**Episode Transcription
Welcome everyone! Welcome to a new episode of Love and Murder – the weekly true crime podcast discussing relationships gone terribly wrong. Where our motto is, you’re either someone’s last love or their first murder.
I am your host Ky and in today’s episode we’re discussing a case of family and psycopathy.
Before we begin, I want to say that this episode, as usual, is sponsored by my LaMs in Patreon. As always, I want to thank you for continuously believing in me and thank you for your donations.
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On Sunday, October 30, 2011, 55 year old Kathleen McGehee went about her daily business in Stockton, CA. She went to church with one of her older sons, Justin, and his family. After that, she called her other son, Colin, and left him a voice message. She would be making jambalaya for Monday and she needed to know how to use the rice cooker that he’s left at her house. Hopefully he would call her back soon so she could start cooking. She didn’t call her daughter, Katelyn, because on Friday, October 28 she’d gone away to a retreat with her friend Samantha; she was supposed to be picking her up later today at the University of the Pacific. Katelyn would call one hour before she gets to the school.
Her other son, the youngest of the 4, 26 year old Dawson McGehee should be home.
Kathleen then went to the grocery store near her house and then headed home. At 4pm Colin called her back and gave her the instructions she requested.
At 5pm Katelyn called Kathleen to let her know that she should be at UOP at 6pm. Her mother didn’t answer so she left a voicemessage. A couple minutes later, her brother, Dawson’s, phone number popped up on Katelyn’s phone and when she went to answer, it hung up. It only rang for like ½ a ring. She throught was a mistake because Dawson never calls her, so instead of calling him back, she called her mother again. No one answered. Dawson called Katelyn back and, when she answered, he said he was “just calling to see how she was.” So she told him that she was trying to reach their mom but she’s not answering. Dawson said, “Oh, yeah, I think the home phone hasn’t really been working.” Yea well I tried the cell phone too. “Oh, yeah, I don’t think that’s been working, either. I think she’s having trouble with those two.” Well, you’re at home right? Ask mom if she’s still coming to pick me up. “I’m not at home, Katelyn. I’m not at home.” Well are YOU coming to pick me up then? But Dawson said no one asked me to do that and hung up. This whole conversation was really weird because Dawson never calls her. Kathleen still hadn’t called her back, so Katelyn called the house phone again and left a voicemail.
Closer to 6pm, Katelyn called her mom multiple times but still didn’t get a return call. This was very weird for her mother as she’d never ignored any of her kids. Two minutes after her last call to the house phone, Dawson called her back again, “Oh, you know what? We actually sort of talked about that, like maybe we had talked about maybe I could come pick you up.” Dawson also “made a few remarks about how [their mother] had just been seeming kind of tired that day.” So Katelyn told her to come and get her and hung up the phone.
When Katelyn arrived, Dawson wasn’t on the UOP campus waiting on her. Samantha and her husband waited with her until Dawson finally arrived at around 6:30pm. Dawson was acting really weird. Ben, Samantha’s husband tried to talk to him, but he acted like he didn’t want to speak. He also acted fidgety around Katelyn, wouldn’t look at her and “seemed uncomfortable.” As Dawson drove away with Katelyn, he said he had “some errands” to run. He said he had to pick up his “medicine” which was actually some marijuana. He got on the highway and went towards Sacramento. Katelyn said that during the drive, Dawson spoke more than usual: “He actually seemed like he was in a good mood. He seemed cheerful. He was talkative and chatty and just seeming like very casual.” She said that he talked about their mom, “Oh, yeah, she’s been doing great on her diet. She’s lost 21 pounds in the last four weeks, but this diet she’s doing it’s only like 500 calories a day. She’s been acting really tired lately. I think it’s not enough calories for her. She’s been seeming really tired.”
