can only be granted
if there's proof that the party in question
is doing irreparable harm.
Counsel is correct on that point.
Is your client suffering irreparable harm?
Without question, Your Honor.
Jeremy Brennan is suffering indescribable mental anguish
because of Madeline McBride's relentless
and very public attacks.
To be clear, she's accusing
my client of the murder of his stepdaughter
on national television, virtually every night
for over a month now.
All this while he and his wife
are dealing with the anguish of having lost
their only child in...
as gruesome and savage
a rape and murder
as I can ever recall.
She is using her bully pulpit
to urge her viewers
to call him out via social media.
My client receives over a thousand
tweets a day-- all of them hostile,
many of them threatening-- and all of them mention
Ms. McBride and her program by name.
Furthermore, Mr. Brennan is a real estate agent.
His name... is an integral part of his business.
Bus benches with his name and photo
are being defaced with the words "pedophile"
and "killer."
Mr. Brennan can't even go out in public anymore.
And let's start with the fact
that my client has never
been arrested or charged
with any crime. None.
Furthermore, there is clear evidence
that someone else is the killer.
There was unidentified DNA and skin cells
present under Kaylee's fingernails.
Something Ms. McBride doesn't even mention on her show.
BENNY:Your Honor, the DNA found underneath the victim's
fingernails could come from anyone, anywhere.
Possibly even...
one of her friends on the soccer field.
And isn't this ultimately
about the First Amendment?
No less a figure than George Washington declared,
"If freedom of speech is taken away,
"then dumb and silent,
we may be led like sheep to the slaughter."
GODFORD: Mr. Colón knows good and well
that not all speech
is protected by the First Amendment.
The Supreme Court has been very clear on that.
There's a reason you can't yell fire
in a crowded theater.
Respectfully, Your Honor, you can if there's smoke.
Personally, going forward, I would encourage
Ms. McBride to show a degree of sensitivity
to Mr. Brennan, who, as Mr. Godford points out,
has not even been charged with a crime at this point.
However, I am bound by the State of New York
as well as the United States' Constitution.
Madeline McBride has a guaranteed First Amendment right
to state her opinion.
Therefore, I am denying the request for an injunction.
Court dismissed.
Nice job, gentlemen.
Uh... I told you we were in good hands.
That George Washington quote was very moving.
We barely said hello, but I'm very grateful
for what you did here today.
And...
I know that Kaylee is, too.
[elevator bell chimes]
Hi, hi, sorry!
Forgive me for ambushing you.
It's just that your place was locked, but then...
the guard downstairs recognized me
and he said that I could wait here for you,
so...
What can I do for you, Ms. McBride?
[sighs]
I got a phone call about an hour ago.
Jeremy Brennan, Kaylee Nagle's stepfather,
he...
...he killed himself last night.
♪
[phone ringing, buzzing]
Hello?
Yes, this is she.
Sorry, what hospital is this?
Oh, no, no, there must be some mistake.
You're, like, three blocks away from me.
My father lives in Louisiana.
Has for the last 15 years.
Wait, he what?
Tonight?
Day 42-- no response
from Jeremy Brennan or his attorneys
regarding his availability or willingness
to appear on this show.
No response from Westchester PD
as to what their plans are moving forward
in regards to the Kaylee Nagle case.
No response from the mayor.
No response from the county supervisor.
And that is why I've applied for a permit
for an organized rally across the street
from the Brennan home.
The scene of Kaylee's death.
And if you live in the tri-state area,
I do hope that you will come down and join me
as we let the world know that we have some questions.
And we want some answers!
Our client concluded her broadcast,
this broadcast, at 9:59.
According to the Brennan cable box, the program was viewed
in both the bedroom and the family room.
Jeremy's widow tells us she watched it alone
and fell asleep shortly thereafter.
Apparently her late husband never made it upstairs to bed.
Sometime between 2:00 and 3:00 a.m.,
he entered the garage, climbed into his car,
started the engine...
but never opened the garage door.
Just sat in the front seat and waited for the carbon monoxide
to do its job-- no texts, no note, no nothing.
BULL: Let's talk law-- the other side is gonna have
to prove Jeremy Brennan's suicide was uniquely
a result of Madeline McBride's on-air provocations.
