October 28, 2025 • 35 mins
The suicide victims all had one thing in common: they trusted Brandon, and told him intimate details from their lives. The fourth suicide victim, Josh Thomas, told Brandon that he was “the person he trusted more than anybody else.” To understand why, we speak with women who were in Brandon’s life at the time. Despite the fact that people were dying all around him, Brandon was kind of a player, and the women he was involved with describe how Brandon ingratiated himself to them. Some call him manipulative, and one even says she believes he was grooming her for suicide.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Warning, this episode discusses youth depression and suicide. These topics
may be distressing for some listeners.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
What really kind of had drawn me to it was
that he looks like he looked like krk Kent at
the Superman in the skuy is like just kind of
a more of a nerdy version, nerdier version of it.
And then it seemed like I'm a vibes person and
I don't know how, but I got like a good
vibe from the profile.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
I was wrong about that, but here's what it is.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
That's a former Truman State University student named Tristan Wiser
explaining why she was attracted to Brandon Grosheim, whom she
met on Tinder. Brandon would soon develop a strange notoriety.
He became notorious on campus, tied up in the deaths
of four young suicide victims in Kirksville. To this day,
(00:54):
many people claim he has blood on his hands. But
it's not like he was some sort of sociopath, some
sort of monster, at least not outwardly. In fact, he
seemed like the opposite of a sociopath. People called him empathetic,
He was confident, articulate, cultured. He wasn't a bad looking guy,
(01:18):
and until things started falling apart. Clean cut and well groomed,
he came across as someone capable of getting along with anyone,
the upper cross, the working class, the business majors, even
the stoners. Most shocking was how people trusted him so
(01:39):
deeply they wanted to share with him their deepest, darkest secrets.
The fourth suicide victim, Josh Thomas, told Brandon that he
was the person he trusted more than anyone else. That's
according to the lawsuit against Brandon. Even after the suicides began,
people continued confiding in him, and they still somehow trusted
(02:02):
him after he was accused of encouraging his friends to
commit suicide, or at the very least not trying to
talk them out of it. I wanted to know why,
Why were so many people drawn to this guy? Why
were so many people willing to spill their hearts out
to him. Unfortunately, we can't get answers from these young
(02:23):
men who died, but we can get answers from the
young women.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
He was involved with.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Because Brandon dated a lot, some were proper girlfriends, though
others were more like romantic flings or even just flirtations. Oddly,
Brandon was kind of a player even while people were
dying all around him, and most of these relationships, according
to the women involved, were disturbingly psychological. At least once
(02:54):
said it was almost like he was grooming her for
suicide herself.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
Almost all of.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
The women with whom Brandon had romantic relationships had something
in common. They were in bad places in their lives.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
You know how.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Some guys have a type, Some prefer blondes, some like Brunette's.
Brandon's type, it appeared, were girls who were severely depressed.
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. I'm your host Ben Westoff
(03:32):
along with Ryan Pral. This is the Peacemaker. One of
Brandon's girlfriends was named Casey Menngene's a Delta Zeta who
had been dating Jake Hughes right before he died. Jake,
(03:56):
you might recall, was Brandon Grossheim's fraternity brother at the
Alpha Kapa Lambda House. He was the second suicide victim
in our story. The night he killed himself in August
twenty sixteen, there was a raging party at Alpha Kappa Lambda.
Jake and his girlfriend Casey had both been drinking, They
(04:18):
were arguing, and there was a lot of drama. According
to a police report, Jake told Casey that he felt
like driving into a lake and killing himself, and so
that night, Casey asked Brandon to keep an eye on Jake,
but according to Brandon, when he went to talk to Jake,
(04:39):
Jake gave him his keys and asked him to drive
his girlfriend Casey home.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Here's Brandon talking to police.
Speaker 5 (04:49):
Bobby have given me his keys? Yeah, because he had
me to drive his girlfriend Kisi okay.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
I was drugging around his car.
Speaker 5 (04:57):
I was taking people home and stuff.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Thirty when Brandon returned, he keyed into Jake's room and
found him hanging from a wardrobe. Everyone was devastated, Jake's family,
Jake's girlfriend, Casey, the members of Alpha Kapa Lambda. Brandon too,
(05:23):
so perhaps they were only trying to comfort each other,
but Brandon and Casey got together almost right away. According
to a police report, they started seeing each other right
after Jake's death in April twenty seventeen. About seven months later,
Brandon told a counselor that it took a month for
him and Casey to become official, but that they had
(05:46):
now been dating for a while. If that was working
for them, great, But what some people found creepy was
that this would not be the first time nor the
last time that Brandon was linked to girlfriends of the
suicide victims. Brandon also appears to have dated an ex
girlfriend of the first person who took his own life,
(06:08):
Alex Mullins, and the girlfriend of the third victim, Alex Vote.
What drew him to these women? Why would someone want
to date a former girlfriend of a suicide victim? I
pose these questions to Rita Leshewsky, a suicide prevention trainer
based in Milwaukee.
Speaker 6 (06:29):
At the very least, I could say that he loved
being in the thick of a situation which he may
think he had a small part on, and he didn't
want to lose that identity of someone who either precipitated
a suicide or else. He wanted to continue on in
(06:50):
that vein. Sometimes it is not unusual, you know, we
all liked the spotlight to some extent. We all like
to be kittilated by what's going on.
Speaker 7 (07:01):
And he may have used his reactionor trying to get
in with these women as a way to continue that titillation,
and perhaps in the fariest ways, tried to manipulate them also.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
And it wasn't just the girlfriends of suicide victims. Brandon
had other women in his sights as well, and most
of these relationships, according to the women, were extremely manipulative.
Let's go back to Tristan Wiser, the former Truman State
student who originally met Brandon on Tinder. He helped her
(07:41):
with her studies and they were briefly romantic. Tristan told
me she was depressed at the time, and they spoke
about dark subjects. Presumably it sounds like he had some
sort of obsession with life and death.
Speaker 8 (07:55):
Yeah, and I remember that being something that we did
talk about, as I've always like an alternative person into
like dark humor and enjoying.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Of that stuff.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Is like my favorite movie of all time is that
Airport Christmas about after life love, and I was very
very deep into it then. I was also in a
darker place, but like I was more willing to talk
about when I was depressed and things like that, and
I just kind of felt, I guess I may have
felt like it was somebody from Biden, which is what
I needed at the time. He was one of the
(08:25):
people that would ask me about it, and that's what
had gotten me feel to feel comfortable, because not many
people were asking me about it.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
At first, She appreciated his willingness to talk to her
about her depression.
Speaker 8 (08:38):
At first it was tell me more, tell me more
how you feel, and then why does it make you
feel that?
Speaker 3 (08:44):
What does it make you think?
