The Real Killer Season 3: Ep. 13, My Youth is Over

In this intimate and revealing first of a two part conversation, Kelly Moffett shares her side of this tragic story. Does she still stand by her testimony that her former boyfriend, Byron Case, brutally murdered Anastasia that October night in 1997? Kelly shares some shocking new stories as well as a bombshell claim that Byron told other people about the night of the murder.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
A warning. This episode contains depictions of violence and conversations
about suicide that may be disturbing and triggering for some listeners.
If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts, please fast forward
to the end of this episode to find out where
help is available. Okay, lady gentlemen, I want to go

(00:21):
ahead and switch play over to Jeroboarding Lane Jered Barding
lanz Z one number five.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
For how quickte you some week. I'm with Sarah Centricision.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
So it's been a couple of weeks since our last
episode came out. The reason we needed to take a
break was so that I could go back to Kansas
City to conduct a couple of interviews, including one with
the other person at the very center of this story. Okay, so,
first question, probably the easiest question of the day. If
you can say and spell your name for transcription.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Sure, Kelly k E L L Y Moffatt Moffett.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
What will Kelly reveal in this first of two parts interview?
Will it tip the scales in this most tragic of
he said, she said, I'm Leah Rothman. This is the

(01:28):
real killer. Episode thirteen. My youth is over. After more
than a year of emailing and most recently texting with
Kelly Moffatt, and after she listened to the previous twelve episodes,

(01:50):
which include what her former boyfriend Byron Case has had
to say about her, Kelly informs me she's now ready
to tell her side. Kelly is a bit late for
our pre arranged at noon start time. She jokes she'd
be late to her own funeral. When she arrives at
my second floor Airbnb, I'm surprised by how tall Kelly is.

(02:15):
I mean, I'm short, but she is definitely taller than
I imagined. Kelly says she's nervous. Hell, I'm nervous too.
We eventually sit down at the dining room table with
the Starbucks coffees I got us and begin our conversation.
First things first, Kelly, I just want to say thank

(02:35):
you so much for agreeing to talk with me today.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
I don't know. The more I thought about it, I'm
just this is about Anastasia. To me, this is about
him wasting resources that are desperately needed for people that
are actually wrongfully convicted. And I'm just, frankly just I'm

(03:00):
just sick of him slandering me and just the way
that things are represented.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
I mean, it's been more than a decade since Kelly
has spoken publicly. What you're about to hear is a raw, intimate, emotional,
and at times meandering discussion that keeps me on the
edge of my seat. So you have been listening to

(03:27):
the podcast, what are some of the things that stood
out to you?

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Well, first of all, Byron has not changed whatsoever, like
literally at all, with the cadence of his boys, how
he delivers things, and it felt like he was like
the same teenager or whatever that I knew. And just
his coldness about certain things, his coldness about Justin's death,

(03:59):
him act this is gonna get me upset. Sorry, him
pretending to be upset about it in Aastasia calling her Stasia,
which was like reserved for her family and people that
loved her and stuff. I just like, he never ceases
to amaze me with just like I don't know. I mean,

(04:23):
I'm like, do you sit in your jail set? Well,
I mean, of course in prison you have nothing but time,
But I'm like, do you really sit in your jail
cell and like practice these deliveries and stuff? Because I
know he's guilty.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
Let's start not the beginning beginning. But tell me a
little bit about meeting Justin and Anastasia and Byron. Byron
tells the story of how you all met at the
coffee shop. Just tell me a little bit what you
remember from Okay, I met.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
Justin first, and I don't even remember how we started talking.
So he was just kind of he had the type
of personality where he would just sit by people and
be like, so, what's your story? You know, I remember, uh, yeah,
I just ran into him over and over again, and

(05:13):
at the coffeehouses. Yeah, at well, specifically at Broadway Cafe. Yeah,
just got to know him on like a superficial level
and then kind of a broader level because he got
to where like I would go over to his apartment
and stuff. But he wasn't creepy towards me anyway. So

(05:34):
that's how I started knowing and hanging out with Justin
because he was just like a fixture at the coffee shop.
And at that point I was too. I'd go after school.

Speaker 1 (05:45):
I mean, you were so young, I know.

Speaker 2 (05:47):
Wasn't that biz our. I had a friend that was
like the youngest of like four or five sisters. I
forget now. The older girls all hung out at that
coffee shop. So it was more like, Oh, take Kelly
and Rachel with you so that you're not bored, YadA YadA.
I don't know, now I can't. I'm I think that's
completely insane. I knew Justin, and then I remember I

(06:11):
started seeing him and Byron hanging out more and more.
But Byron was also like very well known down there,
just because he's such a I mean, the man can
get drunk on the sound of his own voice pretty much.
I mean, I'm sure, I'm sure you realized that interviewing him.

(06:33):
You know, he doesn't go buy cigarettes. He goes to
a tobacconist. You know, he hadn't seen a lot of movies.
He was a sin thephile, and just that's just how
he always was about everything. Well, when I first started
seeing him around, I just assumed he was gay, not

(06:55):
that there's anything. I'm very liberal politically, that had nothing
to do with anything. He just presented himself as very
the other way. Then he started hanging out with Justin
all the time, and I remember being kind of concerned
from that about that, even from the beginning, because Justin

(07:16):
was just very, very lost. Justin was like a big
kid and couldn't really figure out what he was doing
with his life. You know, his parents had means back then.
It was weird. It was kind of specifically felt like
this back then, especially down in West part and stuff.

(07:39):
It was like you couldn't just be a person that
hung out at a coffee shop. You needed almost like
an origin story and you needed to And byrondeferent Lily
was like a character. You know, he had his I
don't believe hardly any of it, but he just had

(08:00):
his origin story about like you know, his mom was
German and his father was gay. Everything with Byron was
just like over the top, just either to be shocking,
to evoke sympathy, just anything. I think Justin was very
confused about who he was. It was just it was

(08:22):
a very bad combination because I think Justin just bought
into Byron's persona and everything like hook Line and Sinker,
and I think he was also immature enough and mentally
ill enough to where he just wanted that in his life.
He was lonely, he was bored, so not only getting

(08:44):
like a best friend, but like getting a best friend
that was this whatever who had this reputation and was
either gay or bisexual or this or that.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
Let me ask you. So, Byron said, you were fourteen.
You were in in the eighth grade when you guys
first met, you were fourteen? Were you thirteen or fourteen?

Speaker 2 (09:04):
Now, don't quote me on this, but I swear because
we met her for this summer, but I'm not exactly positive.
But how I remember how we met, which I thought
it was hysterical that he was like, oh, I had
no idea how old she was, and by then I
was into deep YadA YadA. No. The way that I

(09:27):
met Byron was I was already kind of tipsy and
I had gotten we had gotten dropped off down there
with some booze with a friend of mine's. A friend
of mine's mom had bought us booze and dropped us
off down there. There was so much I don't know,
Abs and Tee parents still have to do with all

(09:48):
this stuff. But and I remember specifically, I would always
look over and buy room and be like staring at
me when I was talking to Justin or he was
just very I could very much tell that he was like,
you know, his radar was on me. So I jokingly
went up to him and I said, Hey, do you
want to get drunk with a bunch of soon to

(10:09):
be eighth graders And he kind of laughed and then
he's like, well, sure, and so he ended up driving
us around that night while we drank. He drank too,
and then he and I started talking and he asked
for my phone number and stuff like that. So that's
how we actually met.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
So the story that Byron tells, which was that you
guys were at the coffeehouse and you came over and
said hi to Justin, and then you guys all went
over to Justin's later that night to watch a movie
and then he drove you home. That's not the first
time you ever met.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
No, I vividly remember gret as me saying, hey, do
you want to get drunk with a bunch of soon
to be eighth graders?

