October 21, 2025 • 31 mins
The Truman State suicides hit the town of Kirksville, Missouri hard. In this episode we investigate the deaths of the first two victims, Alex Mullins and Jake Hughes, close friends from the Alpha Kappa Lambda fraternity who killed themselves only three weeks apart. Their fraternity brother Brandon Grossheim found both bodies; later, he began wearing Hughes’ clothes and dating his girlfriend. Brandon was also accused of stealing money and drugs out of Hughes’ safe. After two more students soon killed themselves — both also friends with Brandon — parents of victims filed a lawsuit against Brandon and demanded police action against him.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Warning, this episode discusses youth depression and suicide. These topics
may be distressing for some listeners. The tragedy that began
in the summer of twenty sixteen didn't just make headlines
in Kirksville, Missouri, as students at Truman State University and
(00:22):
the surrounding community began killing themselves. It made headlines around
the world. It began as an ordinary summer in Kirksville,
a college town in northern Missouri about three hours away
from Saint Louis, But in August, when members of the
fraternity Alpha Kapa Lambda started dying by suicide, the community
(00:44):
paid attention. On August seventh, Alex Mullins took his own
life by hanging himself from a wardrobe in his room
at the fraternity house. This was the first of the suicides.
He was discovered by one of his Fraternitynity brothers. When
medics arrived, they declared Alex dead. It was a terrible situation,
(01:07):
but police didn't suspect anything that could be considered criminal.
But just twenty days later, another Alpha Kappa Lambda brother
killed himself in the same way. He was found by
a fraternity brother who got him to the ground performed
CPR and yelled out for someone to call nine one one,
and in both instances that fraternity brother was Brandon Grosheim.
(01:33):
Brandon was a psychology major who had been very close
to both victims. He mistakenly believed he had a near
superhuman ability to help depressed people. And that's not all.
When he moved off campus, his brand new neighbor from
across the hall named Alex Vote, killed himself. Brandon was
(01:56):
one of the last people to see him alive. Alex
Vote was actually the third of the four suicides in
this cluster, but his name wasn't brought to the public's
attention until after the fourth death, the death of yet
another fraternity brother at Alpha Kapa Lambda. This was Josh Thomas.
Josh was found with a piece of paper with Brandon's
(02:18):
name and email addresses written on it, so that was
the order of the deaths. Number one Alex Mullins, number
two Jay Hughes, number three Alex Vote, and number four
Josh Thomas, and all four of them were close with
Brandon Grossheim. The parents of the victims, the fellow fraternity members,
(02:40):
and outside observers all began to wonder was it a
tragic coincidence that Brandon Grossheim knew these victims so intimately,
or was Grossheim somehow involved. This podcast series tells the
story of the most infamous suicide cluster in American history.
It's a production of iHeart Podcasts and Cool Fire Studios.
(03:04):
I'm your host Ben Westoff along with Ryan Krawl. This
is the Peacemaker. All of these deaths in a row
were shocking, but there was precedent. Mental health experts call
(03:24):
them suicide clusters.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
The definition of cluster is when there is about three
or more deaths following some type of suicide. So you've
got three or more people who kill themselves within maybe
a six to eighteen month period after there's been a
suicide attempt or a suicide a completed suicide in their vicinity.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
That's Rita Leyshewsky, a trainer on suicide prevention and mental
health for community advocates in Milwaukee. She notes that suicides
are on the ride. Almost fifty thousand Americans killed themselves
in twenty twenty two. That's a record. What was strange
to me is that suicides actually fell during COVID, as
(04:12):
Lashevsky explained, since everyone was cooped up there was much
less fomo during COVID, nobody belonged.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Nobody belonged because we're all isolated in our houses. We
didn't see how much we didn't belong. We didn't see
that the church ladies went out to Denny's after church
on Sunday.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
But we weren't there.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
We didn't see that the kids went out as Starbucks,
but they didn't invite me.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Suicides can be contagious. After Marilyn Monroe killed herself, for example,
there was something like a twelve percent rise in suicides.
The term suicide cluster was coined in the nineteen eighties
following a surge in young people taking their lives. In Bergenfield,
New Jersey, in nineteen eighty seven, a pair of sisters
(05:02):
and two young men entered into a suicide pact. They
got into a car and killed themselves by letting it
run in a closed garage. In the four weeks that
followed this highly publicized case, thirty five imitators killed themselves
in similar ways. This is called the Worther effect, named
for the seventeen seventy four novel The Sorrows of Young
(05:25):
Worther by German writer Johann Wolfgang von Gerte. It depicts
the suicide of a heartbroken young man. The book was
a runaway hit, but it led directly to a rash
of youth suicides, so many that Italy and Denmark banned it.
It's hard to imagine today that a piece of literature
(05:45):
printed on dead trees could have such a dramatic effect
on young people, and eighteenth century Europe seems almost impossibly
far away from the American heartland. But there are many parallels.
Before their deaths, all four of the Kirksville's suicide victims
had relationship problems that sent them reeling. One can imagine
(06:06):
they resembled young Worther in some ways. For example, when
Werther first meets his beloved Charlotte, he's over the moon.
Here's a short reading from the book by our producer
Ryan Crawl.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
I shall see her, I say aloud in the morning,
when I wake, and with all cheerfulness look towards the
lovely sun. I shall see her, and for the whole day.
Then I have no further wish. Everything, everything is consumed
in this one prospect.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
But Charlotte will soon be married to another man. Young
Worther will never have.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Her deluded by the innocent dream that I sat near
her on the grass, and held her hand and covered
it in a thousand kisses. Vainly I seek her in
my bed, tears forced up in floods from the wellspring
of my heart, and I weep inconsolably at the prospect
of myne dire future.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Besides this eighteenth century German novel, many also compare the
Kirksville suicides to a more recent, high profile case, that
of Massachusetts teenager Conrad Roy, who killed himself in twenty fourteen.
His girlfriend, Michelle Carter, pressured him to go through with it.
(07:22):
I thought you wanted to do this. One of her
texts read, the time is right and you're ready. You
just need to do it. You can't keep living this way.
People who commit suicide don't think this much. They just
do it. Michelle Carter was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in
the death. Some say Brandon Grosheim should be similarly charged,
(07:45):
that he too was responsible when it came to the
deaths of these Kirksville students, but the cases are different.