Speaker 8 (08:45):
And it feels like you're being pushed to explore yourself
when you're really being pushed to expose your weaknesses.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
And so you think he was trying to exploit those weaknesses.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Possibly possibly with everything that.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Yeah, yeah, I don't see that any other way for
the way that he approached things to have been.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
These conversations between Tristan and Brandon took place after the
deaths of the first two suicide victims, Alex Mullins and
Jake Hughes.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
Brandon and Tristan.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Also talked about whether she herself had considered suicide.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
We had talked about my depression and things like that,
and why I had ever thought about that.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
I never got to that point. I just expressed deep sadness.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
At some point Brandon started to get extremely awkward.
Speaker 8 (09:39):
Tristan says, I remember we had only been hanging out
and talking for a little while when one of the
knights that we were studying, he wasn't studying, he was
helping me study. I had asked him to come over,
and like, just in the middle of me writing or
doing something, we were sitting on my food on I think,
and he had just stuck his hand across my stomach
(09:59):
and I was just like, what are you He was like,
I wanted to feel you breathe. And I was like, uh, okay,
that's definitely not just awkward.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
I wanted to feel you breathe, she says Brandon said. Brandon,
for his part, has said he doesn't remember this interaction. Eventually,
she didn't want to see him anymore.
Speaker 8 (10:22):
I slowly phased out even talking to him, and eventually
kind of like actively avoid.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Him on campus because I just didn't want to feel
that awkward of feeling again.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
And it wasn't just Tristan. Brandon seemed obsessed with getting
together with the Pressed girls and offering them his twisted
form of counsel. Sometimes he presented himself as their knight
in Shining Armor. According to an unnamed young woman interviewed
for a New Yorker story, Brandon quote shielded her from
(10:53):
a male student who kept hitting on her at a party.
They then quote went to Grossheim's room, where she deflected
an invitation to share his bed. But here's where it
gets a bit disturbing, according to a Truman State employee,
this unnamed young woman from the New Yorker story, the
(11:13):
one who declined to share Brandon's bed, later told Brandon
that she was severely depressed. He then quote comforted her
and said that if she chose to commit suicide, he
would support her decision and her family and friends would understand.
According to the story, the young woman did not agree
that they would understand at all. Grosheim's response to this allegation,
(11:39):
he claimed, quote his words had been misinterpreted and that
he would quote never condone suicide or encourage the act.
Then there was a different young woman from Kirksville named
Lauren George. In twenty nineteen, she told a Kirksville television
station that, following the four suicide, she and Brandon had
(12:01):
been quote developing their relationship into something more serious than
just friends. Lauren too was going through a rough time.
She didn't always want to talk about her depression, she said,
but Brandon insisted.
Speaker 9 (12:17):
With me going through a rough time, there were times
that I didn't want to talk about it, and I
noticed that during times that him and I would just
be having conversation, he'd want to try to talk about the.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Feelings that I was having.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
She worried that had she kept talking to him, she
could have been the next suicide victim.
Speaker 9 (12:40):
The downer attitude just I didn't want to be around that.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Brandon did not respond to a request for comment about
Lauren's claims, but others also accused Brandon of playing mind games.
One woman says he used psychological pressure to try to
get women to sleep with him. This was another young
woman featured in the New Yorker story who requested anonymity.
(13:06):
She told the article's writer DT Max that Brandon manipulated
her into having sex. Grossheim put his head in her
lap and implied that he'd have nothing to live for
if she didn't sleep with him, she said. Further, this
woman said another woman told her Grossheim had done the
same thing to her. Brandon denied these claims, admitting only
(13:32):
that he used sex as quote A coping mechanism. That's possible.
It's also possible that, you know, guys are horny, and
horny guys are known for using every possible angle to
try to score. But I doubt that's the whole story, because,
according to just about everyone we talked to, Brandon was
(13:54):
drawn to depress people, both men and women alike, and
they were drawn to him. I think it's because he
actually listened to them. In a world full of social
climbers and low attention spans and people being glued to
their phones, he made them believe their feelings mattered. They
(14:15):
poured their hearts out to him, and then he took
this information and used it to manipulate them.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
At least that's.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
So many people claim, but not everyone. One of his
defenders has stuck up for Brandon through thick and thin.
Her name is Madeline Mazarak, a former soil science major
at Truman State. She was dating suicide victim number three,
Alex Vote at the time of his death, and, according
(14:48):
to a mutual acquaintance, started dating Brandon afterwards. It was
insanely wrong and hurtful to see my friend Brandon Grosheim
labeled as a death of sessed frat boy in headlines.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
She told me Madeline.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Support shows that when it comes to Brandon Grosheim, there
truly is no consensus. For all the people who blame
him for the deaths of the four Kirksville students. There
are many who believe he was railroaded or that he
was a victim himself. In fact, there was one group
of people who didn't seem to think Brandon had done
anything wrong at all. This group seems to have gone
(15:28):
out of their way to make sure he was never
made uncomfortable. This group of people I'm talking about the cops.
Speaker 10 (15:54):
The way it was handled was very Keystone Coppish in
my opinion. The fact that they treated it as just
to cut and dry suicide from the beginning, cleared the scene,
let everybody in that became apparent that they should have
done something different very early on. There's still things that
keep coming up that don't make sense. Became really clear
(16:14):
that the police had not done the job that they
should have.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
That's Melissa bodorf Airy. She's Alex Mullins's mother whom we
talked to earlier in the series. She accuses the Kirksville
police of mishandling his case. None of the Kirksville police
officers would speak to us for this story, but because
of public records laws, we have a good sense of
(16:40):
how they investigated the suicide of Alex Mullins and the
three that followed. Not everyone thinks the police did a
bad job. Leu Anne Gilchrist, vice president of student affairs
at Truman State, told the Saint Louis Post Dispatch that
she believes the police were very thorough and I will
also say that after reading police logs and listening to
(17:03):
hours of the detective's interviews, I sympathize with them. Police
investigations are difficult, especially in an unusual case like this,
with this strange character Brandon Grossheim at the center of everything.
But the fact remains that they made a lot of mistakes.
We're going to go through some examples where the police
(17:25):
seemed disorganized and didn't appear to be taking the investigation seriously,
and then we'll talk about why that matters. In this
audio clip, you can hear Brandon finishing up his written
statement regarding one of the deaths and a detective preparing
to interview him.
Speaker 5 (17:44):
I wish I stopped.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
I've let up to the part where I had a
knock on my door.
Speaker 11 (17:48):
Its please, that's fine, mush pop there.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
But the problem is that when the detective starts interviewing Brandon,
the detective hasn't even been briefed about the case.
Speaker 12 (18:03):
Okay, so what's hold on? Help me out, give me
a second, because I don't even know what's going on.
So I was just sitting home.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
So who's the girl that's at the corb.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Here's a clear mistake from police during an interview following
the death of Alex Vote, the third suicide victim. The
detective is talking with Alex's girlfriend, Madeline Masaak, who's obviously mourning,
but the detective gets Alex's name wrong. He calls him Daniel,
which is Alex's father's name.
