Serial Criminal Makes Chilling Confession in Real Estate Agent’s Bloody Murder

after 32-year-old realtor Whitney Herd was found stabbed to death in her Charlotte home last summer all eyes were on her former high school friend turned accused killer Brandon Braxton Now we have brand new information about the case From Braxton's alleged violent history to an apparent chilling jailhouse confession This case full of shocking turns and we're going to break it all down for you right now Welcome to Sidebar presented by Law and Crime I'm Jesse Weber What began as a frantic search for a missing woman last summer has unraveled into a disturbing tale of alleged obsession violence and apparently a shocking jailhouse confession Brandon David Braxton a 33-year-old former Duke University football player now stands accused of brutally stabbing 32-year-old real estate agent Whitney Herd to death in her North Carolina home before stealing her car and phone Now we covered Herd's case in a previous episode of Sidebar and this was back before Braxton was an official suspect but police had just begun investigating him for any potential involvement in Herd's death But now with new charges and a newly released arrest affidavit with a possible confession this case has taken an even darker turn Now before we get into the affidavit lot to get into I want to catch you up on what has happened so far in this case So it was the absolute worst nightmare for the family of Whitney Herd back in July of last year when the 32-year-old failed to show up for the family's Fourth of July gathering This is according to reporting from WBTV Now after days of silence Herd's family reported her missing on July 11th and it was three days later when investigators made a discovery that would raise more questions than answers Herd's body was found inside of her home signs that she had been stabbed multiple times A search warrant says that she was wrapped in bloody bedding Her BMW was also missing from her home obviously presumably stolen by the suspect after the killing but that car was later recovered by police abandoned Now police say they collected fingerprints and DNA evidence at the scene and from Herd's car And as they searched for a suspect a few significant things happened First of all Brandon Braxton was arrested on January 2nd 2025 This was regarding a robbery at a First Watch restaurant in Charlotte And it was after this incident that police sounded the alarm bells that Braxton was potentially a dangerous individual According to that affidavit quote "An alert was put out for the defendant as well as due to random acts of violence occurring in the past two days including assaulting random individuals and breaking windows. " And after that case was dealt with he was arrested again for an unrelated incident And he allegedly made a shocking confession from inside the jail that was apparently captured on the jail surveillance And this is just part of what police say led them to Braxton He was arrested on March 20th charged with firstdegree murder and robbery with a dangerous weapon for the death of Whitney Herd So according to court records aside from what we've already mentioned this was apparently not Braxton's first runin with law enforcement Not even close In fact we were able to find out information about Braxton's criminal history on Truthfinder the powerful background checker that was able to find details about Braxton's arrest By the way Long Crime we partner with Truthfinder We use it to get details on people involved in our stories But even if you don't work in true crime this just can be an excellent resource to give you some peace of mind After all it's one of the largest public records search services in the United States And with a paid subscription service you can get access to unlimited reports about almost anyone So right now if you're interested you can get 50% off of your first month of confidential background reports Just go to truthfinder. comlcsidebar Now before we go any further I want to bring on special guest Jason St Aubin North Carolina trial attorney He was with us last time as we covered this episode Jason so good to see you again Thanks for taking the time uh to come here on Sidebar Yeah of course Your thoughts on this latest development wow I mean what a twist this case has taken Jesse This is it's just such an interesting situation The last time that I was here I had read through all of the arrest reports uh about MrBraxton And I had wondered how are these two people connected what thread joins them that the police would think that someone who is so mentally unstable that they would get naked on the busiest street in Charlotte in the middle of the day would know a real estate agent in the South Park area which is one of the nicest areas in town and reading through the arrest paperwork and seeing that they actually had a prior connection and knew each other in high school explained just so much about what would have brought these two in each other's orbit And that I think was a really fascinating thing to learn and explained so much about our our prior discussion regarding MrBraxton My thought on this case though would be that there is another twist to this that I don't know if we picked up on which is this alleged confession is what led to the arrest There were months and months of time in between this homicide in July and this arrest in March And the only real Yeah I mean the fact that you have a huge gap here So Herd's death back in July arrest charged March 20th That's a significant piece of time What does that tell you me that that confession was the key piece of evidence that resulted in the arrest warrant being issued And it tells me without that alleged confession that the state didn't feel comfortable pressing charges even with fingerprints even with uh evidence that may have linked MrBraxton to that scene And what's fascinating about this what's fascinating is that he was in jail from January 23rd through March 18th of this year on really basic misdemeanor charges During that time period on March 3rd he made an alleged request to the jail stating on March 3rd allegedly again that he was the person responsible for