And as disturbing as what we just saw was,
that's gonna be a very, very difficult thing to prove.
And yet, the six people sitting in judgment of all this
may have a hard time separating what Madeline did
from who Madeline is, or who she appears to be.
Taylor, you have those Q scores?
"Q score"?
They measure the likeabilityand familiarity
of a celebrity.
Madeline McBride has an extraordinarily
high Q score, actually.
Over 80% of adults who are between the ages
of 18 and 49 know who she is.
Additionally, two out of three of those 80%
admit to watching her at least three times a month.
Okay. She's popular. We knew that.
Here's the fascinating part.
Two-thirds of that subsetthat says they watch her,
admit they don't like her.
They find her shrill,hysterical, judgmental, unfair.
Most repeated comment:"She's not a nice person."
BULL:And therein lies the problem.
That is our potential jury pool,which is why
we have to make sure this case doesn't devolve
into a referendum on our client's personality.
Now, the other side's gonna have their hands full
trying to prove causation, which I'm fairly sure
we will be able to defend against, but...
if this case becomes about what that jury thinks
about McBride's behavior as a TV personality, we will lose.
We can't play defense and win.
We have to make sure this jury understands
this is much bigger than a cable news TV show.
[melancholy, orchestral movie music plays, bell tolls]
[knocking]
This better be important.
What can I do for you?
Any progress in the Madeline McBride of it all?
Still in the midst.
Actually, I had a startling revelation a little while ago.
Our client...
is the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
People see her--
they're appalled, but they're also fascinated.
Same way they feel about the Hunchback.
They can't look away.
So, what the novel does,what the movie does
is it humanizes this person
that people find so frightening, so terrifying.
It makes them care about him.
That's what we need to do with Madeline.
Any idea how?
Not a clue.
Something will come to me.
But I suspect that is not why you came to my office.
Actually, I was hoping
to get a couple of minutes with the other Dr. Bull.
The psychologist.
[sighs]
What's going on?
My father passed away last night.
COVID.
I'm so sorry.No, it's fine.
I'm fine.
Didn't even know he was sick.
Haven't seen or spoken with him in almost 15 years.
I thought he was
in New Orleans this whole time.
Turns out he was living four subway stops away from me.
Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?
No. No.
Um, I wanted to talk about me.
So, I got the call at 3:00 in the morning.
Hung up, went straight to sleep.
Didn't cry.
Just slept.
Then I got up, came to work.
Still haven't cried.
Is that crazy?
Well, there's a lot I don't know,
but my suspicion is...
you're not reacting yet to what happened.
And there's two reasons. One, you're in shock.
And two, your father already left you 15 years ago.
So, I suspect you've been mourning him
on and off for years.
That makes sense.
Thank you, Dr. Bull.
Danny?
Sooner or later, you will cry.
I don't know.
He is my father.
And it's not like I don't have any good memories.
But in a lot of ways, he was a really bad guy.
I'm just telling you, it could be tomorrow,
could be years from now.
You'll be walking down the street,
and suddenly, it hits you.
I just want you to know it's coming.
Okay.
I've been warned.
GODFORD: And when did
the two of you become aware that Madeline McBride
was implicating your husband
in the death of your child on national television?
Were you regular viewers of her program?
No, I had never seen it before, I'd-I'd never heard of her.
Um, I'm guessing the first time she mentioned it,
it was a Friday night, because I remember
it was a Saturday morning when we first got the tweets.
Um, my husband
had his own Twitter account for,
uh, for his work.
And he woke me up to show me the...
ugliest messages.
Um, and as I said, it was a Saturday morning,
which are always the hardest,
because Saturdays were Kaylee's days.
It was soccer and sleepovers, and then...
there were just these long days
that we had to fill by ourselves.
GODFORD: And how did your life change
as Madeline McBride began
her nightly campaign against your husband?
After she insinuated on national television
that Kaylee's stepfather was a pedophile and a killer?
[voice breaking]: My husband was vilified.
At the grocery store,
at his office, everywhere he went.
They would call him names,
tell him to stop hiding.
