Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey there, folks, says we speak. A woman is sitting
in jail in Florida accused of killing not one, but
two ex husbands on the same day, and with that,
welcome to this episode Amy TJ Presents Rogue. You brought
this case to my attention. And look, we follow a
(00:24):
lot of true crime. I hadn't quite seen one like this.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
I've never seen one like this.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
We've seen women, I mean women killers are rarer, so
to speak. But going on a killing spree is one thing,
and we've seen that. But to kill two people in
one day and have them both be your ex husbands,
never seen that before.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Well how many hours between?
Speaker 3 (00:49):
It was hours hours between. And when you hear how police,
well they didn't even piece it together. She basically thought
they already knew and squealed on herself. It's kind of
crazy how this all went down.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
That moment was crazy. If that moment had been in
a movie, you would laugh. That's a moment that you
would actually laugh at. What that scene and how it
played out that we're going to get into. But the
woman's name is Susan Erica Avalanche, fifty one years old,
and robes has happened in December that police got the
call to one shooting and ended up finding somebody else.
(01:29):
So she goes to how well she's accused of I
should say this first and foremost. She's accused of going
and shooting one ex husband. And this is the ex
husband who then kind of gives them a heads up
when they ask, hey, you know anybody who would do
this to you? He said possibly my ex was his
dying words, because he made it to the hospital and
(01:50):
was alive and was hanging on for a little while.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Yeah, he was shot in the stomach. That is incredibly painful.
I believe he was shot twice in the stomach. But
before he died, he was able to point investigators towards
his ex wife.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
He wasn't even totally sure and will tell you why.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
So the investigation began around three pm on December seventeenth,
and this was in Florida. Police responded to calls of
shots fired. That's when they found the fifty four year
old man, who later died at the hospital. Before he
was pronounced dead, he told investigators he opened his front
door and someone just shot him, and he said it
(02:29):
was possibly my ex wife.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Yeah, And he didn't know because apparently what kind of
delivery person was she supposed to be?
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Decided she was disguised as a food delivery driver, and
they were actually through surveillance video, able to go back
based on the description of the clothes she was wearing
and the car she was driving driving given to police
by her own daughter, her own fifteen year old daughter.
But they found her stealing someone else's order from a
Panera Bread. So she went into a Panera Bread, went
(03:00):
up to the counter, took someone else's order, got into
her car, and posed as a food delivery driver. So
when he maybe looks out the front window or whatever
sees someone, he sees she's disguised with a gray hoodie.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
I don't know what else she had on.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
To disguise her face, but it looked like somebody was
delivering food. So he opens the door and boom, she
just fire shots, according to police.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Okay, so police get called to this scene and they're
talking to this guy and wondering who could possibly have
done this. So they are now because of that, directed
towards her, yes, and they go find her. Ropes didn't
take them long, and she just happened to be doing
(03:44):
some car cleaning when they.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Showed up some spring cleaning.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Yes, So investigators tracked her down through the car, so
they had the car description possibly my ex wife. They
put it all together and they arrive at Avalon's home
the following day, so this is December eighteenth. They walk
up on her literally with bleach and rags in her hands.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
They said it was brazen. This was a busy neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
People are out and she's got bleach and rags wiping
down the interior of her car. When deputies come up
and approach her, they say to her, we want to
speak to you about your ex husband.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
And this is where it gets ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Her response, which one.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
So their antennas go up. So what do they do?
They go figure out and track down where her other
ex husband is and essentially have police there do a
welfare check.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Correct, So they find out her second ex husband actually, yes,
lives in the Tampa area.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
So they you know, they just say, hey, yeah, let's
just check on them.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
It's krond of crazy, she said, which one made us
a little concerned. Tampa police go to the home of
her other ex husband and find him shot dead. Avalon,
they say, killed her second ex husband first in Tampa.
So he was the first one to go and that's
(05:09):
when after that she drove directly to kill her first
ex husband. And so what would drive someone to do
this in one day after all these years? By the way,
I'm not sure how long she had been divorced from
her second ex husband, who she killed first, But her
(05:30):
first ex husband, we know this. She had been divorced
from him for eleven years. So yes, there had been
child custody fights, and yes there had been issues in
all of that that usually happens with divorces. But to
have that much time go by and then to suddenly
snap and kill not one, but both of your ex
(05:53):
husbands and not think you aren't going to be directly
implicated is surprising. But police say this was planned, This
was premeditated, and she did it with intent.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
It wasn't carefully planned. I mean you I mean, actually, Roes,
there's no you can't usually not going to get away
with killing once. But you're the first person that's going
to be the suspect, right, two dead, say, I mean,
what was going on? There was a breakup some kind
because she didn't do this expecting to get away with it.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
You can't think that she was, and yet she was
cleaning her car, so she was trying to get rid
of evidence. She was trying to cover up her crime.