Speaker 1 (11:02):
What were some of early memories of meeting Anastasia.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
I had never heard of Anastasia. Byron's version that he
and Anastasia were friends is a bunch of crap. Byron
said he introduced Justin and Anastasia. No, he did not.
I remember there was one night when we were going
over to Justin's house and Byron saw a framed picture

(11:28):
of Anastasia in Justin's apartment and it was like her
senior picture. Byron was like why, he was like, I
know her. He goes, why do you have a picture
of her in your apartment? He's like, I went to
Lincoln Preparatory with her. And Justin was like, oh, well
we've been dating blah blah blah, and it was, uh, Byron,

(11:51):
let Justin know that he was not very impressed with
her and whatever, and he's like, really, I'm kind of
surprised by that, blah blah blah. But that's that's about
as for as far as that conversation went. But like
I said, Byron had such influence over Justin that I
remember being like, oh great, And then later on one

(12:16):
on one Byron would just tell me stuff about how,
you know, he thought Anastasia was lame. He said that,
you know, they never really got along in school.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
We described Anastasia back then.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
Gosh, I don't know, I was trying to think of this.
I knew her fairly well, but I knew her from
being from double dates and stuff like that, and so
you don't really get to know somebody, you know what
I mean. I know she was very she was all
about Justin. I know, she was definitely trying to figure
out who she was. She was also, I mean, she

(12:51):
was very intelligent. She was a beautiful girl, you know.
I mean she had her ups and downs. She I
did the same thing, some kind of silly poetry I
did too. I don't know, especially you know in the
nineties with like Nirvana and all that stuff being popular,
like you were the struggling artist for a minute, even

(13:13):
if you weren't at all. I don't know. She couldn't
stand Byron just from going to school with him and
all of this, and also Byron would kind of be
little her in front of her new boyfriend that she
was trying to impress. That was like a big point.
Byron just had no respect for her and like let

(13:35):
it be known. And I think that that put her
in a really bad position. Like I said, Justin was
trying to impress Byron, and Anastasia was trying to impress Justin.
She was very sweet, but she also she did have
something to her where like she would like take no shit,

(13:57):
but she also was very much I know, bught up
with Justin and the whole first love.

Speaker 1 (14:04):
First Kelly says, Anastasia was quite vocal about how sick
she was getting a Byron. She would complain to Justin
that he would spend more time on the phone with
Byron than her, and that Justin wouldn't defend her when
Byron was disrespectful to her. Do you think there was

(14:24):
anything going on between Justin and Byron?

Speaker 2 (14:27):
I have always thought that Byron was He always joked
about being by because he joked that his name was
like I'm by Run type thing. There's a definite possibility
because there towards the end, Justin was getting more and
more mentally unstable. He was showing signs of you know,

(14:50):
early signs of maybe schizophrenia or also they would hole
up with each other and just do like mescaline and
stuff like for days on it. And I know Justin
was like kind of slowly losing his mind and Byron
there was there for every minute of it. When they
were together. You know, Byron lived for with him, rent free.

(15:13):
When they went out together. Byron never paid for a
damn thing. You know. He was very opportunistic and he.

Speaker 1 (15:21):
Was briefly described like how Anastasia and Justin's relationship changed.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
I mean it for from they went from being really
close to where Justin would also he would pick spending
time with Anastasia over spending time with Byron and stuff.
Byron did not like that whatsoever. So I don't know
when exactly like the shift shift happened. Definitely part of

(15:55):
it was when Anastasia got the job down on the Plaza.
She was gone a lot, and then I think that
that was when Byron kind of weaseled his way back
into like we'll hang out while she's at work. I'm
pretty sure she was like working full time. And then
it just seemed like, like I said, like, uh, Justin
got so much worse. Byron was all about it.

Speaker 1 (16:19):
Describe your relationship with Byron, the good times.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
Oh god, if they're even were any.

Speaker 1 (16:25):
I mean you were Were you in love with him?

Speaker 2 (16:28):
Looking back as an adult at the time, I mean
I probably thought I was, But I also in that
point in my life I had been severely molested when
I was younger, and so I had just a lot
of sexual trauma in like sixth and seventh grade and whatnot.

(16:55):
You know, he was probably he was, first of all,
he was older. He was one of the first people
that had really like expressed an interested in me, like
I love you. I love you who you are, blah
blah blah, And that was very intoxicating. I went from
being flattered by him to like love slash hating him

(17:18):
very very quickly, just because of who he was. But
then I was also afraid to let go of him, because,
like I said, he was one of the first people
that had expressed interest in me in that way.

Speaker 1 (17:33):
What did you think, I'm just curious. What did you
think about Byron's goth ways? Was that cool? Was it
subversive and interesting?

Speaker 2 (17:43):
At first? It was okay because I don't know, he
just I liked a lot of the same music that
went along with stuff like that, you know, like Susie
and the Banshees and Ministry and all that. It was okay,
I mean. And also with his coloring and everything, like
he looked decent suited him, Like you know, there's some

(18:06):
people that dress up goth and it just doesn't work whatsoever.
But I remember getting being very annoyed by it. He
took longer to get ready than me. He also like, uh,
he told me at one point, because you know, when
I ran away with him that first time, he cut

(18:30):
my hair and died at black and blah blah blah.
And there was a few times where he slipped up
and told me that I was his project, project project. Yeah,
I don't know, like since I was younger than him
and had had, you know, this traumatic stuff upen or whatever,
like he was gonna like mold me into like what

(18:51):
he wanted and stuff. I went from being not goth
at all to then that's how I dressed and uh,
that had that that was ninety nine point nine percent him.
I mean that was just he would he basically kind
of dressed me and stuff. It was weird. It was
like I was his little like goth Barbie Doll or something.

Speaker 1 (19:15):
Let me ask you, because you brought up the time
when you ran away, you know that. He says that
you had told him that your dad was an abusive alcoholic.
He says that he felt like he was getting you
out of a bad situation and then he later learned
that that was not the truth. Tell me what you

(19:35):
can't about that.

Speaker 2 (19:36):
Oh yeah, definitely, my dad was an alcoholic, But my
dad was more of a withdrawn alcoholic, just kind of
like an absentee dad. My dad had his own problems.
He was a bipolar and just had his own problems
with like horrible depression, my dad grew up in a
really dysfunctional, scary, alcoholic home and stuff. Yeah, I definitely

(20:03):
exaggerated that my dad had. I got into a fight
with him coming back from some concert or something he'd
taken me to and we got into a fight about
stuff and he had kind of like shoved me or
something like that. And then so I really just lied

(20:26):
about it to Byron, just like blew it up out
of proportion. And I don't even know why, really, you know,
my dad passed away and then now that is like
one of like it's such a huge regret for me
because he wasn't like that at all. I was just
I was really angry, like I said, with like the

(20:47):
sexual trauma and stuff. I was just angry. I was
scared of men. I was just whatever. And I just
wanted kind of I wanted a reason to feel how
bad I felt. Of course, I all so, you know,
being that young and immature, you know, I wanted sympathy
from my older boyfriend. I wanted to And it was

(21:09):
also the same thing, like I said, people a lot
of people done at those coffee shops had an origin
story or like lore or whatever, and I just I
was just a depressed girl from Johnson County.

Speaker 1 (21:24):
They hired a PI right, and they found you at
Justin's and you came back home. Byron tells the story
that after some time your parents relented and allowed you
to keep seeing him. I mean, he tells the story,
you know in episode six about how your mom would
like let him take your little sister to the mall.