For one thing, Michelle Carter repeatedly urged her boyfriend to
kill himself. The prosecution had the texts showing this with
Brandon Grossheim. However, there's no direct evidence that we're aware
(08:05):
of that he told anyone to end their lives, nor
could Grossheim be credibly compared to Jack Kovorkian, the Michigan
euthanasia proponent nicknamed Doctor Death. He assisted over one hundred
suicides and in nineteen ninety nine was convicted of second
degree homicide. Kavorkian helped people with terminal illnesses end their lives. Grossheim,
(08:28):
on the other hand, dealt with young people who were depressed.
Though Brandon was a psychology major, he certainly didn't have
expertise in this area. Here's suicide prevention trainer Rita Leyshewsky's
thoughts on Brandon.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
I believe that he just believed he was grander and
more helpful than any type of degree would give him.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
After the four suicides, no one could ignore Brandon's ties
to these tragedies any longer. The police began investigating him
more seriously, and they got Brandon to speak with a
professional counselor. It was his fourth consecutive friend who had
killed himself, he told the counselor. According to a police report.
He also said that he had made sure to let
(09:14):
all of his friends know that he was there for
them and gave them advice and step by step directions
on how to deal with things like depression. But he
knew all along they would quote do their own free will.
This statement gets to the heart of the issue. What
does that mean? Do their own free will? Was he
(09:37):
telling them that if they killed themselves he would understand
it's possible? He was even more explicit. We talked to
a former friend of Grosheim's named Tristan Wiser. She says
Brandon sent text messages to the second suicide victim, Jake
Hughes about how to end it.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
I remember he had texted things about how to do
it and how to end it if he really wanted
to put himself out of it. I remember that being
said how to tie it. I believe it was how
to tie it, how to tie it a knot that
would need to be done.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Brandon Grosheim denies ever having encouraged anyone to kill themselves
or aiding them and doing so. Further, Tristan's claim that
Brandon sent Jake text messages about how to kill himself
or how to tie a news has not been verified.
Tristan says she didn't actually see these messages herself, but
(10:32):
heard about them from an acquaintance who had access to
Jake's phone. She declines to name the acquaintance. One thing
seems clear, at the very least, Brandon did not try
very hard to dissuade these impressionable young men from taking
their lives. The question then becomes when does supporting a
(10:52):
friend in their time of need turn into giving them
permission to end it all. To understand how all of
(11:16):
this could have happened, it helps to understand the city
of Kirksville where it all went down. Located near Missouri's
northern border with Iowa, It's surrounded by farmland. There's natural beauty,
but poverty is pervasive. Kirksville has a cute town square
surrounding the county courthouse, including a pizzeria called Polly Eyes,
(11:41):
where Brandon Grosheim worked. When I visited the town with
our producer Ryan Krall, we watched the high school homecoming
parade on the main drag. We asked people what they
liked about living there. It's got a small town atmosphere.
Speaker 5 (12:00):
My kids could be in anything they wanted to be in.
Speaker 6 (12:04):
People are nice, just a great little place to grow up.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
For a family to grow up in. Before the suicides,
Truman State was Kirksville's biggest employer, and most locals acknowledge
its importance. So there's a bit of the town versus
gown dynamic that is a culture clash between the fancy
schmancy college kids and the blue collar locals who are
(12:30):
apparently known as kirkatoids.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
That's what Urman kids call them.
Speaker 5 (12:37):
Or kirkatoids. That's is that like a pejoradi.
Speaker 7 (12:42):
That's what we called them when I went to termin
in nineties, as Kirkatoys.
Speaker 5 (12:46):
I don't get it.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
I don't need That's what we call them.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Now.
Speaker 7 (12:49):
In the dictionary you have Shitkricker, which is a real
term and it actually is born and raised out of Kirksville.
Speaker 5 (12:56):
Is actually in the dictionary a ship like the creek
the creek.
Speaker 7 (13:03):
But it's it is an addictionary, Okay, Chick Cricker is
born and raised here, all right.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Kirksville's other claim to fame is as the birthplace of osteopathy,
a type of medicine that focuses on healing ailments by
massaging and manipulating muscles and joints. In fact, Brandon's old
fraternity house, Alpha Kapa Lambda, is located on South Osteopathy Avenue.
But while Truman State is picturesque, I would not describe
(13:31):
Kirksville as a cute college town along the lines of Madison,
Wisconsin or Lawrence, Kansas. And the Truman State campus. I
asked some students where I should go eat. I'm vegan.
Is there anything like anywhere I can eat?
Speaker 5 (13:49):
Great question?
Speaker 1 (13:51):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (13:52):
There's no like healthy restaurants here.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
We've realized, like if you want like.
Speaker 5 (13:57):
Something healthy, like, it's just not. Heuge's reach on.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
My parents come to visit, they're like they're shot.
Speaker 8 (14:02):
Like, Oh, I don't know, it's all kind of gross.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
I'm getting that impression already. Alex Mullins, the first suicide victim,
grew up in North Kansas City. His mother described him
as a city boy. Kirksville just wasn't a great fit.
During Alex's second year at Truman State, his grades started
slipping and he was put on academic probation at the
(14:28):
Alpha Kappa Lambda House. Meanwhile, he grew tired of all
the debauchery. Sure he loved to party as much as
the next guy, but wasn't the fraternity supposed to serve
a higher purpose whatever happened to community service. A close
friend of Alex Mullins from high school was named Tommy Lona.
He also attended Truman but didn't join AKL. He said
(14:52):
that not long before Alex killed himself, the fraternity members bullied.
Speaker 6 (14:56):
Him on this specific day over you know, a game
of dice or basically like beer pong type of frat game.
They trucked the dice in the air, but that they
just stuck with me because it was a day Alex
obviously was off. He didn't seem right. He was very
irritable and like his fraturning to members were just like
disparaging and calling him a P word, a B word,
(15:19):
and just this is the typical kind of like man
on man bullying. That was the same day I watched
him like just start dropping his wallet and keys, and
he walked into the woods and like grabbed a piece
of sharp metal and was trying to like slice his
arm and his neck. I just was begging him not
to do this, like pleading with him, like, well, you
have friends that love you, dude, Like please move out
(15:39):
of here. If this is this is the type of
way that they're making you feel overall, I mean, you
just got to get away from it.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
But Alex didn't dislike everyone at the fraternity. One person
he got along with well was Brandon Grossheim. They got
to know each other because Alex was the fraternity house manager,
the guy responsible for general maintenance and mopping up the
spilled beer. Alex's tenure as house manager was winding down,
so Brandon was taking over. Alex trained him in and
(16:11):
they hit it off. For one thing, Brandon agreed with
him about the fraternity's commitment to public service. In their
free time, he and Brandon would smoke weed together and
they'd also play first person shooter games. After his sophomore year,
Alex lived part of the summer in the Alpha Kappa
Lambda house. I asked his fraternity brother Connor Templeton about that.
