Episode Six: Part One - Your Cousin’s Friend’s Girlfriend
Host: Hello, it's me.
Lawyer: Is it me you’re looking for?
Host: Oh, I was doing Adele.
Lawyer: That is Adele isn't it?
Host: No, that's Lionel Richie.
Lawyer: Probably, yeah. I had something to say to you earlier when, about the dryer-
Host: Lionel Richie.
Lawyer: Did you just Google it?
Host: Yeah.
Lawyer: Oh yeah. That's what I was gonna tell you earlier when I was I had to go turn off the dryer, so it didn't mess up the segment, I messaged my cousin about this, because I forgot that's this was the segment we were doing. So I message-
Host: What did he say?
Lawyer: I messaged him and I said, “so was your best friend dating that lady when they had the… situation” I’ll leave it at that. And he said, “don't remember it was so long ago. Either same time or close to.”
Host: Eeeeoooouuhhhh.
Lawyer: Sounds like there may have been some infidelitay. Ooops ooops ooops.
Host: Oh, I hate that.
Lawyer: Anyways, cutting this segment out.
Host: By the way, back to Hitler's girlfriend.
Lawyer: Oh, I forgot about Hitler's girlfriend.
Host: She was born on my birthday.
Lawyer: I'm worried that my microphone is still twitching red on. Do you remember when, like I tried to convince you, I was going to buy this for myself and you were just like, bitch, I don't even believe you. I'm going to buy it for you for Christmas.
Host: Yeah. And then you were like saying you were going to buy it. And I was like, you should just wait until Christmas or something.
Lawyer: I knew.
Host: Cause you were like had plans or maybe I didn't even say anything. Cause I was like, I know this bitch is not gonna buy this still. Even if she's saying she is.
Lawyer: Hard life, man. We sat down and did our budget app.
Host: Why are you shaking your head?
Lawyer: Cause I'm just sad. Like, how do you spend like $500 a month on fast food and like $700 a month on groceries? Like we're not eating that much food. So how are we spending that much money? Anyways, moving on, moving past.
Host: Yeah,
Lawyer: I'm going to get depressed. We're not going to be able to finish this segment.
Host: Okay. Don't get depressed yet. There are plenty of things-
Lawyer: There's murder ahead.
Host: -to make you depressed. Well, I also wanted to tell you that I looked up on what appeared to be a drug forum on the internet.
I looked up how much I looked up how much cocaine a person should do. And these people are very scientific. They said you should do a one inch line. That's one millimeter thick. Soooo-
Lawyer: I thought, I thought you had looked up whether or not it's normal to do cocaine through a rolled up dollar bill.
Host: I didn't look that up.
Lawyer: I wonder if that's on there. If there's like, an accoutrements section?
Host: Probably. Like what’s the best things to suck cocaine up through? It also said one gram was way too much for one person for a first time.
Lawyer: Aren't you just afraid that all the children in our lives have access to internet? Isn't that just terrifying?
Host: Yes, it is terrifying. The internet is a horrible cesspool.
Okay. So anyway, let's see. How do we want our, want to start our story? This story took place in 2011 at the home of a young couple. So this couple Have been together for a really long time. Geez. I didn't do the math out, but they had been together for like six years, seven years.
They both worked at a barbecue restaurant in the town where we're from. They, by all accounts were both friendly, fun, kind people…
So in 2011 the police were called to this young couple's home for an unrelated search warrant related to a burglary. I couldn't find many other details on that. And their house was beautiful. It was well kept. They had fresh flowers in the kitchen, in a vase. It was bright and airy. They had a dog who was well cared for and seemed well loved. They had a new baby who was about a month old at the time in a beautiful, well-furnished nursery with a rocker and the changing table and you know, all of the bells and whistles that a new baby needs. But in the back of the home-
Lawyer: This is like the worst intro ever.
Host: Sorry.
Lawyer: I like feel ill. Cause for once I actually know what we're talking about.
Host: Yea,
Lawyer: Uuuuuuuuugh.
Host: So in the back of the home, was a room that kind of seemed really out of place. It was dirty, it was dark.There was lots of trash in there, old broken exercise equipment piled up everywhere. Just not. As lovely as the rest of the home was. And when the officers went into the room and were looking around at all the mess in there, I, I don't even want to say this, a little arm reached out at them.