Speaker 2 (21:45):
And you know, oh yeah, I know that was true
because Byron, for all his lies and his lore and
all his stuff that whatever, we just kind and me too,
I just kind of saw him as this like blah
blah blah, kind of like Pip Squeak that like wouldn't

(22:05):
come out of the closet. I hate to say that,
but I got, like I said, like I got to where,
you know, I was pretty perceptive and intuitive despite being
so much younger than him, and I just kind of,
like I said, I had a very love hate relationship
with him, and so I just kind of saw him

(22:26):
for I'd figured out that half the stories that he
told about himself and his life were fake. You know,
he was trying to come off as scary, and I
just thought he was I don't know, nothing to write
home about, really, and uh yeah, so that just wasn't
even my mom. And now I'm not quite so sure

(22:49):
about my dad, but I know my mom and I
had conversations about him just being like some you know, harmless, confused,
kind of coffee shop door, you know, because he told
so many stories of all this different stuff, and then
it was like never and then I'd have conversations with

(23:12):
his mom that would prove that it was false and
just all kinds of so much stuff about him was
just a bunch of crap. So he wasn't he wasn't
scary at all, Like he was trying to be scary.
He was trying to be all these things. But it
was like the more and more I found out, I
was just like, yeah, whatever. But then, of course, much

(23:33):
later than after the murderers, then I realized, oh my god,
this guy will do absolutely anything to you know, prove
his origin story and prove that he's this disturbed blah
blah blah. I don't that was just such a weird time,
Like with Marilyn Manson and all that different stuff. It

(23:54):
was like, you were it was cool to be like
the sickest person in the room and he was all
about that.

Speaker 1 (24:03):
Kelly just said murders plural. More about this in a bit.
The conversation then shifts to after Anastasia's murder, but before
Kelly had kind forward, when you and Byron first go
to speak with kil Gore on the twenty fourth.

Speaker 2 (24:22):
And then murder was on the twenty second, right, yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:24):
The night of the twenty second. She was found the
morning of the twenty third, and then I think you
guys went to go speak with Kilgore and Kellogg that
first time on the twenty fourth as a freshly fifteen,
like you had just turned fifteen, right, as a fifteen
year old girl, What are you thinking and feeling as

(24:44):
you're like sitting at the Jackson County Sheriff's Department being
interviewed for.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
I was completely bewildered by well, of course obviously that
it had actually happened, and I can get into all
that later, like what happened like the night that everything
took place. But I was like what, Because you know,
I'd seen like NYPD Blue and different shows like that.

(25:13):
I thought what happened was they grabbed the last people
that had you know, seen the person alive. They grabbed you.
They separated you and they interrogated the crap out of you.
I was hoping, Oh my god. For years, I was like,
why did that not happen? Because I would have if

(25:33):
I had been separated from Byron and had like you know,
had like a seasoned detective like in my face saying
I don't believe you. There's you know way more than
you're telling us, and you're not leaving here until you
tell us. There's no doubt in my mind that I
would have immediately broken down and told them absolutely everything

(25:55):
you were.

Speaker 1 (25:55):
I mean, you weren't in the same room with Byron.
I think you went first and then Byron. But what
you're saying is like if kil Gore had actually like
put this screws tears.

Speaker 2 (26:03):
To you then, and that wasn't like how it was
handled like he didn't even It's not like he called
us and was like, Kelly, I don't care where you
have planned for today, You're coming down here and I'm
interviewing you. It wasn't even light that it was literally like, well, hi, sweetie, Wendy,
you think you can come down and talk to us, Okay,

(26:25):
Well whatever's most convenient for you. Like what it was.

Speaker 1 (26:29):
So weird when you heard yourself in episode one, and
maybe you'd already heard your interview with Kellogg and Kilgore before,
but when you heard that first interview, what did you
think I was.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
I was really surprised at how calm I sounded, but
I think I had had some chemical help with that.
I remember either getting some xanax or Byron getting some
for me or something because he knew that I had
just really bad anxiety. He never challenged me on stuff.

(27:07):
He just was like, okay, so she got out of
the car and blah blah blah. Like it just didn't
it didn't feel like a real police interview, that's for
damn sure. The part that did shock me and scared
the shit out of me was when I heard Byron
talking about, well, I don't know, there definitely could have
been a suicide packed between Kelly and Justin in Stasia

(27:33):
blah blah blah, And immediately I was like, there's no
other reason for him to say that unless he was
going to kill me if he thought I was getting
too nervous and I wasn't sticking to the.

Speaker 1 (27:46):
Plan, And that I think was in a later interview.
But you mean, like as time went on the fact
that he said that made you think that he was
maybe going to you just said.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
It if I became too much of a problem. He
obviously had no problem disposing of people or this. Also,
I found out much later too that he had told
a bunch of people that he had killed her. I

(28:26):
found out much later too that he had told a
bunch of people that he had killed her. And he
very much made me think that I was the only
one alive that knew that he had done anything, and
that was just a bunch of crap.

Speaker 1 (28:43):
You said, Byron told other people that he had killed Anastasia.
Who else did he tell?

Speaker 2 (28:48):
Tara McDowell, who conveniently is dead. Let's see, I.

Speaker 1 (28:54):
Think she died of cancer by the way, Yes.

Speaker 2 (28:56):
She did, he told Brahm. He told at that time.
That was right after from and Tara had broken up.
Tara was living with and messing around with this just
this creepy guy that I think his real name was
like Robert or Bob or something, but he went by

(29:18):
a raven, she told him. And then Tara was quite
the drinker and drug user. So who knows how many
people at bars or whatever had found out there is
a particular person who I will not name because they
don't want to be involved in anything. Tarah drunkenly told

(29:38):
her and then the next morning realized what she had
done and then just threatened the crap out of this girl.

Speaker 1 (29:49):
Kelly just dropped a bombshell that Byron allegedly told other
people like Abraham and Tara that he killed Anastasia. Unfortunately,
I can't ask Tara if this it's true.

Speaker 2 (30:01):
I will need to ask Abraham Row like it was
him proclaiming. All this innocence and stuff. Has always floored
me because in Westport it's always been like, oh, yeah,
like that's totally what happened. And people think that he
probably also killed Justin too. They think that Justin probably,

(30:24):
you know, because Justin was saying no, no, don't do
it when the actual murder happened. I think Justin probably
told no. I don't have any proof of this or anything.
I can definitely see Justin being like, I can't live
after this happened, so I'm going to go to the

(30:47):
police and tell them everything unless you kill me. WHOA Yeah,
I mean, I'm not positive of that. That's just I
can absolutely see that happening and there's other people thinking
that because that night, okay, and this just shows how
just iced cold and how Byron completely does not understand

(31:11):
the human experience. You know, we all go home to
our prospective homes after this stuff all happens. Back then,
with landlines, like you could make a three way call
if you did something a certain way, and we made
a three way call. It was me and Justin and Byron.

(31:31):
I remember Justin was just like almost like Cata tonic,
and he was like not good, not good. Can't sleep,
can't sleep. He just kept saying weird stuff over and
over again.

Speaker 1 (31:44):
The night of the murder. Yes, but wait a minute,
because you said that you only called Byron that night
when you first talked to Kilgore. You said you called
Byron that night and that you couldn't you hadn't spoken
with Justin. But now you're saying that there was a
three way call between.

Speaker 2 (31:58):
Oh yeah, well, that was all part of the story,
was that I just talked you know what I mean,
That was all part of the story that was like
drilled into me that you know, no, we didn't of course,
we didn't talk to Justin. We don't know. We just
suddenly you heard that he was dead, so he must
have had more to do with it than we thought

(32:20):
he did. Blah blah blah.

Speaker 1 (32:21):
No, but did you tell that when you came forward
that you I don't remember seeing that when you came
forward that you. Did you tell anybody that you had
spoken to justin that night?

Speaker 2 (32:31):
I don't remember? And that was all such a whirlwin.
And when I came forward, I was also detoxing off
of some pretty hardcore drugs and stuff. I just wanted
to stick with the things that I knew for sure,
you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
And I'm going to ask you about that stuff in
a second. Let me ask you this, after you and
Byron in nineteen ninety seven, after you guys speak with
Kellogg and Kilgore that first time, what kinds of conversations
do you and Byron have after and do you talk
about what happened to Anastasia often? Or is it something

(33:11):
like you don't like it's just mom's the word. We're
not even gonna bring it up. What does life like
life look like for you and Byron after.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
That when we stayed together a little bit?

