Transcript of Lester Holt on Luigi Mangione. Divorce attorney on trial for client's murder. Plus, ankle monitors. New

Hi, it's Kate Snow, NBC News anchor and host of the NBC News podcast The Drink. And this month I'm grabbing a Hugo Spritz with former reality star Lauren Conrad. Here at The Drink, we love learning about someone's journey to the top. And Lauren and I, we go back to the very beginning of her extraordinary story. We talk about why she always saw reality TV as temporary for her, the scrutiny she faced in the public eye, and why she says she'll never watch Laguna Beach again. Hope you'll join us for The Drink. Listen and follow Follow wherever you get your podcasts.

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I've always been a glass half full kind of guy, and now I'm talking to some people who look at the world that way too. Some really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their triumphs, their challenges. Their stories are funny and quite candid. So I hope you'll join me each week, and who knows, you might just come away with your own glass half full.

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It's the start of another work day for the Dateline team. I think we're ready to roll. Our producers are swapping tips and story ideas.

He's been in jail since his conviction got overturned.

The detective says this was a heartbreaking interview. What happens at this trial is what makes it a story. Welcome to Dateline True Crime Weekly. I'm NBC News senior legal correspondent Laura Jarrett, filling in for Andrea Canning. It's June 4th, and here's what's on our docket. 13 years after a mother of 4 was stabbed to death in downtown Cleveland, her divorce attorney is now heading to trial for her murder.

He knew the date, the time, and the location where she was going to be when she was killed.

In Dateline Roundup, we've got a courtroom twist in the case of an Arizona man convicted of murdering a 31-year-old woman in her own home, and the latest in the trial of a San Diego County husband accused of buying magic spells before allegedly murdering his wife. Prosecution witnesses say he talked about killing someone else too.

Maya's brother testified that Larry once talked about hiring someone to, quote, get the other guy.

Plus, after two murder defendants removed their ankle monitors within days of each other in the same Texas county, we asked a corrections expert to give us the lowdown on whether ankle monitors even work.

You can't cut it with ordinary scissors, but given enough time, And the right tools, you can get them off pretty easily.

But before all that, we are joined by a very special guest, my good friend and colleague, Dateline anchor Lester Holt, who is here to tell us about his investigation into a crime and defendant that has transfixed the country, Luigi Mangione. Just before sunrise on December 4th, 2024, 3 gunshots rang out on the sidewalk outside of the Hilton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan, not far from our offices here at 30 Rock. The victim? 50-year-old Bryan Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, one of the largest health insurance companies in the world.

There are chilling new details tonight following what police say was the premeditated murder of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare.

A massive manhunt ensued. 5 days later, a 911 call came in from a McDonald's hundreds of miles away in Altoona, Pennsylvania. I have a customer here that some other customers were suspicious of, that he looks like the CEO shooter from New York. 26-year-old Luigi Mangione. Police arrested him at the restaurant and he was extradited back to New York by helicopter to face murder charges. He's pleaded not guilty to both state charges, including second-degree murder, plus a federal charge of stalking. And I have to say, this case isn't like other cases I have worked on before. Groupies have started showing up at his court appearances and posting comments online criticizing his victim. But what do we actually know about Luigi Mangione, or Brian Thompson for that matter, the man whose life he's accused of taking? And what does it all mean for Mangione's upcoming trial? This Friday, Lester Holt dives into some of these questions in a special Dateline episode featuring the first-ever interviews with some of the original investigators on the case as well as a member of Bryan Thompson's inner circle. Here to tell us all about it now is Lester. Hi, Lester.

Hey, Laura, great to see you.

Great to talk to you too. So, take me back to that day of the shooting. I remember where I was in New York City. It happened just blocks from our office, but what do you remember about that day?

I certainly remember the fact that it was— we could walk over there in about 2 minutes. I remember from that day, you know, we try to, when we're telling these stories, we try to make sure we look through a filter of, "Is this a national story?" Is it not? And we kind of held our breath for a minute. Well, a person killed in Manhattan, it's happened before. But then we started getting these reports that there was this connection potentially to the healthcare industry. And then that video, of course, appeared of the actual shooting taking place. And it left little doubt that this was— this was an ambush.

