96: Taylor Swift’s Assault Trial & Ali Kemp

Taylor Swift was doing her thing. Before her concert started, she stood backstage, greeting fans and posing for photos. It all seemed pretty normal. Then, a Denver morning radio DJ named David Mueller approached her with his then-girlfriend, Shannon Melcher. Taylor chatted with Shannon. But when it was time to take the photo, Taylor says that something shocking happened. David reached up the back of her dress and grabbed her bare ass.

Then Brandi tells us about the senseless, horrifying murder of Ali Kemp. Ali was a 19-year-old college student working at an upscale neighborhood pool one summer when she was brutally murdered. Her body was discovered in the pool house, hours after she’d been attacked. But who could have done such a thing? Ali didn’t have any known enemies. For a while, it seemed like the case might go cold. But Ali’s dad, Roger Kemp, fought tirelessly to bring his daughter’s killer to justice.

And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases.

In this episode, Kristin pulled from:
“Ex-DJ says $1 payment to Taylor Swift sent by mail last week,” Associated Press
“DJ who lost Taylor Swift groping case has a new job,” by Lisa Respers France, CNN
“Taylor Swift was groped by radio host, jury finds,” by Donna Bryson, New York Times
“Judge drops complaint aimed at Taylor Swift in groping case brought by DJ,”  by Donna Bryson, New York Times
“Taylor Swift won her day in court. Here’s what you need to know,” by Constance Grady, Vox
“A timeline of events leading up to Taylor Swift groping trial,” by Sabrina Finkelstein, Billboard
“Taylor Swift Testifies: ‘He grabbed my ass underneath my skirt,’” by Joyce Chen, Rolling Stone
“Taylor Swift take the stand in former radio DJ groping trial,” ABC News on YouTube
“The Silence Breakers,” by Stephanie Zacharek, Eliana Dockterman and Haley Sweetland Edwards, Time Magazine
“Taylor Swift assault trial kicks off with changing stories and hurt feelings,” by Hilary Weaver, Vanity Fair

In this episode, Brandi pulled from:
“Ali Kemp” episode Stolen Voices, Buried Secrets
“State v. Appleby” courtlistener.com
“Ali Kemp – 249” episode Generation Why podcast
“Suspect charged in 2002 slaying of K-State student” by Matt Sedensky, Lawrence Journal World
“Murderer gets life sentence for killing at pool” by The Associated Press, Lawrence Journal World
“JoCo judge will decide if man convicted in brutal 2002 murder gets new sentence” by Katie Bernard, The Kansas City Star
“Judge denies request by Ali Kemp’s killer to have his Hard 50 sentence thrown out” by Karra Small, Fox4KC