Episode Ten: Part Two - Your Party Friend

Host: This is - oh, I'm going to say it this time. I'm going to remember - The Murderer You Know.

Lawyer: *humming and chanting* that could be our theme music.

Host: How was your week? What's new?

Lawyer: Crazy. Crazy times. Also. It was winter again this weekend. So that was very disconcerting

Host:. Oh, I liked it.

Lawyer: I mean, it was wonderful, but it was confusing all the same.

Host: Yeah. Well, we're here for a part two. I just feel like there's so many, I never really intended in the beginning for so many of these episodes to be two parts, but there are so many details and I'm like, well, if I were listening to a podcast, I would want to know that. So I just keep putting them all in.

Lawyer: I think that's the good part though, of really getting into it and getting all the details. That really makes it something you want to listen more to something you wanna know more about.

Host: I mean, that's true.

Lawyer: That's why, honestly, I know you're mad, but I don't be reading none of this shit, because I be like, Ooh, let me get my popcorn this is fascinating. Tell me what happened.

Host: No, I think that's fine.

Lawyer: Hell works for me.

Host: So where did we leave it last week? I think we were talking about the missing woman's friends, different people that were questioned by the cops, and I think we're going to focus in a little bit here. Alright, so here we go.

So back to that second alleged drug dealer. With the van. With the 7-Eleven footage. With the scratches. With the broken, missing necklace. Him.

Lawyer: Right.

So lots of tips were continuing to come in about this kid even after officers initially met with him there were Facebook posts saying his face was scratched up and other stuff like that, that's really the only thing that specifically mentioned in the police reports. They already put the necklace thing together, like I mentioned, and they really wanted to talk to him again, but they still hadn't heard anything back. So they actually reached out to his girlfriend, which I think they might have mentioned earlier.

Lawyer: Right. I forgot about this. Okay.

Host: Yeah. So here's the girlfriend story of Tuesday morning. She said she woke up around 5:00am- And first of all, how many 23 year olds do you know, waking up at 5:00am? Zero.

Lawyer: Zero. Zero. Zilch.

Host: She, she called him when she was supposedly awake at 5:00 on the morning of the 27th, and he said he was at … 7-Eleven.

Lawyer: Ah, he was at 7-Eleven.

Host: He was. They had video footage of him at 7-Eleven.

Lawyer: Right.

Host: So he had to be there.

Lawyer: Right.

Host: She said he came home shortly after and she said he was really drunk, but was very clean, no dirt, no scratches. He apparently left the house again and she was cool with that, I guess.

So she woke up again at 6:00 and he wasn't there, but within the next 15 minutes, he arrived back at the house and he looked really, really bad. Like someone beat him up, he was breathing really hard, holding his ribs. And she said, he looked like he got punched in the face.

Lawyer: All that almost in theory fits with what he said, except the timeline is way off.

Host: Yeah, because I mean, I guess the cops are saying they have, you know, recorded proof that recent ex-boyfriend was on his way to work and nowhere near the crime at that time of the morning. Right?

Lawyer: True.

Host: He also told her, because remember I said the story was completely different. Right?

Lawyer: Right.

Host: He told her he was taking something to the recent ex-boyfriend but when he got to the house, no one was home. Not a truck, not a car. No one's vehicles. No one was there. So he turned around and left to come back home.

And when he was driving home, vehicles surrounded him on the road and his van broke down. While his van was broken down and surrounded by all these vehicles, someone jumped out, put him in a headlock, but he managed to grab something and hit the person. And then he ran into the woods to escape back to his house, to his grandma's house, actually, where his girlfriend was.

Lawyer: Fascinating.

Host: March 1st, we're now on March 1st, which isssss…

It's gotta be like a Friday, Saturday?

Host: Let's see. It's a Thursday.

Lawyer: Damn I was close.

Host: So two days after the crime, they've talked to this guy they've been want, you know, they talked to his girlfriend, they're waiting for him to come back and talk some more. It hasn't happened yet. Apparently starting on March 1st, he called the detectives back several times.

Lawyer: Our boy?