Speaker 13 (18:42):
So what I want to ask you about is a
poster that was found in A Daniel's apartment and talk
about Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm sorry it was in your
(19:09):
boyfriend's apartment. Yeah, Alex, I'm sorry. I can remember his
first name, and my computers locked up.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
The Kirksville Police Department seemed disorganized. Not having your facts
straight before interviewing someone in mourning is bad form, and
sometimes the investigators seemed extremely casual about what they were doing,
like they weren't even taking it seriously. Here's a detective
interviewing an Alpha Kappa Lamb de member immediately after the
(19:39):
death of the fourth victim, Josh Thomas, the openly gay
fraternity brother who took his own life. The questions focused
on Josh's dating life.
Speaker 11 (19:50):
Dude, Yeah, weare of any short term dates. A lot
of gay guys going, they're they're a lot more into
one night than they are forever.
Speaker 6 (19:58):
But yeah, I mean he had those, but nothing like do.
Speaker 11 (20:02):
You know anything in the last week where he had
a partner.
Speaker 14 (20:04):
I have no idea.
Speaker 11 (20:06):
He kept all that very.
Speaker 15 (20:08):
Private himself, and especially if we were all just saying
count he would have never.
Speaker 11 (20:12):
Been I just had sex, never never did and talk
like that. Yeah, I'm sure that would freak out all
your sturn abilities pretty seriously. I know I've known Purty
again Center and talked about different women that they were with,
but I never I can I would imagine that if
you came back talking about different guys, that would be
(20:34):
an whole otherworld quick.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
There were other complaints too. For example, Josh Thomas's mother
was troubled that an officer ignored her communications for months
after Josh's death. But where I think the police really
dropped the ball is when it came to the investigation
of Brandon Grosheim. Lots of people think Brandon Grossheim should
(20:58):
have been charged criminally in these suicides, including family and
friends of the victims. He knew all four victims closely
and counseled them very poorly in their hours of grief,
but Brandon Grosheim was never charged. The police investigated him,
but it's not clear when their investigation started or ended,
(21:21):
and to be honest, it all seemed rather perfunctory. Take
this interview, for example, from September twenty nineteen. An officer
arrives to the pizza place where Brandon was working at
the time to.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
Talk to him. When he arrives, Brandon is manning the counter.
Speaker 13 (21:40):
I'm good.
Speaker 15 (21:42):
Are you you have a minute where I can talk
to you if you're not in any trouble or anything,
and if you want to wait.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
Till this sure you're no problem at whole.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Brandon nervously ducks into the back, presumably to find someone
to cover for him at the counter, and then speaks
with the office outside.
Speaker 15 (22:01):
Like said, I'm not trying to obviously with this whole thing.
Have you been served or anything yet?
Speaker 4 (22:08):
I got served on the fourteen.
Speaker 15 (22:10):
That's none of my business, so you don't have to
tell me. We've been asked to kind of review some stuff.
If you choose nothing inter these, you're you're not in
any trouble. I've got nothing against you, okay.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
The detective asks him about a couple of mildly conflicting
statements Brandon had given police previously about the electricity in
his off campus apartment. This issue about the electricity doesn't
seem to have anything to do with anything, but then
the investigator asks him about something that does seem relevant.
(22:41):
It concerns a poster belonging to one of Brandon's neighbors,
a guy named Cody. Around the time he was moving
out of the building, he had some friends sign the
poster as a kind of going away card. Brandon signed it,
and then next to his name, he wrote die Master
like d I E Master die Master.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Yeah, Yes, die Master is beer. Die Master.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
It's a drinking game.
Speaker 13 (23:12):
Oh okay, never heard of it.
Speaker 12 (23:14):
I guess maybe that should my.
Speaker 5 (23:17):
But it's really popular at a k L. I don't
fraternities have their own variations of it. Okay, so just
a beer drinking game, and obviously you were pretty good
at if they're calling you the master.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
It was one of the I mean, it's.
Speaker 16 (23:32):
All about hands.
Speaker 4 (23:34):
I'm general a die up to a certain ling on
the other side of the table.
Speaker 7 (23:41):
You kept somebody.
Speaker 4 (23:43):
Brandon's not making this up. It's a real game.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
I heard it referenced by a different Truman State student.
But it's still a cheeky nickname to self apply, die master,
especially in these dark circumstances. No, maybe it's it's just
a fraternity thing, like he claimed. The detective probably should
have probed this more, but he just left it at
(24:08):
that and sent Brandon on his merry way.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
So, yeah, you need somebody like to talk to you
or someone give ellen.
Speaker 15 (24:14):
Okay, all right, I'm sorry to bug yout word for
thank you, having good day.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Most of the other police interviews I've heard with Brandon
missed the mark. They never get around to asking him
the most basic questions like why are you so often
in the mix when people kill themselves? That's my opinion. Anyway,
what do you think, Producer Ryan.
Speaker 14 (24:37):
Well when you dive into just about any police homicide investigation,
you know, you're going to find things that are less
than impressive. You know, there's a lot of officers and
detectives involved, and a lot of them are just sort
of kicking the can. But there's usually one detective who's
ultimately like the quarterback of any particular investigation. You know,
other people are just sort of checking boxes and listening
(24:58):
to this audio, you know, read these interrogations.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
It's sort of like.
Speaker 14 (25:02):
Everyone is kicking the can, checking boxes, and no one
really takes the lead. And fairness, this is a really
unusual case. It's hard to know what sort of crime
they'd even charge Brandon with. But you know, the Kirksville
Police Department didn't strike me as being overwhelmed in the
way that like Saint louis Is or Kansas City's police
departments are, you know, routinely overwhelmed.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
You know, KPD could have.
Speaker 14 (25:25):
At least been more direct. They seem weirdly like they're
kind of trying to spare Brandon embarrassment.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
That's a really good point. Yeah, well, thank you, Ryan.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
At one point, police administered a lie detector test to him,
and Brandon actually failed it. It's not clear why, though
Brandon claimed to have misunderstood one of the questions. Whatever
the case, he was not required to take the lie
detector test again, and as I said, he was never
charged criminally in the suicides. This absolutely incensed some of
(26:03):
the parents of the suicide victims. They wanted Brandon Grosheim
held accountable in some shape or form, and so they
took action. Truman State student Alex Mullins was the first
(26:34):
to die in the Kirksville, Missouri suicide cluster. He took
his own life at the Alpha Kappa Lambda fraternity house
in August twenty sixteen. His mother, Melissa bodorf Airy, raised
Alex in the Kansas City area, but she now lives
in Florida. When we talked to her, she told us
she couldn't escape the feeling that her son didn't have
(26:56):
to die, that perhaps there was foul play involved.
