Episode Five: Murdered - Your Classmate

Lawyer: Coming in live and clear.

Host: Yeah, I can hear you

Lawyer: Testing testing. 1, 2, 3. Captain

Host: Mike check, 1, 2, 1, 2

Lawyer: What is our destination today? Captain?

Host: Put it in the air now.

Destination sadness.

Lawyer: Alrighty then. Sunday funday.

Host: So did you do your homework for this episode?

Lawyer:  For this episode or like for my professional life?

Host: For this episode?

Lawyer: Uhhhhhhhhhhh Okay. So, I have, I have a jury trial in 12 hours, so I don't remember what…

Host: Excuses, excuses.

Lawyer: Wait, what was my homework?

Host: We ended the last, or maybe I think we ended the last episode and I posed a question to you.

I saw this Mr. Rogers bumper sticker. And he was all smiling with his little sweater. Is it coming back to you? No?

Lawyer: Yes, yes, yes. Yes. Mm-hmm

Host: Yes? Yes. And next to his little smiley sweater face was a little saying that said something along the lines of every human being has value. So I was just wondering what you thought about that.

Lawyer: I believe that’s true. Completely true. I'm completely blanking on what my response was last time, but I hope my response was that I absolutely believe that. I believe that everyone, everyone is more than, you know, the worst thing they've ever done or the biggest mistake they've ever made.

Host: Okay. You did say that last week.

I don't know if you said it in response particular topic, but you said it generally, but like, I mean, so we're saying even like Hitler, Jeffrey Dahmer, the Hillside Strangler?

Lawyer: That's a tough question.

Host: Everyone? Every human being. Do we feel, do we think that that could really be true? I mean, obviously Mr. Rogers thought it was true.

Lawyer: You're testing my hypothesis with some pretty extreme examples here. I have. No, I have no response.

Host: I mean, to be honest with you, I don't even know. I don't even know what I think because, and here's why I was thinking about it because so far in the stories that we've discussed, I've known the bad guy. I don't know if I want to put air quotes around that or not.

I mean, they did something bad in the stories we told, they were the bad guy. But knowing those people made it a little easier for me to see that they weren't all bad. Or maybe that life isn't so simple, and it isn't so black and white, but in today's story, like I said, last week, it's a little bit of a departure for again, oh, we didn't say again.

Hello. Welcome to the Murderer You Know.

It's a little bit of a departure again.

Lawyer: Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-dooooo

Ah, I'm not sure if it's funny or super obnoxious, but that's kind of a pretty apt description of my personality, honestly. So, it's fine.  

Host: No one can tell, is she annoying orrrrrr…

Lawyer: Little bit of both, tiny bit of both.

Host: So, so yeah, what I was saying. In today's story, I actually knew one of the victims and I didn't know her well, but I knew more about her character and what kind of person she was. And the assailants were super far removed from my circle.

I don't know what made them tick, who loved them, what opinions other people had of them or any of those sorts of things. And none of this means that those people didn't have redeeming qualities. It just means that I don't know what they are. So could the same be true for, you know, all of those really extreme examples that I just mentioned, like Hitler.

I mean, could he have had some sort, I, I can't even, can't even…

Lawyer: Wait a minute, wait a minute. Didn't he have a wife?

Host: A girlfriend, at least.

Lawyer: Your mother is calling.

Host: Ask her she'll know!

Oh my gosh. Hold on.

Host: Special guest.

Hey mom. Yes, we're on the podcast.

Mom: Oh yeah.

Lawyer: So I can't talk right now, but hey mom.

Host: Wait!

Lawyer: Did Hitler have a girlfriend?

Mom: Yeah.

Lawyer: Was it a wife or a girlfriend?

Mom: No, he never married her.

Lawyer: Huh. How long were they together?

Mom: I don't know a while. I think, I can't remember now if it was before the, you know, the war started or during the war.

Lawyer: Hm.

Mom: She committed suicide with him. I know that much.

Lawyer: Oh, all right.

Host: Big pimping.

Mom: He also had a German shepherd.

Lawyer: He had a dog and a girlfriend?

Mom: Yeah, man.

Lawyer: Damn.

Host: Well, his dog undoubtedly really loved him.

Lawyer: Alright homie

Mom: Wait, why were you guys-

Lawyer: Bye bye little girl. Bye.

Yeah, he had a dog and a girlfriend.

Host: I'm sure they both really loved him. I wish we could ask them so they…

Lawyer: That's my point. They must think he had redeeming qualities.

Host: They must have. Yeah, but that's, that's the whole thing. That's the whole thing that's spinning around in my brain. Is that true? Every human being has value?

And if every human being does have value, where's the tipping point that it doesn't even matter anymore. You know what I mean? Like, do you get to a point where you've done so many bad things, it doesn't matter what your value was?

Lawyer: Matter, right? Matter, such a big word. Matter to who?

Host: Yeah.

Lawyer: Matter to God? Matter to your mom? Matter to your wife? I mean, these are all very different.

Host: It's so very true.

Lawyer: This is a big, yeah. This is a fff, fff, fff…

You gotta cut this whole part. We philo, we phalasophizing…

Host:. We should get some falafel.

