[dramatic music]
‐ It is incredibly rare for criminal defendants
to take the stand.
It's a risk very few take.
At stake: one's freedom or even their life.
This is Henry Segura.
He's charged with killing his ex‐girlfriend
and her three children.
‐ I honestly didn't think that me lying would, you know,
result in me being arrested for murder.
‐ This is Henry Segura's second trial for the gruesome murders.
His first trial ended in a hung jury.
Now he's taking the stand again.
Could it help him convince the jury of his innocence?
Or will it come back to haunt him?
‐ If I'm gonna kill JaVonte, why not bring him home
with me and kill Brandi?
‐ Take a courtside seat with the prosecutors,
the defense attorney,
the lead homicide investigator,
the legal analyst,
and the podcaster who covered the trial.
I'm Dan Abrams, and this is "Under Oath."
‐ Raise your right hand. ‐ Do you solemnly swear...
‐ I'm being honest with everything I say here.
‐ Do you solemnly swear...
‐ The whole truth and nothing but the truth.
‐ I would like to testify.
‐ The testimony you are about to give...
‐ The whole truth and nothing but the truth...
‐ So help you God?
♪ ♪
‐ It was a terrible scene,
the worst I've ever seen in my life.
‐ I think what separates
this crime from anything else is the children.
‐ You have to have a special kind of evil in you
to do something like this.
And I just couldn't sense anything like that with Henry.
‐ I waited until I seen her mother's truck leave.
I walked back down the hill.
Walked to her house. Got to the corner.
Made a left, cut through the neighbor's yard,
and went in the house.
♪ ♪
‐ Henry Segura's being retried for the 2010 murders
of his ex‐girlfriend Brandi Peters,
her six‐year‐old twin daughters,
and their three‐year‐old son.
After hearing the state's evidence against Henry Segura
and the alternate theory presented by the defense
that Brandi was murdered by a cartel hit squad
after working as a drug mule,
the jury found themselves unable to reach a verdict,
with the majority voting for acquittal
and the judge declaring a mistrial.
In November 2019, two years after his first trial
and eight years after he was initially arrested
and put in jail, Henry Segura's back in court,
in front of a new jury,
once again fighting for his life.
With a second chance at freedom,
will Henry Segura be able
to convince these jurors of his innocence
or at least to have reasonable doubt about his guilt?
‐ I have no reason whatsoever to kill my son or those twins,
neither Brandi.
♪ ♪
‐ Brandi was 27 years old,
and she and Henry met a few years prior to 2010.
They met at a gas station.
And they dated for about eight or nine months before Brandi
became pregnant with their son, JaVonte.
‐ Yeah, I was at the hospital with her.
I signed the birth certificate.
You know, I was‐‐the whole nine.
‐ Did Brandi have the twins at that time?
‐ Yes, sir, they were around two
at the time when I met her.
‐ And what was your relationship with the twins?
‐ They were more like my kids than JaVonte,
because I spent more time with them before he was born.
I potty‐trained them, brought them to school.
I was just being a father figure.
‐ When JaVonte was about six months old,
they became more of an on‐again,
off‐again type of situation.
‐ At that point, I started back working out of town,
and our relationship kind of faltered.
So I didn't really spend as much time with JaVonte
or the twins like I used to.
‐ Brandi Peters was a good mother.
She may have done some questionable things
to try to make ends meet,
but she always put her kids first.
‐ On the morning of November 20th,
Brandi's mom was trying to get ahold of her
and was unsuccessful, and this was very unusual,
because Brandi was always by her phone.
In fact, her mom was so concerned
that she called one of Brandi's neighbors, CiCi Timmons,
and asked her if she could go over to the house
and check on Brandi and the kids.
CiCi sent her son,
Artron Timmons, over to the house,
and when he looked inside,
he saw a lot of blood everywhere,
and so he called 911.
‐ I got the call on a Saturday morning,
about almost 11:00 in the morning,
and I responded.
‐ The first two officers that arrived,
they see there is very clearly a crime scene.
And as they enter the front door,
lying there immediately in the foyer area
is Ms. Peters in a large pool of a blood.
‐ Brandi was shot seven to eight times
with a .32‐caliber gun
and was beaten so severely
that parts of her brain were exposed.
‐ They immediately notice the house is in disarray,
that there is pretty clear signs of a struggle
that had been going on there.
‐ The initial altercation took place in Brandi's bedroom.
That's where the first shots were fired.
The altercation proceeded from in her back bedroom,
down the hallway, and out the front door.
