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The Case of Charles "Brandon" Martin
📻 Episode #512
🎙️ Hosted by Jason Flom
📅 Feb 13, 2025
About This Episode
On October 27, 2008, Jodi Lynne Torok was at her Crofton, MD home talking on the phone with her close friend, Blair Wolfe, when a man, purporting to be a salesman, knocked on her front door. Jodi ended the call to respond to the so-called salesman, but thereafter never called Ms. Wolfe back or answered…
Case status as carried in this site's original 2026 profiles. Independent record verification is rolling out episode by episode — statuses are being re-checked against court and registry sources and date-stamped as verified.
The Case
On October 27, 2008, Jodi Lynne Torok was at her Crofton, MD home talking on the phone with her close friend, Blair Wolfe, when a man, purporting to be a salesman, knocked on her front door. Jodi ended the call to respond to the so-called salesman, but thereafter never called Ms. Wolfe back or answered any of Wolfe's subsequent telephone calls. Growing increasingly concerned, Ms. Wolfe telephoned the victim's roommate, and requested that she leave work and return home to make sure that the victim was safe. Upon arriving at the residence that she shared with the victim, Ms. Higgs found the front door unlocked and the victim lying on the foyer, unconscious and bleeding from a gunshot wound to her head. At the time, she was two months pregnant. As a result of the gunshot wound, the victim's pregnancy was terminated, and she suffered severe and disabling injuries.
The State developed a theory that, Charles Martin was in a relationship with the victim and upon learning of Torok’s refusal to obtain an abortion, solicited a friend to kill Torok and assisted Burks in the murder. The State charged Martin with solicitation of murder and accessory before the fact to attempted murder in the first degree. He was convicted and sentence to life in prison.
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In Their Own Words — transcript excerpts
Short excerpts from the episode's official published transcript, with timestamps — listen from these moments, or read the full transcript via the podcast's own platforms.
00:04:16“Speaker 1: three women at the time of this incident, Sherry Carter, Speaker 1: Maggie McFadden, and the victim in this case, Jody Lynn Torrick. Speaker 2: They tried to make it sound like I was in Speaker 2: committed relationships with all these people. You know, with Jody, Speaker 2: we probably had only been around each other, probably eight times.”
00:17:18“Speaker 3: He maintained his innocence, He was tried by a jury, Speaker 3: he was acquitted, And it really does seem that after Speaker 3: Jerry was found not guilty, they really ramped up the Speaker 3: prosecution of Brandon. The judge didn't even allow the fact Speaker 3: that Jerry was acquitted to be heard by the jury”
00:30:07“Speaker 3: not been done on these computers and that was not Speaker 3: disclosed to the defense. So it completely proves that Sherry Speaker 3: was lying and they deliberately presented false evidence. Then they Speaker 3: had the jury instructed that he was the one that Speaker 3: hid the evidence.”
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← #511 Louis Costilla, Jr. #513 James Watson →
Also on the podcast: #90 Matthew Charles · #194 Alexis Ke'Erica Martin · #276 Charles McCrory