Speaker 10 (27:00):
I mean, a lot of things just didn't start adding up.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
For one thing, she couldn't understand why she wasn't contacted
until many, many hours after his death.
Speaker 10 (27:10):
The nine one one call went in about twelve twenty one,
twenty minutes after noon. We were called right after twelve thirty,
so we were called within ten minutes of him supposedly
being found, but then later uncovered phone records that showed
those those the A lot of the young men involved
had been communicating with each other all morning for hours.
(27:35):
They had an app that they communicated through as a fraternity.
You know, now, I believe that that's not accidental. I'm
sure a lot of fraternities do that, Like we're not
going to use the traceable ways of communicating our good
and bad miss things that we do. An app like that,
once it's deleted, there's nothing that you can pull from it,
like it's just gone.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
In twenty nineteen, bought Orf Airy and the parents of
Josh Thomas, the fourth suicide victim, filed suit against Alpha
Kapa Lambda, the fraternity. Their sons, and Brandon Grosheim belonged to.
The suit alleged that the fraternity had known of the
danger presented by Grossheim and done nothing. In a settlement
(28:18):
reached in twenty twenty three, bad Or Fairy received one
hundred and seventy five thousand dollars, while the parents of
Josh Thomas, Suzanne and Michael, received nine hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 4 (28:30):
We can only.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Guess why Josh Thomas's parents got so much more, since
all parties involved are sworn to secrecy. Maybe it was
because Josh was the final of the three fraternity deaths,
meaning Alpha Kappa Lambda had long been aware of Brandon
Grossheim's influence by then, but we can't know for sure.
(28:52):
The parents also filed suit against Truman State for allowing
Grosheim quote unfettered access to their sons despite his potential
danger to them. This lawsuit was dismissed, so now the
only outstanding lawsuit they have left is against Brandon Grossheim.
Speaker 10 (29:12):
He just apparently had a personality that was the type
that was a little bit preoccupied with depression and sadness
and suicide to the point that you know, he would
from what I found out later, he would tell people
that their families would understand, like he would take a
(29:34):
vulnerable person and in an encouraging way, like that it
was going to be a good thing that they could
in their life, and that that would end their suffering,
and that it's not a sin, and that it's you know,
their families would understand and nobody wants them to be
in pain, and those were all the things we were told.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Though bought Our Fairy's son Alex was friends with Brandon.
She does not believe that Brandon had good intentions with him.
Speaker 10 (30:00):
Do I think you know Manson had good intentions?
Speaker 2 (30:03):
No?
Speaker 10 (30:04):
I look at Brandon in the same light as I
look at somebody like that. No, I don't think the
intentions are good.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
She believes that Brandon encouraged her son Alex to commit suicide,
and that belief is the basis of the civil lawsuit
against him. I spoke about the lawsuit with our producer
Ryan Kral, so help us understand this case. There's no
evidence that Brandon explicitly told anyone to kill themselves, right,
(30:32):
So what exactly are the plaintiffs arguing?
Speaker 14 (30:34):
So, yeah, they're arguing that Brandon was aware that these
young men were struggling with their mental health and that
made them extremely persuadable and open to suggestions by anyone,
including Brandon. But despite that, Brandon nonetheless continued to take
drugs with these guys, and he'd counseled them to deal
with their depression and do their own free will. And
(30:55):
those are basically euphemisms for suicide, is what the suit
alleges at least.
Speaker 4 (31:00):
Okay, but even if we're true, is that illegal? Well?
Speaker 14 (31:04):
Missouri law makes it clear, and this is quoting exactly
from Missouri law, and what it says is that anyone
who knowingly assists another and the commission of self murder
is guilty of involuntary manslaughter. So of course the plaintiffs
are going to be pointing to that at trial, but that,
you know, that is criminal law, which is separate from
civil and a civil suit though, you actually just have
(31:27):
to show what's called a preponderance of the evidence that
if it weren't for Brandon's actions, Alex Mallis and Josh
Thomas would still be alive today.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
Interesting.
Speaker 14 (31:36):
Yeah, uh, we did talk to you know, Brandon's attorney,
Curtis Nywald, and he believes there's problems with the lawsuit.
Speaker 16 (31:44):
You know, it's it's very difficult for me to discern
what exactly they think my client did wrong. There's nothing
that I've seen specific as to what he did to
cause these these young men that commit suicide.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
I can see that argument.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Also, it's still they're not clear to me how you
can charge someone for someone else's suicide.
Speaker 14 (32:05):
Yeah, so Missouri law actually has changed on this a
little bit over the years. Previously, suicide was regarded as
a voluntary Act, which meant that no one else could
be held responsible for it other than the person you
know who took their own life. But about twenty years ago,
case law actually started to change.
Speaker 4 (32:23):
Courts began ruly that.
Speaker 14 (32:24):
Like, let's say, if a surgeon botches a procedure so
badly that it leaves a patient in such chronic pain
that they're driven to in their own life. In cases
like that, the patient's family, the deceased family, can sue
the surgeon. So now technically in Missouri someone can be
held liable for someone else's suicide. But it's rare, and
like I said, it's usually a healthcare provider who's being sued.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Okay, thanks for explaining that. And then another question. The
lawsuit against Brandon Grossheim is federal, right, Why is that?
Speaker 14 (32:56):
Well, originally it was in state court, and in that situation,
the jury pool would have been exclusively people from Adare
County or people from around Kirksville. And in that case,
you're gonna have a situation where the jury's much more
likely to have heard of Brandon Grossteim and probably be
less sympathetic to him. So I'm guessing that the defense
is reasoning that if they move it to federal court,
(33:19):
they'll be able to draw from a much wider jury pool.
It's literally half the state, the eastern half of the state.
So what the defense is thinking is that that jury pool,
the larger jury pool, is going to be less biased
towards the defendant in this case.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
And then I know they got hundreds of thousands of
dollars from the fraternity, But why are they targeting Brandon.
I mean, he can't have very much money, can't he.
Speaker 14 (33:40):
No, not at all. I'm just theorizing, but I bet
that because Brandon was never charged criminally, the parents of
the victims feel that this is the best way to
win some measure of justice in their eyes, to sort
of hold Brandon accountable in some way in civil court.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
Okay, great, well, thank you, Ryan, You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
But let's not assume that Brandon will be found liable
in the civil suit because remember, well many people blame
Brandon for these suicides. Many people don't, and that's in
part because, well, Brandon wasn't the only shady character in Kirksville.
In fact, there was another man who, at the time
of these deaths, was right in the thick of things.
(34:23):
This guy is actually the father of one of the victims,
and some people had some pretty gnarly things to say
about it, and so Ryan and I set out to
talk to him. That's next time on the Peacemaker. The
(34:45):
Peacemaker is a production of Cool Fire Studios and iHeart Podcasts.
It's hosted by me Ben Westoff and Ryan Crawl. Our
executive producers are Jeff Keene, David Johnson, and Steve Lubert.