She actually made it outside the house.
Her acrylic nails were ripped off.
All her fingers were broken from punching and grabbing.
She took shot after shot after shot,
probably taking six dozen strikes to the head
before she finally succumbed.
She fought like a real hero, as I suppose any mother would,
trying to protect her children in those circumstances.
♪ ♪
‐ As we continued to go through the house,
we entered the communal bathroom,
and that's where we found the remaining victims
inside of the tub.
They were stacked on top of one another,
and the tub was full of water.
‐ Brandi's daughter Tamiyah was shot
in the head at close range.
Taniyah and JaVonte were both drowned.
And the medical examiner was able to determine
that they died sometime within a couple hours of dinner,
due to the contents in their stomachs.
‐ It's a special kind of evil person
who would kill three children.
So yes, there was a lot of tension
from the police department internally
to get this case solved,
as well as from the public to find out what happened.
♪ ♪
‐ Of course, what of the first questions you ask is,
"Who's the father of the children?"
They ultimately find out who the two fathers are.
The little girls had one father,
and JaVonte had Mr. Segura.
‐ Henry was initially brought into the police station
within hours of police finding the bodies,
but he wasn't a suspect.
They simply wanted to tell him
that his three‐year‐old son, JaVonte, had also been killed.
‐ What kind of stood out a little bit at first,
of course, is, he didn't seem to have a whole lot of emotions
when he was told his son died.
Men not supposed to cry,
so I held my tears in, you know.
I kept moving forward.
‐ So just because he didn't respond in the way
that you would respond doesn't mean
that he wasn't feeling for the death of his child.
‐ But nothing that was a telltale event,
because, of course, there was knowledge
that he wasn't real close to JaVonte.
It was a distance relationship.
And it turns out he was married.
‐ Were you married back in 2010?
‐ Yes, sir. ‐ And who were you married to?
‐ Malica Segura.
‐ And did you and Malica have any children together?
‐ Yes, sir. ‐ Who were those?
‐ Malachi and Henry Segura III.
‐ He was not faithful in any way, shape, or form.
He had multiple girlfriends.
He had a child that was fostered
by an extramarital affair.
He just constantly was trying to find another girl
in order to have an affair with.
‐ And that's your main vice, right?
You make no bones about that? You were a cheater?
‐ It's like that's my drug of choice.
I don't drink. I don't smoke, do any drugs.
That was my drug of choice.
Like, I'm not proud of it, but, you know, that's what I did.
‐ Henry is a dog, like a lot of guys are dogs,
that cheat on their spouses or girlfriends or whatever.
But that is not in any way the same kind of evil
that is required to be a baby murderer.
That's the devil.
[laughs] ‐ Okay.
‐ In the first interview, he was just trying
to kind of paint a picture of, "Oh, Brandi's sweet.
"She's‐‐you know, we've had a relationship in the past,
but I haven't seen her in months."
So trying to really distance himself from Brandi
and from JaVonte.
‐ And we knew he wasn't being completely truthful.
‐ He was embarrassed at what a slime bag he had been.
He had been a crappy husband.
So I know that Mark Lewis sensed that.
I know Mark could tell that he was lying.
‐ I just didn't feel like them knowing anything
about who I'm having sex with
had anything to do with somebody getting killed.
‐ But is it possible that a man ended up on trial
facing four counts of premeditated murder
and the death penalty
because he lied about an affair?
During their investigation,
law enforcement asked Henry Segura
for an alibi the day of the murders,
and he provided one.
He said he was home all day working on his car
and even suggested police check his cell phone to prove it.
While trying to verify Segura's story,
lead investigator Mark Lewis got a break in the case.
‐ So while going through Mr. Segura's alibi,
we just kept on revealing lie after lie.
Ten days later, we called Mr. Segura back in
to conduct an interview,
because we uncovered a second phone number
that we believe that he was at one time in possession of.
‐ I'm giving you my cooperation.
‐ Henry Segura's on trial for the vicious slaying
of an entire family: Brandi Peters,
her six‐year‐old twin daughters,
and three year‐old son.
Segura is adamant that he was not involved
with killing his extramarital girlfriend or their son.
But just when it appeared his alibi would check out,
law enforcement discovers a secret cell phone
that could tell a different story.
‐ When investigators looked into the cell phone data
of this second phone,
it revealed some very interesting information.
First of all, that second phone had contacted Brandi
multiple times on the day of her death.
And it did so by dialing star 67 prior to calling her.