So obviously they were, distraught and they turned to see what was happening, and there was an upside down crib on the floor of the room. And I'm not going to go, I'm really not going to go into too many details. And I think you'll be horrified to know that what I'm sharing is like the-
Lawyer: 1% - a fraction.
Host: Right. Like the tiniest bit of what was found and what was going on.
Lawyer: HORROR. I guess, I gotta, I'm gonna take a water break. So you take it away.
Host: So the crib was overturned and it had no legs. The mattress was rotting away. It had boxes and heavy weights piled on top of it all the way up to the ceiling and attempt to keep, ended up being a, a little girl, a six year old girl inside, to prevent her from escaping.
The upside down crib was small to the point that the little girl couldn't extend her legs and they were like folded up underneath her. And she was sitting on her heels, which caused open wounds on her bottom where she'd been sitting on her heels for years. She was sitting in inches of her own waste. It was all over her body, on her skin, under her nails-
Lawyer: Wait minute, wait a minute. You said you weren't sharing no damn details.
Host: I said I wasn't sharing a lot.
Lawyer: Whew.
Host: This is like I said, the tiniest amount of what was going on.
Lawyer: Listen, I feel like I'm usually the comic relief, but there's not a whole lot of comic-
Host: There's not a whole lot of relief. I feel like it's not even appropriate to joke for like the next six months after I tell this story.
Lawyer: Like, so I'm just going to intermittently scream, rageful things throughout this segment.
And you're going to have to take some of 'em out. Okay. So, buckle in.
Host: So her hair was really brittle and falling out and she only weighed 16 pounds at the time that the officers found her, which put her in the 50th percentile for a six month old child.
She was also eight inches shorter than she should have been and had severely stunted brain growth leading the child abuse pediatric specialist who evaluated her to believe that the severe abuse had started around the age of three, perhaps as young as one.
The mother herself admitted that her daughter was fine. I'm air quoting until-
Lawyer: Is this poke? Is this pok?- Are we poking?
Host: Maybe
Lawyer: Sweet baby Jesus, take the wheel.
Host: Yeah, until about one year of age, when she “drastically changed and became a different child”. If the abuse did start around the, oh, I don't, I won't, I don't wanna say this part yet. I'll keep this part for later.
But there were also sippy cups of spoiled milk in the converted crib with her empty trays from TV dinners. But the father admitted that toward the end, they barely ever fed her at all, other than giving her a pop tart once in a while.
Lawyer: Soooo, I'm going to, head out. It's been a good segment. Thanks for bringing us here to another circle of hell.
Host: Talk to you later.
Lawyer: Bye.
Host: Bye.
I mean, this is an okay part that's approaching right now? Okay.
Lawyer: Okay. I'm trying to hold on.
Host: A healthy one month old baby boy was also found in a-
Lawyer: Noooo that's worse. That's worse somehow.
Host: Yeah. I guess you're fucking right, man.
Lawyer: How did they just like, nah, we don't want that one. This one's cool.
Host: Well, I'm gonna attempt to-
Lawyer: Sorry. Let me, I gotta see, I gotta pedal back. This is gonna be on the interweb someday.
Host: It's okay. I think everyone is feeling the same way.
Lawyer: Makes it easy to do the job I have, man.
Host: Yeah. That's a very good point.
Lawyer: Mm-hmm
Host: When you know that this kind of stuff is happening out there.
Lawyer: Mm-hmm
Host: And someone needs to bring these people to justice.
Lawyer: Do something about it. Okay. So how old was the baby? I was shouting. How old was the healthy baby?
Host: She was six.
Lawyer: No, no, no, no, no. The healthy baby.
Host: Oh, the healthy baby was about a month old.
Lawyer: Okay. A month. I was shouting, I missed that part.
Host: Yeah. So the healthy baby was about a month old, a little boy. So it turned-
Lawyer: Ooooooh, a boy.
Host: Yeah. And so it turns out that the, this woman, she hid both of her pregnancies from everyone she knew. Well, I shouldn't say both. There's a complication that I haven't introduced yet.