You have now interviewed some of the original investigators on the case, who up until now have been completely mom. So they're speaking publicly now to you, for the first time. Why do you think they want to talk now?

I think part of it's simply practical, that they're no longer with the police department. They're both retired, so they're free to talk about it. I also think that police see this as a case of everything works the way it should have, in terms of the way the investigation was handled. You know, quickly, you know, of tracking the suspect, identifying the suspect, and enlisting the public's help in this. It was quite an operation, and it moved very quickly.

You mentioned the security footage in this case, which is a huge piece of evidence. And one of the investigators actually took you down to the street to show you how they used the security camera footage there. What did you learn?

Well, first of all, they kind of work backwards. Uh, they think that's a good way to trail someone, really, is to find out where they've been. And in terms of this trail of video they were able to amass, you know, the minute you step out your door in Manhattan, you're on camera somewhere.

Most people want to look forward. Where did the guy go? How did he get away? Let's find him. For an investigation, sometimes the best thing to do is go backwards.

So you were following a trail, but the opposite direction, right?

Somebody commits a crime and they just want to get out of there, and they'll do whatever they can not to be tracked. Sometimes the 12 hours before that, they may not be thinking about the crime, and you can't be on guard 24/7. There's gonna be little slip-ups.

And the suspect is wearing a mask in that video.

Yeah, he's wearing a mask, but when he gets to a hostel up in Upper Manhattan, he brings his mask down, and there's his face, and bang, they've got it on camera. So they suddenly now had a face to the person they were looking for. And they go to that hostel, and they, you know, make the determination that he used a false ID with the name Rosario on it. And that, of course, becomes key as they, uh, follow the trail even further.

And connecting the dots here, Lester, when Mangione was first questioned by police at that McDonald's 5 days later, he shows them a fake ID with the name Rosario on it, and they found what some people have referred to as a manifesto in his backpack. Tell us about that.

Yeah, his attorneys don't like the use of the word manifesto, but that is essentially the way it has been— it's been taken. It's handwritten notes, uh, in his backpack. We looked at one of the notes, August 15th. He wrote, "The details are finally coming together. I don't feel any doubt about whether it's right or justified. I'm glad in a way that I procrastinated because it allowed me to learn more about UHC." The insurance company says Mangione was never a customer of theirs, never had, you know, it was never covered by anything there. So it's still a little bit of a mystery as to why allegedly he chose Thompson, that company, and that day.

Someone in your episode says he's almost like a Rorschach test, if you will. You can project whatever you want onto him, and it sort of speaks to why people are attached to him. But you've done some reporting on who Mangione actually is and was. What have you learned about his background?

This has been the most perplexing part of this entire story and this investigation, is trying to understand who this person is, how his life intersected with Bryan Thompson's. What we know is that he was— You know, by all accounts, a smart guy. He was also quite social, not really an outsider. He had back problems since middle school. Um, and then he had surgery, reported feeling better, and then everything kind of goes quiet. But we know after all that, he went off the grid for about 8 months, and he's not heard from. And so we are still, you know, even as you and I speak, we're still trying to understand that and trying to work that part of the story.

The other piece of this is the victim has somehow been sort of subsumed into the background on this. On this case because Mangione has said this outsized sort of presence. But you spoke to someone who knew Bryan Thompson really well, a friend and a colleague named Jeff Alter. What did he tell you?

Yeah, Jeff Alter, you know, he wanted to be heard. He wanted folks to know the person that he knew and lost. Whether you, you know, have strong thoughts about the healthcare system or not, this was a man that was a family person. He was from Iowa, considered himself lucky to get into university. He had a meteoric rise at UnitedHealthcare. His friends and family miss him clearly, and seeing him vilified has been quite painful.

Let's listen to Jeff on that.

Social media is fast and cruel.

People posting smiley faces that somebody was murdered. It's just beyond me.

Cruel is the word he used.

Really cruel. Yeah. Particularly for people who knew Brian.