Lawyer: HA. I am worried about what I'm gonna say tomorrow morning, ladies and gentlemen of the falafel, today we're gonna discuss

Host: Whether or not this person had any value and who they mattered to.

Lawyer: That's a lot of what you're discussing in victim juries.

Host: I can't, I literally can't even imagine.

Lawyer: All right, we're be, we're on another tangent. Bring us back.

Host: Okay.

Lawyer: Bring us back cap.

Host: So we don't know the answer. No one knows the answer, but it's just spinning around when we're embarking on kind of a different story here today.

Lawyer: So, so, what, what happened?

Host: Well, let's talk maybe a little bit about…

Lawyer: Who it happened too.

Host: Yeah. I think we should talk a little bit about the victims. Like I said, I didn't know either of them very well. One of them was a classmate and I think since we haven't really known the victims and the other two stories, we should talk a little bit about who these people were and what their loved ones thought about them. And it's just a little bit about each of them.

There were two young ladies, interestingly enough, because you think that we've come so far.

Lawyer: This is the story about the couple?

Host: Yeah. And what I was going to say is that, interestingly enough, a lot of the news pieces I read about these two women called them roommates or friends.

Lawyer: Huh.

Host: They were girlfriends. And it's interesting because you think that we've come so far as a society where like people can be their authentic selves and be reported on authentically. I don't know if it was just a mistake. I mean, I don't know. I don't know anything about the journalists who wrote the pieces. I don't know why it was reported that they were just roommates, but they were girlfriends.

So they lived together. One of them was my classmate. She was working at the Verizon store as a sales associate. And she also worked as a substitute teacher. Everyone considered her to be a kind caring, beautiful soul.

Lawyer: This is the one, this is your class-

Host: This is my classmate.

Lawyer: Okay.

Host: She was kind of a funny hippie who wouldn't hurt to fly. She always spoke her mind and didn't pull any punches. She had no criminal history other than speeding tickets, which I said last week about the reckless driving, who doesn't have a speeding ticket?

Lawyer: From bum middle of nowhere, when you're going 70, down a straight road, where the speed limit is 40, for some reason.

Host: Yep.

The only weird thing I found when I was looking through like her criminal history and reports was that she was evicted by her mom in 2011. But I mean, who knows? No one knows other than the two of them, what might have happened. So-

Lawyer: Hey, bud also, speeding is very serious and you should slow down and be careful.

Host: You should.

Lawyer: Back to you.

Host: You should. Good point, good point. It's easy to joke because we were young hooligans, but it can be very serious.

Lawyer: That's a good word for it.

Host: So her girlfriend was born in 93. She was a rising star in the softball community. She had played softball at her high school and was, I don't know what any of this means, by the way. I'm just repeating things, a compilation from my research. I'm not into the sport. So I don't know, but it was written…

Lawyer: The sport. You're not into the sport? Just one.

Host: The sport, these sports, anything with a ball running, jumping, bouncing. No, thank youuuuuu-uh.

So it says that she was an all American in college, which is good? I think she even got a scholarship and went to college and really blossomed. There she had a 3.0 grade point average and set school records pretty consistently for career home runs while batting, nearly, I don't know. I feel like I shouldn't even say it says 0.460? She was in route to all American honors. If you know anything about the sport, tell us, is it 0.4, six zero. Is it four zero?

Lawyer: Listen-

Host: 0.460. What am I saying?

Lawyer: I know things about the sport, but the sport is soccer. So whatever it is that you are talking about, I don't know anything about.

Host: So she was described as talented, loving, a very genuine person. She loved her family, her coach, and her teammates who all had nothing but positive things to say about her.

She hit three home runs and her last game and hit two. Oh - this sounds good, knowing nothing about the sport - her last game, she hit two home runs over the scoreboard. That sounds impressive.

Lawyer: Yeah.

Host: Even if she had a tough time, she'd bounce back. One of her teammates said she always knew she could do better. She would push herself a lot with her softball career. She was always nice to everybody. She never judged anyone on their background. One of the catchers said that she was “always encouraging”, “always there to pick me up” and “someone who gave me very good feedback”.

She eventually earned a scholarship to a division one university in Baltimore, but apparently had some sort of back injury. She also didn't like the college very much where she got the second scholarship and she eventually left. Her trainer closer to her hometown thought that losing softball was really hard on her.

She eventually hit a rough patch in 2017, but she was really determined to get her life back on track. She actually called her mom a couple of weeks before the crime that we're going to discuss today and said she had an epiphany and was determined to get her life back on, on the track that she was meant to be on.

She told her mom that her prayers and prayers of all of the people that had been praying for her were answered. So she had some sort of big news apparently to share with her mom about what she was going to do and what her plan was for her future.

Her mom actually visited her, at the home she shared with her girlfriend, the night this crime ultimately took place. They discussed her plans to enroll at a local college for the fall semester and get back started in school. They parted on good terms around nine o'clock that evening. And that evening was the 11th of December, 2017.

Lawyer: These girls are like, early twenties?

Host: Yeah.

Lawyer: Mid-twenties? Yeah. Super young.

Host: Yeah. They're young.

Lawyer: Okay.

Host: They're really young. So like I said, her, her mom came over the night of the crime. They had a really good conversation. They both felt in really good spirits. Her mom left around nine. And their last words to each other were, I love you, which is so sad, but I guess at least they got to say it.