And...
did you and Mr. Brennan ever feel
that you were in any real danger because of Ms. McBride?
We did, and we were.
In fact, the night before Jeremy took his own life,
someone threw a brick through our front window.
Your Honor, we would like to introduce
into evidence the aforementioned brick
that came through the Brennans' window.
Objection, Your Honor.
A brick thrown by an unknown perpetrator is not relevant
to statements made by Ms. McBride,
and any attempt to connect the two is speculative at best.
Actually, the two are very much connected,
very much related, Your Honor.
Sorry, Counselor.
I think we need to see where this goes.
Overruled.
GODFORD: The brick that you're holding--
there's some writing on it?
Would you please read what it says?
It says, "Stop Hiding Jeremy."
GODFORD:And are you familiar with that expression?
TRACY: I certainly am.
"StopHidingJeremy" was the hashtag
McBride told her audience to tweet to Jeremy every night.
BULL: You okay?
What do you mean?
Well, that had to be hard to listen to in there.
Oh. Well, I'm fine.
I know, and I think the jury sees,
that this is very difficult for her.
She invited him into her house.
She invited him into her life.
And now her daughter is dead, so she's lashing out at me.
It's-it's kind of classic textbook.
Don't you think?
Oh. Do you disagree?
Well, for what it's worth, that's not what I heard.
I heard her communicate--
and rather effectively, I might add--
the impact your show had on her life.
And, by extension, her late husband's life.
That is what they heard.
Let's not confuse things, Madeline.
Jury's not here to litigate her late husband's guilt.
They're here to litigate yours.
I'm guilty of nothing.
I've killed no one.
All I've done is exercise my First Amendment rights,
and, um, last time I checked, that's not a crime.
So, don't youconfuse things.
And don't forget who you're here to defend.
[sighs]
Dr. Soto, will you please tell the court
what it is you do?
I'm a licensed psychiatrist
in the state of New York
in private practice in Westchester County,
and until his death, I saw Jeremy Brennan once a week
for the past... just about four years.
And can you give the court some idea
why you were seeing the late Mr. Brennan
these past four years?
SOTO:Well, without going into too much detail,
what brought Mr. Brennan into my office was his struggle
with issues involving generalized anxiety.
The stresses involved with running your own business.
Pretty run-of-the-mill stuff.
And can you talk about the impact
Kaylee's death had on him?
He was, uh, shattered.
Destroyed.
Uh, wanted to be this strong anchor for his wife,
who obviously was devastated,
and felt ashamed that he couldn't do it.
Couldn't function.
And then there was the whole issue of responsibility.
Tracy was at work, he was at home.
The way he explained it to me was, he could have
just as easily been there, been at the house,
maybe stopped it from happening.
But he was riding his bike.
At one of our last sessions, he told me
it was an incredibly beautiful ride.
And at the time, it gave him enormous pleasure.
And he really had trouble understanding
how he could experience so much pleasure
when someone he loved so deeply was experiencing so much horror.
Your Honor, we mean no disrespect,
but it's hard to see the relevance
of any of this testimony,
what bearing it has on the case at hand.
GODFORD:Your Honor, we believe it's essential
for the jury to understand
Mr. Brennan's state of mind
before Ms. McBride turned him
into the focus of her broadcasts,
so they may better understand the impact she had on him.
I agree,
but I feel confident that you've done that.
If we could please
move it along.GODFORD: Beg the court's pardon.
If I could just ask one last question...
Your Honor......about the days before
Ms. McBride made him the centerpiece of her broadcasts?
One.
But keep it brief.
GODFORD: During that period,
immediately after Kaylee's death
but before Ms. McBride made him topic number one
on her television show, did he seem at all to you suicidal?
As his doctor,
were you ever really concerned about his safety?
No.
He was depressed. He was angry.
He couldn't sleep or eat.
But he was also very clear
that he had to be there for his wife.
GODFORD: I see. And after
he was implicated by Ms. McBride?
That was the first time I saw
anything even resembling suicidal ideation.
She was on television every night
implying awful things.
The unrelenting tweets.
The phone calls in the middle of the night.
The brick through the window.
This rally she wanted to have across from his house.
I wish I hadn't been so timid about it.