So in the beginning of the investigation this couple swore that their six year old daughter and their one month old son were their only children. But after-
Lawyer: Every damn time we talk about this damn case I block out this damn part, and then right around now in the conversation, I remember where we're going. Because it’s that hellish, I've blocked it. Yeah. I can't even do my signature sound, man. I just, I don't even have the strength.
Host: No. After a very lengthy investigation, investigators learned of a third child, the couple repeatedly told officers they only had two kids, but during the investigation, following the discovery of their daughter, eventually the father told the deputies there had been another little boy who they'd named their new son after, in his memory.
The deputies then found baby books detailing the first few months of each of the couple's children's lives. And they found one about the second little boy. The book was from years before their surviving son was born.
So in 2005, when the couple first got pregnant with their daughter, who was six at the time of the crime, the mother was only 17 years old and the father wasssss 22. So they told investigators, their lawyers, they mentioned during the trial, that they were scared for it to be known that he had gotten the mother pregnant because she was under the age of 18. When-
Lawyer: Because that's a crime. That's the word you're looking for. We have whole words for that. It's called-
Host: Well from what I was reading, and obviously you would know better than me, what I was reading said that the age of consent in Virginia is 17. So they actually didn't really have anything to be worried about.
Lawyer: So there's no such thing as an age of consent. That's just like a phrase that people have made up. That doesn't mean anything but consensual sex with a minor is a crime. It's class, one misdemeanor. It's. Consensual. It's not a non-consensual sexual act, but it is a class one misdemeanor. It is against the law to have sex with a child under the age of 18.
Host: Okay.
Lawyer: Whether or not they consent, it's against the law.
Host: So because of that, they kept the first pregnancy secret.
Lawyer: #ICan'tGiveAnyOfYouPeopleLegalAdvice. Just saying.
Host: So they had this little girl in 2005 or 2006. I'm not sure exactly. When in the, like when in the year she was pregnant, but in the beginning of the little girl's life, they actually took her out in public with them. They would often take her to family functions and events and they would tell family members and friends that she was the father’s niece.
Lawyer: So wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Before we move on. And before, because I've been forgetting to ask this for like five minutes. Sorry. I'm blowing you up, but-
Host: You're fine.
Lawyer: When was the boy first boy born in relation to the daughter and in relation to the second son?
Host: Well, so that's what I'm getting to you. So I was just saying-
Lawyer: The daughter's first? Daughter's first.
Host: Yes, the daughter was first.
Lawyer: Okay.
Host: The daughter was born in 2005.
Lawyer: Gotcha.
Host: So in 2005, when she was 17 and pregnant, she hid the pregnant from everyone like her mother, her best friend, no one in the entire world, other than her baby daddy, knew that she was pregnant and expecting a child.
But after the child was born, they would often take her out in public, like to events and stuff. And they would say, oh, this is, you know, our niece, this is our best friend's daughter. Who's staying with us for the weekend or whatever they would make up lies, like to explain why they had this little child out and about with them in public.
Lawyer: So obviously when she's 17, she's living with him. Because how else could she have hidden that?
Host: Yeah. I don't know. I actually think she lived with her parents at the time. Yeah. But, I mean, side note into like a person that I actually was very good friends with when I was in college who was pregnant twice and concealed the pregnancy both times.
And actually the second pregnancy, her boyfriend, who she lived with, who had no idea she was pregnant, and it's amazing how easily you can depending on how your body shows it- Crazy how easily you can con- I mean, she just wore baggy sweatshirts and it looked like she'd put on 10 or 15 pounds, but she was out at parties with us, like doing drugs, like crazy wild, like always. And it turned out she was pregnant, like two pregnancies, right on top of the other, basically.
So the first one, actually, the child was born and she and her baby daddy moved in together and were caring for the baby together. And she got pregnant again, concealed it from him, who she lived with, concealed it from everybody. Her parents actually told the cops later that they were kind of suspicious that she might have been pregnant, but that, that baby, that I guess, fetus, her boyfriend found in a little attached, utility closet outside of their apartment in a bag.
And that was the first he knew anything of it.
Lawyer: Alright. Well, I'm gonna head out again. Good segment. Let's go ahead and wrap. What the hell? I mean, I just, what?