And Laura, if I can just turn this back to you a bit, what will it be like to seat a jury in a case that's gotten so much publicity, especially in a city like New York? Could there be a world where the jury just refuses to convict? Because they don't see it as a murder. What do you call that? Jury nullification, right?

Yes.

Have you been going to law school since you left Knightley?

Yeah, yeah, that's— Yeah, that's exactly it.

Yeah. So I think seating a jury in this case is going to be exceedingly complicated. Fascinating. It's going to take a really long time. They've been sending out questionnaires all over the district trying to get feedback from people about what their feelings are. Can they be fair?

What about reporting on this trial? You've reported from that same courtroom before. I imagine it's gonna be a frenzy.

You know, this is a very austere courtroom. Like, the seats are uncomfortable and stiff and dirty, and it's grimy in there.

Yeah. No, it's not pretty, but it's real, as someone once said.

Well, Lester, I continue to just be so immensely interested in this case, and your reporting is just terrific. And there's so much more that your team did. It's called A Killing in Midtown, and it airs this Friday on NBC at 10:00 PM Eastern. 9 PM Central. Lester, thank you so much.

Terrific, take care.

Coming up, a mother of 4 who was days away from divorcing her husband was brutally stabbed 13 years ago, but prosecutors say it wasn't her husband who was behind her murder, it was her divorce attorney.

Such an ordinary thing to walk home from high school.

Her name was Mickey Costanzo.

Just 16. She didn't have far to go, seemed perfectly safe, until it wasn't. What happened to Mickey? I'm Keith Morrison, and this is Five Miles from Home, an all-new podcast from Dateline. Listen for free starting Monday, June 8th, or subscribe to Dateline Premium to unlock new episodes.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here reminding you to check out the Sunday Sit Down podcast. On this week's episode, I get together with the one and only Sir Paul McCartney to talk about his latest album, the full-circle moment of closing out Stephen Colbert's show in the same theater where the Beatles made their American debut 62 years ago, and so much more with Paul. You can get our conversation for free wherever you download your podcasts.

You know, every day on Up First, NPR's Golden Globe-nominated morning news podcast, we bring you 3 essential stories at the heart At the heart of each story are questions: What really happened? What really mattered? What happens next? At NPR, we stand for your right to be curious and to follow the facts. Follow Up First wherever you get your podcasts and start your day knowing what matters and why.

On March 24, 2013, 53-year-old Aliza Sherman got a text from her divorce attorney telling her to meet him at his office in downtown Cleveland. When she arrived, someone wearing a hood and gloves appeared out of nowhere and attacked her with a knife, stabbing her nearly a dozen times. She later died at the hospital from her injuries. Authorities scrambled to find out who killed Aliza and why, but year after year, the case went unsolved. NBC affiliate WKYC spoke to Aliza's daughter in 2018, 5 years after the murder.

You know, The police and the prosecutor's office, they've reassured us this is not considered a cold case. They're still actively investigating it.

Finally, in May of 2025, the day Eliza's daughter had been waiting for arrived. An arrest in one of Cleveland's biggest cold cases. 51-year-old attorney Gregory Moore has been indicted on murder charges. Prosecutors allege that Eliza's own divorce attorney, Gregory Moore, lured her to her death that afternoon. And his alleged motive is almost impossible to believe. According to prosecutors, he wasn't ready to take Aliza's divorce case to trial, so he killed her. Moore has pleaded not guilty to charges including aggravated murder and kidnapping. His defense team says prosecutors have charged the wrong man. They argue someone else had more motive to want Aliza dead— her estranged husband— and that the 12-year delay in bringing charges has now made a fair trial impossible. This week, there was a hearing in the case as both sides now continue to prepare for trial. Here to bring us up to speed is Dateline producer Lynn Keller. Lynn, so great to have you.

Hi, Laura.

Lynn, this is such a fascinating, uh, and troubling case. Before we get into all the nitty-gritty, though, tell us about Eliza. Who was she when all of this happened?

Yeah, so she has been described by friends and family as this incredibly kind and caring person. At the time of the murder in 2013, She was working as an IVF fertility nurse in a clinic in Beachwood, which is a suburb of Cleveland. She was married to a man named Sanford, who was an ophthalmologist. They had 4 children. And we've spoken to a lot of people on this case, and they all describe her as a devoted mother and a devoted friend.