I wish I really had pushed
to have him hospitalized.
Nothing further, Your Honor.
[clears throat]
BENNY: Hello, Dr. Soto.
So...
Are you familiar with the concept of correlation
and how it's often confused with causation?
I'm familiar with it, yes.
BENNY: That even if there is
a correlation between Ms. McBride's actions
and Jeremy Brennan's depression and mental distress,
well, that doesn't prove causation.
No one knows for sure why Jeremy Brennan
did what he did.
You don't know why Mr. Brennan did what he did, do you?
The witness will answer
the question, please.BENNY: Oh, that's okay,
Your Honor. [chuckles] That's all right.
I-I think the jury gets it.
They know if the doctor, uh, was certain about any of this,
she would have absolutely had Mr. Brennan hospitalized.
A-And not just thought about it.
You know, like, done it. Made it happen.
But she wasn't certain.
Were you?
No.
Okay, so, let's get back to correlation and causation.
To the best of your knowledge, did my client
tell Jeremy Brennan to get on social media?
No, not that I'm aware of.
And, for that matter, did my client
ever force Jeremy Brennan to watch her TV show?
No, I-I can't imagine she did.
I can't imagine that, either.
Thank you.
No further questions, Your Honor.
I need you to answer the door, Marissa.
What? Answer the door? What are you talking about?
What door?
Answer the door, Marissa.
Doubt has arrived.
Morning. Um, any way we could have a chat?
Sure.
What's up?
Um, I need a favor.
My father passed away earlier this week.
Oh, God, I... Danny, I'm so sorry.
Were you close?
I barely knew him.
Well, that's not true. I knew him.
And I loved him.
But he left us-- uh, my mom and me--
right before I went into the police academy.
No goodbye. Nothing. Just, uh, came home from school one day,
and he was... he was gone.
Took off with some woman.
I haven't spoken to him in 15 years.
So the point is, um,
I, uh, I hired a-a company
to go into his apartment and box up all his things.
Get them out of there so the, uh, the landlord
can get the place ready for a new tenant.
Anyway,
um, they just called,
and apparently, it's about 20-some boxes.
And I just don't have enough room
for all that stuff in my tiny apartment, so...
Is there any way that I could store them here,
out of the way?
[knock on door]
MAN: Judge is on his way out.We're coming.
After the other side questions me,
you get to question me, too, right?
Yes. That's how it works.
Okay. For your last question,
just make sure you ask me how I got into all of this.
What makes me care so deeply for victims of crime.
What makes me care so deeply for people like Kaylee.
Hmm?
[door opens]
McBRIDE: No evidence of forced entry.
No real alibi for the time period
during which Kaylee was sexually assaulted and murdered.
I mean, he claimed he went on a bike ride,
but no one actually saw him.
[chuckles]: So, he just seemed
like someone that you would want to get answers from.
You know what they say about walking like a duck.
SULLIVAN: Any more questions
for this witness, Counselor?
Yes, Your Honor. Just one more.
So,
Ms. McBride,
we've all
seen you on television.
We've all seen you in action.
So, how did you come to this?
How did you come to be a champion of justice?
A champion of victims like Kaylee?
Like a lot of things in life...
...you never see it coming.
20 years ago,
I was married.
I was living in Indiana.
It was, like...
nine or ten weeks after 9/11.
It was Black Friday.
I was doing my patriotic duty
by getting some early Christmas shopping done.
And my three-year-old,
David...
He was at that in-between age.
You know, they want to be carried,
and, oh, no, they want to walk on their own
or they want to hold your hand.
It's like, no, no, they want to be free.
Anyway, my husband at the time
was in some other part of the mall.
And I saw out of the corner of my eye
this robot pet
that was so popular that year.
I mean, it was sold out everywhere.
[chuckles softly] And then there it was.
Magically, right in front of me.
So, I grabbed David's hand,
and we walked over to where they were.
I remember that the aisle
was so very crowded.
People and shopping carts
and winter clothes.
[sniffles]
[crying]: It seems so stupid now.
Anyway...
I grabbed the toy,
and then I realized that I...
I didn't want David to see it.
I didn't want him to know
that Mommy was getting him the toy and not Santa.