Speaker 9 (16:34):
Time most people would go home. It maybe be five
or six of us still live in the fraternity house. Like,
for instance, me and Alex Mullens. We both worked all
the summer. As we'd hang out outside play games. I
had to blow up POOLU put in our parking line.
Wou'd hang out in the end so.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
As the new school year drew closer, however, Alex spiraled
his relationship with a girl he'd been seeing withered. In fact,
the night before his death, she broke up with him. Gobsmacked,
he reportedly sent a message to some of his fraternity brothers.
If anyone has drugs in Kirksville that is here, please
(17:10):
hit me up. I don't care the price, not having
a good night, just need to forget. Early the next afternoon,
Kirksville police were urgently dispatched to the Alpha Kappa lambdahouse.
According to a police report, a fraternity member had been
trying to reach Alex, but he wasn't answering his phone
(17:33):
and his door was locked. To try to check on him,
Brandon Grosheim went outside and looked in Alex's window. Peering
through a small opening in the blinds, he saw Alex
hanging from his wardrobe. When the police arrived, Brandon entered
Alex's room through the window. He tried to pick Alex up,
(17:55):
apparently to see if he could still be saved, but
the body was stiff. He then unlocked Alex's door to
let the officers in. News of the death quickly spread.
Alex Mullen's friends and family were devastated. Here's his friend
Tommy Lona.
Speaker 10 (18:15):
It was honestly the most terrible bay ever. Oh I
felt completely weak and been useless.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
But their sadness was punctuated by questions things didn't seem
to add up. Take Brandon Grossheim's account, for example, He
apparently claimed he waited for police to arrive before climbing
through the window to see if he could save Alex Mullens.
But if he thought there was a chance Alex might
(18:48):
still be alive, why would he wait. Alex's mother, meanwhile,
says she didn't receive word of her son's death until
long after the fact.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
It's our belief that Alex died around one thirty am,
so almost twelve hours later.
Speaker 8 (19:05):
I don't know if anybody found him until the morning.
I don't know. That's the thing. There's lots of things
that don't make sense.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
When she arrived to the fraternity house, his room seemed
suspiciously tidy. Had someone removed her son's drug paraphernalia? Also,
he seemed to be missing cash. Had Brandon or others
actually gone into Alex's room before the police arrived and
then lied about it? In the meantime, the grieving process
(19:52):
for Alex Mullen's death began. One person who took his
death extremely hard was his close friend from the fraternity,
Jake Hughes. Jake was a nineteen year old psychology major
described by his friends as artsy and musical. He got
a tattoo on his chest in memory of Alex Mullins. Sadly,
(20:13):
this was not the first time Jake had seen someone
die from suicide. In fact, he had experienced a shocking
amount of turmoil for someone so young. Here's a police
interview with Alpha Kappa Lambda member Logan Hunt talking about
Jake Hughes, who was the second suicide victim.
Speaker 11 (20:31):
He said stories on stories about like previous relationships gone wrong,
and like over Skype, like his ex girlfriend had died
of a heroin overdose, like in front of his eyes,
like over Skype.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
According to police reports, Jake had substance abuse issues, depression,
and had even previously attempted suicide. Still, no one was
prepared when, just twenty days after Alex Mullen's death, Jake
took his own life. It happened during a raging party
at the AKL House. Jake had a fight with his
(21:06):
girlfriend that night and was saying some very dark things.
Brandon Grossheim tried to make him feel better and offered
to give Jake's girlfriend a ride home, and so Jake
gave him the keys to his car. When Brandon returned,
he went to check on Jake, but his door was locked,
as Brandon told police.
Speaker 12 (21:28):
And then I preceeded.
Speaker 8 (21:29):
I remembered I had his keys because he.
Speaker 12 (21:31):
Gave me his his car keys. Because you're yeah, such,
I ran.
Speaker 5 (21:33):
Back to my room.
Speaker 8 (21:34):
I grabbed his car keys and unlocked his door.
Speaker 12 (21:36):
Okay, that's why I found him hanging there. Okay.
Speaker 8 (21:39):
I lifted him up, I told I yelled out and
told somebody called nine to one one okay now, and
then I kept going for help.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
It was uncanny. Jake hung himself the exact same way
Alex did from a wardrobe with a belt, and Brandon
Grossheim had discovered them both. Seeing that Jake had blood
on his face and his chest, Brandon sprung into action.
He attempted CPR.
Speaker 8 (22:09):
I laid him down, and I tilted his head back
and presented him mouth and mouth and cpry until you
guys are right, okay.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
A close friend of the deceased and fellow fraternity brother
arrived at the scene. Here's Logan Hunt talking to officers
that night.
Speaker 11 (22:25):
Brandon was seen up against the wardrobe almost like caressing
Jake like down from the wardrobe, and all he could
really process at this moment was that like Jake was
like pale.
Speaker 12 (22:38):
He was very pale, and.
Speaker 11 (22:40):
He had like lacerations and marks like around his neck.
At this point, we had him on his back and
we were performing CPR on him, and Brandon.
Speaker 12 (22:50):
Has, like Brendan's very prepared in these situations.
Speaker 11 (22:53):
He like takes initiative to like perform proper CPR.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Alpha Kappa Lamb DE member Connor Templeton and watched as
it happened.
Speaker 9 (23:02):
He was still breathing, you know, the party and a
lot of most people didn't know what's going on. Like
I said, there's a party downstairs. He was still breathing,
and if I remember correctly, I feel like he was
at least moving his eyes, just still breathing up until
the UH paramedics and whatnot got there and either died
right there or on the way to the hospital.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
I believe police investigators who arrived wore body cameras. It's
chilling now. Listening to them interview Brandon Grossheim on the scene.
That's because Brandon is incredibly call He's not breaking down
like others around him.