Music and audio engineering by Brent Johnson. Executive producers for
iHeart Podcasts are.
Speaker 4 (35:05):
Katrina Norvell and Nikki Etour.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
If you are someone you know 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.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
What really kind of had drawn me to it was
that he looks like he looked like krk Kent at
the Superman in the skuy is like just kind of
a more of a nerdy version, nerdier version of it.
And then it seemed like I'm a vibes person and
I don't know how, but I got like a good
vibe from the profile.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
I was wrong about that, but here's what it is.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
That's a former Truman State University student named Tristan Wiser
explaining why she was attracted to Brandon Grosheim, whom she
met on Tinder. Brandon would soon develop a strange notoriety.
He became notorious on campus, tied up in the deaths
of four young suicide victims in Kirksville. To this day,
(00:54):
many people claim he has blood on his hands. But
it's not like he was some sort of sociopath, some
sort of monster, at least not outwardly. In fact, he
seemed like the opposite of a sociopath. People called him empathetic,
He was confident, articulate, cultured. He wasn't a bad looking guy,
(01:18):
and until things started falling apart. Clean cut and well groomed,
he came across as someone capable of getting along with anyone,
the upper cross, the working class, the business majors, even
the stoners. Most shocking was how people trusted him so
(01:39):
deeply they wanted to share with him their deepest, darkest secrets.
The fourth suicide victim, Josh Thomas, told Brandon that he
was the person he trusted more than anyone else. That's
according to the lawsuit against Brandon. Even after the suicides began,
people continued confiding in him, and they still somehow trusted
(02:02):
him after he was accused of encouraging his friends to
commit suicide, or at the very least not trying to
talk them out of it. I wanted to know why,
Why were so many people drawn to this guy? Why
were so many people willing to spill their hearts out
to him. Unfortunately, we can't get answers from these young
(02:23):
men who died, but we can get answers from the
young women.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
He was involved with.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Because Brandon dated a lot, some were proper girlfriends, though
others were more like romantic flings or even just flirtations. Oddly,
Brandon was kind of a player even while people were
dying all around him, and most of these relationships, according
to the women involved, were disturbingly psychological. At least once
(02:54):
said it was almost like he was grooming her for
suicide herself.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
Almost all of.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
The women with whom Brandon had romantic relationships had something
in common. They were in bad places in their lives.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
You know how.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Some guys have a type, Some prefer blondes, some like Brunette's.
Brandon's type, it appeared, were girls who were severely depressed.
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. I'm your host Ben Westoff
(03:32):
along with Ryan Pral. This is the Peacemaker. One of
Brandon's girlfriends was named Casey Menngene's a Delta Zeta who
had been dating Jake Hughes right before he died. Jake,
(03:56):
you might recall, was Brandon Grossheim's fraternity brother at the
Alpha Kapa Lambda House. He was the second suicide victim
in our story. The night he killed himself in August
twenty sixteen, there was a raging party at Alpha Kappa Lambda.
Jake and his girlfriend Casey had both been drinking, They
(04:18):
were arguing, and there was a lot of drama. According
to a police report, Jake told Casey that he felt
like driving into a lake and killing himself, and so
that night, Casey asked Brandon to keep an eye on Jake,
but according to Brandon, when he went to talk to Jake,
(04:39):
Jake gave him his keys and asked him to drive
his girlfriend Casey home.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Here's Brandon talking to police.
Speaker 5 (04:49):
Bobby have given me his keys? Yeah, because he had
me to drive his girlfriend Kisi okay.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
I was drugging around his car.
Speaker 5 (04:57):
I was taking people home and stuff.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Thirty when Brandon returned, he keyed into Jake's room and
found him hanging from a wardrobe. Everyone was devastated, Jake's family,
Jake's girlfriend, Casey, the members of Alpha Kapa Lambda. Brandon too,
(05:23):
so perhaps they were only trying to comfort each other,
but Brandon and Casey got together almost right away. According
to a police report, they started seeing each other right
after Jake's death in April twenty seventeen. About seven months later,
Brandon told a counselor that it took a month for
him and Casey to become official, but that they had
(05:46):
now been dating for a while. If that was working
for them, great, But what some people found creepy was
that this would not be the first time nor the
last time that Brandon was linked to girlfriends of the
suicide victims. Brandon also appears to have dated an ex
girlfriend of the first person who took his own life,
(06:08):
Alex Mullins, and the girlfriend of the third victim, Alex Vote.
What drew him to these women? Why would someone want
to date a former girlfriend of a suicide victim? I
pose these questions to Rita Leshewsky, a suicide prevention trainer
based in Milwaukee.
Speaker 6 (06:29):
At the very least, I could say that he loved
being in the thick of a situation which he may
think he had a small part on, and he didn't
want to lose that identity of someone who either precipitated
a suicide or else. He wanted to continue on in
(06:50):
that vein. Sometimes it is not unusual, you know, we
all liked the spotlight to some extent. We all like
to be kittilated by what's going on.
Speaker 7 (07:01):
And he may have used his reactionor trying to get
in with these women as a way to continue that titillation,
and perhaps in the fariest ways, tried to manipulate them also.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
And it wasn't just the girlfriends of suicide victims. Brandon
had other women in his sights as well, and most
of these relationships, according to the women, were extremely manipulative.
Let's go back to Tristan Wiser, the former Truman State
student who originally met Brandon on Tinder. He helped her
(07:41):
with her studies and they were briefly romantic. Tristan told
me she was depressed at the time, and they spoke
about dark subjects. Presumably it sounds like he had some
sort of obsession with life and death.
Speaker 8 (07:55):
Yeah, and I remember that being something that we did
talk about, as I've always like an alternative person into
like dark humor and enjoying.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Of that stuff.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Is like my favorite movie of all time is that
Airport Christmas about after life love, and I was very
very deep into it then. I was also in a
darker place, but like I was more willing to talk
about when I was depressed and things like that, and
I just kind of felt, I guess I may have
felt like it was somebody from Biden, which is what
I needed at the time. He was one of the
(08:25):
people that would ask me about it, and that's what
had gotten me feel to feel comfortable, because not many
people were asking me about it.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
At first, She appreciated his willingness to talk to her
about her depression.
Speaker 8 (08:38):
At first it was tell me more, tell me more
how you feel, and then why does it make you
feel that?
Speaker 3 (08:44):
What does it make you think?
Speaker 8 (08:45):
And it feels like you're being pushed to explore yourself
when you're really being pushed to expose your weaknesses.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
And so you think he was trying to exploit those weaknesses.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Possibly possibly with everything that.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Yeah, yeah, I don't see that any other way for
the way that he approached things to have been.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
These conversations between Tristan and Brandon took place after the
deaths of the first two suicide victims, Alex Mullins and
Jake Hughes.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
Brandon and Tristan.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Also talked about whether she herself had considered suicide.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
We had talked about my depression and things like that,
and why I had ever thought about that.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
I never got to that point. I just expressed deep sadness.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
At some point Brandon started to get extremely awkward.