We know she was going through this divorce. Tell us, what more do we know about all of that background?

Well, Well, so she and her husband had been married for more than 30 years, but by 2011, the marriage was completely falling apart. And since the murder, her daughter Jennifer has really led the charge, you know, getting some justice for her mom. Our team spoke to her back in 2021, and she described how messy and contentious the divorce was. And she said that her mother was ready, finally ready to put this chapter behind her and move on.

So, by March of 2013, she's on her way to meet her divorce attorney, Gregory Moore, when she is ambushed. What do prosecutors say happened?

Well, it's— it's very strange. So, it was a Sunday, uh, when Gregory Moore, her divorce attorney, wanted to meet up with her. And so, she agreed to go down to his— in downtown Cleveland, to his office. And according to the indictment, um, Eliza and Moore had been texting back and forth about this meeting.

And when she arrived, the door was locked.

Door was locked. And so she texted Moore saying that she was outside. And then a short time later, she sent another text. You know, she's waiting and waiting, and she said, "Will you be here soon?

Kind of cold." And then Moore responded, "Been here." So he's already now placed himself at sort of the scene.

I guess it's vague. "Been here." You know, does that mean he's in his office? Does it mean he's outside? But Eliza was confused by it, and she texted back, why wasn't he letting her into the building? And according to prosecutors, it was during that changed that the hooded figure approached Eliza and attacked her.

So we mentioned Moore is arrested 12 years after this all happens, but it turns out investigators actually had their eye on him almost from jump, right, Lynn?

Yeah, they did. Prosecutors say that they quickly started finding inconsistencies between what Moore said about his movements that day and what the evidence showed. So Moore told investigators he was inside his office waiting for Eliza, but they say building records show Moore used his key card to leave the office before Eliza was attacked, and he didn't use it again until an hour afterwards. And they also zeroed in on him because he's the person who— he knew the date, the time, and the location where she was going to be when she was killed.

So this was enough evidence to bring charges against him, but just not for murder, right?

In 2016, 3 years after the murder, prosecutors charged Moore with several crimes tied to statements he made the day Aliza was killed. So Moore pleaded guilty to lying the following year, and he ended up serving 6 months in jail.

So then what changed in these next 8 years that has now resulted in Moore being charged with murder?

That is one big question that we have not— we don't know the answer yet. We do know that in 2021, Ohio's Bureau of Criminal Investigation took over the case And then prosecutors indicted him in 2025. Um, and at the time, he was, uh, with his father in Texas who was dying, and they arrested him there in Texas. Then they extradited him to Ohio, and then later he was released on a $2 million bond.

So let's talk about the prosecution's alleged motive, because it's pretty extraordinary to imagine a lawyer murdering a client because they're just not ready to take the case to trial. But that's the theory. Yes. And it's because of of, uh, Moore's history.

We know that Moore had been accused of stopping court proceedings in the past, um, 3 different times. He was accused of calling in bomb threats for cases when he wasn't prepared, and in the end, he did end up pleading guilty to 2 of those. And the reason that that is important, obviously, for the prosecution is because they say that Eliza's case was the same thing. Instead of a bomb threat, though. It ended up in murder.

And so now Moore is preparing to stand trial, but his attorneys are pushing back, and they've filed motions to have the case tossed out entirely. What is their main argument?

Well, their main argument has to do with the violation of his right to a speedy trial. They assert that the prolonged investigation created substantial prejudice. There was the death of key witnesses and loss of evidence.

Including, uh, Eliza's husband, Sanford.

Right. Sanford died in 2024, so they can't question him. And as we touched on earlier, there was this very messy divorce. Um, and about a year after Eliza was killed, her daughter sued her father over assets tied to her mother's estate. And in that lawsuit, there was testimony that Eliza feared for her safety, and even allegations that Sanford had once— her husband had once asked an ex-cop friend about committing the perfect murder.

But to be clear, Sanford, her husband, was never charged criminally with anything related to Eliza's death.