Speaker 12 (23:37):
When was the last time you talked to him? Till
you're thirty? And then you keyed into the door to Essex? Okay, gotcha?
Speaker 1 (23:44):
The time he keyed into the door two six. He says,
he's incredibly precise, answering the investigators questions before they can
finish asking them. Brandon often sounds like he should be
leading the investigation himself. He shoots down the police's dumb
idea that this might have been auto erotic asphyxiation. For example, what.
Speaker 5 (24:07):
I'm asking is the belt around the neck? Is this
the type of asphyxiation, like anything that you know of,
like a type of like asphixiation, like I'll pass out
or anything like that. I know what you're talking about. I
don't let that know, do you know if anyone who does?
That's what I'm asking.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Yeah, and then he gets annoyed when they can't understand
his explanation of how Jake tied the news How was
the belt tied?
Speaker 12 (24:33):
That's what he said. It was a slip knot.
Speaker 5 (24:36):
Yeah, so it wasn't.
Speaker 8 (24:38):
No, it was here, I don't have my belts on
the otherwise I should here. But it's it's literally like
these metal bars. There's two metal bars, two d bars. Yeah. Yeah, No,
he slipped the belt fully through there and then so
you had the belt sliding up and down and that's
what he put his neck through. And he had the
other end tied to the wardrobe.
Speaker 5 (24:59):
Okay, so it wasn't actually latched anyone like it would
have just like slipped right off with him. Yes, what
I got You're okay, just describe it the best way
you came.
Speaker 12 (25:13):
Like, that's what I'm trying to do.
Speaker 8 (25:15):
I mean, he took the end that doesn't have the
two debars.
Speaker 5 (25:19):
You gonna call him? Uh, and he tied that.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
All right. So let's slow things down again and do
a quick recap with our producer Ryan Krawl.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Hey, Ben, Yeah, there is a lot going on here,
for sure.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Let's talk about the police and how much they were
really investigating Brandon Grossheim at this point. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
So Grossheim was, you know, definitely on the police's radar,
but I don't think they were really investigated him that closely.
They were very slow to sort of put all the
pieces together, I think, you know, overall, uh, they mostly
just felt sorry for Brandon. You know, he lost his friends,
his close friends, his frat brothers, and also and in
he's sort of at the scene of a lot of
(26:02):
these deaths, so he was someone that the police really
needed to talk to and get information fro him.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
But it sounds like, even if the police weren't hassling him,
that the fraternity brothers, a lot of them anyway, were
suspicious of him.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly right. Do you remember how in
the case of the death of Alex Mullins, some of
the fraternity brothers accused Brandon of stealing drug paraphernalia after
he died. Yeah, yeah, so those same allegations are similar
allegations were levied at Brandon in the wake of the
death of Jake Hughes, except this time they were even
more serious because some of his fraternity brothers say that
(26:36):
Jake Hughes actually sold drugs.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Oh wow.
Speaker 7 (26:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
And then after his death, then some frat brothers thought
that Brandon may have raided Jake safe.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Okay, right, so and then what about the tattoos that
Brandon was getting.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
Yeah, yeah, some people found that strange as well that
Brandon would get these tattoos as an homage to his
deceased fraternity brothers.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
Right okay. In fact, we talked to their fellow Alpha
Kappa l Ambda brother, Connor Templeton, about Brandon allegedly rating
Jake safe and about the tattoos he got.
Speaker 9 (27:11):
Brandon got a tattoo of the death Star on his
chest and he got the number seven in the middle
of the death Star.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
The death Star was as a memorial to Jake, who
was a Star Wars fan. The number seven held special
significance for Alex Mullins.
Speaker 9 (27:26):
I do remember that tattoo from Brandon very vividly. So, yeah,
just kind of it almost seemed like a trophy to
me in a way. What do you mean exactly I
would I mean, if I'm going down the rabbit hole,
and if say he did have a hand in any
of this, and that was, you know, the first one's
Mullins says, somehow, whether he did it or coax him
into it, or has something to do with Jake. I mean,
(27:47):
it's almost like he was proud of it, you know,
And just a lot of the things after some of
the deaths, it seemed seemed to be used as trophies.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Here referring in part to Jake's clothes which Brandon began
wearing after Jake's death. They included a popsicle print shirt,
which was one of Jake's favorites, a pair of shoes,
and some of Jake's silver and gold chains. Let's give
Brandon the benefit of the doubt. He maybe believed that
(28:19):
this was a way to remember his deceased friend to
stay close to him, and it's worth noting that when
Jake's parents arrived at the fraternity after he died, they
took away his belongings, his cat, his TV, his computer,
but they purposefully left all of his clothes to the fraternity.
(28:41):
Whatever the case. Following the suicides of his fraternity brothers
Alex Mullins and Jay Hughes, Brandon Grosheim fell into a
deep depression. He was kicked out of the fraternity, left
Truman State, and moved off campus with a bunch of cats.
His drinking intensified, and he also began posting videos on
(29:03):
Facebook of him reading classic Grim's fairy tales ehill.
Speaker 5 (29:07):
O, Ladies and jentlemen.
Speaker 13 (29:08):
My name is verrangrosshun I think I'm gonna try and
make a serious out of this, but I'm going to
just read some of my favorite fairy tales, specifically Grimm's
fairy tales. On this She began to cry and cried
louder and louder and could not be comfortable. What ails
(29:29):
the hum's daughter with that weakness said, even a stone
would show pity.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
So one of the.
Speaker 13 (29:37):
Story is I guess girlm Basically, the Princess of the
Frog is that if you throw a frog against them
all violently, whenever it's talking to you, it'll transform, and
that's how you get your golden prints.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Following Jake's death, Brandon also began dating Casey, Jake's girlfriend
at the time of his suicide. According to a police
report quote, they started seeing each other right after Jake's death.
That's not the only suicide victim's girlfriend Brandon appears to
have been involved with. In fact, Brandon was involved with
(30:18):
a lot of women during this time, even when in
the midst of all this death and at least one
of these women accuse him of psychological manipulation, almost like
he was grooming her for suicide herself. That's next time
on the Peacemaker, the Peacemaker is a production of Cool
(30:47):
Fire Studios and iHeart Podcasts. It's hosted by me Ben
Westoff and Ryan craul Our. Executive producers are Jeff Keene,
David Johnson, and Steve Lubert. Music and AWE udio engineering
by Brent Johnson. Executive producers for iHeart Podcasts are Katrina
Norvelle and Nikki Etor. If you are someone you know
(31:10):
is having suicidal thoughts, there are resources available to you.