Now, people dial star 67
before they're making phone calls
in order to keep their calls private.
They don't want the person they're calling to know
who it is that's calling.
‐ Why didn't you give Brandi your 408 number?
‐ She called‐‐she'd like to call too much.
She would‐‐if I didn't answer the phone,
she gonna call until I pick it up.
‐ Every time you ever communicated with Brandi
on that phone, did you use the star 67
so that she wouldn't have your number, based on the call?
‐ Yes, sir.
‐ He had this secret cell phone.
He did talk to a lot of women on it.
But it also allowed him to be able to have a way
to communicate with Brandi
the day of the murder and, in his mind,
think that his alibi is all set up
because his primary phone is at home.
‐ During the investigation, we went through
cell phone records, text messaging records,
and we noticed that Henry Segura deleted
Brandi Peters completely from his phone.
He also deleted text messages from his wife
on the day of the murders.
‐ Where she was saying, "Where are you,
where are you?" because he wasn't home.
‐ And deleting it is showing that he has something to hide.
And what the prosecution was saying
is that he has to hide his involvement in this homicide.
‐ Law enforcement officers
were also looking to Mr. Segura as to,
"Okay, he lied to us. What would be his motive?"
So they go and they start looking
at his financial records.
Turns out, he doesn't have a whole lot of money.
And right around the time of those murders,
he's being ordered to pay more child support to Ms. Peters.
‐ Henry and Brandi had a very volatile relationship.
They were always on again, off again.
And according to Henry, Brandi would often taunt him
and tell him that JaVonte was not his son.
But then she would turn around
and demand child support money from him.
‐ I really wasn't in a good financial statement.
I was out of work for about a month or so,
so I was kind of behind on bills and stuff.
‐ He owed Brandi about $20,000 in child support payments.
And prosecutors believed
that this was the motive for the murders.
‐ Like I said, I never even‐‐ I haven't even had a chance
to make the first payment
before her and JaVonte were killed.
‐ Now Henry had the motive, the means, the opportunity,
and he was their number one suspect.
‐ The reason the entire investigation
ended up focusing on Henry
is because he lied about infidelity.
And I want to be clear about that.
He didn't just lie about Brandi.
They asked him about other women,
and he lied about that too.
‐ If I would have just told him,
"Look, yes, I was cheating on my wife.
I was talking to Brandi, I talked to Natasha,
I talked to Kim, I talked to all these different females,"
then I think he would have seen I was telling the truth,
and, you know, like I said, I wouldn't be here today.
‐ The whole deck is stacked against criminal defendants.
It just happens to be,
because of the institutional racism in this country,
that more of those defendants are Black males,
and I don't think that there's any realistic chance
that if the prime suspect had been a white doctor,
on this weak evidence,
that they would have charged him.
I think that they thought that Henry would be an easy target.
‐ At the first trial,
there were conflicting accounts of the jury's vote.
Some say the split was 8‐4, while others claim it was 11‐1.
But either way,
the majority of the jurors voted for an acquittal
before announcing themselves deadlocked.
‐ We felt very confident going into the second trial.
That certainly impacted my decision to go down
from 12 jurors to 6 jurors.
And again, the reason I did that‐‐
we're not trying to hang the jury,
and we're not trying to save him from a death verdict.
We're trying to win the case.
And it's easier to convince 6 people of anything
than it is to convince 12 people of anything.
‐ In the state of Florida, crimes not punishable by death
are tried in front of a six‐person jury.
However, in first‐degree murder cases,
defendants are entitled to a 12‐person jury.
Henry Segura and his defense team chose to waive
that right and move forward with only six jurors,
in hopes of winning the case outright.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
‐ You won't hear any dispute from the defense
that this is the most heinous offense
that's, you know, been committed in Tallahassee.
There's isn't any argument against that.
The problem is that it wasn't Mr. Segura.
To have a realistic chance of winning
most any criminal case,
you got to give them what they want
if you want a chance to win.
What they want is to hear from the defendant.
And so I felt that the jury needed to hear from Henry,
because there were certain parts of the evidence
that only Henry could address.
We saw, with the state's evidence,
that there were a bunch of deleted texts.
Why were those texts deleted?
‐ Mainly because I didn't want Malica going through my phone
and rereading everything and getting all mad
about this and that again, so I just erased all of them.
Anything that had to do with Brandi,
I tried to keep it out of my phones.
‐ That text message that Brandi sent you on Thursday,
talking about she would have given you some,
you looked good, did you delete that one as well?