Speaker 8 (09:39):
Tristan says, I remember we had only been hanging out
and talking for a little while when one of the
knights that we were studying, he wasn't studying, he was
helping me study. I had asked him to come over,
and like, just in the middle of me writing or
doing something, we were sitting on my food on I think,
and he had just stuck his hand across my stomach
(09:59):
and I was just like, what are you He was like,
I wanted to feel you breathe. And I was like, uh, okay,
that's definitely not just awkward.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
I wanted to feel you breathe, she says Brandon said. Brandon,
for his part, has said he doesn't remember this interaction. Eventually,
she didn't want to see him anymore.
Speaker 8 (10:22):
I slowly phased out even talking to him, and eventually
kind of like actively avoid.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Him on campus because I just didn't want to feel
that awkward of feeling again.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
And it wasn't just Tristan. Brandon seemed obsessed with getting
together with the Pressed girls and offering them his twisted
form of counsel. Sometimes he presented himself as their knight
in Shining Armor. According to an unnamed young woman interviewed
for a New Yorker story, Brandon quote shielded her from
(10:53):
a male student who kept hitting on her at a party.
They then quote went to Grossheim's room, where she deflected
an invitation to share his bed. But here's where it
gets a bit disturbing, according to a Truman State employee,
this unnamed young woman from the New Yorker story, the
(11:13):
one who declined to share Brandon's bed, later told Brandon
that she was severely depressed. He then quote comforted her
and said that if she chose to commit suicide, he
would support her decision and her family and friends would understand.
According to the story, the young woman did not agree
that they would understand at all. Grosheim's response to this allegation,
(11:39):
he claimed, quote his words had been misinterpreted and that
he would quote never condone suicide or encourage the act.
Then there was a different young woman from Kirksville named
Lauren George. In twenty nineteen, she told a Kirksville television
station that, following the four suicide, she and Brandon had
(12:01):
been quote developing their relationship into something more serious than
just friends. Lauren too was going through a rough time.
She didn't always want to talk about her depression, she said,
but Brandon insisted.
Speaker 9 (12:17):
With me going through a rough time, there were times
that I didn't want to talk about it, and I
noticed that during times that him and I would just
be having conversation, he'd want to try to talk about the.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Feelings that I was having.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
She worried that had she kept talking to him, she
could have been the next suicide victim.
Speaker 9 (12:40):
The downer attitude just I didn't want to be around that.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Brandon did not respond to a request for comment about
Lauren's claims, but others also accused Brandon of playing mind games.
One woman says he used psychological pressure to try to
get women to sleep with him. This was another young
woman featured in the New Yorker story who requested anonymity.
(13:06):
She told the article's writer DT Max that Brandon manipulated
her into having sex. Grossheim put his head in her
lap and implied that he'd have nothing to live for
if she didn't sleep with him, she said. Further, this
woman said another woman told her Grossheim had done the
same thing to her. Brandon denied these claims, admitting only
(13:32):
that he used sex as quote A coping mechanism. That's possible.
It's also possible that, you know, guys are horny, and
horny guys are known for using every possible angle to
try to score. But I doubt that's the whole story, because,
according to just about everyone we talked to, Brandon was
(13:54):
drawn to depress people, both men and women alike, and
they were drawn to him. I think it's because he
actually listened to them. In a world full of social
climbers and low attention spans and people being glued to
their phones, he made them believe their feelings mattered. They
(14:15):
poured their hearts out to him, and then he took
this information and used it to manipulate them.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
At least that's.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
So many people claim, but not everyone. One of his
defenders has stuck up for Brandon through thick and thin.
Her name is Madeline Mazarak, a former soil science major
at Truman State. She was dating suicide victim number three,
Alex Vote at the time of his death, and, according
(14:48):
to a mutual acquaintance, started dating Brandon afterwards. It was
insanely wrong and hurtful to see my friend Brandon Grosheim
labeled as a death of sessed frat boy in headlines.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
She told me Madeline.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Support shows that when it comes to Brandon Grosheim, there
truly is no consensus. For all the people who blame
him for the deaths of the four Kirksville students. There
are many who believe he was railroaded or that he
was a victim himself. In fact, there was one group
of people who didn't seem to think Brandon had done
anything wrong at all. This group seems to have gone
(15:28):
out of their way to make sure he was never
made uncomfortable. This group of people I'm talking about the cops.
Speaker 10 (15:54):
The way it was handled was very Keystone Coppish in
my opinion. The fact that they treated it as just
to cut and dry suicide from the beginning, cleared the scene,
let everybody in that became apparent that they should have
done something different very early on. There's still things that
keep coming up that don't make sense. Became really clear
(16:14):
that the police had not done the job that they
should have.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
That's Melissa bodorf Airy. She's Alex Mullins's mother whom we
talked to earlier in the series. She accuses the Kirksville
police of mishandling his case. None of the Kirksville police
officers would speak to us for this story, but because
of public records laws, we have a good sense of
(16:40):
how they investigated the suicide of Alex Mullins and the
three that followed. Not everyone thinks the police did a
bad job. Leu Anne Gilchrist, vice president of student affairs
at Truman State, told the Saint Louis Post Dispatch that
she believes the police were very thorough and I will
also say that after reading police logs and listening to
(17:03):
hours of the detective's interviews, I sympathize with them. Police
investigations are difficult, especially in an unusual case like this,
with this strange character Brandon Grossheim at the center of everything.
But the fact remains that they made a lot of mistakes.
We're going to go through some examples where the police
(17:25):
seemed disorganized and didn't appear to be taking the investigation seriously,
and then we'll talk about why that matters. In this
audio clip, you can hear Brandon finishing up his written
statement regarding one of the deaths and a detective preparing
to interview him.
Speaker 5 (17:44):
I wish I stopped.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
I've let up to the part where I had a
knock on my door.
Speaker 11 (17:48):
Its please, that's fine, mush pop there.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
But the problem is that when the detective starts interviewing Brandon,
the detective hasn't even been briefed about the case.
Speaker 12 (18:03):
Okay, so what's hold on? Help me out, give me
a second, because I don't even know what's going on.
So I was just sitting home.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
So who's the girl that's at the corb.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Here's a clear mistake from police during an interview following
the death of Alex Vote, the third suicide victim. The
detective is talking with Alex's girlfriend, Madeline Masaak, who's obviously mourning,
but the detective gets Alex's name wrong. He calls him Daniel,
which is Alex's father's name.