Lawyer: Do you ever think about that? Obsessively?

Host: Yes.

Lawyer: Like what would my last words to you be? Oh my God. Stupid obnoxious husband of mine. and then you're like, shit. I’ve got to choose better words.

Host: I think about it every time. I think anyone does like, or anyone who has anxiety, especially like, anytime I say something mean to someone like inevitably my thought for the next like two weeks is I shouldn't have said that. I'm awful. I'm mean, what if I never speak to them again? What if something bad happens?

I've left someone's house and they said, I love you to me. And I didn't say it, not even because I was mad, just because I was like, okay bye. And they were like, I love you. And I like drove away. I like went back and was like, I love you too.

I didn't mean to not say it. I was just distracted and my friend was like, “bitch, it's okay”.

Lawyer: Yeah. that's like platinum level anxiety. That next, next level. When not only do you stress about like, shitty shit, you said, but you stress about completely normal stuff you said. And you're like, but what if they think it was shitty? What do I do about that? I mean, these are tough cases.

Host: I guess we'll talk about the crime now, which is inevitably less enjoyable to talk about than what lovely young ladies these two were.

So about an hour after the younger woman's mom left, so December 11th at 10:07, 911 dispatch received calls about a suspected shooting that had taken place. The deputies arrived by 10:15 and found two victims at the scene with gunshot wounds to the head.

I have their ages right here. The older woman, 29 was pronounced dead at the scene. And her girlfriend who was 24 was found with life threatening injuries and was airlifted to a hospital out of the area.

I think we've made it pretty clear that we are not from any sort of big fancy location. So for like major-

Lawyer: You mean city. other places besides just cities

Other places besides just cities can have good hospitals.

Host: Other places besides just cities can have good hospitals. I just mean we don't really have a good hospital, whether or not we're a city

Lawyer: We are not from a big, fancy location. we are not. We are from the slums. That's where we're from.

Host: I wouldn't go that far hateful.

Lawyer: Alright. Back to you. I keep going off on tan. There's gonna be a lot of cuts from this episode. I keep going off on tangents.

Host: So her girlfriend who was 24 was found with life threatening injuries and was airlifted to a hospital out of the area. Sadly she also died the next day from her injuries.

Lawyer: So the first thing you're thinking right, is like gunshot wounds to the head - that is personal.

Host: I agree. It's gotta be. Is that something you've found? Is that just an opinion or is that something you've found throughout your career?

Lawyer: I mean, I haven't done a ton of murders.

Host: Right.

Lawyer: I haven't had a much experience in that, but it just, I don't know, almost instinctually that feels personal. You know what I mean? To do something like that? You know what I mean?

Host: Yeah.

Lawyer: To be, to be that angry. Not that I think I could, I don't think it's honestly why, you know, I never carry a firearm because I don't think I could use it. I'm just so yeah. I mean, no-

Host: I agree.

Lawyer: To do that, to take that step. You've got to be just enraged I would think. And just hurt.

Host: Well, hold on to that thought, because we'll see. We'll see if we feel like this person. Had the right to be enraged. We weren't there so, we can't say whether or not they were.

Lawyer: Let me put my judgment hat on. That's what I came here for. I'm ready.

I didn't get a ton of the details of this case. I remember it, but I never remember like, because I had already, I'd been gone for a while. So I don't remember ever like fully understanding what all happened.

Host: Mm-hmm well, it's a lot. I didn't get, so I didn't get police reports for this one.

I feel like maybe I should have, but so the details I have all came from, you know, newspapers. And so I have a lot less detail than I normally have. But I feel like I still have a, a good amount of detail to share with you.

Lawyer: I feel like this one, there was a lot of like a lot more stuff for you to be able to find without having to deep dig that deep.

Host: So the assailant, we'll get back to the apartment and who else lived in the apartment, but the assailant was a 39 year old man. And the night of the murder, he'd convinced his 22 year old friend to drive him to these lady's house because he wanted to steal some marijuana from them.

Lawyer: The marijuana? The marijuana?!

Host: I know, I know. I know.

Lawyer: Come oooooooon. Insane. My goodness.

Host: So this 22 year old girl drives this man in the passenger seat, they had another friend with them, a 26 year old guy in the back.

Lawyer: Like this is, this is just, we're going on a ride for fun.

Host: We're just going to go rob these women.

Lawyer: Oh, oh, okay. Yeah. Even more, even more fun.

Host: Yeah. The three of them drove down county to these women's apartment. And the two victims actually had video surveillance in their home.

Lawyer: Oh, wow.

Host: So the video surveillance from their home basically shows the entire course of events that took place. The older guy, he had actually attempted to date the older woman from the couple while she and her girlfriend were separated one time and he had been invited to their home several times as a friend. He arrived at the women's house that night, December 11th, and they got in an argument.

During the course of the argument, the cameras show the 39 year old guy, whose idea it was to go rob these women, quickly leave the apartment and then come back. Apparently when he left, he went to his SUV, which was parked outside with his two friends. And he got a Ruger pistol and three bullets from the guy who was in the backseat of the car. The guy in the backseat of the car, by the way, later said that he could hear the gunfire from the car and that he helped dispose of evidence by getting rid of the remaining bullet for his friend when he returned to the car after the shooting.