So I would say by those actions, she was hoping
that she'd get away with it. She wasn't thinking it through.
Because yes, the first person you're going to look at
is an ex or a scorned lover, or someone who
(06:46):
had a romantic relationship. We know this is either about
money or it's about passion, and this looks like it
might have been about both.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
That's usually the two things they tell you, right, but
this one. Look, when it comes to divorces, when it
comes to kids, when it comes to money, there is
a lot of people will tell you as hot and
emotional as they've ever been in their lives, and as
close as they've gotten to hate in someone in their lives,
it's having to go through a divorce. And so she's
got two and rose this is a situation where she
(07:20):
don't have right is owing them money?
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Correct?
Speaker 3 (07:24):
So this is what the sheriff said in terms of motive,
because any time you cover especially a bizarre case like this,
everyone wants to know why.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
And so here's what the sheriff had to say.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
He said, Avalon had been in child custody fights with
both ex husbands. Aha, right there, that's the passion, because look,
you can hate your ex or you can have a
very difficult divorce, but usually when kids are involved, you
can it's tenfold. I mean, money's one thing, but kids
(07:55):
are a whole other thing. That's part of you, that's
a piece of you. So if you're fighting for custody
with your ex, yeah, emotions are running high. So she
had been in child custody fights with both ex husbands,
She had owed child support to at least one. And
this is what the sheriff said That really stuck with me.
He said, And now five children are facing life without
(08:16):
their fathers, and it seems as though they didn't really
have their mother in their life to begin with, so
they lost the one steady parental figure they had. And
she did it because she was angry. She did it,
perhaps because police say she owed one of them money.
But for whatever reason, police say she literally snapped and
drove from one ex husband to the other ex husband
(08:40):
and just shot them in cold blood.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
It's all relative, but this we're not talking about. And
you said money and passion, it seemed the emotion had
to be the stronger thing. We're not talking about again,
it's all relative the type of money that you kill for.
It was not the type of money you kill over.
So it had to be who knows saying we're going
to find out so much more. But it's such a
bizarre story, Robes that will I will forever. There's no
(09:06):
way you could think you would get away with murdering
two people on the same day that you used to be.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Married to, right, And I also keep thinking about, Look,
you can't get into this state of mind of somebody
who's willing and capable of doing what police says she was.
But to imagine that her fifteen year old daughter was
upstairs when she was posing as that food delivery driver.
Now her fifteen year old daughter then had to be
(09:34):
interviewed by police. She didn't see the shooting, but she
heard the gunfire and she looked out the window, and
she is the one who gave police the description of
what the shooter was wearing and the car she was driving.
And it's interesting because you would think a child would
know their mother's own vehicle, but that wasn't the initial
(09:55):
the She didn't necessarily say that, which speaks to perhaps
their relationationship or how close they were, not if she
didn't know that that was her mother's car. You would
know your mom's car if it was pulling up, and
you would think the ex husband would know the ex
wife's car if it was pulling up. So clearly there
was an estrangement there where she could have posed as
(10:17):
a food delivery driver and they didn't necessarily know. In fact,
he was even telling police, I think it was my
ex wife. He didn't even know for sure, so that's
really fascinating. But you pointed out the amount of money.
When we come back, we're going to talk about just
how much child support that Avalon owed her ex husband,
(10:38):
and we're going to get into what her current boyfriend
told police and the official charges she is now facing.
Welcome back to Amy and TJ Presents. We are presenting
one of the more bizarre murder cases that we have
(11:03):
ever seen in our journalism careers. I can't remember a
story where a woman chose, planned, and executed her plan
to kill both of her ex husbands in the same day,
but that is exactly what fifty one year old Susan
Erica Avalon is accused of doing.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
And she had moved on.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
She had a boyfriend, a living boyfriend who then had
to obviously speak to Belie when when she was arrested,
and he told detectives that the day before this all happened.