Please call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline nine eight eight
Warning, this episode discusses youth depression and suicide. These topics
may be distressing for some listeners. The tragedy that began
in the summer of twenty sixteen didn't just make headlines
in Kirksville, Missouri, as students at Truman State University and
(00:22):
the surrounding community began killing themselves. It made headlines around
the world. It began as an ordinary summer in Kirksville,
a college town in northern Missouri about three hours away
from Saint Louis, But in August, when members of the
fraternity Alpha Kapa Lambda started dying by suicide, the community
(00:44):
paid attention. On August seventh, Alex Mullins took his own
life by hanging himself from a wardrobe in his room
at the fraternity house. This was the first of the suicides.
He was discovered by one of his Fraternitynity brothers. When
medics arrived, they declared Alex dead. It was a terrible situation,
(01:07):
but police didn't suspect anything that could be considered criminal.
But just twenty days later, another Alpha Kappa Lambda brother
killed himself in the same way. He was found by
a fraternity brother who got him to the ground performed
CPR and yelled out for someone to call nine one one,
and in both instances that fraternity brother was Brandon Grosheim.
(01:33):
Brandon was a psychology major who had been very close
to both victims. He mistakenly believed he had a near
superhuman ability to help depressed people. And that's not all.
When he moved off campus, his brand new neighbor from
across the hall named Alex Vote, killed himself. Brandon was
(01:56):
one of the last people to see him alive. Alex
Vote was actually the third of the four suicides in
this cluster, but his name wasn't brought to the public's
attention until after the fourth death, the death of yet
another fraternity brother at Alpha Kapa Lambda. This was Josh Thomas.
Josh was found with a piece of paper with Brandon's
(02:18):
name and email addresses written on it, so that was
the order of the deaths. Number one Alex Mullins, number
two Jay Hughes, number three Alex Vote, and number four
Josh Thomas, and all four of them were close with
Brandon Grossheim. The parents of the victims, the fellow fraternity members,
(02:40):
and outside observers all began to wonder was it a
tragic coincidence that Brandon Grossheim knew these victims so intimately,
or was Grossheim somehow involved. This podcast series tells the
story of the most infamous suicide cluster in American history.
It's a production of iHeart Podcasts and Cool Fire Studios.
(03:04):
I'm your host Ben Westoff along with Ryan Krawl. This
is the Peacemaker. All of these deaths in a row
were shocking, but there was precedent. Mental health experts call
(03:24):
them suicide clusters.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
The definition of cluster is when there is about three
or more deaths following some type of suicide. So you've
got three or more people who kill themselves within maybe
a six to eighteen month period after there's been a
suicide attempt or a suicide a completed suicide in their vicinity.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
That's Rita Leyshewsky, a trainer on suicide prevention and mental
health for community advocates in Milwaukee. She notes that suicides
are on the ride. Almost fifty thousand Americans killed themselves
in twenty twenty two. That's a record. What was strange
to me is that suicides actually fell during COVID, as
(04:12):
Lashevsky explained, since everyone was cooped up there was much
less fomo during COVID, nobody belonged.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Nobody belonged because we're all isolated in our houses. We
didn't see how much we didn't belong. We didn't see
that the church ladies went out to Denny's after church
on Sunday.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
But we weren't there.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
We didn't see that the kids went out as Starbucks,
but they didn't invite me.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Suicides can be contagious. After Marilyn Monroe killed herself, for example,
there was something like a twelve percent rise in suicides.
The term suicide cluster was coined in the nineteen eighties
following a surge in young people taking their lives. In Bergenfield,
New Jersey, in nineteen eighty seven, a pair of sisters
(05:02):
and two young men entered into a suicide pact. They
got into a car and killed themselves by letting it
run in a closed garage. In the four weeks that
followed this highly publicized case, thirty five imitators killed themselves
in similar ways. This is called the Worther effect, named
for the seventeen seventy four novel The Sorrows of Young
(05:25):
Worther by German writer Johann Wolfgang von Gerte. It depicts
the suicide of a heartbroken young man. The book was
a runaway hit, but it led directly to a rash
of youth suicides, so many that Italy and Denmark banned it.
It's hard to imagine today that a piece of literature
(05:45):
printed on dead trees could have such a dramatic effect
on young people, and eighteenth century Europe seems almost impossibly
far away from the American heartland. But there are many parallels.
Before their deaths, all four of the Kirksville's suicide victims
had relationship problems that sent them reeling. One can imagine
(06:06):
they resembled young Worther in some ways. For example, when
Werther first meets his beloved Charlotte, he's over the moon.
Here's a short reading from the book by our producer
Ryan Crawl.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
I shall see her, I say aloud in the morning,
when I wake, and with all cheerfulness look towards the
lovely sun. I shall see her, and for the whole day.
Then I have no further wish. Everything, everything is consumed
in this one prospect.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
But Charlotte will soon be married to another man. Young
Worther will never have.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Her deluded by the innocent dream that I sat near
her on the grass, and held her hand and covered
it in a thousand kisses. Vainly I seek her in
my bed, tears forced up in floods from the wellspring
of my heart, and I weep inconsolably at the prospect
of myne dire future.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Besides this eighteenth century German novel, many also compare the
Kirksville suicides to a more recent, high profile case, that
of Massachusetts teenager Conrad Roy, who killed himself in twenty fourteen.
His girlfriend, Michelle Carter, pressured him to go through with it.
(07:22):
I thought you wanted to do this. One of her
texts read, the time is right and you're ready. You
just need to do it. You can't keep living this way.
People who commit suicide don't think this much. They just
do it. Michelle Carter was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in
the death. Some say Brandon Grosheim should be similarly charged,
(07:45):
that he too was responsible when it came to the
deaths of these Kirksville students, but the cases are different.
For one thing, Michelle Carter repeatedly urged her boyfriend to
kill himself. The prosecution had the texts showing this with
Brandon Grossheim. However, there's no direct evidence that we're aware
(08:05):
of that he told anyone to end their lives, nor
could Grossheim be credibly compared to Jack Kovorkian, the Michigan
euthanasia proponent nicknamed Doctor Death. He assisted over one hundred
suicides and in nineteen ninety nine was convicted of second
degree homicide. Kavorkian helped people with terminal illnesses end their lives. Grossheim,
(08:28):
on the other hand, dealt with young people who were depressed.