The older guy, we'll call him Ken, he returned with a gun and he held the two women hostage at gunpoint. He eventually forced them down the hall of their apartment and into their bedroom. And at this point, although his back was to the surveillance camera, several muzzle flashes can be seen indicating that he shot the women.

He then left the room and took a safe from their hall closet and exited their home into the white SUV where his friend was waiting to drive him home. The safe that he killed these two women for contained $17,000.

Lawyer: So I know I haven't talked in like five minutes, but I've been feverishly reading all of these notes you’re going off of because I needed to know what these two young women's lives were worth. $17,000?

Host: Yeah.

Lawyer: Come on man.

Host: Pretty insane.

Lawyer: Not that life has any numerical value.

Host: Right.

Lawyer: But like the monetary value…

Host: $17 million. Maybe you could see how things got to that point, right? Yeah. No, I agree with you.

It's crazy. It's crazy that you would feel justified in shooting these women who you were friends with by the way.

Lawyer: That was when I blacked out and I couldn't hear anything else you said, and I had to read what was coming next. I was like, oh nah, what happened?

Yeah, I gotta, I gotta find this out. Oh yeah. It's the people you think you can trust, man. That's it see. Honestly, not to be all like again, tangent and dramatic, but it's the people you think you can trust.

Host: Well, I mean, we've - we're all kind of into crime. I assume everyone listening and both of us, and, and you probably know at least a little bit from your career too. Most violent crimes are committed against people by someone they know. I mean, that's why there are statistics to back up things like always looking at the husband or boyfriend first, you know what I mean?

Like statistically it's like 9 out of 10 or something like that. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but it's very highly skewed toward being murdered by someone that, you know, in some way, and not even just murdered, like sexual assaults and most violent crimes-

Lawyer: I mean you know what they say? They say there's a fine line between love and hate. And I think because, the opposite of love isn’t hate, the opposite of love is indifference. The opposite of love is I don't care. The love and hate are the same. Well, two sides of one coin.

Host: Yeah.

Lawyer: I don't think, I don't think you can hate somebody unless you love them.

And maybe that's why, when it comes to crimes of violence, there's, there's usually been some sort of relationship involved and don't get me wrong. I'm not, I'm not trying to say that these, you know, I hate to be trivializing what happened… There was obviously something that took that guy to that point, but it's just hard to think about because like you said, we're doing this episode a little differently, like from the victim's perspective and it's hard to think about like those, those two lives being extinguished for essentially what?

Host: I mean maybe there was something too, like she kind of rebuffed his advances according to friends in the circle, I don't know if there was something to that. Like, I don't know if he was ultimately pissed about that. Embarrassed about that. I mean, like I said, I don't know this guy and even the victim, you know, I went to high school with her. We hadn't talked since high school. It's not, I didn't know the inner workings of her current life.

Lawyer: I wonder if in the police reports he got interviewed, see seesee and said-

Host: What?

Lawyer: And they asked him, right. And he like gave some little tidbit about what had taken him to that point. It just makes me cray- this is like my life. This literally is the stuff that drives me crazy. Because like, how do you get there? How do you completely. I don't know, control. How do, and is it, is it losing control or was it on purpose?

Host: That's to me that's a whole nother thing, right. Almost seems premeditated. Like even the, the car that he was in, he borrowed from a friend. It was a 1998 Ford Expedition. He borrowed from a woman that he was friends with, and her husband confirmed it. The police obviously got search warrants, and one of the search warrants they got was for that couple's property and their car, which he returned. So it said, I have here that Ken returned the car after the murder.

So immediately gave this, you know, woman and I don't know who the woman was. The Ford expedition back that he borrowed. And he took a gun with him. So it's like, it had to have been, I mean, maybe he always traveled with a gun, but it's like, he went outside and asked for the gun and went back inside. To me, there's some amount of planning or premeditation.

Lawyer: It's funny, because that really is part of the legal standard. Like, you know, they talk about crime of, and this is kind of super layperson speech, but they talk about crimes of passion, you know, in the law they talk about there's a cooling off period.

And if you, if there's a sufficient cooling off period, if you walk away to your car, that's not heat of passion at that point. And I mean, that's what it really comes down to. You know, you should have, you should have taken that deep breath and continued that deep breath all the way home.

Host: Yeah, crazy.

After Ken returned the car after the murder took place, he told the two friends that were with him that he had to murder the women because they were going to call 911. So he didn’t make it out as any sort of, like you were saying you know, crime of passion or heat of the moment. It sounded like he basically planned to do it because it was the only way out that he saw. And also after the murders, the woman who was driving the car, drove Ken home to his house, which is a county up from where the women lived where they all removed the $17,000 from the safe.

When Ken was arrested less than two days later, he still had more than $9,000, which means he spent like seven or $8,000. I mean, it doesn't say specifically exactly how much he had. It just says more than 9,000. So even we had like 9,000, he spent $8,000 in a day and a half.

Lawyer: Yeah. But think about it. He probably gave some of those kids in the car.

Host: Oh, maybe? Yeah. Maybe.

Lawyer: And that's think about that, that's immediately what I would think. He gave them hush money and maybe even the lady with the, with the Ford, whatever.