Host: I just wonder, I mean, to me, it just makes me wonder is there a better, is there a different way? I mean, again, I'm not trying to defend people who do horrible things. I'm not trying to victim blame. I'm just, these are the things that I wonder in my mind to myself, is there a different way that we should teach people about sex? About pregnancy? Is, is there a different way?
I mean, no one wants their young daughter to get pregnant with a child that, you know, they're not prepared for, but is the option of your kid feeling like they have no outlet and no other option besides something like that? The only other thing available to us, you know what I'm saying?
Lawyer: It's crazy. It's crazy, man. Cause I, I just. it sucks because you know, your, you know, our aunt's favorite thing to say, your brain isn't fully formed till you're 26.
Host: Yeah.
Lawyer: So you've got kids in dangerous situations, and I don't almost mean dangerous, “they'll get hurt”, but dangerous to their futures. And how do you let them know, you know, this has a real life, life altering consequences. This is not just, cool-y, fun-y, thrill-y. I mean, because I was doing ridiculous stuff when I was a kid.
Host: Yeah.
Lawyer: That I didn't think you know anything of.
Host: Yeah.
Lawyer: I was - nobody could tell me nothing. And I think unfortunately, most kids are like that to a certain extent.
It's hard to conceptualize - this bad thing can happen to me - when you're that young.
Host: I don't think it's even just, I don't honestly even think it's just kids. I think it's a defense mechanism for humans generally. You know what I mean?
Lawyer: Mm-hmm
Host: Like nothing bad could ever happen to me or my family. You know, you're going to die, but it's some kind of, far away removed…your brain won't even really allow you to think about what that's going to be.
I mean, our brains are just this crazy, amazing thing that can protect us from so many things and fill in so much information for us that we might not have available to us. And I think sometimes it maybe, backfires.
Lawyer: Fight, flight, or freeze all day long, man. It's that down to the roots organic responses that you can't even, you can't necessarily fight your way out of.
Host: Being human is weird.
Lawyer: It's you ever just like, where do I cancel the membership on this? Because I'm trying to be a dog. I'm trying to sit in the yard, do some sunbathing. Catch a bird every now and again, all this like job stuff is for the birds and like bills and - death someday looming. You think dogs sit around and thinking about their death looming? Yeah right.
Host: Absolutely not.
Lawyer: Trying to be a dog.
Host: I saw something the other day that was like, yeah, sure, humans could be laying around in hammocks, eating fruit and drinking wine in the sunshine, but instead, we decided we wanted to have jobs and being this super consumeristic shit lifestyle.
Lawyer: Facts.
Host: And it makes people do shit like these people.
Lawyer: Yeah.
Host: I don't know if that's, I mean, well, because it seemed like they were scared of the judgment of their families and their friends for being as young as the mom was.
Lawyer: This takes it to a whole nother level dude.
Host: Oh, absolutely.
Lawyer: This just takes it. I mean, this is just, there's almost no way to rationalize this.
Host: Yeah.
Lawyer: And I'm not saying that from a point of judgment. I'm saying that honestly, truly like from a point of… You know, that case out in California, where that dad took his kids out to Mexico and stabbed him with a spear fish or something?
Host: Mm-hmm
Lawyer: What the hell? It's almost like you just can't believe that's true.
Host: Yeah.
Lawyer: That's what I mean. Like, what?
Host: Yeah. It's absolutely crazy.
Lawyer:
Host: He was, he was not okay though.
Did you, did you ever read more about that? He had gotten all into these lizard people, conspiracies, and he believed that his wife was one of the lizard people. And so then obviously the kids had inherited that DNA. And he just like spiraled downhill, super fast in weeks. He thought, in order to, prevent these lizard people basically from taking over the world, he had to kill his children.
Lawyer: Well, what drove these people to put that little girl in a cage?
Host: I don't think you'll see, I have some quotes from them and from the judge and stuff, really to get a little bit more into the story and, even they are like, we have, there's no justification. We have no explanation. We can never be forgiven. They had no, they had no rationalization for what they had done, even them. And like, if they don't, who would? I mean, maybe a really fantastic psychologist.
