The Suspect Detective
Reveal
The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX
4.7 • 8K Ratings
🗓️ 17 December 2022
⏱️ 52 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 2010, Milique Wagner was arrested for a murder he says he had nothing to do with. The night of the shooting, Wagner was picked up for questioning and spent three days in the Philadelphia Police Department’s homicide unit, mostly being questioned by a detective named Philip Nordo.
Nordo was a rising star in the department, known for putting in long hours and closing cases – he had a hand in convicting more than 100 people. But that day in the homicide unit, Wagner says Nordo asked him some unnerving questions: Would he ever consider doing porn? Guy-on-guy porn?
Wagner would go on to be convicted of the murder in a case largely built by Nordo — and Wagner’s experience has led him to believe Nordo fabricated evidence and coerced false statements to frame him.
For years, Philadelphia Inquirer reporters Chris Palmer and Samantha Melamed have dug into Nordo’s career, looking into allegations of his misconduct. In this episode, they follow the rumors to defense attorney Andrew Pappas, who subpoenas the prison call log between Nordo and one of his informants. It’s there he finds evidence that something is not right about the way Nordo is conducting his police work.
It’s Pappas’ findings that prompted the Philadelphia district attorney’s office to launch an investigation into Nordo. The patterns that prosecutors found by reviewing Nordo’s calls and emails with incarcerated men, examining his personnel file, and interviewing men who interacted with him showed shocking coercion and abuse.
Almost 20 years after the first complaint was filed against Nordo, the disgraced detective’s actions became public. He was charged and his case went to trial. Palmer and Melamed analyze the fallout from the scandal, and seek answers from the Philadelphia Police Department on how they addressed Nordo’s misconduct and how he got away with it for so long.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From the Center for Investigative Reporting in PRX, this is Reveal. |
| 0:06.5 | I'm Al Etzen. |
| 0:08.6 | It's February 2010 at the Philadelphia Police Headquarters. |
| 0:12.5 | 21-year-old Malik Wagner is in a room in the homicide unit. |
| 0:17.8 | He's being questioned about a fatal shooting that happened that night. |
| 0:22.5 | Before I go on, I want to let you know that this hour contains material that may not |
| 0:27.1 | be appropriate for some listeners. |
| 0:31.6 | Not far from where Malik lived, a 29-year-old named Brahim King had been shot 11 times. |
| 0:38.8 | Malik says he was buying weed a few blocks away when he was picked up by police. |
| 0:43.6 | I didn't try to run, I didn't do anything, I put my hands up, I didn't have any weapons |
| 0:47.8 | or anything so how can I be involved in this case? |
| 0:50.8 | I'm trying to figure out. |
| 0:52.6 | When Malik left his house, he says he expected to be gone for just a few minutes. |
| 0:57.6 | But he ended up spending three days in the homicide unit, mostly sitting across from a detective |
| 1:04.1 | named Philip Nordo. |
| 1:05.1 | He was like sure, a little chubby. |
| 1:08.6 | Like, if I had to guess, I think he had a tie in because of the weight he carries. |
| 1:14.0 | He like, talk, grow, slick, and he remodeled me a Joe Pesky. |
| 1:19.6 | At first, Nordo is talking about the shooting and says he knows Malik has information. |
| 1:33.2 | And then as Malik tells it, the detective takes the conversation in a bizarre direction. |
| 1:39.1 | Sounds like that's not his real job. |
| 1:43.1 | He has a foreign ring on the island of Jersey. |
... |
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