That's right. And the lead detective, the initial detective we spoke to, said that he had a pretty solid alibi. There was a video of him at a grocery store in the morning, and that he had had been with friends who, um, confirmed that he was there.

Well, it's a super interesting case, Lynn. The trial is set to begin in September, and we know you will be following every step of the way here. So thanks so much for your time, Lynn.

Thank you so much.

Up next, it's time for Dateline Roundup. We've got the latest on the trial of the San Diego County husband prosecutors say bought magic spells to harm his wife before allegedly killing her. And a last-minute twist upends the trial of an Arizona man convicted in a 10-year-old murder. Plus, ankle bracelets— why do they keep failing? Welcome back. Joining me for this week's roundup is Dateline field producer Brittany Morris. Thanks so much for being here, Brittany.

Hi, Laura. Thanks for having me.

First up, we are heading to Maricopa County, Arizona, where we have a major update in the case of Ian Mitchum. He's the Arizona man convicted just this past April of the sexual assault, burglary, and first-degree murder of a medical sales rep named Allison Feldman. Brittany, this case took 10 years to get to trial, and the trial itself has now gone on for months. You have been there. Every step of the way. Before we get to the news, just remind us what exactly happened to Alison.

Sure. So just after Valentine's Day in 2015, Alison's boyfriend came over to her house and found her lying naked in a pool of blood covered in bleach. Alison had been sexually assaulted, violently beaten, and strangled to death. The police found crucial DNA evidence at the scene that led them to Ian Mitchum, who is, according to police, a a total stranger to Allison. We still don't know how or why he targeted her.

Now, Mitchum's conviction was not the end of this long legal journey. For over a month, the jury actually heard testimony from both sides on whether Mitchum should be sentenced to death for murdering Allison.

The jury heard from Allison's loved ones, including her mother, late father, and sister. Her father, he, um, devastatingly passed away just days after giving his testimony. For the defense, Ian Mitchum's brothers shared anecdotes about Ian and their lives together in hopes that it might humanize Ian to the jury. Uh, after that process ended, deliberations, they started on May 21st.

But there's some news from the jury room. What was that about?

There was a bit of a shakeup inside the jury room. Uh, first, a juror was removed for seeking outside information to potentially inform her decision. And then another juror simply failed to show up for the third day of deliberation.

So the judge replaces the, the jurors with the alternates, but then they come back with a message to the judge. Take a listen. The jury has sent out a written message, um, that they are at an impasse. So at this time, I am declaring a mistrial just as to Count 1 in the penalty phase only. What was the reaction in court when the judge said that?

I think everyone, myself included, was stunned. Totally stunned. I should remind you that we are nearly 7 months into this trial.

So what happens now? They're going to just have to do the penalty phase all over again with a new jury?

A mistrial in a penalty phase, it does not change Mitchum's conviction on any of the charges. But it does mean that the prosecutors will have to decide they can pursue that death penalty for first-degree murder again or accept a sentence of life in prison.

So, Brittany, the judge did actually move to sentencing on some of the convictions in this case that weren't part of the death penalty issue.

That's right. Ian Mitchum was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison for burglary and 7 years for sexual assault. And it's, it's worth noting, Ian Mitchum, he continues to maintain his his innocence.

It's such a disturbing story. For our next story, we are headed to a San Diego County courthouse, Brittany, where it's week 3 in the trial of a man accused of paying spellcasters— yes, spellcasters— before allegedly murdering his wife. Now, the prosecution is still making its case, and it is a wild tale, but we want to do a little recap here. 39-year-old mother of 3 Maya Millete vanished in 2021 after she was last seen pulling into her Chula Vista 9 months later, her husband Larry is arrested and charged with her murder. Maya's body has never been found. Brittany, give us just the basic outline of the prosecution's case so far.

Sure. So prosecutors have painted the picture of a marriage falling apart. They say Maya was having an affair with a married coworker, and she had reached out to a divorce attorney. Um, prosecutors say Larry knew about the affair and cracked when he found out Maya was going to leave him. So he killed her.