‐ Oh, yeah. Yes.
‐ What did you think when you got that text message?
What were you thinking about?
‐ I was thinking that, you know,
it's back to like it used to be.
Fight and make up. It was a makeup text.
We had arguments.
We fuss, we fight, we have sex, we make up.
It was actually a pretty good relationship.
‐ The truth is that it was a volatile relationship.
We accepted those facts,
and Henry talked about them as well.
What they never bothered to found out:
Brandi's drug‐running partner was communicating with her
and sending her coded death threats via letter
even as soon as the day before she was murdered.
At some point, did you end up directing associates of yours
to kill Brandi Peters?
‐ Yes, sir. I did.
‐ Now, the week of the murder, you indicated you received
those text messages from Brandi.
What did you do when you received those?
‐ I tried to make plans to come over that day,
but she had something going on,
so we made plans for me to come over the next day.
‐ Friday. ‐ Yes.
The 19th. ‐ Okay.
How long did it take for you and Brandi to hook up?
‐ Not long. About 15, 20 minutes.
‐ Henry Segura's on trial for the vicious killings
of his on‐again, off‐again girlfriend Brandi Peters,
her six‐year‐old twin daughters,
and their three‐year‐old son.
The defense, however, claims Henry Segura
had nothing to do with the murders
and that Brandi Peters had a dark past
involving drug cartels
who are responsible for these violent murders.
‐ So in thinking about what psychological roadblocks
are gonna be in front of a jury
which would prevent them from returning a not guilty verdict,
of course, the victims matter.
Where did you and Brandi have sex at?
‐ On the bed, in the bedroom.
‐ Were the kids home while this was going on?
‐ No, they were across the street, playing, you know,
between the two houses.
‐ The phrase that we use in talking about
what the jury is gonna have to do,
what we have to get them to do‐‐
we say we have to get them to step over four bodies
to get to not guilty, and that's hard.
After that wrapped up, what happened next?
‐ I tried to spend a little time with JaVonte.
And then eventually, I told Brandi I had to go.
[dramatic music]
She told me, "I got company coming anyway.
Need to leave anyway."
‐ The defense told the jury that Henry Segura
left the crime scene
long before Brandi and her children were killed.
And in fact, they say that a man named James Carlos Santos
ordered a hit.
‐ James Carlos Santos is a drug trafficker
who brought Brandi in
at some point in the 2000s to work as a mule.
Henry wasn't bruised. Henry wasn't cut.
Henry wasn't scratched.
In most any other trial, Henry's lack of injuries
would have been the featured piece of evidence.
The only reason it wasn't, like,
the highlighted thing that I was holding on to here
is because we had so much other good stuff
which definitively proved innocence.
Did you already have
an existing drug trafficking organization?
‐ Yes, sir, I did.
‐ Was she one of multiple people
who transported illegal narcotics for you?
‐ Yes, sir, she was.
‐ At some point, did you end up
directing associates of yours to kill Brandi Peters?
‐ Yes, sir, I did.
‐ And why was that?
‐ She had stolen money and drugs.
‐ The defense put a lot of evidence forth at trial
that the person who actually killed Brandi was the cartel.
So they're putting an alternative theory,
an alternative suspect of who actually killed Brandi
and taking the light away from Henry Segura.
‐ Once he admitted what exactly his role was
and how he set it up,
all of the rest of the evidence made so much more sense.
There was a letter that she received from Santos
the day before she was killed which was, as he explained,
a clear threat that she was in imminent danger of retribution
for not paying back the $90,000
worth of cocaine that she had stolen.
The day before the murder, Brandi gets this letter.
What it says on the back of this envelope is,
"Dear Mr. Mailman, if this letter
"happens to get lost, just send it to heaven,
because it's going to an angel."
On the other side, it says, "I thank God for you,
"and I ask that He look out for you
and our three little angels."
Chilling, right?
‐ Santos claimed,
since he brought Brandi into the operation,
he then had to be the one to take her out.
‐ James Carlos Santos sent Brandi
a threatening letter from prison,
where he's been serving time for armed robbery since 2004.
Santos previously invoked his Fifth Amendment right
against self‐incrimination
and refused to testify in the first trial.
‐ I had to let it be known
that I'm the reason why she's no longer here.
‐ But could his testimony now be the key difference
the defense needs to get the jury
to find Henry Segura not guilty?
‐ How did you plan to have the hit carried out
once you had directed that it be done?
