The Facebook video chat that showed Donald Galleck allegedly beating Jason Moody to death won’t be seen by a jury because apparently it was not saved.
Galleck, 29, pleaded not guilty to murder Tuesday at the Penobscot County Judicial Center in Bangor in connection with the death last year of Moody, 40, a Bangor musician.
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The court affidavit, which had been sealed since Galleck’s Nov. 16 arrest, reported that the 29-year-old was on a Facebook Messenger call with a female friend when the altercation with Moody began. When Galleck put his cellphone in his shirt pocket, he inadvertently switched the call to video mode, allegedly allowing the woman to view live video while Galleck apparently bashed Moody’s head into the pavement. The affidavit from a Bangor police detective does not say whether the woman was able to save the video.
Whether a Facebook Messenger user can accidentally switch a call from voice to video mode during a call is “probably very specific to the device and the settings, etc. on an individual’s phone,” Jennifer Hakes, director of Messenger communications for Facebook, wrote in an email.
As to whether the calls are saved, she said, “calls made over Messenger are not accessible by Facebook.”
She did not answer a question asking whether users can choose to save Messenger video calls. The Messenger interface does not offer that option, but users can record calls using other apps they have downloaded to their devices.
Under its policy concerning access to information by law enforcement, Facebook provides basic subscriber information, but not content, when the requested information “is indispensable to the case” and a subpoena has been served.
“Any such subpoena or court order should be limited in scope to seek basic subscriber information only, and set out the specific accounts at issue by identifying them by URL or Facebook user ID,” the policy reads. “Names, birthdays, locations and other information are insufficient.”
While a jury may never see what the woman claims she saw on her phone, she could be called to testify about it if Galleck goes to trial in March 2020.
Once the Facebook call switched to video, the woman told police that “she saw Galleck turn and face [Moody] and punch him once in the face,” the affidavit reads. “At that point, the other male put his hands up and said he was sorry and he was drunk.”
But “Galleck hit the male twice more, knocking him to the ground,” according to the affidavit. “Once on the ground, Galleck grabbed the victim by the throat and bashed his head off the ground seven times.”
The state’s chief medical examiner’s found that Moody died of “massive inflicted trauma to the brain.” The autopsy also found that Moody “sustained multiple significant fractures to his jaw that were consistent with his face being driven into the pavement in a manner consistent with what [the friend] described seeing,” according to the affidavit.
The Maine attorney general’s office declined to comment on whether the Facebook audio and video of the call had been saved so that it could be shown to a jury. It is the practice of prosecutors not to comment on cases until after they have been resolved.
Galleck’s attorney, Hunter Tzovarras, said Wednesday in an email that he was “not aware of any video from Facebook” provided by prosecutors in discovery.
“I do not believe the claim that it was captured or witnessed via FB video is accurate,” he said.
If convicted, Galleck faces 25 years to life in prison.