Speaker 13 (18:42):
So what I want to ask you about is a
poster that was found in A Daniel's apartment and talk
about Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm sorry it was in your
(19:09):
boyfriend's apartment. Yeah, Alex, I'm sorry. I can remember his
first name, and my computers locked up.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
The Kirksville Police Department seemed disorganized. Not having your facts
straight before interviewing someone in mourning is bad form, and
sometimes the investigators seemed extremely casual about what they were doing,
like they weren't even taking it seriously. Here's a detective
interviewing an Alpha Kappa Lamb de member immediately after the
(19:39):
death of the fourth victim, Josh Thomas, the openly gay
fraternity brother who took his own life. The questions focused
on Josh's dating life.
Speaker 11 (19:50):
Dude, Yeah, weare of any short term dates. A lot
of gay guys going, they're they're a lot more into
one night than they are forever.
Speaker 6 (19:58):
But yeah, I mean he had those, but nothing like do.
Speaker 11 (20:02):
You know anything in the last week where he had
a partner.
Speaker 14 (20:04):
I have no idea.
Speaker 11 (20:06):
He kept all that very.
Speaker 15 (20:08):
Private himself, and especially if we were all just saying
count he would have never.
Speaker 11 (20:12):
Been I just had sex, never never did and talk
like that. Yeah, I'm sure that would freak out all
your sturn abilities pretty seriously. I know I've known Purty
again Center and talked about different women that they were with,
but I never I can I would imagine that if
you came back talking about different guys, that would be
(20:34):
an whole otherworld quick.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
There were other complaints too. For example, Josh Thomas's mother
was troubled that an officer ignored her communications for months
after Josh's death. But where I think the police really
dropped the ball is when it came to the investigation
of Brandon Grosheim. Lots of people think Brandon Grossheim should
(20:58):
have been charged criminally in these suicides, including family and
friends of the victims. He knew all four victims closely
and counseled them very poorly in their hours of grief,
but Brandon Grosheim was never charged. The police investigated him,
but it's not clear when their investigation started or ended,
(21:21):
and to be honest, it all seemed rather perfunctory. Take
this interview, for example, from September twenty nineteen. An officer
arrives to the pizza place where Brandon was working at
the time to.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
Talk to him. When he arrives, Brandon is manning the counter.
Speaker 13 (21:40):
I'm good.
Speaker 15 (21:42):
Are you you have a minute where I can talk
to you if you're not in any trouble or anything,
and if you want to wait.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
Till this sure you're no problem at whole.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Brandon nervously ducks into the back, presumably to find someone
to cover for him at the counter, and then speaks
with the office outside.
Speaker 15 (22:01):
Like said, I'm not trying to obviously with this whole thing.
Have you been served or anything yet?
Speaker 4 (22:08):
I got served on the fourteen.
Speaker 15 (22:10):
That's none of my business, so you don't have to
tell me. We've been asked to kind of review some stuff.
If you choose nothing inter these, you're you're not in
any trouble. I've got nothing against you, okay.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
The detective asks him about a couple of mildly conflicting
statements Brandon had given police previously about the electricity in
his off campus apartment. This issue about the electricity doesn't
seem to have anything to do with anything, but then
the investigator asks him about something that does seem relevant.
(22:41):
It concerns a poster belonging to one of Brandon's neighbors,
a guy named Cody. Around the time he was moving
out of the building, he had some friends sign the
poster as a kind of going away card. Brandon signed it,
and then next to his name, he wrote die Master
like d I E Master die Master.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Yeah, Yes, die Master is beer. Die Master.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
It's a drinking game.
Speaker 13 (23:12):
Oh okay, never heard of it.
Speaker 12 (23:14):
I guess maybe that should my.
Speaker 5 (23:17):
But it's really popular at a k L. I don't
fraternities have their own variations of it. Okay, so just
a beer drinking game, and obviously you were pretty good
at if they're calling you the master.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
It was one of the I mean, it's.
Speaker 16 (23:32):
All about hands.
Speaker 4 (23:34):
I'm general a die up to a certain ling on
the other side of the table.
Speaker 7 (23:41):
You kept somebody.
Speaker 4 (23:43):
Brandon's not making this up. It's a real game.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
I heard it referenced by a different Truman State student.
But it's still a cheeky nickname to self apply, die master,
especially in these dark circumstances. No, maybe it's it's just
a fraternity thing, like he claimed. The detective probably should
have probed this more, but he just left it at
(24:08):
that and sent Brandon on his merry way.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
So, yeah, you need somebody like to talk to you
or someone give ellen.
Speaker 15 (24:14):
Okay, all right, I'm sorry to bug yout word for
thank you, having good day.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Most of the other police interviews I've heard with Brandon
missed the mark. They never get around to asking him
the most basic questions like why are you so often
in the mix when people kill themselves? That's my opinion. Anyway,
what do you think, Producer Ryan.
Speaker 14 (24:37):
Well when you dive into just about any police homicide investigation,
you know, you're going to find things that are less
than impressive. You know, there's a lot of officers and
detectives involved, and a lot of them are just sort
of kicking the can. But there's usually one detective who's
ultimately like the quarterback of any particular investigation. You know,
other people are just sort of checking boxes and listening
(24:58):
to this audio, you know, read these interrogations.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
It's sort of like.
Speaker 14 (25:02):
Everyone is kicking the can, checking boxes, and no one
really takes the lead. And fairness, this is a really
unusual case. It's hard to know what sort of crime
they'd even charge Brandon with. But you know, the Kirksville
Police Department didn't strike me as being overwhelmed in the
way that like Saint louis Is or Kansas City's police
departments are, you know, routinely overwhelmed.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
You know, KPD could have.
Speaker 14 (25:25):
At least been more direct. They seem weirdly like they're
kind of trying to spare Brandon embarrassment.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
That's a really good point. Yeah, well, thank you, Ryan.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
At one point, police administered a lie detector test to him,
and Brandon actually failed it. It's not clear why, though
Brandon claimed to have misunderstood one of the questions. Whatever
the case, he was not required to take the lie
detector test again, and as I said, he was never
charged criminally in the suicides. This absolutely incensed some of
(26:03):
the parents of the suicide victims. They wanted Brandon Grosheim
held accountable in some shape or form, and so they
took action. Truman State student Alex Mullins was the first
(26:34):
to die in the Kirksville, Missouri suicide cluster. He took
his own life at the Alpha Kappa Lambda fraternity house
in August twenty sixteen. His mother, Melissa bodorf Airy, raised
Alex in the Kansas City area, but she now lives
in Florida. When we talked to her, she told us
she couldn't escape the feeling that her son didn't have
(26:56):
to die, that perhaps there was foul play involved.
Speaker 10 (27:00):
I mean, a lot of things just didn't start adding up.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
For one thing, she couldn't understand why she wasn't contacted
until many, many hours after his death.
Speaker 10 (27:10):
The nine one one call went in about twelve twenty one,
twenty minutes after noon. We were called right after twelve thirty,
so we were called within ten minutes of him supposedly
being found, but then later uncovered phone records that showed
those those the A lot of the young men involved
had been communicating with each other all morning for hours.