Host: Another interesting thing I do want to point out. I know, like in the past, I've saved, saved all my interesting little tidbits for the end, but I kind of wanted to sprinkle around this time at the point he apparently actually called the station at 8:38 in the morning on Tuesday, the 27th. And asked to speak to a deputy who wasn't there.

And when he found out that guy wasn't there, he wouldn't leave his name or number, but they tracked the call back to him with his cell phone number, of course. Oh. So I thought that was really interesting.

Back to March 1st again, he called at 2:30 and told them he wanted to talk, but for whatever reason, they advised him that instead he should get a good night's sleep and come and talk tomorrow if he still wanted to. It's, these guys are, are they, that's weird? Why are you being so nice? Like, yeah, that's weird. I mean, I guess it's good to be nice, but you think this guy might have something to do with this woman disappearing and you're like, you know what, buddy, don't stress too much about it.

Lawyer: Yeah, that's pretty interesting.

Host: So he called back again only four hours later at 6:30 and said he still wanted to talk to one of the detectives. So the one he was speaking with said okay, I'll come and pick you up. I'll be there in about an hour. And he got there around 7:30 to pick him up.

And he was at the house with his girlfriend. So the officer kind of waited in the driveway until the kid walked over and got in his car.

Lawyer: I mean, I hate to be rude, but these kids got to be on drugs because why aren't they asleep? Why is nobody in this story ever asleep?

Host: It's 7:30 at night.

Lawyer: Oh, I thought that it was two 30 in the morning.

Host: No, no. In the afternoon.

Lawyer: Oh my bad.

Host: I think! It said PM in the report, but as I said, these reports…

Lawyer: Oh my bad.

Host: Once he, they got him to the interview room he again said that he actually didn't want to talk until he had an attorney and the detective. I mean, I think understandably got a little irritated, but I thought one of the notes in the report, I mean, this could be absolutely.

This is obviously absolutely nothing, but I thought it was interesting because the detective who was taking the report said that he yelled at him for wasting his time when he was trying to solve a murder.

Lawyer: Why is that interesting?

Host: Because they didn't know yet that she had been murdered.

Lawyer: Oh, he's probably writing it after the…he probably actually didn't say that. None of these reports are getting written in real time. They're taking notes in real time. And then as soon as there's a break in the investigation, a charge or whatever, then they're going back and writing their reports. So honestly, honestly, that, that was probably a typo.

Host: Gotcha.

Lawyer: He probably actually was like, I'm trying to find this missing woman, but when he, when he sat down and was writing about it he knew it was a murder.

Host: Okay. I mean, that would be my assumption. Yeah. To me, it just kind of stuck out as interesting, but yeah, you're probably right.

Lawyer: I thought you thought it was interesting that a cop yelled at somebody.

I was like, oh no, no. no.

Host: Oh no. He, the alleged drug dealer changed his mind again and twice told the detective that he didn't want an attorney and that he wanted to talk. And the detective said several times you can leave. You're not under arrest. You don't have to talk to me. But he kept insisting yeah. I really wanna talk this time.

He tells them during this interview that the recent ex-boyfriend killed the young woman and then forced him to help hide the body.

Lawyer: Oh shit.

Host: He took the officers to where the recent ex-boyfriend made him dispose of the body.

Lawyer: Oh shit.

Host: He went with the officers to a patch of thick woods and stated that she was in there. He was crying hysterically, freaking out and saying that he couldn't believe he hid the body for the ex-boyfriend.

Lawyer: Even he said he did it.

Host: He said he hid the body.

Lawyer: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. What I'm saying is even the supposed confessor, supposed perpetrator thinks that your, your boy did it.

Host: Yes.

Lawyer: Weird.

Host: Right? The brush was really thick and apparently the officers were having a really hard time recovering anything at all, or even moving around in the space. So they asked him to come in and show them, but he refused.

Lawyer: Wow.

Host: He was apparently still crying hysterically and broke down and said, “I can't look”, and “I don't want to see”.

 Eventually he pointed to a more specific location near the edge of a Briar patch. And the detectives went in there with gloves and they were sweeping branches from side to side, and eventually they swept some to the side and saw a leg.