Host: Yeah. Yeah. That's true. That could be true. I have, I have, but who knows a bunch of additional notes here, so maybe we'll find out cause it's I compiled all of this.

Lawyer: Maybe he spent it on marijuana. I mean, hell to be very important to him.

Host: That seems like a lot of marijuana.

Lawyer: I'm not good at that. That'll happen at work a lot. People will be talking about like different quantities of drugs and I'm like, no, I don't, I don't know what that means. How much is that?

Host: Compare it to a regular object.

Lawyer: Can you show me a picture?

Host: Will it fit in a five gallon bucket? Will it fit in a cup measure? that's me. I need that too. Very visual person.

Lawyer: Same, same, sames.

Host: So I said I wanted to come back to who also lived in the apartment and this is really, really devastatingly heartbreaking, but also I just think this little girl is probably one of the bravest people I've ever heard of in my life because the two women shared their apartment with the older woman's very young daughter who was hiding during the shooting during the entire, the fight, the confrontation, when Ken left and then came back with the gun. She was hiding the whole time.

And as soon as he left, she actually came out of her hiding space and called 911 and got faster care. I mean, not that the outcome was any different, but got care there, you know, got first responders there quickly for her mom and probably her second mom. I mean, or at least a really good friend, important adult in her life.

Lawyer: Yeah, I again, I've blacked out. So I dunno if I could keep doing this shit. It's too sad. It is sad.

Host: In the immediate aftermath of the crime, police actually arrested someone else and were looking for, huh? Another man that they thought helped that person. They thought those two were actually responsible for the shooting. And I don't know the details, but both of those men were later cleared of any involvement.

Lawyer: Weird

Host: Evidence was collected from a number of different locations, including the young women's apartment, the suspect's homes. Once they narrowed in on some suspects vehicles and several homes of friends and associates, including, like I said, that woman that he borrowed a car from the pistol, as well as spent cartridge casings were found at the women's home DNA swabs were taken from the doorknob of the victim's home as well.

And then search warrants were obtained for two other known residences of this, Ken guy. Because it focused in on him pretty quickly. Like I said, he was arrested about a little under two days after the crime. So they were getting all these search warrants and things were evolving pretty quickly.

One of the places that they got a search warrant for, for was a place in the county where the women lived. Because remember he apparently now lived up another county away, a little further north. But one of the places he lived, he had a roommate and he'd lived there until three or four months before the shooting.

And the brother of the owner who lived next door was apparently really shocked to hear what happened. So like a little bit of the, was this a terrible person or was this just a person who made a terrible mistake? The brother of that roommate said this is a quote, “I was shocked, really shocked because he didn't seem like a terrible person”.

He was kicked out of that house though for not paying rent. So he at least was a little unreliable in terms of rent paying.

Lawyer: How did we, I'm distracted because how did they um, how did they narrow it down to him?

Host: So apparently tips were received. Hmm. From, so that's one of the questions I had for you and we'll get down to it.

Cause I'm just kind of reading through my list. But tips were received that the 22 year old woman drove Ken to the murders. And when police took her into custody, she admitted to driving and stated that he had a gun and told her he wanted to Rob the women of marijuana. The cops also received tips that the young man in the backseat had provided the gun to which he also confessed when questioned.

So when I was reading over this, it seemed like the public and the public specifically providing tips, played a big part in this case. Tips came in and then those involved confessions based on information obtained also from tips So would this still work? Like all these tips that people were giving, they have to be corroborated by physical evidence right? They can't just arrest these three people because tips came in, they have to also like confirm by finding the gun and swabbing the doorknob and getting search warrants and all that other stuff they were doing. Right?

Lawyer: Yeah, so investigations are, I think the best way to put it is very fluid. Like there, there is no manual or checklist, like here are the 7.4 things you need to get a warrant.

But then they're also, you know, a warrant, you can get a warrant with probable cause, which I think the easiest way to explain probable cause is actually just saying like, it's more likely than not, almost like almost 50%, not exactly, but the standard for proof beyond a reasonable doubt is obviously much higher than that.

So you can't just oh, we've got probable cause, case closed.

Host: Yeah

Lawyer: You can maybe get a warrant, but that's not enough. Like, and that's not what we're here to do. If, if we want, you know, if we're, if we're prosecuting cases, we want it to be because those are the cases that should be prosecuted. And the evidence shows that those people are guilty.

So right. We want to be thorough. We want to unturn every stone, do everything, check every box. We don't want to do some surface. We don't want to go after the first person. That seems obvious because what if we botch a whole investigation? I mean, not that I'm law enforcement. Law enforcement are making a lot of those decisions, but I'm sure they feel those same pressures.

They don't want to, especially in today's day and age, they want to make sure that everything they're doing is as thorough and as extensive as possible. Yeah. But yeah, it's certainly helpful when people are, you know, even probably in difficult circumstances being willing to say like, Hey, I saw this, I heard this.

It's hard because you don't want to be that person that is potentially sticking your neck out. But also, we all have an obligation to, you know, keep our communities safe.

Host: Well, I think you said something along the lines of, “not to be cheesy, but if you see something say something”, in like our first episode.