Larry has pleaded not guilty, and his defense team has a very different story for the jury from the state. They say there is simply no physical evidence linking Larry to this murder, and since there's no body, prosecutors can't even prove Maya is actually dead. What has happened since we last talked about this case?

Quite a bit, Laura. So last week, Maya's brother testified that Larry once talked about hiring someone to quote, get the other guy, end quote, referring to the man Maya was allegedly having an affair with. He said he believed that meant killing him. Another relative, Maya's brother-in-law, testified Larry made similar comments to him.

So how did the defense handle that on cross-examination?

Larry's defense attorneys questioned family members on why they failed to report those conversations to the police or warn Maya.

So we're into week 3 now, and the lead investigator has taken the stand.

That's right. So Jesse Vicente testified this week about security camera footage collected during the investigation. Jurors were shown video from the day Maya vanished. Around 3 PM, Maya is seen on security camera footage coming home and appearing to clean out her car. At some point, her young son comes out of the house and asks to go to the car wash with her. That got a few murmurs inside the courtroom.

Well, it's just such a reminder that there are young children involved in all of this.

Devastatingly so, yeah. So at some point, Maya leaves, and according to Vicente, her Jeep is seen returning to the family home around 4:43 that afternoon. Prosecutors then asked whether investigators ever found footage showing Maya leaving the home again later that evening. And his answer was simple: no.

Well, certainly a fascinating case. We'll continue to see where it goes. Brittany Morris, thank you so much.

Thank you, Laura.

For our final story this week, we wanted to do a deep dive into something that caught our attention a few weeks ago— ankle monitors. Back in May, we told you about this dramatic story of Lee Gilley, a 39-year-old Houston man charged with the 2024 murder of his pregnant wife, Krista Bauer-Gilley, and their unborn child. Gilley, who pleaded not guilty to those charges, was released from jail shortly after his arrest, and he's ordered to wear an ankle monitor while he's awaiting trial. But on the night of May 1st, investigators say he cut off the ankle monitor and he fled to Italy, where he is now in custody fighting extradition back to the United States. It turns out Gilley wasn't the only man accused of murder in Harris County, Texas, to cut off his ankle monitor recently. 10 days after Gilley's alleged escape, 32-year-old Walter Pozos cut his monitor off too, ahead of his second-degree murder trial. Pozos, who's pleaded not guilty, is still on the run. It made us wonder, just how effective are ankle monitors really? How often do they fail and why? Here to help us understand it all is Joseph Russo, a researcher at the University of Denver with decades of experience in corrections technology.

Joe, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Laura. Glad to be with you.

Joe, first off, can you just give us a sense of how many people are actually walking around with ankle monitors right now? How common is this?

So ankle monitors are fairly common practice in community supervision. Some estimates are 300,000 to 400,000 people on ankle monitors at any particular point in time. Problem is they're just estimates because there is no national clearinghouse for information on who is on electronic monitoring.

That kind of blew my mind because I just imagined there being some, like, massive system where they're keeping track of everybody. I would just assume that you could know exactly where everyone is at any point in time. So what are some of the typical restrictions for a person wearing an ankle monitor?

Yeah, so the restrictions can vary quite a bit. It could be strictly a curfew where they have to be home at a certain hour. There could be specific inclusion and exclusion zones. Inclusion zones might be they have to be at work between 9 and 5 and can't be anywhere else. An exclusion zone might be they can't go anywhere near their victim victim's residence, for example.

So one of the misconceptions is that it's only for, like, petty crimes. Legally, the Houston man we mentioned at the top here was charged with capital murder, which means he was potentially facing the death penalty if convicted. Is it surprising to you that someone accused of something so serious would be released on bond with an ankle monitor?

Yeah, it's somewhat surprising. In many states, people who are accused of capital crimes are not eligible for bond at all, whether with or without electronic monitor. Monitoring. So I understand in Texas that is an option that judges have, but it is surprising and it's not common throughout the country. Now, the catch-22 is that people have a presumption of innocence, and people who have no previous criminal history or are not a flight risk in any other way, they may seem like they're eligible to be maintained in the community, but at the end of the day, it's human nature, right? When you're facing either life imprisonment or the death penalty, there's obviously a strong motivation to try to, you know, escape those consequences.