the death of Whitney Herd Two weeks after that after two weeks after that 15 days March 18th he's released back into the public The sheriff's department the police they didn't investigate that request at the kiosk and confirm that it was him who filed it until he was released And they actually had to go back and track him down In two days he was free after confessing to murder allegedly Again how does something like that happen they just they one hand doesn't know what the other one's doing Or to me it is really bizarre that if a suspect that you are hunting for months has confessed to a crime and you believe that that confession has some truthfulness to it that you wouldn't immediately jump to action and put the clamp down on that person To allow them back into the community for two days It is a significant danger to the people around him Thankfully he was apprehended fairly quickly and placed back into custody And again these are all allegations We don't know if the product was of a diseased mind or or or if the if the confession is even true And and I want to get into all that but but do you think that suggests a weakness in the prosecution's evidence i mean for example there are a number of ways defense attorneys can try to strike a confession or an alleged confession from a trial you think the prosecution has enough to move forward with the case against him or as you're saying does it all bank on his purported statements and that's a really great question because the affidavit that the state has filed in this case the police have done a pretty detailed investigation but I think there were some missing puzzle pieces that they really had problems with No one truly put MrBraxton behind the wheel of Missurd's car Nobody really put him in possession of her phone There was no forensic evidence that was supposedly collected from the car Uh and there was only fingerprints allegedly from the affidavit of MrBroxson's found at the home And the two did know each other So there would be some potential grounds or basis for his materials fingerprints potentially even DNA to be present at the household especially if he'd been there before like is detailed in the affidavit and engaging in some pretty disturbing behavior allegedly So let's go through that I want to go through a little bit of this arrest affidavit the shocking apparent admission that he may have that may have sealed the deal for him So according to the affidavit that was obtained by law and crime investigators were dispatched to Herd's home of July of last year when they arrived Herd was already dead Her official cause of death was from multiple stab wounds Her case was ruled a homicide And both Herd's cell phone and vehicle a 2014 BMW X3 were missing from the scene But a neighbor revealed to officers that she had apparently seen something kind of suspicious days earlier According to the affidavit Whitney's neighbor advised she observed a male driving her vehicle away from the house on July 4th 2024 around 11:20 a.

m The neighbor did not see anyone in the passenger seat of the vehicle and advised Whitney never let other people drive her car Now investigators executed a search warrant on Herd's phone and used the last recorded pings from it to locate her car Now unfortunately her phone wasn't found All that was left inside the car according to police was the phone's case And as I mentioned earlier fingerprints and DNA evidence that were collected from both Herd's home and her car were sent off for processing which helped apparently lead police to their suspect Brandon Braxton But Jason what do you make of the eyewitness account of seeing a man driving herds BMW you know sometimes you don't even get an eyewitness account at all You know could that help so I must have handled a thousand cases with eyewitness identification And I have seen some of the most random and bizarre eyewitness identifications I think imaginable I once had a witness on the stand say towards my client "I remember what he looks like better four years later than I did when this actually happened. " People will say and do things in in eyewitness identifications that sometimes make them not very reliable and prosecutors judges and even the police they're aware of that So when they describe a male driving her vehicle that lacks so much indications of what that man could look like It could be a guy in a bright blue suit with a silly pink bow tie or it could be you know somebody that is a person of color of MrBraxton's size and build It is you know that is just not specific enough to get you where you need to be in a case like this What should we think about with the phone right the phone wasn't recovered but the phone ping data may have helped locate certain you know the car Uh talk to me about how the prosecution and the defense may use the the phone data and the lack of the phone that was found that wasn't found It's hard because obviously finding that phone is a key piece of evidence Usually when you're looking at a robbery just like what MrBraxton's charged with and I've handled hundreds of those in Charlotte you're looking for stolen property You're looking for a weapon that could have been used In this case a knife So locating that knife locating that stolen phone in his possession would have immediately locked up this case They might not have needed to wait until he randomly walked to a jail kiosk and did what I've never seen somebody do in my 20 years of my practicing law and working on these type of cases which is just to make a spontaneous confession without even the presence of law enforcement Truly hard 20 years You're so young looking I'm shocked you age Um all right So let me ask you this Not to make light but the matter of death okay ruled a homicide multiple stab wounds no murder weapon recovered as far as my understanding is Is that a challenge for prosecutors not when somebody walks in without police interference and on their own says "I'm confessing to this crime. " There's a very fancy set of Latin words for this called corpus delecti What that means is the body of the crime So when somebody makes a confession or they say "I did this This is something that I did that's wrong.