Speaker 1 (33:24):
But I mean, especially in terms of talking, especially in
terms of talking about Anastasia.

Speaker 2 (33:30):
Oh, he wouldn't do it.

Speaker 1 (33:32):
He wouldn't talk about it.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
He wouldn't talk about it. And if he did, he
was very cold, and he was very He was like Kelly,
she would have committed suicide anyway, because she was very
you know, if you read her poets gray, and a
lot of her stuff was very morose anyway. And I
remember one particular time I was trying to get away
from him so bad. I remember I cheated on him

(33:58):
several times just to drive him away, and he wouldn't
go away.

Speaker 1 (34:04):
Why do you think you wouldn't go away?

Speaker 2 (34:07):
First of all, I think he was obsessed with me,
and it was also his thing, like I was his project,
like he's not done with me until he says he
is type thing. And then I also think that he
thought that if he lost much control over me, that
I would come forward. But I remember specifically one night

(34:30):
being like, you're a murderer. How do you even feel
about like I was like I didn't stop it, So
I consider myself a murderer and I can't sleep. I
can hardly even think about this stuff. I don't care
because I just went to I didn't care about what
I looked like anymore. I didn't care about I didn't

(34:52):
want to get out of bed. I was just whatever.
And I was like, and you seem perfectly fine. You're
a fucking murderer. And he grabbed me by my throat
and slammed me up against the wall. And he was like,
I don't want to hear another word about this. He goes,
a murderer is somebody who doesn't feel bad about their actions,

(35:13):
and of course I feel bad. Wow, But he mainly
he didn't give a shit about Anastasia, but he mainly
felt bad about He was like, I thought Justin could
handle this, and obviously he couldn't, and blah blah blah.
It was just.

Speaker 1 (35:29):
Kelly had told Sargant Kilgore about this exchange. But this
is the first time we're hearing that Byron allegedly grabbed
Kelly by the throat and slammed her against the wall.
I will have to ask Byron about this. How did
Byron handle Justin's death?

Speaker 2 (35:46):
Oh? Oh good, we can blame it on the dead guy.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
But you know what's interesting, Byron never did really. I mean,
even when he so I'm jumping, but even when he
got like partial immunity or limited immunity. He could have
said that, Justin didn't, and he never said that. Why
do you think he didn't formally blame it on Justin.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
I don't know. Maybe out of respect for him, but
I can't really see that because he wasn't. He was
when his body was found and they said it was suicide,
like he was very relieved by that and almost excited

(36:33):
by that, like oh okay, this just everything's falling into place.
Now they're just going to think that he did it.

Speaker 1 (36:41):
Did you go to Anastasia's funeral? Yes, you went to
both funerals, Justin's and Anastasia's. What was Anastaesia's?

Speaker 2 (36:48):
Like, I don't feel like that's my place to say,
because I didn't know her family, I didn't know her
very well. It was awful. I didn't want to go,
and Byron kept telling me that, uh, it would look
weird if we didn't go. It just felt disgusting to

(37:10):
be there. And I remember one of Banastasia's best friend,
you know, because she had such bad wounds on her
face and stuff that they had like recreated like her
head basically with morticians putty. Byron just went up and

(37:31):
looked at that with no problem. I couldn't even look.
I remember her friend Danny ran off sobbing and vomited,
and then I remember like Tara and Raven were there
like it was some spectacle. It was like the ultimate,
like goth spectacle they got to be at and I

(37:52):
remember being like, what the fuck is wrong with you people?
And then I later found out how awful Byron was
being towards in a stage's family about stuff he was
sending Bob with bos Fugan, just horrible emails about how

(38:16):
he didn't know his own daughter and all this stuff.
And that's when I really I just more and more
was revealed where I was like, you're an evil piece
of shit, like you have no care for And then
that weird stuff that mister White, those letters and stuff

(38:37):
that he wrote. I had no idea about any of
that stuff until much later. To me, that was something
like a serial killer, like reliving the crime or something
that wasn't That didn't seem like something an innocent person
would do to me at all, And it also scared

(38:57):
me because once again it was just like like, Wow,
this guy is sick.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
And when you heard the rumors of what people were
thinking happened to Anastasia. When you hear people speculating like
this could have happened, you know, maybe and it was
a death pact, or maybe there was that one rumor
that Bob Whitmulsfugen said he heard, which was that there
was a gun that Byron had loaded.

Speaker 2 (39:25):
And just did a bizarre Yeah, I'm sorry, I.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
Don't what did you think of that?

Speaker 2 (39:32):
I remember not really thinking much about that stuff because
I was just I just wanted it all to just
go away so badly. I either wanted to come forward
or I wanted it to completely go away.

Speaker 1 (39:45):
Going back to the emails that Byron and Bob and
Pat Rock Patrick Rock were all exchanging with each other,
did Byron tell you that he was emailing with them
or did he tell you anything about that?

Speaker 2 (39:57):
He told me that he was emailing with them. I
had no idea how cruel he was being, how weird
it was, how he was basically, I mean, he was
basically you know, they were inconveniencing him because they were
trying to figure out what happened to her, and fuck

(40:18):
you guys, And I had no idea that he was
being that hostile to them, And.

Speaker 1 (40:23):
I mean, why do you think Bob suspected Byron.

Speaker 2 (40:26):
Because he's just such a jerk, and Byron was, like
I said, from whatever, Byron kept trying to present like
him and Anastasia were good old buddies that went to
school together, and they weren't. She did not like him
at all, and he was really rude to her, and

(40:48):
you know, let it be known that he had no
respect for her, and then later on, let it be
known that, you know, she wasn't good enough for his friend,
and blah blah blah. And I'm so I'm sure they
were like what you know, with him, all of a sudden,
all of a sudden, there were school chumps when you know,
he knew the exact opposite about him. I'm sure that's why.

Speaker 1 (41:13):
How did Byron handle his father's death.

Speaker 2 (41:16):
He was excited about the ten grand he got. He
got ten grand, and I think he also got his
dad's house. That was some weirdness. I also didn't understand.
I mean, I remember I saw him maybe like shut
a tear or two, but he was also well I

(41:37):
don't know how much you know about that stuff, but
Byron had at one point told me that he was
going to kill his father because he always wondered what
it was like to kill somebody, and his dad had AIDS,
and he knew that his dad's long term partner who
passed away from complications from AIDS. I believed I of

(42:00):
like pneumonia or something like that. And he said he
just knew that his dad just wouldn't want to languish
like that and wouldn't whatever. He basically thought he was
doing his dad of favor by His plan was he
was going to tell his dad that he was having
car trouble, like out in some cornfield in the middle

(42:21):
of nowhere, and then when his dad, like you know,
was like looking under the trunk and wasn't looking at him,
he was going to shoot him.

Speaker 1 (42:30):
When he tells you this, are you like what the fuck?

Speaker 2 (42:34):
I mean? Yeah? Well, like I said, it was there
was so much lore that he said about himself that
wasn't true, that wasn't even whatever that I was just like,
uh huh, yeah, sure, it was talk. It was talk
he wanted to seem. I think he also thought it
made him seem more manly to be like spooky and

(42:55):
violent and stuff, and so I was just like, yeah, whatever, And.

Speaker 1 (42:59):
Did he say that stuff after Anastasia's murder or was
this before?

Speaker 2 (43:04):
This was before they had all kinds of plans. They
Anastasia and Justin were going to go Rob Justin's parents
supposedly had the whole thing planned out. They drove not
very far and they ended up going to Dunkin Donuts
and coming back home. So that's how ludicrous the stuff seemed.