So I switched hands for a second.
And...
And then I looked down.
He wasn't there.
You can figure out the rest.
It was, like, me, my husband,
the police-- we were all over that mall
until they locked the doors
and made us leave.
[crying]: He was just...
...gone.
BENNY: I'm so sorry.
I was desperate,
so...
I went to the media.
I didn't even know what the media was.
But...
I wanted David's picture
and his name everywhere.
You know, just in case somebody saw him.
And I-I wouldn't let up.
Not even after my husband
stopped speaking to me.
Not even after he left me.
But...
[whimpers, sniffles]
I just couldn't stop.
My son's...
body washed up on the shore of the Patoka Lake
a few weeks later.
And...
I guess everyone figured
that was that.
But not for me.
I went everywhere there was a microphone.
Uh, radio stations.
Colleges.
I just... I kept pushing
because I wanted the scalp
of the man who kidnapped
my son and murdered him.
And then, finally...
I got it.
The police found him.
'Cause, you know, they never dared stop looking
'cause I was screaming from the rooftops.
I got justice.
I speak for the dead.
Like my son.
And like Kaylee.
Told you I knew what I was doing.
That was quite a piece of testimony.
Any of it true?
Yeah, step on in. Close the door?
I'm here to inform you that WNN is withdrawing from the case.
Excuse me?
Also that our lawyers are on the phone with your lawyers
negotiating the dissolution
of your contract with our network.
As of now, you are off the air, Madeline.
What's going on?
The man who killed Kaylee?
They caught him about an hour ago.
Confessed to everything.
What are you talking about?
The man who killed Kaylee was her stepfather.
No, he wasn't.
Look, the word is starting to get out, and people are starting
to gather in front of the courthouse.
They're looking for you.
So I'd arrange for some extra security
to get her out of here? Yeah?
DANNY: The killer was a man named Wayne Dixon.
He was working a construction job
down the street from the Brennan home.
Dixon had apparently targeted Kaylee a few weeks earlier.
He was watching the house
and saw Jeremy ride away on his bike.
Dixon claims he approached the house,
said he was a friend of Kaylee's dad,
and she let him in,
which is why there is no evidence of forced entry.
Is there anything in there
about how the police knew
to question Dixon in the first place?
How did he come to their attention?
Well, according to this, they got a tip.
Dixon's girlfriend. Why?
We're in court at 11:00.
See if you can find the girlfriend.
See if you can get her on the phone with me.
Ms. James, stacked all the boxes downstairs
in that courtroom like you told me.
[exhales] Thanks so much for all your help.
And I almost forgot. The person who helped pack up
your dad's things wanted me to give you this.
Thanks.
Have a great day.
BENNY: Good morning, Ms. Cowley.
Now, could you please tell the court what it was
that prompted you to call the police
on your boyfriend Wayne Dixon?
Uh, yeah, I-I don't know.
Um, Wayne was working construction in Westchester,
and, uh, since he started,
he just seemed different, distant,
you know, like he was preoccupied
with something or-or someone.
And then, a few nights later,
I found him out back, burning his clothes.
I mean, why would you burn your clothes?
He said he got some type of toxic chemical on them at work.
But he does framing and drywall. I-I don't know.
It just... it didn't seem right to me.
Now, is that when you phoned the police?
Uh, no, no, not yet.
Um, what really got me thinking was, all of a sudden,
he wanted to start watching Madeline McBride's show
with me all of a sudden.
Like, he never wanted to watch that show before.
He did not like her.
No offense.
I'm sorry. I-I love you, and I love your show so much.
BULL: Go,
Quasimodo.Um...
So, anyway, he started watching it with me.
And whenever she'd bring up the case,
he'd always say how he was working in that neighborhood
and he knew the house that she was talking about, and...
BENNY:And did you know your boyfriend was interested
in prepubescent girls?
[voice breaking]: I don't know.
We never talked about it.
But... whenever we were at the beach or at the park...
[sniffles]
...I thought I always saw him looking.
Then I thought maybe it was just in my mind.
And what did you tell the police when you called them?
I knew from her show
that Kaylee had DNA on her that hadn't been identified.