" Our law says just that alone it can't be enough to convict you It there has to be some other fact piece of information that makes that confession real And here when you have fingerprints or DNA that's left at the scene of the crime and somebody then confesses to that crime if those piece of evidence are allowed into evidence and they're truthful and the jury finds them credible then at that point yeah that can form the basis of a very strong case for the prosecution Now you mentioned this before and I want to get into it This if this is true right this is not some random attack according to police but rather this attack if committed by Braxton was potentially quite personal because the affidavit reveals a pretty troubling history between these two According to Herd's family who spoke with police Braxton and Herd were apparently friends when they were in high school but they lost touch And that is when things kind of became creepy from there According to the affidavit quote "He lost touch with Whitney for many years and then began showing up at her residence. " Braxton had fallen asleep intoxicated on Whitney's driveway one night when she wouldn't let him in Whitney even called the police when Braxton broke into her home and told her family and friends about the incident All pretty shocking because just as an aside here on Bra on Braxton's background he was apparently a star football player when he was in high school and even into college According to his biography on Duke's 2013 football roster Braxton was a two-time academic all-conference selection at the university where he played as a wide receiver and safety on the team from 2010 to 2013 He was a highly touted recruit from Providence High School His father David Braxton was an NFL defensive end drafted by the Minnesota Vikings in 1989 But for now Braxton's legacy is overshadowed by his alleged involvement not just in this crime but in an apparent string of other violent crimes that we're going to get into But Jason I guess the question is how is this used right in the sense if it's documented that she called uh law enforcement about this i'm sure that's something that could be used But you also wonder could that pattern be used because you and I both know that prosecutors can't use evidence to establish a propensity uh to commit a crime Oh he did this He must mean he's guilty of this But could they use it to show a pattern a motive something like that exactly Jesse You actually hit the nail right on the head with the magic word motive Definitely evidence of previous activities can be used to show motive if not used to show what you described You can't say well you know somebody may have hurt or done something to someone else in the past but that doesn't mean necessarily that we just say hey you're going to do it again automatically We can use that material though to show a link between these two And it can be evidence that the prosecutor uses to prove that Brandon had a motive to be at that location that he had been there before So if the defense is that he wasn't there or that material had been left before uh prosecutors can still use it in a way to show that he would or have the potential to return It's definitely sad anytime we see a situation where someone's called the police alleging that they're being victimized by another person and then that situation in the future resolves in this type of uh of occurrence It's very difficult But I will assure the listeners that our community does take those things seriously We usually have restraining orders or other methods that weren't employed in this case that had they been used it could have upgraded the potential for maybe setting the stage to help stop this kind of activity either in this instance or in future instances So we're not without recourse but I would just say that it is always sad and especially somebody like MrBraxton who clearly based on like I said earlier being caught naked in the middle of a skyscraper filled city at 11 in the morning where nobody would ever be doing that shows clear signs of having some significant mental issues that may affect his case in significant ways Isn't it just wild based on these allegations that he's accused of this but he had this once promising football career i mean that was an aspect of the story that that shocked me that 180 right well having graduated Duke University by the skin of my teeth I can definitely tell you it's not an easy place to be an academic all-American I believe MrBraxton had better grades than I did when I was there But I would just tell you that to be on that football team and to compete and also to find yourself in this position it's not even unknown In the city of Charlotte there was a University of Virginia football player about a decade ago right across the street from where I'm sitting in my office in the middle of Uptown Charlotte who just out of nowhere began stabbing somebody and had severe mental issues that sound very similar to this case So it is interesting how people especially in that sport find themselves years later potentially suffering from those type of maladies Let me add a little bit more to this So 10 days after Herd was found dead this is on July 24th Pineville police actually arrested Braxton for an unrelated charge that appears to have been in connection with the unauthorized use of a motor vehicle August 8th he was interviewed by detectives regarding what had happened to Herd And he told them that he did know her as well as some other revealing information because according to the affidavit Braxton stated that he and Whitney used to hang out in high school He stated he had never been inside her vehicle but had been inside her residence He nodded his head up and down in the affirmative when asked if he knew what happened to Whitney and where she was currently but would not provide further details He stated the last time he saw Whitney she looked petrified But the big reveal here wouldn't come until more than six months later in January of this year when Braxton was arrested yet again on an unrelated charge this time seemingly related to charges of trespassing and resisting an officer According to the affidavit on March 3rd 2025 at 8:54 a. m Braxton submitted a grievance to the Meckleberg County Sheriff's Office admin sergeants which stated "I killed Whitney Herd.

" And police say they were able to confirm this supposed admission from surveillance footage provided by the jail showing Braxton using the kiosk at the same date and time when the statement was supposedly made You know Jason it makes me wonder prosecutors may say one of the reasons they couldn't charge him or there was a reluctance to charge him possibly is yeah there might be evidence they were in the same place but that doesn't necessarily mean that you know he was a complete stranger to her There might have been explanation for his DNA and materials to be there but it was this confession this alleged confession that changed everything If you're a defense attorney just a blanket statement like that I would love to know the context a little bit more How do defense attorneys typically try to keep that out uh of a trial because that's going to be the key piece of evidence So I'm a big fan of the Fourth Amendment Most of us criminal defense attorneys are And the way that the Fourth Amendment works is it involves state action Those are the two magic words The problem with this type of statement is that no one from law enforcement or anyone in a state agency asked him questions or forced him to make this alleged confession He went up on his own accord put those words into a kiosk and again I've never seen anything like this ever happen at our jail and I've represented no joke probably a thousand people that have been in it So it it's something that boggles the mind that number one that would occur that number two it wouldn't be investigated thoroughly until 15 days later and the person was already released who allegedly confessed to murder But putting all that aside looking at just the legal concerns of this the idea is as a defense attorney you're going to have to find other ways to deal with that piece of evidence than potentially having it excluded because no one from the state or government asked or made him make those statements And he made them without representation of an attorney without asking for advice from that attorney It it's as simple as I I get pulled over by the police and before they even ask me what's in my car I just tell them "Look I've got a whole bag of drugs in my trunk.