Ep 5 of 14: Phone Calls
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Analyzing Bruce's cell phone activity leading up to and on the day he was killed was a tedious and time-consuming task. But that's what Counter Clock is all about, right? The first thing you need to know is that Bruce's cell phone was owned by his employer, Sela. It was actually one of a dozen lines on a Verizon group plan with members of and employees of the Rickey family. Jared Rickey was the owner of Sela and Bruce's boss at the time.

After the murder, Kaitlyn requested her dad's cell phone statements directly from Verizon, and the company gave them to her. She gave copies to me, and I was able to see all of Bruce's call history going as far back as February 22, 2012, two months before the murder. It took me a few weeks, but I went line by line through each call and mapped out everyone Bruce spoke with in the weeks leading up to his death.

A lot of these calls were run-of-the-mill, him talking with his wife and kids, connecting with business associates, etc. But the six calls in and out on the morning of April 24th were what I was most interested in. I've made a helpful visual aid if you want to follow along. It's on the blog post for this episode.

I compiled what I'd come up with into a timeline, and I showed that to Chris and Caitlin. According to the documents from Verizon, Bruce received his first phone call on April 24th at 7.52 a.m. It was from Carol John-Smith, the guy I mentioned in the last episode who was a business associate of Bruce's who'd met with him the day before the murder.

Carol's call came into Bruce's phone while Bruce was still in Covington. The men talked for four minutes, then hung up. The call logs indicate at 9.10 a.m., Jared Rickey, Bruce's boss, called him, and they spoke for two minutes. Both men were in Covington at the time. It's worth noting that the day before, which would have been April 23rd, as well as many other previous days, Jared and Bruce spoke around the same time in the morning. So this call isn't unusual.

At 9:32 a.m., Bruce called his friend Jack Branch, and their conversation lasted for 15 minutes. During that call, Bruce's cell phone was in Lacombe, Louisiana, an area east of Covington headed southeast towards New Orleans. This route went around Lake Pontchartrain in the direction of Interstate 10.

25 minutes later, at 9:53 a.m., when Bruce would have been getting off the I-10 twin spans in New Orleans East, he called a number located in Biloxi, Mississippi. That call lasted for 12 minutes.

At 10.05 a.m., the same minute he hung up from that 12-minute call, and right as he was parking at the Mark 7 apartments, Bruce called the person in Biloxi a second time, and that call lasted two minutes. Bruce was murdered shortly after that.

Now, what's interesting is that EMS units were dispatched at 10.14 a.m., so we're talking about a seven-minute window after Bruce made that last phone call to when he spoke with the Mark 7 leasing manager, Lucille Wilson, to when he's killed, and I think that's being generous because we know that two 911 calls were also placed in that same time frame. So I'd venture to say it was more like a three- to five-minute window that the murder occurred.

The obvious question is, who was on the other end of the line in Biloxi, Mississippi? Because they were the last person to speak with Bruce, and more than likely would have known why he was in New Orleans East. That is the most important phone calls to me, those last two, because obviously you want to know what's happening right before he gets out of that truck. ♪

I did some research into the Biloxi phone number, and it comes back to a man named Glenn Angus. Glenn is a real estate and development investor from Mississippi who has 23 LLCs in that state and one entity in Louisiana called Covington Multifamily LLC. A lot of his businesses are related to multi-unit condos or apartment buildings on Mississippi's Gulf Shore. The paperwork for Covington Multifamily LLC indicates it's no longer active.

Based on Glenn's social media profile, he looks like he's in his 70s or 80s. His most current business, Gulf Coast Equities, lists an email address for him, but I wasn't able to reach him. I tried calling, too, and no dice. When I did a deeper dive, I found at least one lawsuit filed by a former business partner who claimed Glenn had defrauded him in a land development deal. That suit didn't go the plaintiff's way and fully cleared Glenn.

"The more and more I learned about Glenn, the more it made sense why he and Bruce were talking on the day of the murder.

One, Bruce had been provided information about an apartment complex that was possibly available as investment property. Two, Glenn wheeled and dealed in that space and could have been a resource or an interested party. And three, I found proof that the men had exchanged phone calls a few other times between February and April of 2012.