‐ Well, first of all, I had to get some people
here in Tallahassee; I didn't have many guys here,
so I had to bring guys from Texas and Atlanta.
‐ Santos claimed that there were multiple people
involved in the commission of the offense.
He claimed that an entire hit team went in.
There are no signs of forced entry,
which likely means that Brandi did in fact open the door.
Our cartel expert explained
how it's a typical tactic for a cartel hit squad
to send a female to the door first.
‐ Not to commit the murder itself,
only to help them gain entry.
‐ And then once you get into the commission of the murder,
you have multiple shoe impressions in the foyer
that we know don't belong to law enforcement.
By the way, they got all Henry's shoes too.
His shoes didn't match any of those shoe impressions either.
At some point, TPD seized your green truck
and executed a search warrant on it, right?
‐ Yes, sir.
‐ And they processed all that.
‐ Yes, sir.
‐ And found no evidence of anything related to the crimes.
‐ No, sir.
‐ Ultimately, what the DNA evidence showed
was that there was foreign DNA all over the house.
There was male DNA under Brandi's fingernails
from scratching.
There was foreign DNA on the phone in her bedroom
that had been ripped out of the wall
and then had the cord cut
that a CODIS match to a cartel member had occurred.
‐ DNA samples from the crime scene
were run through a comprehensive database of DNA
from convicted felons.
A DNA swab from the phone cradle in Brandi's bedroom
revealed a partial match to Angel Avila‐Quinones,
a known Colombian drug smuggler
and alleged associate of James Carlos Santos.
‐ None of that DNA belonged to Henry or Brandi
or any of the other victims.
It was foreign DNA because it belonged to a foreign actor
who was involved in the commission of the murder.
‐ That corroborates the story
that the defense was putting forth.
Brandi was in the game. Brandi owed some money.
Brandi was scared of some people.
‐ Mr. Santos made all the statements that he made,
and we decided we were gonna let that in
and we were gonna expose who Mr. Santos really was.
‐ It was hard to be able to believe Carlos Santos,
'cause why would someone get on the stand
and admit to committing a homicide
but get the prosecutors not charging him?
So that takes away credibility from the defense
that this person had anything to do with the homicide.
‐ So we were going to essentially debunk
the defense's theory
and let the jury see the absurdity of it.
‐ I honestly didn't think that me lying to him
about having sex with a bunch of different women would,
you know, result in me being arrested for murder.
‐ Henry Segura's on trial for the vicious slaying
of his ex‐girlfriend Brandi Peters
and her three young children.
Henry Segura has decided to take the stand in an effort
to convince the jury that he's innocent.
But now Henry Segura and the defense's cartel theory
have to stand up to the prosecutor's cross‐examination.
[dramatic music]
‐ During the course of Mr. Santos'
direct examination, of course,
he had mentioned that he had met Brandi Peters.
You met her in 2000, 2001?
‐ Yes, sir.
‐ How old was she?
‐ I don't recall, sir.
‐ What was her hair like?
‐ I don't remember.
‐ We knew that he had never met her,
because he was in prison.
‐ We also looked into Brandi Peters' background.
Because if you're a drug mule, there's gonna be something
there that's gonna identify all this criminal activity.
We did not reveal any information
that would identify her as being a drug mule.
‐ And, Mr. Santos, isn't it also true
that at some point, you have claimed to be from Nigeria?
‐ No.
‐ Place of birth‐‐ what does it say?
‐ Nigeria.
‐ Mr. Santos is, quite frankly, a pathological liar.
He tries to make himself important,
confesses to crimes that he didn't commit,
couldn't commit, didn't have any way of committing.
Isn't it true you've also confessed to two other murders
in which there was never a dead body associated with them?
Again, for it to be the cartel, you've got to believe Santos.
Santos is the most unbelievable person
on the face of the Earth.
And one of the things that the defense latched on
was the DNA that was found that,
in their belief, matched Angel Avila.
But there's a whole bunch of little markers on DNA.
So if there's 13 markers that are identified
and I have all 13, it's me.
Whereas one marker, quite frankly,
I can share with everybody in this room.
So the CODIS hit revealed not only Mr. Avila,
but it actually revealed four other criminals as well,
and each one of them
were eliminated as potential suspects.
‐ The prosecution's tried to refute
the defense's theory of a cartel hit.
But if they want a guilty verdict,
they'll still need to refocus
the jury's attention on Henry Segura.
‐ The whole purpose of a cross‐examination, of course,
is to catch the person off guard.