Lawyer: Awwwww, man.

Host: The scene was processed, and the body was removed. And the next day during the autopsy, she, it was confirmed with tattoos and other, I mean, the body was not very decomposed. So they were able to get family members to confirm that it was her as well. Mm-hmm in addition to the tattoos she was found to have scratches on her back side, bruising on the front and side of her neck and significant bruising to the right side of her face. Her mouth and nose had also been stuffed full with leaves, which he said he did before the reveal.

Lawyer: Mm, that was, that was the crime, I guess.

Host: And now we're kind of into where things went once they confirmed their worst fears.

Lawyer: Well, I just don't understand how it didn't go farther than. Yeah, it's interesting. If that's all you got out of the police reports, that's fascinating because even he is saying he somehow recent ex-boyfriend is involved.

Host: Well, he eventually said that he made that up. Oh yeah. Okay. So we're not, so we're kind of getting there.

Lawyer: We're not to the endend.

We're to kind of what I classified as, after the crime and legal things, but yeah. He eventually actually changed his story and said that he killed her.

He said that he went to her house to confront her about some things that she was saying about him.  

interesting.

I interpreted from that - rumors or lies that she was spreading around about him. And he got, they both got really mad and got in this really heated argument and he strangled her to death and stuffed her mouth with leaves.

So that's what he eventually told the officers.

Lawyer: I think I remember that now, actually. Now that you mentioned his initial story was that the, the ex-boyfriend did it. And I remember that being the most difficult part for me to reconcile, because strangulation is a very particular act.

There's actually a specific criminal code section for strangulation because it is such, it's just different. Like to hit somebody with a bottle, like honestly, even to shoot somebody, all of that is horrible. I'm not, I'm not trying to like minimize the awful that that is, but like the personal nature of being that close to someone.

And strangling them. I think now I'm remembering that was the hardest part for me to reconcile because I could not ever see the person that I knew doing that.

Host: And I think part of what you're getting at is, I've read, and I don't know the number off the top of my head, that it actually takes a really long time to strangle someone to the point that they actually die so that he was there for minutes doing that face to face.

Lawyer: That's interesting that you say that because it, it actually - depending on how much pressure you use and where you apply that pressure - doesn't take that long at all. It can take under 45 seconds. It can take under 12 seconds for someone to become unconscious from a strangulation. So it, it can actually be pretty quickly, but doesn't minimize the raw, personal, I hate to say it, but savage nature of just, yeah. I don't know, to be that angry. And I, again, to, to know that person. I just can't see it. And I'm not saying that we were the best of friends, obviously, but I mean, he just wasn't like that at all. There was just not a, not a single, yeah. I don't know.

Host: Yeah, it's weird. It's weird to see what these people that you were friends with, even sometimes even close friends with, some of the stories we've talked about, what they did when obviously you never could imagine anyone that you're friends with doing that kind of thing.

Lawyer: Murderer you know.

Host: In the immediate aftermath, and a lot of this is probably stuff that you're super familiar with, but I wanted to run through some of it. As far as step by step proceedings after they found the body.

The first thing they had to do was send a death notification to the family. And the alleged drug dealer was sent back to the station for more questioning. And apparently during this time he wrote an apology letter and, and this is one of the things I want to get a copy of. And if I do, we'll be sure to bring it to one of our future episodes. But he wrote this apology letter that fascinating detailing like everything, every single detail of the crime and what led up to it what the fight was about and all of that stuff. So, like I said, I, I do want to try and get a copy of that. Cause I think it would be really interesting.

The officers then wrote a criminal complaint and obtained warrants for the charges of first degree murder and concealing a body. The alleged drug dealer was served the warrants and held without bond.

At one point in time while he was being held, he told the officers that he didn't mean to kill his friend and that it wasn't supposed to happen like that. He was apparently. Very remorseful. And I know these are some of the things that you're supposed to be when you've done this kind of awful thing. As far as the court is concerned he was very remorseful, very apologetic.

Next his van was seized and processed. And this led to the discovery of several additional pieces of evidence. And then they had more witnesses. Now that they kind of knew where the body had been.