According to Bruce's Verizon phone records, he and Glenn spoke three times on March 20th, 2012, which would have been about a month before the crime. Each of those conversations were brief, between one and nine minutes.

The men talked again on March 28th, for three minutes. Most of the time, the call records show that Bruce called Glenn, but the call on March 28th says it originated from Glenn's phone. And based on the location information, it indicates he was physically in Covington. So it's clear the two men knew one another. They'd had several phone calls, but what they talked about, I have no idea.

What's interesting, though, is that of all the conversations Glenn and Bruce had in early 2012, the two calls they had minutes before Bruce's murder were the longest and closest in proximity. It's the only instance I could find where they spoke back-to-back.

The call Bruce made to Glenn at 9.53 a.m. on April 24th lasted 12 minutes, way longer than any previous conversations. Then, as soon as Bruce ended that call, he called Glenn right back. And mind you, this is all happening while Bruce is trying to navigate to an address on Papania Drive that he can't find, and while he's in the Mark 7 parking lot.

Chris, Bruce's son, told me he thinks this could only point to one thing. I mean, to me, the thing that makes the most sense is if you piece together, hey, he doesn't know where he's going because of what the police report says, he was lost. What he told the manager, hey, I'm looking for this address. The manager says, no, this is not the address you're looking for. And he said, hey, I'm gonna go back out to my truck and just see what my notes say. And then he got shot, right? So the thing that makes the most sense is that

He was kind of being, and I'm not saying Glenn was involved, I'm not saying maybe he was just kind of an innocent guy that was used to make sure he got down there. But Glenn was kind of helping my dad get down to the area because he wasn't familiar. And then I can imagine my dad saying, all right, if I have any problems, let me give you a quick call back. And I'm thinking he pulled up, the address didn't match, and he tried to call him right back. And then

didn't connect with him and then he got back out got out went and talked to the manager and then all that stuff happened and he got shot you know I'm not saying that 100% Glenn Angus was in on this and brought him down there on purpose for this to happen I'm just saying that you know I mean first of all it's very suspicious the timing and the timing that he had this long conversation when he was about to pull up to a place that he wasn't familiar with going and then he called right back and didn't get an answer back

When you line up Bruce's cell phone activity in those final few moments of his life, figuring out what Glenn might know becomes really crucial. I was forced to ask the questions: Was Glenn the person who told Bruce to go to New Orleans East? Why else would Bruce have called him back to back while he was trying to find 4515 Papanga Drive? It's clear that Bruce didn't know where he was going, so was Glenn giving him real-time directions over the phone?

I don't know the answers to all those questions, but I bet Glenn does.

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The problem with Glenn Angus is that since April 24th, 2012, he's gone completely radio silent. He's refused to speak with anyone close to Bruce. Glenn Angus has not spoken to us, contacted us. I've emailed him. I've tried to call him. He will not speak with us. And you guessed it, he definitely didn't respond to me.

Detective Ryan Oakwin told me that NOPD has tried to get Glenn to come in for an interview, but so far he's been uncooperative. The most recent time authorities took a run at him, in 2020, they asked the feds to get involved.

We know that the last individual that he speaks to and that individual was interviewed didn't lead anywhere. That individual didn't want to speak to the police, refused to speak to the police. And eventually, I think once the FBI got involved, I think that individual spoke to our partners with the FBI. Whatever came from the FBI interview wasn't helpful. And law enforcement's follow-up efforts to get Glenn to voluntarily talk about his last conversation with Bruce are still ongoing.

Ryan and I went through my analysis of Bruce's cell phone activity from the day of the crime so he could see what I'd found. And like me, he's convinced that Glenn could hold valuable information. The last two calls we know occur very close to the proximity of the time of his death and the individual he's speaking with that's since been interviewed. Yes. I mean, how much do you want to know what is being discussed for this duration of time? And why at that time?