Though Brandon was a psychology major, he certainly didn't have
expertise in this area. Here's suicide prevention trainer Rita Leyshewsky's
thoughts on Brandon.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
I believe that he just believed he was grander and
more helpful than any type of degree would give him.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
After the four suicides, no one could ignore Brandon's ties
to these tragedies any longer. The police began investigating him
more seriously, and they got Brandon to speak with a
professional counselor. It was his fourth consecutive friend who had
killed himself, he told the counselor. According to a police report.
He also said that he had made sure to let
(09:14):
all of his friends know that he was there for
them and gave them advice and step by step directions
on how to deal with things like depression. But he
knew all along they would quote do their own free will.
This statement gets to the heart of the issue. What
does that mean? Do their own free will? Was he
(09:37):
telling them that if they killed themselves he would understand
it's possible? He was even more explicit. We talked to
a former friend of Grosheim's named Tristan Wiser. She says
Brandon sent text messages to the second suicide victim, Jake
Hughes about how to end it.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
I remember he had texted things about how to do
it and how to end it if he really wanted
to put himself out of it. I remember that being
said how to tie it. I believe it was how
to tie it, how to tie it a knot that
would need to be done.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Brandon Grosheim denies ever having encouraged anyone to kill themselves
or aiding them and doing so. Further, Tristan's claim that
Brandon sent Jake text messages about how to kill himself
or how to tie a news has not been verified.
Tristan says she didn't actually see these messages herself, but
(10:32):
heard about them from an acquaintance who had access to
Jake's phone. She declines to name the acquaintance. One thing
seems clear, at the very least, Brandon did not try
very hard to dissuade these impressionable young men from taking
their lives. The question then becomes when does supporting a
(10:52):
friend in their time of need turn into giving them
permission to end it all. To understand how all of
(11:16):
this could have happened, it helps to understand the city
of Kirksville where it all went down. Located near Missouri's
northern border with Iowa, It's surrounded by farmland. There's natural beauty,
but poverty is pervasive. Kirksville has a cute town square
surrounding the county courthouse, including a pizzeria called Polly Eyes,
(11:41):
where Brandon Grosheim worked. When I visited the town with
our producer Ryan Krall, we watched the high school homecoming
parade on the main drag. We asked people what they
liked about living there. It's got a small town atmosphere.
Speaker 5 (12:00):
My kids could be in anything they wanted to be in.
Speaker 6 (12:04):
People are nice, just a great little place to grow up.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
For a family to grow up in. Before the suicides,
Truman State was Kirksville's biggest employer, and most locals acknowledge
its importance. So there's a bit of the town versus
gown dynamic that is a culture clash between the fancy
schmancy college kids and the blue collar locals who are
(12:30):
apparently known as kirkatoids.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
That's what Urman kids call them.
Speaker 5 (12:37):
Or kirkatoids. That's is that like a pejoradi.
Speaker 7 (12:42):
That's what we called them when I went to termin
in nineties, as Kirkatoys.
Speaker 5 (12:46):
I don't get it.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
I don't need That's what we call them.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Now.
Speaker 7 (12:49):
In the dictionary you have Shitkricker, which is a real
term and it actually is born and raised out of Kirksville.
Speaker 5 (12:56):
Is actually in the dictionary a ship like the creek
the creek.
Speaker 7 (13:03):
But it's it is an addictionary, Okay, Chick Cricker is
born and raised here, all right.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Kirksville's other claim to fame is as the birthplace of osteopathy,
a type of medicine that focuses on healing ailments by
massaging and manipulating muscles and joints. In fact, Brandon's old
fraternity house, Alpha Kapa Lambda, is located on South Osteopathy Avenue.
But while Truman State is picturesque, I would not describe
(13:31):
Kirksville as a cute college town along the lines of Madison,
Wisconsin or Lawrence, Kansas. And the Truman State campus. I
asked some students where I should go eat. I'm vegan.
Is there anything like anywhere I can eat?
Speaker 5 (13:49):
Great question?
Speaker 1 (13:51):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (13:52):
There's no like healthy restaurants here.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
We've realized, like if you want like.
Speaker 5 (13:57):
Something healthy, like, it's just not. Heuge's reach on.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
My parents come to visit, they're like they're shot.
Speaker 8 (14:02):
Like, Oh, I don't know, it's all kind of gross.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
I'm getting that impression already. Alex Mullins, the first suicide victim,
grew up in North Kansas City. His mother described him
as a city boy. Kirksville just wasn't a great fit.
During Alex's second year at Truman State, his grades started
slipping and he was put on academic probation at the
(14:28):
Alpha Kappa Lambda House. Meanwhile, he grew tired of all
the debauchery. Sure he loved to party as much as
the next guy, but wasn't the fraternity supposed to serve
a higher purpose whatever happened to community service. A close
friend of Alex Mullins from high school was named Tommy Lona.
He also attended Truman but didn't join AKL. He said
(14:52):
that not long before Alex killed himself, the fraternity members bullied.
Speaker 6 (14:56):
Him on this specific day over you know, a game
of dice or basically like beer pong type of frat game.
They trucked the dice in the air, but that they
just stuck with me because it was a day Alex
obviously was off. He didn't seem right. He was very
irritable and like his fraturning to members were just like
disparaging and calling him a P word, a B word,
(15:19):
and just this is the typical kind of like man
on man bullying. That was the same day I watched
him like just start dropping his wallet and keys, and
he walked into the woods and like grabbed a piece
of sharp metal and was trying to like slice his
arm and his neck. I just was begging him not
to do this, like pleading with him, like, well, you
have friends that love you, dude, Like please move out
(15:39):
of here. If this is this is the type of
way that they're making you feel overall, I mean, you
just got to get away from it.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
But Alex didn't dislike everyone at the fraternity. One person
he got along with well was Brandon Grossheim. They got
to know each other because Alex was the fraternity house manager,
the guy responsible for general maintenance and mopping up the
spilled beer. Alex's tenure as house manager was winding down,
so Brandon was taking over. Alex trained him in and
(16:11):
they hit it off. For one thing, Brandon agreed with
him about the fraternity's commitment to public service. In their
free time, he and Brandon would smoke weed together and
they'd also play first person shooter games. After his sophomore year,
Alex lived part of the summer in the Alpha Kappa
Lambda house. I asked his fraternity brother Connor Templeton about that.