(43:27):
They had actually and I had gone with them. There
is an independence like some one of the main like
Mormon churches and Aspire the Spiral and stuff like that.
So they had this big idea that they were going
to like invade that church. This was justin environ, and

(43:50):
I think Anastasia was supposed to be involved a little bit.
They were going to kidnap like the main I don't
know what they are on Mormonism, preacher, minister or whatever.

Speaker 1 (43:59):
Bishop.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
Yeah, they were going to kidnap him and hold him
in the basement and say that they wanted X amount
of ransom, or they were going to blow up the
entire church with him in it. And they had gone
so far with that to where me, Anastasia, Justin, and
Byron had all gone. They'll give you tours of that

(44:24):
place if you ask and Byron went in full like
priests get up blah blah blah, and said that you know,
he was a priest that just counseled people with their
problems and he'd always been interested in Mormonism and blah
blah blah. So we spent like half the day on

(44:44):
Saturday going on this tour of this place so that
they could be they thought they were in some movie.
It always thought like they thought they were in some
guy Ritchie movie. And it just never ever came to
fruition ever.

Speaker 1 (45:00):
You know, So as the investigation, it's all obviously before
coming forward as the investigations going on. You I mean,
you speak with kill Gore a few times over the
course of like a couple of years. Each time you're
speaking with kill Gore. What's going through you?

Speaker 2 (45:23):
Do you guys still really believe this? Basically that I
was like, well, my god, how many I don't know
I had. And also I'm like, I had no idea
it was like this easy, like to get away with
killing someone. That was just like I was also like, okay,

(45:46):
when's the actual questioning going to start? When's the actual
I was just very confused.

Speaker 1 (45:54):
And I think it was your second interview, You said
that you saw Anna Stagia with a wallet that night.
Do you remember anything about that?

Speaker 2 (46:06):
I probably did if I said it, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (46:10):
I mean, she had three dollars and sixty five cents
in her pants pocket when she was found, and there
was no wallet or purse. Okay, but oh this brings
up a good question. Did you see on Instagram the
picture of the purse that Bob sent Kilgore wondering if

(46:31):
it was the one that had been seen out with
her that night? Because Don Wright said that she came
in with a purse. Right, I don't know this don
Right person. I have no idea. Did you see that?
Can I show it to you?

Speaker 2 (46:44):
Just?

Speaker 1 (46:45):
I mean, you know because kil Gore once he got
this photo from Bob, never took it to anyone, like,
never took it to Don Right, I never took anything.
Never had you look at it?

Speaker 3 (46:55):
Well?

Speaker 2 (46:56):
And why didn't they check? Because I know for a
fact that I I made a phone call from a
gas station to Anastasia's house that night, and I didn't
I thought that they would check some type of phone
call coming from there or something.

Speaker 1 (47:15):
Well, I definitely want to ask you about that. I
mean Kilgourd didn't get any phone records, any phone records,
anyw beper records, nothing. I finally find the photo of
Anastasia's purse and show it to Kelly. Does that at
all look familiar to a little bit?

Speaker 2 (47:34):
But like my memory is so bad that I wouldn't
run it, you know what I mean? Just like for
the details, I mean, obviously for the big stuff, I
don't know that does look like that would go with like,
you know, Stagia's like personality and how she dressed.

Speaker 1 (47:52):
But I don't know, Okay, I was just curious. Okay.
So at one point I think it was in August
of ninety eight, you speak with Kilgore, I think your
parents might be there for that interview, And you say,
I think Byron knows more. You say, I don't think

(48:13):
it's a murder type of thing, but I think he's
been acting very strangely, and I think he knows more
than he's saying. Tell me what you remember about?

Speaker 2 (48:21):
Oh yeah, exactly. That was definitely me being like, come on, guys,
Like I said, for years, I was begging for someone
to confront me and scare me and get me to
tell the truth because I was so frozen with fear.

(48:44):
You know. Obviously by that point I had realized that
Byron was much more dangerous than I had ever thought.
And also just I was just I was begging for
someone to come at me, say something, ask some bigger questions,
do something.

Speaker 1 (49:03):
I mean, how did you not tell your mom or
your dad.

Speaker 2 (49:08):
At that point in time? Well? I did. I did
tell my dad eventually, but I was so involved in
hard drugs and didn't live at my parents' house a
large portion of the time and stuff. Plus I know
my parents are the type of people that they weren't
just gonna I mean, they were going to go to

(49:30):
the authorities or they were gonna whatever. I did eventually
tell my dad. It took a while for my parents
to really be like, Okay, you know more about this
than you're even saying.

Speaker 1 (49:45):
And we are going to talk much more about this later. You,
if I understand correctly, you broke up with Byron like
December of ninety eight or January of ninety nine, somewhere
in there. Why do you finally break up with him?

Speaker 2 (50:04):
I hated him, I was scared of him. I didn't
want anything to do with that type of person. And
then especially when I had found out how cruel he
was being to Anniest. He was like taunting Anastasia's family
and stuff. I just thought he was disgusting and I
couldn't get away from him fast enough. I actually broke up.

(50:25):
We were supposed to be going over to a high
school friends of mine's house, and so when he pulled up,
I knew that I had high school friends that were
like outside hacky sacking and stuff, and I was like,
I don't want anything to do with you. We are
breaking up. I am getting out of the car. You
are not joining me, blah blah blah, and he went nuts.

(50:48):
He started slamming his own head on his staring wheel
and stuff, and I knew, you know, and then my
friends are looking over, are you okay? I knew I
had to do it in like a public kind of
a setting.

Speaker 1 (51:03):
How did you feel after you broke up with him?

Speaker 2 (51:06):
It was murders relief. It was more than just relief.
And I also was just like, okay, well, now, like
I said, I've been toying with the fact of coming
forward for a long time, and I was just like, okay,
well now I can I can actually do.

Speaker 1 (51:21):
It, you know, And so and I don't want to
say anything that could potentially trigger just a couple of
questions about your addiction. And but please tell me if
I'm crossing a line or anything.

Speaker 2 (51:33):
You're fine.

Speaker 1 (51:34):
You had used before the murder. How do things change
after the murder?

Speaker 2 (51:41):
Okay, Well, the night of the murder, like I said,
when I was like probably twelve thirteen, I started feeling
really different. That was also when a lot of the
like sexual trauma and stuff had happened. Middle illness just
runs rampant in my family, and I started feeling were
really really just different. And so yeah, I had like

(52:05):
drank and done other things to try to make myself
feel better. I hated pot. Pot just made me feel
like I was on asset or something. But definitely alcohol
helped and stuff. And then I remember after being dropped
off after the murder, I just laid on my bed

(52:27):
forever and I just stared at the ceiling, and you know,
I just remember thinking, like you know, when you're a kid,
especially like when you're a teenage girl, like you think
you have all these problems, you think you have, you know,
everything is the end of the world. And I remember
sitting there and just being like like I had no

(52:50):
I like, every it's over, Like just everything's over, you know,
like my youth is over. Like I knew I was
never going to be the same person, and I was
like a person is actually dead, like somebody's not going
to wake up tomorrow, like because of partially my actions

(53:16):
and stuff. And I just remember thinking that I was
just just evil. I remember like why didn't they kill
me too? Just a huge sense that life was I
knew it was over and that I just was never

(53:40):
I mean, I just felt sick. Anything that I thought
was a problem before it's just now just seems ridiculous.
And I know that's exactly how Justin felt too, because
you know, I mean, he couldn't sleep all that night.
And then this is another thing that was so disturbing.
You know, we did that way call and Justin was

(54:02):
talking about how he couldn't sleep and how he felt sick.
And Justin's like, I don't think I'll ever be able
to sleep again, and I said me neither. Byron went
right to sleep. Byron wouldn't even supposedly his best friend
who he cared about so much, wouldn't even get out
of bed to have breakfast with him. It was like

(54:25):
Justin and I were like, what the fuck? I mean, like,
can you imagine?