Durning their drive, they stopped at a Walgreens in Sacramento and Katelyn noticed that Dawson was still fidgety “sort of pacing the aisles.” They then went adn got some food and ate in the car. He then appeared to get lost trying to find the spot where he picks up his marijuana “I usually come out here in the daylight, but it’s dark this time, so I’m—it’s throwing me off a little bit.” They drove around for about an hour, “driving up and down ․ the same few streets,” and then Katelyn asked him, “Is there a specific street that you’re looking for?” So he stopped at a place which was only 2 minutes away from the Walgreens where they’d initially stopped. He got out of the car and said, “I know this might seem a little strange, but Mom understands. We’ve done this before. I need to park here and walk to where I’m going to go.” 20 minutes later he came back to the car, but while he was walking to the car, Katelyn noticed that he was vomiting on the walk back.
They then drove back home and got there close to 11pm. Katelyn went right up to her room and dropped her bags off. She then went to the bathroom and Dawson stopped her in the hallway to say, “Katelyn, Mom’s asleep.” and she said OK because she’s already figured that and wasn’t going to bother her anyway. She went about her night and went to bed. Everytime she got up throughout the night though, Dawson was awake, “sort of pacing in the hallways.”
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In the morning, Dawson was awake before Kately and stopped her as soon as she came out of her room asking her if she got his text. She said no because her phone died and she’d been too tired to turn it back on. He said ok well Mom woke up at like 5 or 6 this morning and told him that she hadn’t slept well so she was just going to sleep in today. When Dawson went outside, Katelyn knocked on her mom’s door and asked her if she was ok but her mom didn’t answer. When she tried to open the door, she found that it was locked. So she knocked again, a bit louder and tried the door again, but her mom still didn’t answer. Katelyn decided to try and look in her mom’s bedroom window from outside the house but her shutters were closed. Katelyn figured she was being paranoid and went about her day. Her brother had said her mom was just sick so why would she not believe him.
Later that day, Dawson drove Katelyn to the bank – he told her that their mom told him to do that. He was still acting weird, like he did yesterday, “He was being unusually, you know, cheerful, seeming—being chatty and just, you know, eager to have conversations, and just being very casual.” After she was done at the bank, Dawson asked if she wanted to go anywhere else (which first of all was weird because in the past months, Dawson had been acting very selfish and never did anything for anyone but himself. I don’t know, maybe he’s turning a new leaf?) She said she didn’t need to go to Target, did he? “Not really. Just for fun. Just to go walk around Target.” Katelyn said that she did need to go to AT&T to get a charger. Dawson suggested an ATT that was farther away from their house and Katelyn said sure whatever. After that, they went home and Katelyn went out with her friend to get lunch. When she got back home, Dawson wasn’t home.
At 5:30pm, she realized she still hadn’t seen her mother so she went to try her door again. It got to the point that she was pounding on her door but her mother still didn’t answer. She called her older brother, Justin, and he told her to called 911. She did this. When EMTs got there, they broke the lock off of her mother’s door and …..
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…that’s when they found Kathleen’s body. She was at the entrance of her bedroom; right when they opened the door.
EMTs then called police who came out, arriving around 6:13pm. Police saw that Kathleen had been stabbed in the neck, abdomen, and chest. During the investigation, they noticed that there was no signs of a break in and nothing had been stolen. The bedroom was “neat, orderly, nothing appeared to have been taken or broken.”
At 1:30am on November 1, Dawson was arrested a little ways down the road from his house. He was charged with premeditated murder and personal use of a non-firearm weapon and held at the San Joaquin County Jail – held without bail.
The reason he was arrested, is due to the blood evidence that police found and also the fact that he was the only one home with his mom at the time of the murder and, after interviewing family and neighbors, his demeanor after his mother was killed.
Also, when they arrested him, he was wearing a black leather jacket that had stains of his mom’s blood on it. I mean, just wear a sign next time.
Now, LaMs, during his interrogation, Dawson acted erratically, petting the air with his hands, asking weird questions, looking all over, waving his head from side to side constantly like Stevie Wonder. Basically, pretending to be insane. So I guess that was his plan, pleading not guilty by way of insanity. Now, I saw this video and in the first 10 seconds I got PISSED off. I actually have someone close to me who is not lucid, they go through visual and auditory hallucinations and everything. I get sooo angry when I see people pretend to be insane. Literally insane people don’t act like that AND they don’t think they are insane. STOP IT! Anyway, off of my soapbox. The thing is, Dawson didnt’ know he was being filmed so you should see how he acted when no one was in the room.