So when I sat down and Ms. Dugan steps up
to conduct the cross‐examination‐‐
I'll never forget it‐‐ Mr. Segura kind of leaned back,
and he moved his hand across his face.
And it was a telltale sign
that he was immediately out of his comfort zone.
From that point on, we knew we had gotten to Mr. Segura.
‐ And the way that he was‐‐responded
to the female prosecutor worked against him.
And that's one of the reasons
why you need to take into account,
before you decide to put a person in the stand,
"Will the jury accept my client for who he is"?
or whether they will hold it against him.
♪ ♪
‐ And finally, after denying that you had a second phone,
I guess about 20 times over the course of the two interviews,
you finally admit to police that you have one, right?
♪ ♪
‐ I don't recall admitting to them I had a second phone.
'Cause I hadn't got rid of the phone,
so technically I didn't have a phone, I had a phone.
‐ The cell phone evidence was probably
some of our strongest evidence in this case.
His secret cell phone records
showed that his location was consistent
with being at Brandi Peters' home the time
that these homicides would have happened.
‐ Brandi last used her cell phone at 6:53 p. m.
Her phone was then powered down at 8:21 p. m.
So they think that the murders happened
sometime in that time frame.
‐ So why did you throw the phone away
just a few days after these murders?
‐ Well, I assumed that the police‐‐
excuse me‐‐were gonna get in touch with my wife,
and I wanted to be sure
she didn't have any access to that telephone.
‐ The cell phone location, the cell phone pinging
at Brandi's house‐‐ because Henry Segura
tried so hard to distance himself
from Brandi and Brandi's house on that day,
I found that to be very damning.
‐ Henry Segura has got the motive,
he has got the means,
and he's got the opportunity for this murder.
Further, Tyler Moore,
friend of his‐‐ lifelong friend of his‐‐
has previously seen him with a .32‐caliber gun.
Of course, the weapon that was used and shot in the house,
with ten recovered projectiles,
is a .32‐caliber.
When do coincidences stop being coincidences?
‐ The murder weapon in this case was never found.
But just the fact that he definitely owned the same type
of gun that killed Brandi and her daughter Tamiyah
is definitely another point that is not in his favor.
‐ The prosecution has placed Henry Segura
at the crime scene around the time
they believe the murders occurred.
But will that be enough to convince the jury
he killed his own son
in addition to three other victims?
Ten months after the murders occurred,
Henry Segura was arrested and charged in Minnesota.
While awaiting transfer back to Tallahassee,
Segura and his wife, Malica, had a phone conversation
prosecutors believe connects him to the murders.
‐ It was our contention that he was essentially saying
at that particular time
that he certainly was involved in this case.
‐ It's strictly my opinion, but I do believe
that Henry Segura's wife and Mr. Segura
are aware of why the murders occurred.
The state of Florida sent a letter to Henry's house
while he was on the road working.
I believe Malica opened it up,
and it says, "You have to pay child support,
$800‐something."
‐ I showed his bank statement at the time.
I mean, he was living paycheck to paycheck.
You had $106 in your account. ‐ Yeah. In the account, yes.
‐ And this was your available balance
the day before these murders.
‐ Right. ‐ Okay.
This is also for a child who the mother of the child
is taunting him and saying, you know,
"You better pay me my money, or you're gonna be in jail.
I'm gonna make sure you go to jail."
So I think that was very frustrating for him.
I'm sure his wife wasn't happy at home
and he's having to hear it from there too.
‐ If I'm gonna kill JaVonte, why not bring him
home with me and kill Brandi?
That way, I don't have to pay child support
and I can raise my son like I want to.
‐ You were willing to lie to police
about a murder charge of children
in order to protect your wife from knowing
that you were just even over at Brandi's house.
But you're saying that your wife
and you would have welcomed Brandi's child
with you into your home and raised him as your own?
‐ That's not what I'm saying.
My wife would not have welcomed Brandi's son
and my son into our home.
‐ Brandi Peters and Malica Segura
argued over Henry,
and I think once Malica became aware of the child,
that created extra tension.
So that tension became an erupting volcano,
and that's what caused this.
‐ He probably killed his mistress for his wife.
He got rid of this second family that he had for her.
‐ I promised my wife that I wouldn't cheat on her no more.
So after I made the promise to her,
that's when I tried to stop
talking with all the rest of the girls.
But eventually, I started back talking to them.
‐ It's been nine years since Brandi Peters
and her three young children
were viciously murdered in their home.