Speaker 9 (16:34):
Time most people would go home. It maybe be five
or six of us still live in the fraternity house. Like,
for instance, me and Alex Mullens. We both worked all
the summer. As we'd hang out outside play games. I
had to blow up POOLU put in our parking line.
Wou'd hang out in the end so.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
As the new school year drew closer, however, Alex spiraled
his relationship with a girl he'd been seeing withered. In fact,
the night before his death, she broke up with him. Gobsmacked,
he reportedly sent a message to some of his fraternity brothers.
If anyone has drugs in Kirksville that is here, please
(17:10):
hit me up. I don't care the price, not having
a good night, just need to forget. Early the next afternoon,
Kirksville police were urgently dispatched to the Alpha Kappa lambdahouse.
According to a police report, a fraternity member had been
trying to reach Alex, but he wasn't answering his phone
(17:33):
and his door was locked. To try to check on him,
Brandon Grosheim went outside and looked in Alex's window. Peering
through a small opening in the blinds, he saw Alex
hanging from his wardrobe. When the police arrived, Brandon entered
Alex's room through the window. He tried to pick Alex up,
(17:55):
apparently to see if he could still be saved, but
the body was stiff. He then unlocked Alex's door to
let the officers in. News of the death quickly spread.
Alex Mullen's friends and family were devastated. Here's his friend
Tommy Lona.
Speaker 10 (18:15):
It was honestly the most terrible bay ever. Oh I
felt completely weak and been useless.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
But their sadness was punctuated by questions things didn't seem
to add up. Take Brandon Grossheim's account, for example, He
apparently claimed he waited for police to arrive before climbing
through the window to see if he could save Alex Mullens.
But if he thought there was a chance Alex might
(18:48):
still be alive, why would he wait. Alex's mother, meanwhile,
says she didn't receive word of her son's death until
long after the fact.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
It's our belief that Alex died around one thirty am,
so almost twelve hours later.
Speaker 8 (19:05):
I don't know if anybody found him until the morning.
I don't know. That's the thing. There's lots of things
that don't make sense.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
When she arrived to the fraternity house, his room seemed
suspiciously tidy. Had someone removed her son's drug paraphernalia? Also,
he seemed to be missing cash. Had Brandon or others
actually gone into Alex's room before the police arrived and
then lied about it? In the meantime, the grieving process
(19:52):
for Alex Mullen's death began. One person who took his
death extremely hard was his close friend from the fraternity,
Jake Hughes. Jake was a nineteen year old psychology major
described by his friends as artsy and musical. He got
a tattoo on his chest in memory of Alex Mullins. Sadly,
(20:13):
this was not the first time Jake had seen someone
die from suicide. In fact, he had experienced a shocking
amount of turmoil for someone so young. Here's a police
interview with Alpha Kappa Lambda member Logan Hunt talking about
Jake Hughes, who was the second suicide victim.
Speaker 11 (20:31):
He said stories on stories about like previous relationships gone wrong,
and like over Skype, like his ex girlfriend had died
of a heroin overdose, like in front of his eyes,
like over Skype.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
According to police reports, Jake had substance abuse issues, depression,
and had even previously attempted suicide. Still, no one was
prepared when, just twenty days after Alex Mullen's death, Jake
took his own life. It happened during a raging party
at the AKL House. Jake had a fight with his
(21:06):
girlfriend that night and was saying some very dark things.
Brandon Grossheim tried to make him feel better and offered
to give Jake's girlfriend a ride home, and so Jake
gave him the keys to his car. When Brandon returned,
he went to check on Jake, but his door was locked,
as Brandon told police.
Speaker 12 (21:28):
And then I preceeded.
Speaker 8 (21:29):
I remembered I had his keys because he.
Speaker 12 (21:31):
Gave me his his car keys. Because you're yeah, such,
I ran.
Speaker 5 (21:33):
Back to my room.
Speaker 8 (21:34):
I grabbed his car keys and unlocked his door.
Speaker 12 (21:36):
Okay, that's why I found him hanging there. Okay.
Speaker 8 (21:39):
I lifted him up, I told I yelled out and
told somebody called nine to one one okay now, and
then I kept going for help.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
It was uncanny. Jake hung himself the exact same way
Alex did from a wardrobe with a belt, and Brandon
Grossheim had discovered them both. Seeing that Jake had blood
on his face and his chest, Brandon sprung into action.
He attempted CPR.
Speaker 8 (22:09):
I laid him down, and I tilted his head back
and presented him mouth and mouth and cpry until you
guys are right, okay.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
A close friend of the deceased and fellow fraternity brother
arrived at the scene. Here's Logan Hunt talking to officers
that night.
Speaker 11 (22:25):
Brandon was seen up against the wardrobe almost like caressing
Jake like down from the wardrobe, and all he could
really process at this moment was that like Jake was
like pale.
Speaker 12 (22:38):
He was very pale, and.
Speaker 11 (22:40):
He had like lacerations and marks like around his neck.
At this point, we had him on his back and
we were performing CPR on him, and Brandon.
Speaker 12 (22:50):
Has, like Brendan's very prepared in these situations.
Speaker 11 (22:53):
He like takes initiative to like perform proper CPR.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Alpha Kappa Lamb DE member Connor Templeton and watched as
it happened.
Speaker 9 (23:02):
He was still breathing, you know, the party and a
lot of most people didn't know what's going on. Like
I said, there's a party downstairs. He was still breathing,
and if I remember correctly, I feel like he was
at least moving his eyes, just still breathing up until
the UH paramedics and whatnot got there and either died
right there or on the way to the hospital.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
I believe police investigators who arrived wore body cameras. It's
chilling now. Listening to them interview Brandon Grossheim on the scene.
That's because Brandon is incredibly call He's not breaking down
like others around him.
Speaker 12 (23:37):
When was the last time you talked to him? Till
you're thirty? And then you keyed into the door to Essex? Okay, gotcha?