Lawyer: Mm. Alright. Well, let's dive back into it before I check out completely.
Host: Okay.
Lawyer: So they're chilling with the baby. They're going to the fairs, their little daughter. They're saying she's homeboy's niece.
Host: Yeah.
Lawyer: What does anything, can anyone speak to like a event?
Host: Yes. So we're coming up on that. So in 2007, the mom got pregnant again. They both worked at this barbecue place. I don't think it's even around anymore, but they both worked at this barbecue place.
She concealed her pregnancy by wearing a polo shirt and a baggy apron at work and baggy clothes outside of work. And she gave birth to their second child in, did I say in 2005 already, she gave birth to the second child at home with-
Lawyer: Nah, nah, nah, you just messed that up. It was 2007.
Host: 2007. Yeah. Sorry.
She gave birth to the second child at home while her baby daddy was at work. And by the way, they never took either of these children, to regular checkups, to the doctor. She actually was struggling to breastfeed and eventually ran out of milk. And they didn't ask for any assistance or medical care with any of that stuff.
Lawyer: Well, I mean, they had, they had PopTarts, so it was straight.
Host: *RAGE*
So after giving birth, she texted-
Lawyer: I mean, women die in childbirth and she gave birth to two children in a bed somewhere?
Host: With no one there. She was alone.
Lawyer: That's that's that's crazy.
Host: Yeah. So after giving birth to the son, like immediately after, she texted her boyfriend who was at work, a picture of the baby and he came home to find them both asleep, snuggled up on the couch.
I mean, this secret was so well kept, like I said,
Lawyer: Surprise – family! Did he know?
Host: He knew, he knew.
Lawyer: Okay. Okay. Okay.
Host: But family, people who considered themselves close, close friends had no idea that this couple had kids. One of the women's coworkers said she had no idea until 2011, when news of the arrest broke that these two had kids
Lawyer: 2011 is SIX fricking years later. Wow. So for six years, that lady had no idea that she had two kids, correct?
Host: Her own mom didn't even know. No one knew.
Lawyer: Can you imagine?
Host: No.
Lawyer: Mom knows everything.
Host: How do you keep something? That is, so, I mean, part of the thing is they would leave them home alone, even when they were tiny, tiny. And that's kind of coming up in this next little bit here, but they would leave their, the kids home alone, when they were newborns.
So I think that's probably part of it. If they needed to go somewhere and they didn't want people to know about the kids, they would just like put them in their cribs. Alright, see you later and head out for whatever. They didn't get babysitters or childcare or anything when they went to work.
Lawyer: Wonder if the cribs were facing up or down at that point.
Host: I don't know. I don't think I wanna know.
Lawyer: Yeah, honestly, that's cool. We can move past that.
Host: So we're still in 2007. The dad went home one day to find his son in his crib, struggling to breathe with a blanket, partially covering his face. Now the child was home alone - he was seven months old. So the dad tried CPR- well, he wasn't home alone. His you know, how old, two and a half year old, two and a half, three year old sister was there.
Lawyer: So, so we're doing that, we're doing that thing again where we make it worse? Alright.
Host: Sorry.
Lawyer: Cool.
Host: So the dad tried CPR, which he'd seen on TV before, but he had a severe phobia of putting his mouth on anyone else's mouth. His lawyer later said in court that he tried to make himself put his mouth to his sons, but he just simply could not. He couldn't force himself to do it. So he completely panicked.
He didn't wanna call 911 because he was concerned that medics would find-
Lawyer: a secret daughter?!
Host: -the babies.
Yeah. The children were both secret. They had never been to a doctor. They didn't have birth certificates, anything. So he put his son back in the bassinet and he just went to work.
When he returned home later, he found his girlfriend hysterical, carrying the dead baby around the house. Later the mother actually told the investigator that the baby was dead when she arrived home from work and that the last time she'd seen the baby, he was drinking his bottle before she left for work that morning.
In the aftermath of this loss, the mom, apparently just she wasn't, okay. The way she tells it, the abuse of the daughter started at this time. After the loss of her son, she went to severe, severe depression. She carried his little body around for days and eventually allowed her boyfriend to build a little wooden coffin for him. The dad wanted to bury the baby in the woods, but the mom wanted to keep him more nearby. They eventually agreed to bury him under a shed in their backyard. Which I think is the horrifying part that you say you always black out.