Lawyer: Right.

Host: They had additional witnesses to question. They went back and questioned whoever they could that lived in the immediate area. A neighbor that lived about a hundred yards from the site where the body was found, told officers that on the morning of the 27th at 6:15-

Now let me tell you, I was writing this at like 1:30 in the morning, last night. She said she got a knock on her door at 6:15, went and opened the door and no one was there. So I'm like, sitting in my dark house, waiting for a stupid fucking knock on my door. Can you imagine someone just killed someone? I mean, she obviously didn't know, this neighbor right, but-

Lawyer: Right.

Host: And now they're knocking on your door. What do you think he was gonna do?

Lawyer: Yeah, that's fascinating. So, and I mean, the assumption is that it's him, right? Could have been anybody in the world, I guess.

Host: Well, the assumption is it's him based on the rest of what she said.

Lawyer: Oh, okay. Okay.

Host: So after she saw no one was there, she decided to go back down the hall, get dressed for work and when she came back up the hallway, she looked out her window and she saw a silver van in the road, in front of her neighbor's house. And she actually took a picture of it at 6:35 and she turned that picture over to the officers. And they confirmed that it was his van. The van then moved.

So she's kind of, you know, in the house having breakfast, getting ready for work and she's looking out the window, occasionally peeking at this van right? A couple minutes later, the van moved to a different part of the road near some bushes. And when she left for work at 7:20, the van was still there and it was the, she said it was the only vehicle there that she ever saw. And when she passed the van, she saw one man inside matching the description of the suspect.

Lawyer: Interesting.

Host: She also saw him at one point walk around the van from the passenger side to the driver's side and back.

Another neighbor, he said that he saw three cars outside of his friend's house. And the friend's house was actually the property where the body was discovered. He said he saw two, four door sedans and a minivan or a small truck. And he said he saw at least three people, which is obviously pretty stark contrast from the woman who said she saw only one person.

Lawyer: Yeah.

Host: And that they were near the cars and they were standing outside. And he said at the time he didn't really think anything of it because his neighbor had a lot of friends over often and he thought maybe they were just out there waiting but he said, obviously once the cops called him to interview him and he learned about what happened, he felt differently about the people he saw outside.

Lawyer: Hindsight is 20/20. Yeah. I, I mean, here's the theory. Well, I guess, no, I guess, I guess there's no theory that no one else is involved because he changes the story. I wonder why he would've done that. If there really was someone else involved.

Host: Yeah. And I mean, I don't know if maybe this is where his van broke down and he ended up needing help getting his van moved from there because I mean, in theory that part of his story might be true since he did try, he turned his key and tried to get the van to start up to show the officers that it, it truly was broken down. So, I mean, I don't know. I obviously have no idea. I'm just speculating, but I wonder if maybe that could be what was going on?

Lawyer: Yeah. Interesting.

Host: On September 4th, 2019 in circuit court, he was charged with the class two felony of first degree murder, which was amended to felonious murder in the second degree, he pled guilty and got 30 years in the state penitentiary. And he was also charged with the class six felony of concealing a dead body, which he got five years for. He also had to pay restitutions of just over $6,000.

So that was one immediate question I had for you too. Are those paid to the state or to the victim's family?

Lawyer: Yeah so restitution is to the victim in some fashion. So it's either to the victim's family or to the victim in some, you know, maybe potentially her children. I think it would be to the victims parents under these circumstances, but honestly, I'm not sure. A fine would go to the state, but any restitution goes directly to the victim.

Host: And then I read a confusing thing where his lawyer and by the way, I think this is an interesting other connection, nugget sprinkle. Remember our first story? My childhood best friend and her older sister. Who's a lawyer.

Lawyer: Oh, the lady who poked her mom to death?

Host: Yeah, her sister. Small world, but she was this guy's lawyer.

Lawyer: Oh, yeah. Interesting.

Host: Although it’s just small town, man.

Lawyer: I know, I know.

Host: So it's probably not that, I mean, she's probably one of the only-

Lawyer: -good defense attorneys there.