Well, because it's in such close proximity to the murder, right? And knowing the history of this individual and knowing that that's the last person that talks to Mr. Gutierrez before he ends up at this random apartment complex in New Orleans East, you know, this was a really big thing for us. But I don't have anything to prove that he was involved other than the fact that we talked to him prior to his death. It would be great to know what they discussed.

And Bruce's widow feels that Glenn's wall of silence is suspicious, and if he was acting in good faith and knew about some potential investment property that he sent Bruce to look at, albeit with a wrong address, then he should come forward with any information he knows.

That never sat well. I also have my real estate license and I'm like, if I'm talking to someone, I'm supposed to be meeting with them or they're doing something and they get murdered, I'm going to talk and say, wait, this is what I discussed with him. Why was he going there? What could have happened? And nothing, nobody stepped up except Jack Branch because they were talking on the way there.

Jack Branch, one of Bruce's close friends, feels the same way. If you have nothing to hide, why hide? If you don't really have anything to hide, then talk. Aside from showing up at Glenn's front door in Mississippi, I'm not sure how else to get his side of things. But even if I did get a hold of him, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't talk with me. One can hope, though, right? I've caught some lucky breaks in the past.

So, Glenn, if you're out there listening, please contact me at counterclock at audiochuck.com. Glenn not cooperating with NOPD is one thing, but early on, the department's detectives didn't know about him. I asked them to go through his phone records, see who he was speaking with, the computer, all of those sorts of things, and none of that was happening.

According to Chris and Caitlin, Orlando Matthews, the detective initially in charge of the case in 2012, didn't interview Glenn Angus. They should all be fired for that. That is like ridiculous. That is ridiculous. I mean, the last person that somebody was murdered talked to and was not contacted by the investigating officers. Ann asked Orlando to examine Bruce's office computer, too, to see if that could shed light on anything.

I was concerned about him getting my husband's computer and getting that information to where no one else could tamper with it. So he'd have all of his information, and he never wanted to go get the computer, felt like he was managing the case the way that he needed to manage the case, and didn't want me to have any say-so in it. So he never went to get the computer. I've contacted Orlando Matthews many times to discuss his role in this investigation.

Hello? Hi, this is Delia D'Ambra. I'm sorry I missed this call. Yeah, this is Orlando calling back. Initially, he couldn't commit to a time to talk. I don't have time today. I'm taking off a few days. So maybe Thursday or Friday, I'll actually be in New Orleans. Let me give you my email address because I actually look like I'm about to have a meeting right now. My captain just walked in. No worries. Yeah, I'll take that.

He left New Orleans Police Department a while ago and took a job as an investigator for the town of New Iberia Police Department, about two hours west of New Orleans. We've had several conversations on the phone, but he's been hesitant to discuss Bruce's case without getting permission from NOPD first.

Yeah. Yeah.

Ryan O'Quinn has given Orlando the green light to speak with me about the case. They ran into each other at a police conference last year and spoke about it. But Orlando still hasn't committed to a recorded interview. He promised me he'd go to NOPD headquarters and review his old case reports. But as of this recording, that still hasn't materialized into an interview.

In my opinion, his decision back in 2012 not to review Bruce's call history or get his computer was a bad decision. If he'd executed a search warrant for Verizon's full cell tower dump back in 2012, Ryan Oakwin says the current investigation would have benefited immensely. I know the family provided records of his cell phone, but it's not the same as the records that we would have received.

And it's not just the activity on Bruce's phone before the murder that's important.

Calls and texts that came from it after his death make me question whether the detective who won't talk is protecting much more than himself. Where'd you get this phone? This is my husband's phone and he was murdered. Orlando Matthews, like, where did you go? Did you go to a guy selling cell phones out of the trunk of a car? Did you go to a physical store?

The only way to get answers was to leave the North Shore and New Orleans and go on a hunt in the heart of Baton Rouge. I've been trying to find Mr. Richard Chambers who used to own Big Time Communications. It was in the plaza in the back. I was looking for a woman named Joyce Whitfield and this address came up for her. Every single time when it comes to Joyce Whitfield, it stops. Literally every time.

It's all in Episode 6, big time, available right now.

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Toyota, let's go places.

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