Speaker 1 (54:32):
That's one of my questions because and we're going to
get to you coming forward and everything, but one of
my questions is like, knowing that the three of you
just were there participated in this murder. When Justin calls
Byron the next morning, why and if Byron thinks he

(54:57):
might lose it or he might go tell someone, why
do you think Byron just says, I'll talk to you later.
Why not say to Justin, hang on, calm down, you know,
let's go meet.

Speaker 2 (55:08):
Because I'm sure Justin expressed to him that he was
suicidal and that fixed fixed problems for Byron. They'll just
think he did it. But I when I heard that
later on, you know, because I was not on that
phone call, I was not privy to that. I was like,
you know, next morning, yeah, I wasn't, uh, because that

(55:30):
was them, you know, talking and stuff. I was like,
not only did you go to sleep like a baby,
but you couldn't be bothered to go meet your suicidal friend?
Like are you kidding me?

Speaker 1 (55:44):
Or what did Byron tell you about that call that
he had with Justin?

Speaker 2 (55:48):
He just said that Justin was like freaking out and
was still saying which I had already heard, that he
never thought he was going to sleep again and stuff.
He didn't go into any detail. I guarantee you that
Justin said goodbye. I'm just I cannot believe we did this,

(56:14):
and I'm you know, I'm sure he told them of
his intentions, you know, and I didn't want to get
some more sleep, damn it. I mean, he was just
like a That was one thing that Justin I he
was just a robot, you know. Like I said. At

(56:34):
one point, Justin was so upset and shaking so much
that he couldn't even drive, and Byron was getting irritated
and mad at him. He was like, pull it together,
do you fine? Fucking pull overall drive? He was just
he was annoyed with us for being upset.

Speaker 1 (56:57):
Kelly is referring to Justin, who she said was unable
to drive after Anastasia was murdered. How did you pull
that off when you got home? How did you not
look upset or how did your mom not tune into anything?

Speaker 2 (57:16):
Like?

Speaker 1 (57:17):
How were you able to just put a mask on?

Speaker 2 (57:19):
Oh? I don't think I did a good job. My
mom and I weren't close at that point in time,
and she really wasn't. She didn't know me very well
back then, even because we had like kind of such
a contentious relationship and stuff. I just and I don't

(57:40):
remember pulling anything off. I just remember being in set
shop that I just said as little as possible and
went upstairs. My mom also that at that point in time,
you know, being married to an alcoholic. I know that
I smelled like alcohol when I came in the house,
but my mom was just so sick of you know,

(58:01):
because at that point in time, my dad had, you know,
was an alcohol like my brother had substance abuse problems,
and she was just kind of like la la la,
you know, she just didn't even want to do Yeah,
she just didn't want to deal with that. She didn't
I don't think she knew what to do. So I
don't think I did some great acting job. I just

(58:25):
said hi, Mom, good night.

Speaker 1 (58:27):
And just a quick reminder Byron says they weren't drinking
that night, all right. Going back to that first interview,
what does your mom say to you when she's like,
I'm driving you to the police station. I mean the
fact that Anastasia had been murdered. She doesn't know anything yet,
you haven't told her anything. What is what is your
mom saying to you? Is she like did she does

(58:49):
she ask you or press you like do you know more? Kelly?

Speaker 2 (58:52):
Or what is your mom? Initially? No, Initially she seemed to,
you know, believe the cover story that Byron had like
drilled into me. But the more that my life and
who I was just took a complete like one eighty,

(59:14):
that's when she was like, we know that you know
more and stuff, and that's you know, that's how her
and my drug counsel, that was how I eventually ended
up coming forward. I had toyed with coming forward like
four years, but that eventually was like her and my

(59:35):
dad were like, you went from being like a straight
a student, like with goals and this and that, and
then now you're you know, like living in a crackhouse
on like a suicide admission, Like there's there's no way
this is a coincidence type thing.

Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
Okay, So almost three years go by, and what was
the impetus, like what made you finally come forward?

Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
Well? I ended up I ended up going to treatment.
It was right before my parents dropped me off at
treatment that I had told my dad what had actually
happened and stuff. But you know, of course I was
like solving and begging him not to say anything. I was,
you know, I was like, if I come forward, it

(01:00:33):
has to be on like my own terms, YadA YadA.
And so I went to treatment and I was just weird.
I was just I think I was just kind of
like the only like emotions back then that I could
express were really just like despair and panic, you know.

(01:00:59):
And I think and definitely my drug counselor, uh picked
up on that. And I think my mom when she
had called and set up like my intake because I
was a minor at the time, had said, you know,
told her like there was just wonder that happened, and
I guarantee that she knows more about it, YadA YadA.

(01:01:20):
And Maggie, that was the lady that was my drug
and alcohol counselor, she just flat out said, and if
you're ever going to get clean, you know, she goes,
you have to, she goes. Everybody knows, you know, way
more about this murder than you're letting on. And then
I was just like, and you know she could tell that.

(01:01:41):
That freaked me out. And so I don't even think
she told me. I think behind my back. She called
my mom to come out there, and finally it was
what I had been wanting Kilgore and all those people
to do for years. They called me up into the
office and asked me what happened. And that's when I

(01:02:04):
was like, oh, oh, well, Justin did it blah blah blah.
And then my mom said, Kelly, that's bullshit. You told
your dad just a few nights ago that it was Byron.
And my counselor was like, so, is that really what happened?
And at that point I just couldn't lie anymore and

(01:02:26):
I just completely broke down and I said yeah, and
I told him everything that happened. But this is another
reason why I think it's absolutely absurd that Byron and
his people think that I did this to mess with him.
I mean, my god, when I told them that this
was not my parents aren't rich. This was not a

(01:02:50):
situation where it was like, oh, honey, baby, sweetie, tell
us what happened. We'll make sure nothing ever happens to you. No.
This was literally like them going, okay, well we're gonna
have to you go downstairs. We have phone calls to make,
and I was like, what are you gonna call? And
my drug counselor at the time was like, well, first,

(01:03:12):
I'm calling the Jackson County prosecutor because this is bullshit.
And I remember her saying like, Kelly, anything is better
than you are now, because I was just like, I
was just on a suicide admission and I hated myself
and I just didn't even I basically had like no
quality of life, and they knew that. And she was

(01:03:34):
like no, She's like, we're telling whoever needs to know
this what is going on. So I wasn't. It wasn't
like it wasn't at all like sweetie, we got you
immunity and blah blah blah. I mean, I went downstairs
completely freaking out, and there was also older adult women

(01:03:55):
in this treatment center, and I remember talking to the
ones that had been in prison and stuff, and I
remember actually being relieved, like if I went to prison,
you know, because I was thinking like, Okay, well then
maybe maybe I'll be around people who have been through
kind of the same thing I have and I won't
have access to direct you know, at that point, I

(01:04:17):
know anything about prison, you know, I won't have access
to drugs and then maybe I can finally, I don't know,
maybe if I'm in a controlled environment, it'll be so
much better. And anything I wasn't. This wasn't like if
you tell us what happened, we're going to make sure
nothing happens to you. In fact, it was quite the opposite.

(01:04:39):
So why I would I don't know. That angle is
just the most stupid thing I've ever heard to me.

Speaker 1 (01:04:48):
And did you, through those three years of not coming forward,
believe that you were as culpable as Byron Justin that night?

Speaker 2 (01:05:02):
Oh yeah, if not more so, because I felt like
Byron is like a sick fuck I. You know, by
then I had figured out he was so much sicker
than I even thought. I'm like, great, he's a damn
sociopath or psychopath or whatever. Justin was completely out of
his mind. I don't know if this was schizophrenia and

(01:05:25):
depression or schizophrenia. And they were doing a lot of
like mescaline and acid and stuff together, and I was like,
oh yeah, I was just like and I just sat there.
I just sat there and let somebody just just let
somebody be killed. And that was I didn't even feel

(01:05:48):
human hardly anymore. And also now having I have a
daughter who's twenty one. You know, she just thought her
friends were her up. She was depressed, and she wanted
to see her boyfriend and she that was all she wanted.