Speaker 1 (23:44):
The time he keyed into the door two six. He says,
he's incredibly precise, answering the investigators questions before they can
finish asking them. Brandon often sounds like he should be
leading the investigation himself. He shoots down the police's dumb
idea that this might have been auto erotic asphyxiation. For example, what.
Speaker 5 (24:07):
I'm asking is the belt around the neck? Is this
the type of asphyxiation, like anything that you know of,
like a type of like asphixiation, like I'll pass out
or anything like that. I know what you're talking about. I
don't let that know, do you know if anyone who does?
That's what I'm asking.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Yeah, and then he gets annoyed when they can't understand
his explanation of how Jake tied the news How was
the belt tied?
Speaker 12 (24:33):
That's what he said. It was a slip knot.
Speaker 5 (24:36):
Yeah, so it wasn't.
Speaker 8 (24:38):
No, it was here, I don't have my belts on
the otherwise I should here. But it's it's literally like
these metal bars. There's two metal bars, two d bars. Yeah. Yeah, No,
he slipped the belt fully through there and then so
you had the belt sliding up and down and that's
what he put his neck through. And he had the
other end tied to the wardrobe.
Speaker 5 (24:59):
Okay, so it wasn't actually latched anyone like it would
have just like slipped right off with him. Yes, what
I got You're okay, just describe it the best way
you came.
Speaker 12 (25:13):
Like, that's what I'm trying to do.
Speaker 8 (25:15):
I mean, he took the end that doesn't have the
two debars.
Speaker 5 (25:19):
You gonna call him? Uh, and he tied that.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
All right. So let's slow things down again and do
a quick recap with our producer Ryan Krawl.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Hey, Ben, Yeah, there is a lot going on here,
for sure.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Let's talk about the police and how much they were
really investigating Brandon Grossheim at this point. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
So Grossheim was, you know, definitely on the police's radar,
but I don't think they were really investigated him that closely.
They were very slow to sort of put all the
pieces together, I think, you know, overall, uh, they mostly
just felt sorry for Brandon. You know, he lost his friends,
his close friends, his frat brothers, and also and in
he's sort of at the scene of a lot of
(26:02):
these deaths, so he was someone that the police really
needed to talk to and get information fro him.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
But it sounds like, even if the police weren't hassling him,
that the fraternity brothers, a lot of them anyway, were
suspicious of him.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly right. Do you remember how in
the case of the death of Alex Mullins, some of
the fraternity brothers accused Brandon of stealing drug paraphernalia after
he died. Yeah, yeah, so those same allegations are similar
allegations were levied at Brandon in the wake of the
death of Jake Hughes, except this time they were even
more serious because some of his fraternity brothers say that
(26:36):
Jake Hughes actually sold drugs.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Oh wow.
Speaker 7 (26:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
And then after his death, then some frat brothers thought
that Brandon may have raided Jake safe.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Okay, right, so and then what about the tattoos that
Brandon was getting.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
Yeah, yeah, some people found that strange as well that
Brandon would get these tattoos as an homage to his
deceased fraternity brothers.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
Right okay. In fact, we talked to their fellow Alpha
Kappa l Ambda brother, Connor Templeton, about Brandon allegedly rating
Jake safe and about the tattoos he got.
Speaker 9 (27:11):
Brandon got a tattoo of the death Star on his
chest and he got the number seven in the middle
of the death Star.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
The death Star was as a memorial to Jake, who
was a Star Wars fan. The number seven held special
significance for Alex Mullins.
Speaker 9 (27:26):
I do remember that tattoo from Brandon very vividly. So, yeah,
just kind of it almost seemed like a trophy to
me in a way. What do you mean exactly I
would I mean, if I'm going down the rabbit hole,
and if say he did have a hand in any
of this, and that was, you know, the first one's
Mullins says, somehow, whether he did it or coax him
into it, or has something to do with Jake. I mean,
(27:47):
it's almost like he was proud of it, you know,
And just a lot of the things after some of
the deaths, it seemed seemed to be used as trophies.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Here referring in part to Jake's clothes which Brandon began
wearing after Jake's death. They included a popsicle print shirt,
which was one of Jake's favorites, a pair of shoes,
and some of Jake's silver and gold chains. Let's give
Brandon the benefit of the doubt. He maybe believed that
(28:19):
this was a way to remember his deceased friend to
stay close to him, and it's worth noting that when
Jake's parents arrived at the fraternity after he died, they
took away his belongings, his cat, his TV, his computer,
but they purposefully left all of his clothes to the fraternity.
(28:41):
Whatever the case. Following the suicides of his fraternity brothers
Alex Mullins and Jay Hughes, Brandon Grosheim fell into a
deep depression. He was kicked out of the fraternity, left
Truman State, and moved off campus with a bunch of cats.
His drinking intensified, and he also began posting videos on
(29:03):
Facebook of him reading classic Grim's fairy tales ehill.
Speaker 5 (29:07):
O, Ladies and jentlemen.
Speaker 13 (29:08):
My name is verrangrosshun I think I'm gonna try and
make a serious out of this, but I'm going to
just read some of my favorite fairy tales, specifically Grimm's
fairy tales. On this She began to cry and cried
louder and louder and could not be comfortable. What ails
(29:29):
the hum's daughter with that weakness said, even a stone
would show pity.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
So one of the.
Speaker 13 (29:37):
Story is I guess girlm Basically, the Princess of the
Frog is that if you throw a frog against them
all violently, whenever it's talking to you, it'll transform, and
that's how you get your golden prints.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Following Jake's death, Brandon also began dating Casey, Jake's girlfriend
at the time of his suicide. According to a police
report quote, they started seeing each other right after Jake's death.
That's not the only suicide victim's girlfriend Brandon appears to
have been involved with. In fact, Brandon was involved with
(30:18):
a lot of women during this time, even when in
the midst of all this death and at least one
of these women accuse him of psychological manipulation, almost like
he was grooming her for suicide herself. That's next time
on the Peacemaker, the Peacemaker is a production of Cool
(30:47):
Fire Studios and iHeart Podcasts. It's hosted by me Ben
Westoff and Ryan craul Our. Executive producers are Jeff Keene,
David Johnson, and Steve Lubert. Music and AWE udio engineering
by Brent Johnson. Executive producers for iHeart Podcasts are Katrina
Norvelle and Nikki Etor. If you are someone you know
(31:10):
is having suicidal thoughts, there are resources available to you.
Please call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline nine eight eight
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