Lawyer: I feel like it's true though. I mean, I get it. We, like you said, we were hooligans when we were little. We did shit we shouldn't have. We made mistakes, but we never hurt people. You know what I mean? That that's the line. And I feel like, yeah, you have to, you have to hold that line. You have to hold other people to that line. Even if it's scary, even if it's-

I get it, hell, I've been a victim. I've had to go to court more times than I care to remember, but you have to, or otherwise the criminal justice system, it can't turn not on its own. Yeah. It's tough.

Host: Very tough. Cause like you said, you don't want to be that person that's like reporting something that's not even useful, but-

Lawyer: right, right.

Host: I feel like so many crimes I read about, like the smallest thing that like got the it's the tiniest thing that someone didn't even think anything of. And then like 50 years later they finally say something and it was like, what was kind of needed to break a cold case, you know, it happens.

Lawyer: Right. For sure. I agree.

Host: So Ken, the guy who shot the women, he was arrested on the 13th, a little under two days later, he was charged with two counts of first degree murder and one count of use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. He pled not guilty.

On March 11th, 2019 the judge who was sentencing Ken, sentenced him to 50 years on each of two counts of first degree murder, 30 years on each of two counts of robbery and a total of eight years for two counts of using a firearm for an active sentence of 85 years. He was found guilty on November 1st, 2018, after two days of proceedings.

He did get 85 years and I'm sure that's, I think he could apply for parole at some point in time if he wanted to? I feel like usually when you read about these kinds of things, the assailants don't actually end up a lot of the time, which is interesting- I don't know, bad, good, whatever, but it's always interesting to me that they often don't end up serving their whole sentence for, you know, good behavior and those sorts of things.

Lawyer: Yeah. It's weird. It's different in every jurisdiction. And honestly, I don't even, I don't even entirely understand it and I'm working right in it. There's different sorts of parole, so we don't even really have true parole. I think in true parole states, there's almost a graduated tier process.

If you're tier one, you can get considered for parole and X amount of years and tier two Y amount of years. We don't really have that. So in our jurisdictions, we, I think the person serves 85% of their sentence, but they can apply for like geriatric parole, if they're over the age of 55 or stuff like that. So yeah, it's honestly very, very convoluted. Sentences make my head hurt.

Host: Yeah and, and all of these words actually mean things to you. They don't mean anything to me, so-

Lawyer: Oh shit. What was I saying? I was talking lawyer. I was talking-

Host: No, no. I mean like the stuff I was reading

Lawyer: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no. It's convoluted.

It really is the stuff from the judge. I always feel like, like I said earlier, before we even started recording, I was like, I've literally been lawyering too much. People's eyes are probably glazed over because it's, I mean, it's just, there's so many different little niches and so many different little, you know, parole - that's a whole specific, they probably have dozens and dozens and dozens of standard operating procedures and rules and regulations and whatever.

So yeah. I have no idea. It's too much.

Host: It's a lot. That's why I think it's in - we're on a tangent again, but I think it's so interesting when people are like, lawyers? I can be a lawyer. I can Google stuff. I'm like, do you even do you even understand how complex the law is?

How many different, like even each individual thing, how many different things you need to know about that? Like you think you can just Google?

Lawyer: Good luck. That's all I gotta say. Good luck to you my friend.

Host: So the young woman who was the driver, side note here, I think she had to have been his girlfriend because they were together all the time. And apparently she was actually with Ken when he was arrested, but she wasn't arrested at the time because the tips indicating her involvement hadn't come in yet.

Lawyer: You know what? I was also thinking I'm over here like how did they narrow in on his ass? He was on camera.

Host: Yes, he was on camera.

Lawyer: Oops.

Host: In addition to him being on camera, they identified him. They also had his fingerprints at the scene too.

Host: So she was at-

Lawyer: what were you about to say, seems a little pointless to have done all that premeditation and to have still done such a poor job.

Host: I bet he didn't know that they had a surveillance system.

Lawyer: Oh, you think it was like incognito or like?

Host: Unnoticeable enough that when in the heat of the moment - you know what I mean? I don't, he wasn't trying to hide his face, shoot out the cameras. You know what I mean? He was like fighting with these women and holding them at gunpoint, right in front of the camera, basically the whole crime was caught on camera, so he must not have known.

So I don't know if they were hidden. I mean, I don't know that level of detail, but he at least didn't notice them.

Lawyer: Doesn't it make you like man, to be a fly on that wall of that last conversation?

Host: Oh, yeah. It's too bad that the cameras didn't have any sort of sound and I guess most surveillance cameras don't but-

Lawyer: Right.

Host: Definitely. Would've been, like you said, crazy to hear, did he just, I mean, he said he wanted to rob them. Did he tell them, give me the marijuana? And they said no. Or they said we don't have any, or they said go away. And he went out and got the gun and came back in. I mean, yeah, no one will ever really know other than him..

Lawyer: So the young woman, the driver.

Host: Alright.

So the young, the young lass.

Host: She was of actually arrested two days after he was. So I guess the tips came in between Wednesday and Friday and she was arrested on Friday the 15th. She pled guilty in December 2018 and was charged with use of firearm and commission of a felony and two counts of first degree murder.

Lawyer: She was?!

Host: That's what I have here.

Lawyer: Huh She must have known or at least-

Host: Yea, murder first degree, use of firearm and felony first offense. So they must have somehow figured out that she knew what was going to happen. Right? I mean, that would be, would that be the way that they could charge her with the same crimes he was charged with?