(01:06:11):
It was just I mean, for no reason. I mean,
she was just having like normal young relationship problems. If
she just got slaughtered, and it even was sadder when
I found out about I don't know, because I couldn't

(01:06:31):
decide which.

Speaker 3 (01:06:32):
Was better, like with the contact wound or whatever happen.
That's why she had no defensive wounds, was because she
thought she could trust us. I mean I think about
that all the time. I mean, my god, that would
have been like if I I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:06:51):
That would have been like if Angie came and picked
me up and said, well, we're gonna go get ice
cream and then she killed me. And I don't know
if there's like solace in the fact that it happened
so fast that maybe at least she wasn't scared. But
I mean, god, if I would have said anything, if

(01:07:12):
I would have done anything, it probably wouldn't have happened.

Speaker 1 (01:07:14):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:07:20):
And just what kind of person lest that happen when
then I considered suicide for a very long time after that,
you know, well, I mean like before I came forward,
but then I was scared because I was just like,
this is like what if I just go to hell
and then I have to relive this over and over

(01:07:42):
and over again.

Speaker 1 (01:07:45):
And the reason you didn't say anything was because.

Speaker 2 (01:07:50):
I know I didn't think that they would go through
with it. I didn't. I have no idea. I've asked
myself that so many times. I mean, I think I
was also just in over my head hanging out with
people that were so much older than me. I also,
I don't know. And then I'm also like, did I
want to be accepted that bad that I would have

(01:08:14):
just said yes to whatever?

Speaker 1 (01:08:17):
Justin was described as apathetic. Wanting to kill Anastasia as
a way to get her out of his life seems
like an extreme measure, an extreme act. Was that surprising
to you that he would want to suggest or take
that kind of measure instead of just breaking up with

(01:08:37):
her and never talking to her again.

Speaker 2 (01:08:39):
I've thought about that a lot. I don't know if
it was he was already that out of touch with reality, because,
like I said, right before, that they had been doing
a lot of psychedelics, and Justin thought that there were
people living under his floorboards that were talking to him
and telling him what to do and stuff. But then

(01:08:59):
I always so think like Byron and Justin had such
a weird, like a meshed relationship. I think that part
of it. I think because like I said, Justin was
more gullible than I was, and I think he believed
a lot of Byron's stupid lore in his stories and

(01:09:22):
stuff like that. So I think he was trying to
show off for his friend, prove to his friend that
he was as sick as he was. I don't know,
but I know Justin would have never they had been
just hold up in the house for several days by themselves.

(01:09:43):
I seriously doubt Justin would have ever come up with
that by himself, because Justin was more like self loathing
and depressed. I think he probably would have just slept
or done you know other things that depressed people do.

(01:10:04):
That always boggled my mind. I just I don't think
he would have ever come up with that on his own.

Speaker 1 (01:10:12):
And again I apologize for jumping around when you when
you when you go with Angie to the park, and
you share this with her, confess this to her. First
of all, what did you think when you heard Angie
describe that and how it's affected her?

Speaker 2 (01:10:31):
That also just really showed me how out of trust
with reality I was, because she was, you know, she
said over and over again, like and how could you
take me to the house of somebody who had did
something like that? Like that didn't even occur to me, Like,

(01:10:51):
if anything, I felt like with him, like I was
the one in danger, not her, and I that I,
you know, knew Byron well enough to know that it
wasn't you know, what's he going to do? Do some
massacre where he has to you know, kill me, kill

(01:11:16):
Angie kill I don't know. I don't even really remember
going over his house. I have a very very vague memory.
I wondered for a while if that it actually happened,
or if that was a dream or something. But yeah,
after that, I just felt so bad because I was like, well, yeah,
of course.

Speaker 1 (01:11:37):
You had also told your boyfriend Jim right before you
told Angie. Had you told anyone else?

Speaker 2 (01:11:43):
No, not that I believe.

Speaker 1 (01:11:47):
When you come forward, you come forward. I think September
nineteenth of two thousand, I think you speak with Kilgore
for the first time September twenty first, two thousand. How
was kill Gore during that? I mean, you guys had
had like multiple, you know, meetings interviews before then, and

(01:12:08):
now you're coming forward forward. How was kill Gore with you?
And how did you feel with him?

Speaker 2 (01:12:15):
Irritated? No, I mean he was irritated with me, and
I was just like whatever with him. I was mad
at him for I mean honestly, I was like, if
you would it done your fucking job like years ago,
why become a cop if you're just going to be

(01:12:38):
like as lazy about it as possible. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:12:42):
Why do you think he didn't follow up on leads
or do, with all due respect, some basic police work
like getting basic phone records and stuff like that. I mean,
I'm asking you to like speculate or I.

Speaker 2 (01:13:00):
Think he's just lazy, and I think that, you know,
in situations like that, I forget what the statistic is,
but you know, like nine times out of ten it
ends up being the boyfriend. I have no idea. Was
he like caneering retirement or something.

Speaker 1 (01:13:17):
Or I don't think so. Back then.

Speaker 2 (01:13:20):
Yeah, I think he just didn't want to mess with it.
I think he was just like, oh, case closed.

Speaker 1 (01:13:26):
I mean, I think Bob was like a big thorn
in his side.

Speaker 2 (01:13:30):
Well, God, I just like and Bob is not stable obviously.
I don't really want to talk about all that other
stuff with him because I don't know the situations or
anything like that. But God, poor Bob. Could got Bob.
Could Bob had made himself look any worse? Could Bob

(01:13:56):
had made himself look any worse? I mean the saying
that he heard the shot. No, I don't know. I
think Bob was just.

Speaker 1 (01:14:05):
Unwell in the caravan of cars and I don't know.
And yeah, I don't know if you had heard it before,
But when you heard your interview in two thousand with Kilgore,
there was also sort of the same level of not
a ton of emotion when you came forward. What do

(01:14:29):
you attribute my voice? One would imagine that when you
finally come forward, you would be like distraught or everybody's different.
So there's no judgment. I'm just curious what you heard
and what you thought of how you sounded during that interview.

Speaker 2 (01:14:49):
Yeah, I definitely thought, Yeah, I definitely thought I sounded
pretty flat as well. I think I had just been
on autopilot for so long. I'd been telling that stupid
story that Byron had me rehearse like for years and
years for so long. That and that was another thing

(01:15:10):
I thought was weird too, Like they were acting like
if I really was like this, like in the trial
they called me like this devil woman. Yeah, I'm a
fucking fifteen year old devil woman. Okay, I didn't if
you notice it, when I came in, I wasn't like

(01:15:30):
had Byron's this evil piece. I didn't emphasize him being
evil and stuff at all because I felt I think
I felt just as guilty as he was, because I
just had been just beating myself up for years over
not warning her, over not not doing anything over and

(01:15:54):
I would constantly, like I said, I'd be like, what
kind of person lets this happen? I'd also talked about
it so much, you know, and therapy and in treatment
and stuff. I just don't I compart well. And with
stuff like that, you have to compart and mentalize it
just to get through the day, you know. So I

(01:16:18):
think I had just had really bad weird coping mechanisms
and didn't And then, like I said, I was also
I was coming off hard drugs and alcohol and stuff.
When I finally did talk to Kilgore, I just remember

(01:16:39):
wanting it to get over with. I just wish I
was just like, oh God, please just just believe me
this time and go pick up Byron.

Speaker 1 (01:16:50):
I'm glad you brought that up, so they you do
come forward and then they don't arrest him. What did
you think about that? I mean, weren't you expecting them
arrest him like immediately?