(27:35):
They had an app that they communicated through as a fraternity.
You know, now, I believe that that's not accidental. I'm
sure a lot of fraternities do that, Like we're not
going to use the traceable ways of communicating our good
and bad miss things that we do. An app like that,
once it's deleted, there's nothing that you can pull from it,
like it's just gone.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
In twenty nineteen, bought Orf Airy and the parents of
Josh Thomas, the fourth suicide victim, filed suit against Alpha
Kapa Lambda, the fraternity. Their sons, and Brandon Grosheim belonged to.
The suit alleged that the fraternity had known of the
danger presented by Grossheim and done nothing. In a settlement
(28:18):
reached in twenty twenty three, bad Or Fairy received one
hundred and seventy five thousand dollars, while the parents of
Josh Thomas, Suzanne and Michael, received nine hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 4 (28:30):
We can only.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Guess why Josh Thomas's parents got so much more, since
all parties involved are sworn to secrecy. Maybe it was
because Josh was the final of the three fraternity deaths,
meaning Alpha Kappa Lambda had long been aware of Brandon
Grossheim's influence by then, but we can't know for sure.
(28:52):
The parents also filed suit against Truman State for allowing
Grosheim quote unfettered access to their sons despite his potential
danger to them. This lawsuit was dismissed, so now the
only outstanding lawsuit they have left is against Brandon Grossheim.
Speaker 10 (29:12):
He just apparently had a personality that was the type
that was a little bit preoccupied with depression and sadness
and suicide to the point that you know, he would
from what I found out later, he would tell people
that their families would understand, like he would take a
(29:34):
vulnerable person and in an encouraging way, like that it
was going to be a good thing that they could
in their life, and that that would end their suffering,
and that it's not a sin, and that it's you know,
their families would understand and nobody wants them to be
in pain, and those were all the things we were told.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Though bought Our Fairy's son Alex was friends with Brandon.
She does not believe that Brandon had good intentions with him.
Speaker 10 (30:00):
Do I think you know Manson had good intentions?
Speaker 2 (30:03):
No?
Speaker 10 (30:04):
I look at Brandon in the same light as I
look at somebody like that. No, I don't think the
intentions are good.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
She believes that Brandon encouraged her son Alex to commit suicide,
and that belief is the basis of the civil lawsuit
against him. I spoke about the lawsuit with our producer
Ryan Kral, so help us understand this case. There's no
evidence that Brandon explicitly told anyone to kill themselves, right,
(30:32):
So what exactly are the plaintiffs arguing?
Speaker 14 (30:34):
So, yeah, they're arguing that Brandon was aware that these
young men were struggling with their mental health and that
made them extremely persuadable and open to suggestions by anyone,
including Brandon. But despite that, Brandon nonetheless continued to take
drugs with these guys, and he'd counseled them to deal
with their depression and do their own free will. And
(30:55):
those are basically euphemisms for suicide, is what the suit
alleges at least.
Speaker 4 (31:00):
Okay, but even if we're true, is that illegal? Well?
Speaker 14 (31:04):
Missouri law makes it clear, and this is quoting exactly
from Missouri law, and what it says is that anyone
who knowingly assists another and the commission of self murder
is guilty of involuntary manslaughter. So of course the plaintiffs
are going to be pointing to that at trial, but that,
you know, that is criminal law, which is separate from
civil and a civil suit though, you actually just have
(31:27):
to show what's called a preponderance of the evidence that
if it weren't for Brandon's actions, Alex Mallis and Josh
Thomas would still be alive today.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
Interesting.
Speaker 14 (31:36):
Yeah, uh, we did talk to you know, Brandon's attorney,
Curtis Nywald, and he believes there's problems with the lawsuit.
Speaker 16 (31:44):
You know, it's it's very difficult for me to discern
what exactly they think my client did wrong. There's nothing
that I've seen specific as to what he did to
cause these these young men that commit suicide.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
I can see that argument.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Also, it's still they're not clear to me how you
can charge someone for someone else's suicide.
Speaker 14 (32:05):
Yeah, so Missouri law actually has changed on this a
little bit over the years. Previously, suicide was regarded as
a voluntary Act, which meant that no one else could
be held responsible for it other than the person you
know who took their own life. But about twenty years ago,
case law actually started to change.
Speaker 4 (32:23):
Courts began ruly that.
Speaker 14 (32:24):
Like, let's say, if a surgeon botches a procedure so
badly that it leaves a patient in such chronic pain
that they're driven to in their own life. In cases
like that, the patient's family, the deceased family, can sue
the surgeon. So now technically in Missouri someone can be
held liable for someone else's suicide. But it's rare, and
like I said, it's usually a healthcare provider who's being sued.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Okay, thanks for explaining that. And then another question. The
lawsuit against Brandon Grossheim is federal, right, Why is that?
Speaker 14 (32:56):
Well, originally it was in state court, and in that situation,
the jury pool would have been exclusively people from Adare
County or people from around Kirksville. And in that case,
you're gonna have a situation where the jury's much more
likely to have heard of Brandon Grossteim and probably be
less sympathetic to him. So I'm guessing that the defense
is reasoning that if they move it to federal court,
(33:19):
they'll be able to draw from a much wider jury pool.
It's literally half the state, the eastern half of the state.
So what the defense is thinking is that that jury pool,
the larger jury pool, is going to be less biased
towards the defendant in this case.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
And then I know they got hundreds of thousands of
dollars from the fraternity, But why are they targeting Brandon.
I mean, he can't have very much money, can't he.
Speaker 14 (33:40):
No, not at all. I'm just theorizing, but I bet
that because Brandon was never charged criminally, the parents of
the victims feel that this is the best way to
win some measure of justice in their eyes, to sort
of hold Brandon accountable in some way in civil court.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
Okay, great, well, thank you, Ryan, You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
But let's not assume that Brandon will be found liable
in the civil suit because remember, well many people blame
Brandon for these suicides. Many people don't, and that's in
part because, well, Brandon wasn't the only shady character in Kirksville.
In fact, there was another man who, at the time
of these deaths, was right in the thick of things.
(34:23):
This guy is actually the father of one of the victims,
and some people had some pretty gnarly things to say
about it, and so Ryan and I set out to
talk to him. That's next time on the Peacemaker. The
(34:45):
Peacemaker is a production of Cool Fire Studios and iHeart Podcasts.
It's hosted by me Ben Westoff and Ryan Crawl. Our
executive producers are Jeff Keene, David Johnson, and Steve Lubert.
Music and audio engineering by Brent Johnson. Executive producers for
iHeart Podcasts are.
Speaker 4 (35:05):
Katrina Norvell and Nikki Etour.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
If you are someone you know is having suicidal thoughts,
there are resources available to you. Please call the Suicide
and Crisis Lifeline nine eight eight
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.