While he’s acting like a damn fool, detectives ask him, “We’ve got some stuff we wanna talk to you about. We wanna talk to you about what happened to your mom.”
Acting like he’s confused, Dawson says, “What happened to my mom?”
Detective says, “Well, you tell me.”
Looking up at the ceiling, Dawson says: “People called me and said something happened at home, to Mom. They were very, very vague. What happened to my mom?”
Detective said again, you tell me and Dawson says, “I was… I was… waiting for… my brother and sister to tell me.”
Then, as the detective continues to question him, and as crazy as he’s supposed to be, Dawson asked if he should have a lawyer present. The officer told him that he can have one if he wants.
I have a couple of videos of his interrogation and of the interrogation with a psychologist’s commentary in the LaM Patreon. You can get this as an extra in the case by signing up for only $3/mo donation www.patreon.com/loveandmurder.
During Dawson’s first court hearing about the upcoming November 10th arraignment, Prosecutor Sherri Adams said to the overseeing judge that Dawon is considered a high risk inmate and that she feels that he should continue to be held without bail.
“We’re still waiting to get all the evidence from the police reports from Manteca PD.”
Dawson was a graduate of the University of the Pacific. He worked his way through college as a waiter and lived with friends before he moved home the year before.
He had been going to a therapist for the last year because he said that he had a demon in his head. The therapist told him that he had to “face his fears and face life head-on” by watching scary movies and putting on scary costumes. WHAT?! What?! I…I seriously have no words. If there are any psychologists out there that listen to my little show, please send me an SOS or comment. If you want to keep your comment confidential, the best way is to send me an sos or an email to noconductradio@gmail.com (it’s in the show notes below). I want you to tell me what you think of what this psychologist told him to do. Personally, and without a psych degree, I think it’s bullshit. How about listen to your patient, put in the work, and don’t just send him home to watch scary movies. It sounds like they just didn’t feel like doing the job. But who knows, I could be wrong. That’s why I want to hear from you. Also, if you’ve had something similar happen to you, where the therapist basically didn’t listen, send me your story.
The family had lived in this house for more than 10 years and before that they lived in the Bay Area city of San Leandro. Although they’d made the movie, the kid’s father, Tom McGehee, would still commute to work in San Leandro. The kids went to Manteca High where Dawson was a football player and reported to be an excellent student. The kids were all in band, and Katelyn was the first student in this highschool to win the decathlon.
At the time of his mother’s murder, it’s reported that Dawson was wearing a Halloween mask and a whole costume. A neighbor who was interviewed said that the Monday of the murder, Dawson had come out of the house and said to him, “You know, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.”
Also, at the time of the murder, Tom was away in China on work. When his family called him, he came home that Tuesday.
At the trial in 2011, Dawson plead – just as I thought he would – not guilty by way of insanity. His defence said that he suffered from delusions and hallucinations. The jury, on the other hand said yea whatever, you’ll be tried as legally sane. The interrogation video had something to do with their ruling.
The coroner testified that due to the wounds, it appeared that Kathleen struggled during the attack; alot of the wounds were defensive in nature. “McGehee stabbed his mother ten times in the neck, chest, and abdomen with a kitchen knife; eight of the stab wounds were independently fatal.” There was also evidence of “neck compression.”
People who knew him came forth and said that during college, Dawson was “energetic,” “outgoing,” “friendly and sociable,” but then between 2008 and 2010 he started turning away from people. He became reclusive and “not very cheerful.” In the last two months before the murder, Katelyn said that Dawson “had barely spoken,” but he had started being disrespectful to Kathleen. One incident that Katelyn remembers is Dawson “just berating her and belittling her. She would speak up for herself sometimes, but [Dawson] would usually just stare her down, and he just was more powerful with words than she was.”
Justin testified to the changes too, but he said the changes were more like around April 2011. There was even a time with police were called out to the house because someone reported a disturbance between Dawson and Tom because Tom wanted him to get out of the house and Dawson told him he couldn’t kick him out without initiating eviction processes. Umm dude, that’s now how this works. You don’t have a contract with your parents to live in their house. And that’s exactly what the cops told him. Justin said that after this, Dawon’s actual physical movements changed.