Henry Segura, Brandi's ex‐boyfriend,
stands accused of the crime,
despite maintaining his innocence.
The prosecution's established that he had the opportunity
and a motive, while the defense has pointed
the finger directly at another culprit.
And it's the prosecutors that have to prove the case
beyond a reasonable doubt.
‐ The prosecution painted Henry Segura as this big,
bad man who didn't care about any woman,
that was actually taking advantage of women,
was sleeping around,
and not caring about supporting any of the kids.
‐ One of the things we tried to do
is show Mr. Segura for who he was,
that he wasn't this lovable guy that cared about his kid,
and hopefully paints the picture in the jurors
that he is someone who can commit a crime like this,
in killing three children and Ms. Peters.
‐ You do have an update in the investigation,
and the update is, "They think I did it."
And at that point,
you and your wife were not on good terms.
She knows you have another girlfriend.
So why not go to the police and just say,
"You've got the wrong guy. Here's why I lied to you"?
‐ Yes, I told the lady Johnson‐‐
Investigator Johnson...
‐ You told her‐‐
‐ Over the phone that I was cheating on my wife
and I didn't want y'all to find out.
And she‐‐ [hiccups] Excuse me.
And she‐‐like I say, she went back and forth,
and we was arguing about she know I killed my son.
"We're gonna arrest you for killing your son."
And I hung up on her.
‐ When she was doing the questioning of Henry Segura,
you had her, line by line, question by question,
getting under the skin of Henry Segura.
‐ So your testimony is that you told police in this case
over the phone‐‐ ‐ Investigator Johnson.
‐ Johnson.
‐ She's asking the same question over and over.
‐ No, she's‐‐
‐ Who you pointing at? Who you pointing at?
‐ I'm a grown man.
‐ Yeah, that's very clear.
‐ In person, you felt the whole room tense up.
And I felt the jury tense up. They felt how angry he was.
What we saw right there‐‐ the temper, right?
‐ I'm getting aggravated 'cause you keep asking me
the same questions over and over,
like you're expecting a different answer.
‐ You'd probably be the first one to tell us this.
Brandi‐‐she tells you what's on her mind.
She's not one to hold her tongue, right?
‐ Neither am I.
‐ Is that kind of what just started this whole thing?
‐ You're dealing with a case where a woman was killed,
as well as her three kids.
So when you think about that, you think about‐‐
the person that is capable of doing that
is someone who is violent, is someone who gets angry,
is someone who has no respect for authority,
someone who has no respect for women.
And for that brief couple of seconds,
we became eyewitnesses to who the real Henry Segura was
when he responded to the judge.
‐ What you got to see is the true Henry Segura,
the man that gets frustrated and snaps
and gets angry.
Snaps at Judge Hankinson, "I'm a grown man."
Imagine what he would do to Brandi Peters
if he's willing to do that here in court
while he's on trial for murder.
Henry Segura was there when her phone stopped communicating,
when she stopped being able to communicate with her phone,
when she was murdered.
‐ Watching Henry Segura on the stand,
what you saw was a person that was angry,
a person that lacked emotion,
a person that was disrespectful.
These are all the words that came to mind
because of how he came off on the stand.
So if I'm saying this,
just imagine what the jury was thinking.
‐ Henry had an emotional outburst at the judge
because of ten years of built‐up frustration,
and it cost him.
But, you know, fortunately,
there was a mountain of exculpatory evidence.
These are Brandi's own words in the days
and weeks leading up to her murder.
"I'm going crazy right now,
"so he need to let me know something.
Because I don't play with me and my kids' life."
Those are her words.
She ain't writing that about Henry Segura.
She's writing that back and forth about this guy
that Santos is trying to send her to go see.
You don't want to believe Santos?
Don't believe Santos. Believe Brandi.
You don't want to believe the shoe impressions?
You don't want to believe the DNA?
You don't want to believe the blood spatter?
You don't want to believe the cell phone stuff?
You don't want to believe Henry?
All that's fine.
Believe the one person who the state
won't cross‐examine, Brandi Peters.
She knew what she was in danger from.
She knew best what she was in danger from.
I would also submit to you
what Artron Timmons' testimony was.
He said the girls and JaVonte ate dinner
at their house about 7:00.
That's the unrebutted evidence about when their last meal was.
The medical adviser testified that the food in their stomachs
had been digesting for at least three hours
as of the time of their death.
That puts the time of death 10:00, 10:30, 11:00,
at the very earliest.