So, I called them, and I offered Wayne's hairbrush.
And how did you know to do that?
From her show.
She talked about how DNA from a hairbrush caught a killer
she was profiling a couple years back.
Well, it's lucky you watched her show.
Did you know that tips
from Ms. McBride's viewers have helped
in solving over one hundred cases
since the show first aired?
No.
I just think she's really smart
and cool.
Just really good at her job.
[quietly]: Sanctuary.
[sighs]
"Dear Danny James, you don't know me, but my name is Devon.
"Some years ago, I got to know your father.
"We met and fell in love in New York,
"and eventually, I convinced him
"to come live with me in Louisiana where I'm from.
"I did not know at the time about you or your mother.
"Three months after we settled down in Louisiana,
"your father confessed to me about the family he had left.
"Told me that he could no longer bear the guilt
"and needed to go back to you.
"I did not stand in his way.
"He told me when he got to New York,
"your mother refused to speak to him.
"Warned him that if he tried to make contact with you
"that she would kill him.
"He told me he found a small apartment
"and got a job working teaching physical education
"at an art school.
"Even taught himself to sketch.
"Over the years he tried to build up the courage
"to reach out to you,
"but he told me he was so filled with guilt
"and shame for leaving you,
"he just couldn't do it.
"And then one day, he was looking out his window,
"and there you were.
"Walking by.
"He figured you were probably making your way home
"from the police academy.
"He said he saw you maybe ten or 20 times from that window,
"but then, no more.
"I didn't hear from your father again for many years.
"And then about three weeks ago, he called
"to tell me he was very sick.
"I flew to New York, but by the time
"I got there he was already in the hospital.
So I'm writing to let you know what he told me.
"That he wanted you to know he was terribly sorry.
"And he wanted you to know
he loved you."
[sniffles]
BENNY: Jeremy Brennan's suicide is
undeniably tragic.
And no one will ever know with certainty
why he decided to take his own life.
But you know what we do know with certainty?
That Kaylee's killer was caught.
And that's, at least in part, due
to Madeline McBride...
for keeping Kaylee's story alive.
But she was only able to do it
because her freedom of speech allowed her to do it.
See, that's the tricky thing about freedom of speech.
It-it cuts both ways.
See, people have the freedom
to say whatever it is they want to say.
And everyone else has the freedom, uh,
not to listen, not to believe
and to do their own research
and come up with their own conclusions.
I mean, that's what Carla Cowley did.
You heard her.
She loved that woman.
But she did not let the fact
that for over a month, she heard
Madeline McBride, who thought that Jeremy Brennan
probably committed the murder,
stop her from picking up the phone
and calling the police when she was convinced
my client was mistaken.
Look, I...
I get it.
Okay? I get it. She was...
she was wrong.
Wrong on the facts.
Unnecessarily harsh.
And there were times I felt that she took
way too much pleasure
in her ongoing campaign against Jeremy Brennan.
But you know what?
That is not against the law.
And the problem is...
if you don't stand up
for the people you don't necessarily agree with
when someone is trying to silence them,
then there might not be the right to free speech left
when they go after the people you doagree with.
WOMAN: In the matter ofTracy Brennan v.
Madeline McBrideand the claim
of intentional infliction of emotional distress...
we, the jury, find Madeline McBride
liable.[Tracy gasping]
And we award Tracy Brennan damages
in the amount of two and one half million dollars.
SULLIVAN: Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,
thank you for your service.
Court is adjourned.
Ms. McBride. I'm very sorry.
Don't be, you did your best.
But you lost your job.
You're about to get a boatload of bad publicity.
And today is gonna cost you two and a half million dollars.
Help me understand.
You seem to have made your peace
with this rather quickly.
Well, two and a half million?
That's why God created personal liability insurance.
And the boatload of publicity?
I love it.
Good or bad,
it keeps me in the zeitgeist.
And it will come in handy
when I sit down to cut my new deal.
A new deal?
See, people like me?
People who have the courage to say
what everyone else is thinking even if we're wrong?
We always draw a big crowd.
[laughs] And trust me,
after today...
the crowd will only be bigger, huh?
Thank you, gentlemen.
Don't forget to send me your bill.