Host: Yeah. So maybe it's not that weird, but to me, I was reading this really, really short. It was more just like a blurb, like a couple sentences about a trial early in February, not this one in September. And it was like lawyer so-and-so, and I was like, oh my gosh. But she said something in that article on February 6th, which confused me.

And this is a quote from that article. It said she “stipulated to evidence that the county Commonwealth's Attorney proffered would have been presented if the case had gone to trial”. It looked to me like he pled guilty in February 6th and then withdrew that plea? And then there was a trial?

Lawyer: Yeah, no. So when a person, typically in most jurisdictions, when a person pleads guilty to a felony offense, there has to actually be some quote unquote. And I say, quote, unquote Let me circle back to that. There has to be some “evidence” for the court to sustain the conviction on. Just because a person pled guilty- and honestly, I don't know why this is, I'm sure there's some sort of case that substantiates this process, but just because a person has pled guilty, there also has to be some evidence on the record.

So what a proffer means is actually just an attorney speaking. It's literally just an attorney saying, “judge, the Commonwealth's evidence would be X, Y, Z”. It's not testimony. It's usually not documentary. It's actually just an attorney speaking.

Host: Okay.

Lawyer: And so it would literally just be the state's attorney saying, “judge, the Commonwealth's evidence would be X, Y, Z; L, M, N, O, P. If this matter were to go to trial.” and a stipulation is merely just a concession by the defense attorney that, that evidence is admissible through proffer because typically, obviously that's not how evidence goes before the court evidence has to be an actual body, an actual document. So there has to be an agreement or a stipulation that that evidence can come in through proffer.

So in the jurisdiction I work in, we actually do all of that in writing. It makes it a little bit cleaner. Literally file a document that says Commonwealth's proffer of facts and it's just like a paragraph of, or two of what the evidence would be. And the court uses that to sustain the guilty plea.

Host: So then he would still go to trial?

Lawyer: No, so that's it. That, that is the, that's it.

Host: So when I'm seeing all of these witnesses and-

Lawyer: Yeah, they were probably just subpoenaed.

Host: And all of this whatchamacallit, evidence, exhibits. That was all just not used?

Lawyer: So yeah. What you're seeing what you're seeing in terms of the subpoenas is just all the subpoenas. Cause whether or not a case is going to plead, if a case is set for trial, you have to get your subpoenas out. You can't just show up on the trial date and say, oh my bad judge, can we actually continue this? I didn't subpoena anybody. I thought it was going to get resolved. So you pretty much, when a case gets set for trial, you pretty much always are going to want to just get your subpoenas out automatically.

I do see the exhibits what that could honestly have been, could have been exhibits for some sort of mitigation or sentencing or why the plea agreement should have been acceptable to the court. But when you're talking about proffering and you're talking about stipulations, that to me indicates there was not a trial in the true sense of witnesses and evidence presentation.

Host: So these exhibits might have just been presented to the judge, right? That would be so that the lawyers can be like, yeah, the plea deal is fine and this is why.

Lawyer: Right. Cause it's-

Host: Gotcha.

Lawyer: It doesn't happen that often. But if, if there's kind of like a heinous crime, and the judge may have questions about, you know, why on earth, if you can prove this guy guilty of first-degree murder, why, why aren't you doing that? Why are you even offering leniency here? You may have to convince the judge that it's appropriate. But it's also interesting to me because it looks like there was an appeal.

Host: Yeah so I also thought that was interesting. And I looked up those things you're always talking about - you can look at all of the published and unpublished, their opinions. That's what you called them, right?

Lawyer: Yeah, of course.

Host: -of the court, the court of appeals, but he wasn't there. So it must have just been denied?

Lawyer: It's actually fascinating because I also see it does seem like there was a plea. And it does also seem like there was a pre-sentence investigation, so maybe it was in- What I would think that could mean is that there wasn't just, like similar to what I was saying about trying to convince the judge that, you know, the plea is acceptable.

Host: Mm-hmm

Lawyer: They could have, they could have also had what's called an open sentencing event. So an agreement can kind of go one of two ways. An agreement can include the charges you're pleading guilty to and what your sentence is gonna be.