So she, according to police, committed these crimes on December seventeenth,
So December sixteenth, he said. She made a very uncharacteristic
remark that he remembered that stayed with him and he
(11:46):
didn't quite know what she meant, but she said, I
love you in case something happens to me.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Man, that's not what you want to hear from your
significant other. I'm about the door.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
If I came up and said that to you before
I was leaving, what would you think?
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Where are you going? What's up?
Speaker 2 (12:01):
And what are you about to go do? And who
are you going to see?
Speaker 1 (12:04):
I don't use the wear all black like that.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Actually it was a gray hoodie but yes, no, but
who knows, but that so he remembered that.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
He told police that. And this is.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
The other really shocking part of it. And I know
that there's no amount of money that would justify what
she did. But when you think about the fact that
this woman was divorced from her first ex husband for
eleven years. She owed, according to police, four thousand dollars
in unpaid child support, and she was facing a deadline
(12:37):
in the coming days to pay two hundred dollars of
that four thousand, or she was going to lose her
driver's license. That was what they were threatening. So two
hundred dollars, that can't be the reason why she did this.
But maybe it was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Maybe that maybe she'd been on edge for a long
time in the back and forth, like you said, continues.
Look that you can a story about the double murder
can get sadder, but to think it was over possibly
two hundred dollars is tough to stomach. This is a
This is a bizarre when got what now.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Five five kids according to the sheriff, between these two marriages,
and they are now I don't know the ages.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
I only know the age of the fifteen year.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Old, but I have right all five are her kids.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Yes, and now it's unclear where they are. But I'm
imagining if it was her first marriage and she had
a fifteen year old her second marriage, who this man
who she also killed, I'm imagining those kids that are
obviously younger. If you do the math, I would think
they are younger kids. So that is incredibly tragic, and
that's what the sheriff was speaking to. That was the
real tragedy here, that these kids are now literally orphans
(13:48):
for all intent and purposes.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
So she right.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Now has only technically been charged with second degree homicide
for the murder of her first husband, but they say
that will almost certainly upgraded to a first degree murder
charge after prosecutors conveni granduri, which is supposed to be
happening shortly, and they are saying that they will likely
seek the death penalty in that and then for the
Tampa murder, they are about to bring those charges as well.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
So she still has a lot more legal.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Hoops to jump through, but it looks like at the
end of the day she is going to be facing one,
probably two first degree murder charges, and we know how
Florida rolls, it is very likely that she would then
be facing the death penalty. Because the sheriff also made
this statement, we believe this was premeditated. She knew exactly
what she was doing. She came here solely to kill
(14:40):
her ex husbands period.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
End of story.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Yeah, and I was waiting and that was mine. It
was going to be my question to you about second
degree they're going to be upgraded. Yes, the premeditation, there
is a there was a maliciousness to this crime. That Yeah,
that was my question too. You have you seen anything?
Did they give anybody a reason for why they're going
after the death ploding?
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Just the fact that it was premeditated, and I think
the fact that she thought about this and did what
she did and essentially orphaned her children, I think all
of that is taken into consideration. And by the way,
I mentioned what the boyfriend had told police about what
she said to him the day before.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Another interesting.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
So he talked about what she did before these alleged crimes,
and then he also told police what she did after
the alleged crime, So before she got seen or got caught,
I should say, bringing out bleach and rags, trying to
wipe down her car. The boyfriend said that when she
came back home after this road trip, that he didn't
know what she was doing. He said she got into
the shower while she was wearing the same gray sweatshirt
(15:47):
that her daughter described that was seen in the surveillance video.
At the Panera bread and he thought that was bizarre.
I'm wondering why this boyfriend wasn't asking more questions, Babe,
why are you getting into the shower with your clothes on?
But he made that point to police too, soet.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Obviously you would say to your significant other, what in
the world are you doing? Maybe he knew something was up. Okay,
here we go.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Oh, he said, she didn't explicitly tell me what happened.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Explicitly he suspected. We'll see what happens. That's this is
just an It's an awful one, it's an intriguing one.
It's a fascinating one, and we wait to possibly get
some answers for exactly why why she did this. But yeah,
just one we wanted to hop on and tell you
about here. We will continue to follow it here on
(16:38):
Amy and TJ Presents. We always appreciate you spending some
time with us. But for now and for my dear
Amy Robot, I'm TJ. Holmes. We will talk to you
all soon.