So yeah, that event, according to the mom is what caused the treatment of the daughter. I don't, I don't really have anything else to say about it. I, I don't-
Lawyer: Welp, now that we've all died and gone to hell together. This is the most horrible segment we've done so far.
Host: And it's crazy because like, we've joked about the town that we're from. In all seriousness, it's actually a pretty quiet, beautiful, you know, country town.
Lawyer: I remember this was, this was the end of the damn world.
Host: When everybody found out about this, this rocked our community. Everyone was like, here?! This doesn't happen here. No one is murdered here. Violent things don't happen - yeah, maybe break-ins, vandalism, but aggressive, violent crimes, against children, family members? People lost their minds.
Lawyer: Well, and I mean, I think that's kind of the thing about all of these segments, right? Like each of these things happened over the course of 20 however many years and each one was like the holy shit.
It's the whole, bad things don't happen to me. Bad things don't happen here.
Host: Yep.
Lawyer: Not in my Hicksville.
Host: Yeah.
Lawyer: Not here. And then every, and then it would happen and then it would happen again. And then it would happen again.
Host: Yeah.
Lawyer: This was one of the worst though. I mean, this, this is. And then I, it's funny. I told you that I had no idea what the hell you were talking about when you kept talking about my cousin's best friend's girlfriend. I had also blocked that out.
Host: Yeah.
Lawyer: Cause that's almost unbelievable.
Host: Yeah.
Lawyer: That he had no idea.
Host: And he was dating this person.
Lawyer: He was in some, I mean, I don't want to smear people, but he was in some level of a relationship with this person and he had no idea that there was babies in the shed and babies in the cr- excuse me, cages in the back bedroom.
Host: I'm not trying to be like-
Lawyer: There was only one cage. I shouldn't, I shouldn't dramatize.
Host: I'm not, I'm not trying to be likeeeeee
Lawyer: Judge-y?
Host: Nooooo
Lawyer: Angry?
Host: Graphic.
Lawyer: Oh, of course.
Host: But don't you think it must have?...
Lawyer: …smelled?
Host: Yes. So did they just, never have people over, like this guy that she was dating? I would love to know if he went there, if he ever went to her house.
Lawyer: Yeah, my God.
Host: That is basically what happened.
2011, when officers went to their house, for this other crime
Lawyer: Did, when he, my bad but I have legit questions about this.
Host: Go ahead.
Lawyer: Did he tell them that the baby was under the shed or they?
Host: Yes.
Lawyer: So he finally came out with it?
Host: Yes. He kind of buckled under the pressure of the investigation and the questioning. In the beginning they were like, nope, we just have these two kids, for awhile. And then eventually he just couldn't do it anymore. And he was like, actually, we had another son,
Lawyer: I guess they're claim- like everybody's worst suspicion is that they abused that boy too, right?
Host: Well, so…
Lawyer: But they're claiming, yeah, they're claiming the exact opposite. That they were a little happy secret family, correct? Until tragedy struck.
Host: Correct. And in the end, I mean, I have all the trial stuff coming up here. But in the end, the judge actually wouldn't allow the state to, I guess, charge him. Is that the right term? With murder of the seven month old? Because there wasn't any evidence that he had, yes, he neglected the child and he didn't intervene, I guess when it might have needed help, but there was no actual evidence - the state wasn't able to present enough evidence that he actually intentionally, knowingly, maliciously harmed the child.
Lawyer: Yeah. So I'm trying to look at your notes a little bit. I'd have to kind of understand better what sort of procedure is being referenced here. But judges actually can't stop the state from proceeding with charges. The state can get charges - well, in this jurisdiction, the state can get charges in one of two ways; either through a magistrate issuing an arrest warrant or through a grand jury returning a true bill of indictments. So judges have nothing to do with it.
Host: Well, all I had was-
So first they were charged with the treatment of the six year old, that all happened in 2013. And then later in 2015, they came before a judge for the charges relating to the deceased seven month old.