Host: Mm-hmm

Lawyer: Or an agreement can just include what charges you're pleading guilty to. And the court is going to assess your sentence so what they could have done is say, hey, yes, we'll amend this charge and you plead guilty to second degree murder, but we're going to have a sentencing event and let the judge decide how much time you should get. So again, that's why those exhibits would've gone into play. They would've been sentencing exhibits for aggravation or mitigation while each party was arguing the appropriate sentence.

And then once the court imposed the sentence, he would've still had appellate rights to appeal saying that the sentence was egregious or whatever the case may be. So I think that's probably what happened here.

Host: Soooo many things.

Lawyer: Yeah. It's convoluted.

Host: It says after he pled guilty in early February, like I said, it has three dates listed for jury trial after that, but it says withdrawn next to all of them.

Lawyer: Yeah. That just means it was scheduled for a jury and it got pulled off.

Host: Oh. So like after he pled guilty, they just canceled.

Lawyer: Right. Exactly. Ah, cause for whatever, I don't know if it's, so it's easier to follow what happened, but the online court website, the dates never, they never come off. So even if the dates never happened, that's why you see withdrawn. Cause that's under the, the result column. So that means those dates, dates were scheduled, but never actually happened.

Host: Gotcha.

Lawyer: Right. So that, that makes sense to me that he definitely pled guilty and there wasn't a true trial but it looks like to me there, again, there was an appeal of that sentence, arguing that for whatever reason, the sentence that the court imposed was egregious or inappropriate.

That's a really, really, really, really hard thing to prove though. Like indescribably difficult. It’s going to be really difficult to argue that the court should give you a more lenient sentence because the trial court has really broad discretion in that.

Host: Well, I thought it was really interesting that they initially tried to charge him with first degree murder.

Lawyer: Yeah, it definitely sounds like all the evidence they had put pointed more to a crime of passion than any sort of planning

Host: Mm-hmm I agree.

Lawyer: So that is super interesting because that's the stark difference between. first and second. So, yeah. That's cra- I just, I still can't really wrap my mind around it.

Host: I still feel like there are a lot of pieces. There's more to the story.

Lawyer: Yeah. There's more to this. I'm very. I mean, this was thrilling, but I'm definitely disappointed. There's more that we don't know.

Host: Me too. Like I said, I'm going to try and get that letter. And then we'll revisit this if I do.

Lawyer: Yeah and do an epilog like I said before because I’m very smart.

Host: And we kind of talked about maybe reaching out to the courts and seeing like you mentioned before that proffer of facts for pleas, right? Like maybe we could-

Lawyer: Yeah. The plea should be. It all depends on your jurisdiction. When I worked in a smaller jurisdiction before, all of the proffers were oral and it sounds like this proffer was oral as well but in theory, all of that stuff is supposed to be audio recorded. Cause they are courts of record so there has to be a record. In theory, we could get our hands on it.

Host: We'll see what else we can find. Cause yeah, I just have-

Lawyer: We'll have like some throwback apps. Yeah. I'm just there, there's some missing pieces to the puzzle.

Host: Yeah. I was kind of, when I got these reports and read through them, I was like, nooooooo, that can't be it. So many more questions.

Lawyer: Yeah. I don't, I still feel very much like disbelieving. How could-

Host: I still feel very much like the recent ex-boyfriend did it. I know, I shouldn’t say that, the courts disagree, but-

Lawyer: Well, and your boy disagrees doesn’t he?

Host: Does he though? False confessions happen all the time. Yeah, man, I. Who knows what happened? We weren't there, there are also , obviously there are 10 DVDs, it was listed in the exhibits, and it was mentioned several times in the reports that I read through that they recorded everything.

Lawyer: Yeah, of course.

Host: So that would be, that's getting into - listen, if you guys want to hear the 10 DVDs of what happened, donate us a million dollars.

Lawyer: Right. That's getting into really expensive.

Host: It's like when I, I mentioned this very briefly, I had a good friend in college and she … something happened and she was concealing a dead body of a baby in her utility closet. And I tried to get the records for her case. And that city came back and was like $750.