Lawyer: So this is an area of law that's super specific. When you talk about co-conspirators and things like that, and it's, it's honestly not something I deal with a lot, but what I will say is, I think in theory, they could honestly just show that she knew he had a gun and she knew he was going there to rob them.

Because it's almost like there's a jury instruction that basically talks about how every person intends the reasonable and natural consequences of their actions or something along the lines of that. And basically, if you're going with a gun to rob somebody, the reasonable and probable consequences of that are that they might get shot.

So when your co-defendant shoots them, You're out of luck too. Or at least that's my understanding of it for the most part.

Host: Well, it's also interesting because she was sentenced in 2019 and she was sentenced to 23 years in prison.

She got 10 years for each of the counts of first-degree murder and then she got three years for the charge of use of firearm in commission of a felony. He got 25 years for each of the murders, and she only got 10 years for each of the murders, I guess, because she didn't actually-

Host and Lawyer: Pull the trigger.

Lawyer: He was the trigger man.

I mean, think about that, right? Yeah - she should be held responsible, you know. She should, but it, we talk about this all the time at work and it sucks, but it's true. Like there, there is a scale of awful, there are circles of hell. There are different levels of horrible. And driving somebody to kill somebody and shooting two women in the head….

Those are different levels of horrible.

Host: Yeah. I agree with that.

Lawyer: They're both horrible. Don't get me wrong.

Host: Yeah, definitely both inexcusably horrible

Lawyer: But just different.

Host: So the last guy who was in the back of the SUV was eventually arrested on Monday after the crime. So that was the 18th. He also pled guilty and- could their sentences also be different because they pled guilty and he pled, Ken pled not guilty?

Yeah,

Lawyer: That's definitely part of it. Cause-

Host: I mean, because they both pled guilty, right.

Lawyer: It depends on the jurisdiction, but in theory, the sentence could have been part of a plea agreement or at least like an agreement to go lenient or like make a recommendation for a lenient sentence, you know?

Host: He was charged with two counts of felony accessory after the fact even though he was the one that gave-

Lawyer: But he handed him the gun, gave him the gun?

Host: Right. And he still was only charged with accessory after the fact for disposing of the extra bullet. Which is apparently what he said. He did.

Lawyer: Interesting. Yeah. I'd have to, I'd have to, I mean, off the top of my, yeah, I don't know. That sounds crazy, right. Maybe.

Host: I mean, I feel like, I don't know, but this is where I think some people get very like - the system is broken and not fair. And I don't know, these people, like, was this guy rich? Was his uncle a lawyer, you know what I mean? I feel like that's where people kinda look for those kinds of things.

Lawyer: Maybe they had no evidence that he knew.

Host: Right.

Lawyer: You know, maybe he was along for the ride.

Host: Yeah. His sentencing was pushed back because his attorney was sick, but he eventually was sentenced to four years in prison for the two counts of accessory after the fact.

Lawyer: Damn.

Lawyer:

Host: So if you’re going to steal some marijuana, you should be in the back seat.

Lawyer: Apparently. Wonder how much money was worth four years of his freedom.

Host: I don't, I don't know.

Lawyer: Like, did he even get any money?

Host: I don't know. Potentially. Because he was missing $8,000 a day and a half later. So Ken was so like you said, maybe he gave some of it to these people that were with him for their silence or for their help or whatever.

Lawyer: It's hard to spend $8,000 in 1.5 days where we're from.

Host: Unless you're doing drugs other than marijuana maybe.

Lawyer: Is that how much drugs cost?!

Host: I don't know how much drugs cost, but I do know that I had a very, like, best, best, like in my very, very close circle in high school who eventually was involved in an accident and got a big settlement because he suffered a severe brain injury and he spent the entirety of the settlement on drugs.

And it was like thousands and thousands and thousands. I mean, I don't remember the details because you know, neither of us have a great memory.

Lawyer: Right.

Host: But I mean he spent all of it on drugs.

Lawyer: This is why I would be hopeless in drug cases. I would be like what, how much, for how much money? That's how oh, huh. Yeah.

Well I’ll be over there for the buy. I mean, yeah. Nope. We're not in undercover cops. I totally knew that. Mm-hmm

Host: I also think, I don't know. I had another note here. This is unrelated. I'm changing the subject

Lawyer: Oh, my b. Are we on a tangent again??

Host: No, not because of, not because of you just because I got distracted by this flittering across my computer screen-

The guy who was sitting in the back, he had a pretty extensive rap sheet. In addition to the accessory, after the fact he had previously been charged with assault on a law enforcement officer obstruction/resisting. I don't know. Can you see all of these because they're all like abbreviated obstruct/resist threat/force.

Lawyer: Yeah. The way that they're list, that's just dip

Host: Destruction of property with intent greater than a thousand dollars, a misdemeanor assault charge, trespassing after forbidden, driving while intoxicated, possession of marijuana, he refused a blood/breathalyzer test while driving and his license was revoked.

And then, okay. We get into like things that I think are normal which I probably shouldn't think no speeding: 69 and a 55. A little less normal, unlawful alcoholic purchase/possession.

Lawyer: That’s probably just underage drinking. That's not how the code section actually reads. So that's listed really funny, but it's underage possession, which I, I think that probably is what it's referencing.

