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It's one thing to be a crime junky and another thing committing a crime. But it seems like there's a new rule in the world of crime fandom: You can watch as many murder trials as you want, but eventually someone may remind you that the courthouse is not a reality TV set.
Meet Dawn Light, yeah, that's her real name--it isn't a new, improved dishwashing detergent. Light is a retired nurse and self-described “crime junkie” who has allegedly discovered this the hard way after being busted for jury intimidation during the Lindsay Clancy trial.
The charge is aggravated intimidation of a juror, which carries a potential prison sentence of up to 20 years. Apparently, binge-watching murder trials comes with fewer legal protections than Netflix would have you believe.
The “crime junkie” arrested for allegedly filming jurors in Lindsay Clancy’s case was all smiles after she was released Wednesday following a hearing where prosecutors alleged she risked the “sanctity” of the killer mom’s trial.
Light, 56, pleaded not guilty to the charge of aggravated intimidation of a juror in the same courthouse where Clancy’s high-profile triple murder trial has been underway for the past six weeks.
Light, a retired nurse, allegedly pulled her blue Toyota into a “restricted area” of the court premises and filmed and took photos from inside the car as jurors were leaving court Tuesday afternoon, prosecutor Nicole Piacentini claimed.
The prosecutor asked the judge to hold Light on $50,000 bail, keep her away from the court and bar her from posting any video or photos she may have uploaded to the cloud.
Light is a “crime junkie” and supporter of Clancy, an admitted murderer of her three children. Light also attended other high-profile murder trials, including for Alex Murdaugh and Karen Read, she revealed in an interview with CT Insider Wednesday.
Because apparently attending one murder trial is not enough. You need a frequent-flyer program.
When cops approached Light “she was adamant” she wasn’t filming jurors but rather “waiting to see if Lindsay Clancy would come out of the building,” the prosecutor claimed.
Unfortunately, her smartphone apparently had other plans.
But when the cops looked inside her phone, they found a video of jurors walking out in her deleted folder, Piacentini alleged.
Nothing says “I definitely wasn't filming the jurors” quite like allegedly having a video of the jurors sitting in your deleted folder.
Light is a “crime junkie.” Well, congratulations, sweetie. That's a perfectly respectable hobby right up until your hobby apparently turns into a felony.
At that point, you are no longer merely watching the true-crime documentary. You have become part of it.
And this is the problem with turning criminal trials into spectator sports. Some people apparently become so invested in the drama that they forget there are actual laws governing what you can do outside the courtroom.
The jury is supposed to decide the case, the spectators are supposed to spectate, with or without spectacles.
And the person sitting in the blue Toyota is apparently supposed to avoid turning the courthouse parking lot into her own personal episode of Dateline.
How stupid do you have to be to allegedly film jurors during a murder trial, get caught, and then have the evidence sitting in the deleted folder on your phone?
That's not exactly criminal mastermind territory.
That's less Law & Order and more Law & Disorder: Suburban Edition.
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