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The Case of Charles "Brandon" Martin
📻 Episode #578
🎙️ Hosted by Jason Flom
📅 Jun 18, 2026
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…
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.
00:05:18“Speaker 1: in early twenty twenty five, he was still in prison. Speaker 1: Shortly after that he was released, awaiting a new trial Speaker 1: or maybe even dismissal of charges. Until this ruling, Brandon's Speaker 1: next move is filing for parole. Perhaps someone on the Speaker 1: board is listening right now, Maybe they can answer these questions.”
00:19:50“Speaker 2: others belonging to Brandon had disproved Scherry's story. And in Speaker 2: light of that tidbit, do we believe that other potentially Speaker 2: exculpatory evidence was just simply somehow lost. Speaker 4: They lost street camera footage that would have showed if Speaker 4: Brandon had driven towards Jodie's house that day, or for”
00:33:51“Speaker 3: read the Bible, and once I got confident in my Speaker 3: legal abilities, as far as filing briefs and things of Speaker 3: that nature. In the past seven years, I think I've Speaker 3: helped about twenty guys get positive results in cases with Speaker 3: all this that that's them going home, getting admitted in”
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← #577 John Giuca #579 Daniel Holtzclaw →
Also on the podcast: #90 Matthew Charles · #194 Alexis Ke'Erica Martin · #276 Charles McCrory