“I observed him begin to exhibit a lot of physical mannerisms, physical behaviors that I hadn’t seen before, and it was very sudden, sudden emerging of those things, not a very gradual one. It was very sudden. He began exhibiting lots of shaking mannerisms. He would look off to the side. He would talk differently, in a stuttering, halting way. I observed as he sat down to read to them (Justin’s kids) and he began talking, all of his stuttering stopped and all of his physical shaking stopped․ I saw his body go from completely normal, functioning normally, to suddenly resuming all of those physical shaking and eye movements and voice shaking. It went from on to off as he was reading and all the way back on when he was done.”
Justin said that his mother was a “caretaker” in her heart. She took care of her sister who’d died of a brain tumor and she cared for her brother who had died of Parkinson’s disease. Now that Dawson was actiing this way she gave him most of her attention. She was “far more protective of him than she was of everyone else in her life put together.” Normally, she avoided conflict, but since she had started training to become a victim’s advocate, she “began to be more assertive.”
Justin said that since his mom’s murder and during the trial that, “So far, there has been no remorse at all, only arrogance. There has been no honesty, only lies. … I hold him to be more similar in character to [evil] than any other human being I have known. And yet I refuse to hate him. I refuse to allow someone as morally perverse as he is to force me to live a life of bitterness and ruin the joy I have in loving others.”
Prosecutor Adams said, “Katy was getting involved in other things besides her son. She was starting to stand up for herself. He was very selfish and wanted attention all the time. He required a lot of his mother.”
Dawson’s father mirrored that same sentimen.
Then Dr. John Yarbrough testified that he’d seen Dawson twice before the murder and he was “noticeably agitated. He was writhing, moving. He looked very restless, very uncomfortable. That was pretty much throughout the interview. And at different parts of the interview when we were talking about things that were very difficult to talk [about] he would demonstrate difficulty breathing, and it was very difficult even for someone to talk to him and watch the struggle that he was going through.” Dr. Yarbrough diagnosed with him PTSD and Conversion disorder because of the “abnormal pshysical movements that had no known medical reason.” What the hell is conversion disorder. Let’s look it up. According to Dr. Rakshith Bharadwaj, conversion disorder is “A mental condition in which a person experiences blindness, paralysis or other nervous system (neurologic) symptoms that cannot be explained by illness or injury.” Well I guess he explained it already. This condition is very rar with less than 200,000 cases a year in the US and can last for several days or weeks. It’s most common for people 18-35 and more common in females.
Dr. Yarbrough had previously prescribed him an anti-depressant in a previous appointment, so he increased the dosage and added on an anxiety medicine.
When Dawson came back in two weeks, Dr Yarbrough said that his “abnormal movements” had slightly decreased. Dawson never complained of any hallucinations though.
The psychiatrist who evaluated Dawson after the murder took the stand. He said that Dawson didn’t have any psychotic disorder, he was just addicted to weed, “marijuana dependence in institutional remission[,] anxiety disorder with panic attacks and psychosomatic symptomatology, [and] adjustment disorder with anxiety and depression.” Hmm what is psychosomatic symptomatology? According to the Cleveland Clinic, “Psychosomatic disorder is a psychological condition that leads to physical symptoms, often without any medical explanation. It can affect almost any part of the body. People with the disorder tend to seek frequent medical attention, becoming frustrated with no diagnosis. Behavioral therapy and stress reduction may help.” Isn’t that what Dr. Yarbrough said?
All in all, the prosecution said that Dawson murdered his mother with malice and deliberation. They also said that the murder was premeditated; Dawson was angry at this mom for taking Tom’s side instead of his.