It also seems like the ankle monitor isn't that hard to cut off. Exactly.

And in some ways it's by design. I worked on a National Institute of Justice standard for electronic monitoring devices, and part of that standard is it must be able to be cut in certain circumstances. For example, if the person who's wearing the ankle monitor has an injury to the lower extremity and their leg is swelling up, emergency room operators need to be able to cut that device off before it becomes a hazard to that individual. You can't cut it with ordinary scissors. But given enough time and the right tools, you can get them off pretty easily.

But if there's an alert because somebody has violated the conditions of their release in some way, do police, like, come running if the person goes out of bounds?

Well, no, that's a common misconception.

I imagine this scene in the movies where, like, police start swarming because somebody has come to the house of someone they weren't supposed to be at.

There is no array of screens where authorities are watching everybody who's monitored on ankle bracelets. That doesn't exist.

So do you have any sense of just how often things go so wrong?

I would say it's probably less than 1% of all cases. I will say that in most cases, it's not a technology failure. The technology tends to do what it's supposed to do. It's effective in that sense. Mostly it's response time. These things take time to triage. They take time to analyze to see what's going on and make contact with the person on electronic monitoring to see if it was just a simple error of they let the battery run dead, for example, So there's a variety of different types of alerts that all require attention, but the volume of responses is so great, and the inability of law enforcement to really respond in real time can create the situations where bad things happen.

Are there enough resources, you think, being allocated to this? Because in the case of Leigh Gillian and Walter Pozos, a recent article in the Houston Chronicle reported that Harris County simply just doesn't have enough staff to provide around-the-clock monitoring of everyone on ankle monitors, and there were only 2 case managers overseeing 120 murder defendants.

Yeah, I mean, and that's not uncommon to criminal justice in general, right? We don't have the resources to do the work that's expected of these public servants. But particularly to electronic monitoring, I mean, there's a general rule in corrections, you don't make a rule that you can't enforce. So if you're gonna have GPS monitoring and you're gonna have an expectation that people are accountable for their whereabouts and their associations, then you have to be able to respond respond quickly. If you can't, you're setting yourself up for failure, and you're setting yourself up for, you know, some of these tragic events that you've outlined today.

Joe Russo, thank you for your time.

Thank you, Laura. It's a pleasure.

That's going to do it for this episode of Dateline: True Crime Weekly. And if you want to go deep on all the biggest legal cases in front of the US Supreme Court right now, check out this limited series podcast we've done. It's called Here's the Scoop: Supreme Court Edition. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts. I break down the biggest cases, talking to the people who won on the same issue the last time it came in front of the justices, and they're gonna predict what's gonna happen this term before the Supreme Court breaks for the summer. You can find those conversations right now wherever you get your podcasts. And make sure to check out Keith Morrison's brand new podcast series too. It's called Five Miles from Home. And it tells the story of a popular high school student who disappeared on her way home from track practice. The race to find her leads to unlikely suspects, simmering rage, and unimaginable betrayal.

It's something that got out of hand, that went very, very wrong. Just went haywire.

Disturbing would be the word. Starting on Monday, you can listen to the first 2 episodes wherever you get your podcasts. But if you wanna listen right now and ad-free, free, subscribe to Dateline Premium. Thanks so much for listening. Dateline True Crime Weekly is produced by Carson Cummings, Caroline Casey, and Kiani Reed. Our associate producers are Ellery Gladstone Groth and Aria Young. Our senior producer is Liz Brown Kurloff. Veronica Maseca is our digital producer. Rick Kwan is our sound designer. Original music by Jesse McGinty. Paul Ryan is executive producer, and Liz Cole is our is senior executive producer of Dateline. Thanks, everybody.

Friday night on an all-new Dateline, inside the hunt for Luigi Mangione, speaking out for the first time. Two detectives on the case—

he's there, we're gonna find something—

and the inner circle of the murdered CEO.

Brian was driven by excellence.

An all-new Dateline, Friday night at 10/9c, only on NBC.