Lawyer: They had a bench trial in front of the judge. And after the state presented all the evidence, the judge said, no, you know, this isn't enough. That could certainly happen.
Host: That's what it pretty much says.
It says after a five day trial in May, 2015. Oh, okay. With the judge and a witness, Brian was found not guilty. The judge stated there was not enough evidence to be sure that he intentionally harmed the child.
Lawyer: Mm.
Host: But I had here that, I thought it was interesting to note, that the forensic anthropologist from the Smithsonian, who investigated the remains, indicated that the baby was chronically malnourished, probably more so than any other remains he had ever investigated. And he said that the baby's body was actually taking nutrients from the bones in order to survive at the time of its death.
But I mean she had struggled to breastfeed and I don't think they used formula or anything. I think when she couldn't breastfeed they just went to like normal milk. So they might have been trying, you know what I mean, to the best of what their ability was at the time? Well, I guess there's no-
Lawyer: That's kind of the thing about the law that people don't understand. Like reasonable doubt is a, is a beast man.
Host: Yeah.
Lawyer: So beyond a reasonable doubt is a very difficult standard. And if there, if there's a reasonable explanation such as they struggled with breast milk and they were perfectly, attentive parents that, you know, couldn't get their baby to gain weight, then that's reasonable doubt.
Host: I mean, is there anything like, is it illegal, I guess it's not illegal to not like seek out appropriate medical treatment for your children.
Lawyer: Yeah. I mean, it is illegal. It's child abuse and neglect under certain circumstances. But yeah, I mean, they, they couldn't exactly prove that the child was abused or neglected because they couldn't tie it to anything I would assume. Right. That's kind of the whole, it could have been.
Host: And they, they were charged with the abuse and neglect of the child, but not with the murder.
Lawyer: Right. The six year old they could prove, obviously, because those circumstances are, I mean, that's not even a question about whether or not that child was abused, neglected. That's they're just shown one picture of the damn room to the jury and sat down. \
I hate cases like that. I hate to be dramatic, but the cases that are like unlosable, those are the ones with the most pressure.
Host: Yeah.
Lawyer: Cause what if I fuck this, imagine how that prosecutor was feeling. What if I fuck this case up?
Host: Something that's so egregious.
Lawyer: Right? What if I fuck this case up with this baby in this cage? Ooh. It's a lot of pressure. Those cases, those cases are the worst. Honestly, give me a, give me a gamble of a case any day. Yeah. Not to, again, dramatize my job, but well-
Host: I just feel like when children are involved, like, oof, they're so defenseless. I mean, I'm not saying anyone deserves to go through something like this, but I don't know. It just seems so much worse when it's like someone who literally never had a chance.
Lawyer: That's definitely the hardest part for me when the kids are involved. Yeah. And I think it's for anybody. Can you imagine being the law enforcement that, I mean, however you feel about law enforcement, I'm not here to tell you how to feel. Everybody is entitled to however they feel about whatever they feel about but can you imagine walking into that damn room?
Oh my God. That's your job. You walked into that room as your job to a six year old in a cage. That's the kind of shit that, that, that you don't, you don't feel the same after you don't work the same after you don't yeah.
Host: It's traumatizing for everyone involved.
Lawyer: So, yeah, I'm gonna call it again. The third time's the charm I'm out.
Host: Well on that note, I think this is a good place to stop and then come back next week.
Lawyer: What? Whyyyyyy isn’t it over?
Host: Well since you are a lawyer, and I want there to be a reason for you to be here, I thought we could talk about the legal stuff
Lawyer: Oooooh so, where people are held accountable? I can definitely be here for that.
Host: Yes. You're going to head out for real this time.
Lawyer: Yep. Mm-hmm I'm out. I'm out.
Host: Alright. Well, I'll say goodbye now, since you're desperate to leave.
And I will say to everyone else who didn't leave me yet, hopefully that in the meantime, until part two of this next week, you can email us at murdereryouknow@gmail.com, you can check us out on Instagram @murdereryouknowpodcast, and Facebook at @MYKpod. Oh, you're still here. Do you have anything to add?
Lawyer: I mean, physically I'm here, but mentally I'm out, so I'm out.
Host: Okay. Bye.
Lawyer: Byeeeeeeeee.