Why is that significant?
Everybody agrees Henry's back down in Woodville by 9:30 p. m.
Never comes back up anywhere near Brandi's house that night.
That was the undisputed, unrebutted testimony
by both cell phone experts.
I would submit to you
that the combination of the time of death
with Mr. Segura's activities that evening,
by themselves, conclusively rebut any idea
that he could have been involved
in the commission of the offenses.
‐ When Mr. Prince gave his closing argument,
I remember thinking, "Uh‐oh."
‐ Mr. Segura has waited patiently for nine years.
I put him on the stand knowing he's not a superstar witness.
And they want to try and say,
because he gets frustrated, that he's the killer?
Is that your best evidence that he's the killer?
As he told you himself on the stand,
he's been in custody for eight years
for an offense he didn't commit!
You have the power to save.
You have the power to take life.
I ask that you follow the law,
that you find Mr. Segura not guilty.
‐ After his first trial ended in a hung jury,
Henry Segura is again facing the death penalty
for the murders of his ex‐girlfriend Brandi Peters,
her six‐year‐old twin daughters,
and their three‐year‐old son.
Both the prosecution and defense presented
compelling evidence.
But have they done enough to get a unanimous verdict
and avoid a second mistrial?
‐ So I remember, after Nate's closing‐‐
it was very good, very passionate‐‐
I got the chance for rebuttal, and I remember saying,
"I've got to figure out how I can possibly answer that."
Why are all the wounds in one area?
All of them are on her head and defensive.
If you have multiple people doing this,
you're gonna get it in more than one spot.
Otherwise, their hands are gonna be hitting each other.
And that's not what you have.
There's no one else
that it makes sense committed this crime.
There's no one else that has that motive
and has a .32 revolver
and was there on the day
at the time.
You never know with a jury,
so there certainly is not a situation in this trial
that I was ever confident in a verdict.
‐ I felt good, like, logically.
But it's hard to get them to get past the emotion
of seeing dead children.
A lot of those jurors were parents.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
‐ State of Florida versus Henry Segura.
We, the jury, find as follows:
as to count one of the indictment,
concerning the murders of Brandi Peters,
the jury finds the defendant is guilty of first‐degree murder.
‐ Henry Segura was convicted on all four counts
of the first‐degree murder of Brandi Peters
and her children.
The defense made a huge bet on a six‐person jury,
hoping for an all‐out acquittal.
But that gamble ultimately did not work in their favor.
‐ When the verdict came back, Henry looks at me and says,
"Well, you know, at least the family
can have some sense of peace about this now."
That just‐‐it really stung, but it's really illustrative
of a more complete picture of who he is.
Children on the autopsy table‐‐it's horrible.
It's something that you can't unsee once you've seen it,
you know, and that makes a jury want to punish someone.
In some ways, they would rather punish the wrong person
than that nobody get punished.
‐ Quite frankly, there's a lot of people in this community
that still think he's innocent,
that the Mexican cartel did it.
But the Federal Bureau of Investigations
all did everything to both prove
and disprove Mr. Segura's guilt,
and ultimately we were extremely confident
we got the right guy.
‐ I honestly think this is probably the only time
that I know that my client is innocent, for sure.
And it really just, like‐‐
felt like a punch in the gut to me,
that I just had some hand in allowing Henry
to get convicted, despite my best effort.
‐ Taking the stand might have helped Henry Segura
avoid a guilty verdict in his first trial,
but did that brief flash of frustration
this time make the difference?
Nevertheless, was Henry Segura's testimony
enough to at least convince the jury to spare his life?
‐ Whoever was responsible for these crimes
deserve the death penalty.
If they feel I'm guilty,
then they should sentence me to death.
♪ ♪
‐ We, the jury, unanimously find that Henry Segura
should not be sentenced to death.
On each count, I sentence you to life in prison.
♪ ♪
‐ Henry Segura's sentence for quadruple murder
involving three children:
life in prison without the possibility of parole.
‐ The verdict in this case is honestly, like,
the perfect ending to this trial.
They found him guilty.
But then they sentenced him to life in prison.
I'm not really sure what it says
about what they believe about Henry's guilt.
What could be more fitting of the death penalty
than a quadruple homicide?
I don't know that anybody
will ever know for sure if Henry Segura
really murdered Brandi Peters and her three children.
‐ Defendants are never forced to take the stand.
But that decision is likely the biggest one
they ever make.
For "Under Other," I'm Dan Abrams.
♪ ♪