Lawyer: Right.

Host: So we're like, nope, never mind.

Lawyer: We're going to have to get some fundraising. cause that's, I mean, first of all, you got those sort of expenses. Then we need a minion.

Host: Yeah.

Lawyer: Like an, like an intern, if you trying-

Host: A real executive assistant.

Lawyer: Don't say that. Don't say that. Damn, disrespectful.

Host: Sorry executive assistant. That that was not intentional.

Lawyer: That's just a really rude ass girl right there. That host, I don't even, wrong. Just spiteful. Tell her, tell her, pick up her own papers.

Host: What I mean is someone that we actually pay.

Lawyer: No, I was thinking unpaid internship. Come on. Oh. if you want an unpaid internship to drive and pick up papers.

Host: If you want an internship, if you want to donate us money, if you want to - yeah. If you want to drive around and pick things up for us. We could make this real investigative. We just need some help.

Lawyer: And real like collabo- Like us and our 16, co-hosts like, yeah. Yeah. It's just number four, what did you get today? You

Host: You think a lot more microphones for 16 co-hosts if you want to donate microphones so, so, so, .

Lawyer: Yeah. I mean the ending of the whole thing is just, again, sad as hell. You had this boy who by all accounts seemed to be just happy. Funny, fun, young…

Host: Horrible mistake.

Lawyer: Drugs blew it up as always.

Host: I mean, he seemed, it seemed from, the little bit that I did have from the reports that he was just so full of regret. Like immediately. Yeah. I mean, what do you think about him calling the police station at 8 38 in the morning? The day it happened?

Lawyer: Yeah. I wonder if that's part of his letter, like, and I called you guys, because I just couldn't live with myself. Yeah. Well it's interesting to me because he seems to come like completely clean.

But if, if your homeboy really was involved, why does he say that? He wasn't. I mean, it's.

Host: It just really makes me think of this other case that I recently, so there's this podcast. I really like … The first season of it, I think, was about this woman named Stacy Stanton, who was killed and then her house was burnt down and you know, they were trying to make it look like she died in the fire, but I guess it was very apparent that she hadn't died in the fire

And this young kid, vaguely in her group of friends was the one that was eventually arrested for it. And he like, he's innocent. I'm dead convinced. And I don't remember a lot of the details about it now, but basically, he was a black kid in her friend's group in a white community, which like not to get too, fucking, shit, but it kind of reminds me of this, you know what I mean?

Lawyer: Right.

Host: This was a black kid and this was a group of white friends and it just, I don't know. So maybe I'm just biased because I'm thinking about that story. And I'm thinking about that guy who was falsely accused and spent a very long time … he spent like 40 or 50 years in jail until he was finally exonerated. And I don't think exonerated is even the right word because he's still technically a convicted felon.

Lawyer: Wow.

Host: But it just made me think of that, I guess. I mean, that kid confessed to it, you know what I mean? He confessed.

Lawyer: I was gonna say, does the confession make it different? But I guess not

Host: He confessed. He said it was him, but he now says that he was coerced. You know what I mean? That he was scared that the cops were threatening him, that he feared for his life. He didn't know what to do. He didn't have a lawyer. And so he just said he did it because he thought it would be the safest choice.

Lawyer: To be a fly on that wall of that interrogation room.

Host: I know. And so that's why I'm like, it would be interesting for me. I think it would be really interesting to hear all those DVDs of the recorded interrogations in this case, because I'm , and obvi, I feel like if you are going to do that kind of thing, it's probably you sneakily turn the tape recorder off or something. I don't know. I mean, I don't think things like that happen a lot. And like conspiracy theory is probably part of the toxic part about being into true crime. Like I've said many times during this episode, but I don't know. It just reminded me so much of that.

I guess I just felt like, why would he do this? And maybe the letter would clear a lot of that up, you know?

Lawyer: Yeah.

Host: But I'm like, why would he do this? It doesn't make any sense. You got in a fight with someone because she said something bad about you. And then you killed her?

Lawyer: What could she have possibly said?