The defense said that IF he killed her, it was because the hallucinations told him to – the demons he said were coming after him. They used this evidence:
A psychologist who was appointed by the trial court to evaluate Dawson, Dr. Wendy Weiss, said that based on her review of the police case files, the other doctor’s records, and finally an interview with Dawson himself, he had schizophrenia. During her interview with him, Dawson was “sloppy” and he made “odd gestures” with his hands, “rubbing his left arm with his right hand and, rubbing his abdomen in an unusual manner.” and he “complained a lot about physical discomfort,” saying that he felt like “fire on his skin” and “blades under his fingernails.”
More people who knew him, testified that he told them he was being tormented by what he called demons.
Then Colin took the stand again and told the court that sometime in 2010, Dawson would be walking around the house at night, with no lights on, wearing overalls and a halloween type mask. On an occasion, him and Dawson went to watch a horror movie but when he looked around for his brother, he saw him sitting alone off to the side with the mask on again.
In the beginning of the trail, Dawson contantly fidgeted, moved his head backwards like looking up at the ceiling then down at the floor, and then rolled his eyes all around. You know, trying to “look insane” as if insanity had a LOOK. But when the judge asked him if he understood the seriousness of the charge, he said he did. The longer court went on though, through the days, he would appear more and more composed.
It was also revealed that the night before the murder, Kathleen had asked Dawson to move out of the house and get a job. I guess this is why he figured she sided with her husband instead of her son.
In the end, the jury didn’t believe Dawson’s performance or that he was insane. No one believed that from the jump. The jury found him guilty and in 2013 he was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison. He was admitted to prison on 2/5/2013 and is eligible for parole in April 2024.
Currently, he’s in Mule Creek State Prison and, when I checked, it said he was up for parole on July 2023, but I haven’t seen any updates since then.
“The whole family is damaged from this and it’s so sad. I remember Dawson as a smart kid with a great sense of humor with the spirit of a Huck Finn who would do little mischievous things to make a joke. We all had good memories of Dawson. I really feel badly for the family and especially for him.
When people look at a tragedy, they look at a victim, but at this time you have to look at him too. I would feel bad if everyone would make assumptions how bad this kid is without knowing him. I am sad and sickened over the whole thing. It makes you wonder how a good kid can do such a monstrous thing.”
And that is the case of Dawson McGehee.
But before we wrap up, I have one more thing.
In 2017, two forensic pathologists – Dr. Bennet Omalu and Dr. Susan Parson, accused the San Joaquin County sheriff, Steve Moore, of interfering with death investigations to protect law enforcement officers. They also alleged that he interfered with their work on some suspicious deaths and high-profile homicides; possibly compromising these murder cases. Both of them accused the sheriff of trying to influence certain investigations of theirs and the findings.
The brought forth hundreds of pages of memos, letters, and emails allegedly supporting their claims.
“A person who does not have a license to practice medicine in the State of California should not be involved in the medical evaluation of a case and provision of a medical opinion.”
In the same year, they both resigned their position with the county.
Why am I bringing this up?
Well Dr. Omalu was the forensic pathologist in this case.
The lead investigator had asked for Dr. Omalu to come and examine the body at the house before it was moved. However, the sheriff’s office refused to send him. Actually they never even told him about the request.
The next day is when Dr. Omalu was able to perform the autopsy, however; because of the delay and the refrigeration of the body, Dr. Omalu’s ability to perform forensic pathological analysis to ascertain the time of death was significantly impaired.” This was reported by Prosecutor Adams.
Using this information, the defence argued that for all they knew, Kathleen was alive on October 31 and someone else killed her later on.
Procecutor Adams said, “There were members of the jury that entertained this theory as a reasonable possibility based on the evidence. Thankfully the jury in this case was able to render a verdict of guilt; however, the date and time of death was a real source of debate during the five days of jury deliberations.”
Prosecutor Adams sent a letter to the sheriff’s office that was never answered. She’s not sure why the sheriff denied her request for the forensic pathologist to come to the scene, but she believes that changes in the office have been made since then.
At the time they said, “This case is more than six years old and staff assigned to the Coroner’s Office at that time have either retired, rotated out, or are no longer working at the Sheriff’s Office.” She’d had another case and requested Dr. Omalu and he was sent out.
Now, that’s the end of the case. As far as I can tell, Dawson is still in prison, but he may be out next year.
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