Host: So I just thought it was interesting. Just an interesting side note that he had so many different charges throughout his early adulthood.

Lawyer: Yeah. I don't know, man. I mean, there's something to be said for - I don't know what to call it. You know, they call it a lot of different stuff in terms of people who get trapped in the system, recidivism rates, school to prison pipeline. You know, me, I'm not political, but it is sometimes more often than not the case that if you get a kid in the system, you keep a kid in the system.

And maybe sometimes, that's the right outcome. Maybe sometimes it's not.

Host: Yeah.

Lawyer: Yeah. I don't know. It definitely is. It's hard to figure out your way around a life - once the only way you've known is jail and trouble and jail and trouble and jail in trouble. And you know, unfortunately like whether or not people really want to admit it, in a lot of circumstances, probation - I think, used to be hopefully for the most part, it used to be set up, you know, to fail.

 It used to be set up to be impossible. You know, you put people in these impossible circumstances and then wonder why they, can't prevail. I think a lot of that is changing.

Host: I was gonna say that. I hope it's changed.

Lawyer: Yeah. I mean, I think that's common sense, right? So you can't continue to incarcerate people and make them completely in-able to contribute to society.

And then being like, damn what's with all these people, why can't they contribute to society? That's crazy. Right.

Host: We didn't give them any tools. We didn't help them improve their lives in any way. We shoved them in a box with a bunch of career criminals for X amount of time. And didn't give them, I mean, do they give them, I know you can do things like take classes on your own, but is there structured guidance, like how to work through your problems? How to more effectively communicate? Do they give you those sorts of tools?

Lawyer: It all depends. Local jails have different programs than statewide prisons do. And then federally I have no idea, but yeah, for the most part there's always different, you know, fatherhood programs and drug programs.

Host: Mm-hmm. But are they voluntary?

Lawyer: Yeah, they're voluntary. So yeah, you, you can either wallow or in theory, whatever grow, but you know, sometimes there's, I know that sometimes there's parameters around those different classes that makes it difficult to attend, even if you want to, not under all circumstances, but under some, some circumstances and maybe that's the right call, but it's just, I don't know. We act like we can just put 'em in the box and pretend they're not there, but we can't.

Host: Well, I think that generally humans kind of act like life is black and white, right. Just generally in all facets, not just crime and how to, I don't know if what we're trying to do is rehabilitate criminals. I think in all things, we kind of act like it's either this or that when it's not this or that.

It's like how the whole episode started. What was it?...

Lawyer: There you go being all, falafel again -  

Host: …every human being has value? I mean, it's easy to say that they don’t, or they do when, because they are a murderer or they're a rapist or they're a dead beat dad or whatever…

But like you said, most people are much more complicated than that. And I think like, life is more complicated than that.

Lawyer: Yeah, man, I think there's some value to that, right? I mean, we can't just pretend that people are disposable and that when they do one thing that we don't like and whatever you don't have to have, you know, I don't know. Now I'm just rambling. We can talk about something else. I'm talking shit.

Host: That was our story for the day.

Lawyer: Very sad.

Host: They're all sad.

Lawyer: I feel like that one was especially hard though, because like I said, it was more from the victim's perspective and super focused on them and humanizing them and almost it made it more, like you said more difficult almost to see the other person as redeeming cause it's so difficult to think about the loss.

So yeah, we need a cliff hanger.

Host: What are we gonna do?

Lawyer: So what the truth of the matter is we're going to talk about our cousins friends, side piece. Oh, and what she had going on. in her fucking, I shouldn't say fucking, but house of horrors.

Host: I feel like use of the word fucking is appropriate, honestly.

Lawyer: Oh, I'm having like a visceral reaction to it's disgusting.

Host: I feel like we need an extra enormous, like warning for..

Lawyer: This might be the end. This might be the end for me. I might not be able to go on after next week's episode. might be when I finally call it quits. When our cousin's cousins girlfriend attacks.

Host: Well, if it's not the end for our young lawyer after next week, then you can find us on the internet: murdereryouknow@gmail.com, Instagram @murdereryouknowpodcast, Facebook, @MYKpod. Other than that, we'll catch you on the flip side.

Lawyer: Well, I'm going to really have to-

Host: And I blew you up for not having anything to contribute, but the episode, before last week you contributed all of this stuff.

Lawyer: What did I contribute?

Host: I don't even remember. But then last week I was like, I would ask you if you have anything to contribute, but every time I do, you're just like blahferngrkbt, and then I was relistening-

Lawyer: Yeah. Oh yea, I'm on my soapbox at the end. Yeah. I told you, I've been talking to damn much

Host: When I was listening to the episode that we recorded the week before I was like, oh, wait I asked her if she had anything to contribute. She said all kinds of things.

Lawyer: So this is the reward, I guess…

Host: I formally apologize.

Lawyer: …for all my hard work, perseverance, passion, giving up my Sunday - not giving up my Sunday Fundays, I shouldn't say that. This is a nice fun addition. This is a nice addition to my Sunday.

Host: All right. Well, I'll see you.

Lawyer: I don't have anything to add this time though. I'm out. I'm out chereeee.

Host: I'll see you when I ruin your next Sunday.