Host: It just seemed to me like the ex-boyfriend had a lot more motive.

Lawyer: Yeah. Definitely. Definitely feel like there's a lot still on the table on this one.

Host: Yeah, I agree. So anyway. Yeah, I guess that's why I'm just kind of just kind of that story flavored this one, when I was reading about it.

Lawyer: Yeah,

Host: Because as much as that, I think we all would like to imagine we live in a perfect world,

Lawyer: Shit - we definitely don’t.

Host: Shit like that still happens. And I think the statistics unfortunately support that shit like that still happens. Maybe not to that degree. But anyway…

Lawyer: We're going to get sued by the very recent ex-boyfriend.

Host: I wonder what he's up to.

Lawyer: That would be an interesting segment. We're going to read this letter to you. Does this, does this jive with what you remember?

Host: I guess he doesn't remember anything. According to him, he was at work.

Lawyer: He was rocking her to sleep according to all the evidence and the officers and he was at work. Yeah, that's crazy. Let's take it at that. And another sad as hell day here on The Murderer You Know? Well, you have, we decided to call it, what did we decide to call it?

Host: I don't remember! Drugs are bad. Drugs are bad.

Lawyer: On another episode of Drugs are Bad.

I'd like to add, don't do drugs.

Host: I like that.

Lawyer: Especially don't do drugs when you're 23 and in a toxic relationship,

Host: I'd like to add that if you do get mad at someone for saying bad things about you. Who cares, you know who you are

Lawyer: Definitely not worth where we find ourselves here.

Host: Poor kids, poor kids, actual kids, her actual kids, her baby and her babies. Yeah.

Lawyer: That's the saddest part. I mean, thank God that they were “okay”. You know, in terms of physically, like they were, they were safe in the house while over those course of hours that they were alone. But yeah, the damage, man,

Host: I don't think I'll ever recover from the boss who just saw them there and was like, all right off to work.

Lawyer: We out, you got to leave a three year old and a one year old in a house unattended got to hit the farm. That seems normal. Got to get the chickens

Host: Only a dude. No, no offense dudes but only a dude would do that.

Lawyer: I'm surprised his wife wasn't like, turn your ass around as soon as you got to work.

Host: And it's not like this was before cell phones. Don't you think you would've called your wife and been like, okay.

Yeah, she's not here, but her children are home alone. Maybe they didn't have, maybe they have bad service up there. I feel like you wouldn't then continue to drive all the way to work and be like, yeah, there were two toddlers home alone.

Lawyer: I'm telling you this house is all in his property. This man is literally driving like the tractor or the golf cart around this property. He drove it from one end to the other. He got up there, saw the babies, drove back to the other corner. His wife was like, you lost your damn mind. Turn the golf cart around. Matter of fact, let me put the babyseat in the golf cart. Go get the kids. That's how it happens.

Host: Yeah, you're probably right.

Lawyer: Alright. Follow me for more country living.

Host: Next week next week. I think we're going to talk about another,

Lawyer: My other friend maybe.

Host: Or maybe we'll talk about a little bit more of a mystery.

Lawyer: Ooh, I don't know. I don't

Host: It depends either. Yeah, either. You're really good. This was like your best friend in middle school, right?

Lawyer: Yeah. Literally we were thick as thieves. Mm.

Host: And that's a-

Lawyer: Dark as hell, brutal as hell…

Host: But on the up, there's a little bit of an upswing, so that could be nice. Or we have a mystery, like a little bit of a mystery unsolved mystery, which is different than completely different than what we normally do since we don't know if there was a murderer or if we know, we obviously have no idea who they might be or if we know them, so that one's completely different.

Alright. Well, anyway, in the meantime got some interesting shit on the horizon. Yeah. And in the meantime you can always check us out on social media on Instagram murdereryouknowpodcast.

Facebook @MYKpod, you can email us at murdereryouknow@gmail.com, especially if you want to be our intern and you can always go on apple podcast and rate, review, and subscribe, which helps more people find the Murderer You Know, which we would love.

Lawyer: Goodbye. All right. We out, you, we out, you