Speaker 2 (01:17:04):
No, not necessarily, because I felt just as responsible as
he was. I also knew I wasn't incredible since I'd
lied about it so much, and I was just I
don't know, I was such a mess, like with drugs
and alcohol. I also knew, like, yeah, who's gonna believe

(01:17:27):
like this homeless drug addict and all this stuff. And
I find it hilarious that they think that I was
involved in some kind of like Kingpin thing, and I
came forward to get out of that. You know, I
wasn't freaking what's that guy's name? I don't even know
Pablo Esque. I wasn't hanging out with Pablo Escobar. I

(01:17:50):
had a very pathetic, sad drug addict life where it
was not even having money, need to eat most days,
hanging out with scary older men because they would, you know,
keep me high, and I kept myself in just absolutely

(01:18:15):
horrific situations. And now from being older and stuff, I
can see that that was definitely, with all my guilt
and stuff, that was my way of putting myself into hell.

Speaker 1 (01:18:29):
On earth, you know, like some sort of payment or
repayment for.

Speaker 2 (01:18:35):
Yeah, exactly, if I didn't deserve to be alive, and
if I was gonna be alive, I just deserved to
just be tortured for what I let happen.

Speaker 1 (01:18:48):
Kelly just mentioned the alleged implication that she was caught
up in some bigger drug situation and to get out
of it, she flipped on Byron a reminder, this is
all surround the time she and her friend Antie Giannino
were pulled over in Booneville, Missouri. Kelly threw a bottle
of alcohol out the car window and she was charged

(01:19:10):
with littering or you brought up the Kingpin allegations. So
first of all, what led to you because there was
a warrant because you didn't show up I think for
an arraignment, right, So what led to you being picked
up and then eventually getting the two years probation and
the forty eight hours of shock jail time.

Speaker 2 (01:19:32):
Okay, I am so confused by that. Well, now you know,
I was with Angie when it must have happened. I
thought she got Okay, what happened was I guess? Yeah,
I did get charged with throwing the bottle out of
the car, but she was also they were trying to

(01:19:55):
pull her over for speeding, and we had music blaring
and stuff, and so she didn't really see the cop
behind her. And then also she also wanted to give
me time to get the alcohol bottles out of the thing.
So when we got pulled over, she was the one
that was in trouble. They wrote me a citation or something,

(01:20:18):
but she was the one in trouble for like if
they said she was trying to evade the police or whatever.
So what they did was they took her to jail
and gave me her keys. I believe they gave me
a breath liiser or something, gave me her keys to

(01:20:38):
drive back to Kansas City instead of impounding her car.
But she was the one that was taken to jail,
and she called her aunt and uncle and they came
and builed her out and everything. But I remember that
specifically because I remember that even being like a point

(01:21:01):
of contention between her and I was because you know,
I had her car for a couple of days, and
I'm a drug addict, and so I'm just you know,
I'm using the shit out of her car until she
gets out, you know, so that I can go get

(01:21:21):
what I need and blah blah blah. I never heard
anything about that until I was in Least Summit, Missouri.
Had a guy over there that I was dating, and
he was also a drug addict. I remember being messed

(01:21:42):
up and getting gas late at night, and I was
out of it, and so I forgot to turn my
headlights back on. So that's what I got pulled over for.
Usually I was never in Missouri. I just had no
reason to be. I usually got all my drugs like
an ur Argentina or Casey K and stuff. Plus I

(01:22:03):
also was pretty sure that that I had forgotten about it.
But you know, I knew it wasn't good that I
had never taken care of that ticket in Booneville. So
when I got pulled over that night for not having
any headlights on, that's when they ran my name, and
they found out that I had an outstanding warrant in Booneville.

(01:22:27):
And I remember even being like Booneville. What would I
even have been doing in Booneville? And then when they
told me like, well you lettered on the highway and
blah blah blah, I was like, oh shit, because I mean,
it had been a long time since that. So they

(01:22:47):
did they extra guided me out to Booneville. But then
I remember getting a hold of Angie and her mom
because at that point I was on such bad terms
with my parents that there was no way that they
were going to bail me out or even take my
phone calls or whatever. Well, they came and bailed me out,

(01:23:10):
but there wasn't any shot time. There wasn't. Maybe they
told me they were going to put me on probation
or something, but I didn't follow through. I just got
the hell out of Dodge and just never went back
to Missouri again for years and years. And then I
remember later on when I got sober, sober for quite

(01:23:34):
some time. This was so much later, it was twenty ten.
I looked it up, and I guess some of that
stuff can fall off for your record after a while,
or they just don't because I remember Angie and her
mom had to pay a fine for they had to
pay my bond and they had to pay a fine

(01:23:55):
for that old literating ticket. But then I never heard
anything about it again, and it just went away.

Speaker 1 (01:24:03):
The court, the docket has it says that you pled
guilty and that you got forty eight hours of shock,
jail time, and two years of probation. But and so,
but Byron's legal team, as you heard in the podcast,
wondered if there was some big thing that you had
gotten in trouble for. Then then came forward and all

(01:24:26):
of this with like recording the June fifth call and
the guilty plea for the littering charge, that all of
that stuff was connected, and that because you got into
some big trouble for something, you basically flipped on Byron
to get out of something bigger.

Speaker 2 (01:24:44):
No, like I said, I didn't have access to any
big people. I didn't have any That's just ridiculous. I
was like barely, I barely had enough drugs to get
me through the day. I didn't know anybody that the
bigger deal people in the drug world are not going

(01:25:07):
to trust a white girl from Johnson County with any
I mean, you know what I mean, I wasn't even
usually the person that made like the purchase for stuff.
That whole thing just had me cracking up because I
was like, guy, I wish maybe something, but I hadn't.
And that's why I said at trial that, you know, no,

(01:25:32):
I've never even been in trouble with the police, because
all I had known and I didn't consider that trouble
with the police. Trouble with the police would be, like
I thought, something bigger, your friend getting pulled over and
taken to jail and then they give you her keys
to drive away, you know, and then getting picked up

(01:25:55):
on a warrant and then never hearing anything about it. Again,
didn't that that wasn't what I, you know, thought getting
in trouble was.

Speaker 1 (01:26:04):
And I think according to Byron's legal team, it was
that right. You didn't You said in your deposition that
you hadn't been in trouble with the police. And then
I think their bigger issue is the fact that prosecutors
didn't disclose that. To Byron's defense attorney, that's a brady
violation because it.

Speaker 2 (01:26:25):
Wasn't turn over anything. They possibly can't. But I love
how that makes me some evil, lying bitch that uh
you know, wanted to destroy his life. Well, it just
doesn't make any sense. They're just looking for anything. Yeah. Now,
since then, I have gotten in trouble with the police.

(01:26:46):
When I was twenty one, I got a DUI and
then I got another DUI in twenty fifteen.

Speaker 1 (01:26:57):
So as we sit here today, are you you sober?

Speaker 2 (01:27:02):
Yeah, I've been sober for about five and a half months.
That's a yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:27:09):
I'm not gonna lie.

Speaker 2 (01:27:10):
It's a daily thing, and you know, it takes a
lot of therapy. Like I went through this uh TMS program.
I don't know if you know what that is. It's
like transcranial stimulation something. It's supposed to help with PTSD.

(01:27:32):
But yeah, I know, I mean, I'm it's.

Speaker 1 (01:27:35):
A daily struggle.

Speaker 2 (01:27:36):
It's a daily struggle, definitely. And it's also just not
just because of that stuff that happens in mental illness
and substance abuse just runs rampant through my family. So
I just and ever since all that stuff happened, like
I really struggle to care about myself and care about

(01:27:57):
what happens to me and just feel you know, worthy
of anything, and just I mean I have days where
I just I don't I don't think it's ever going
to be fixed. I have days right, just don't care,
you know, if I wake up again or if I anything,
It's just I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:28:19):
I'm sorry. I'm okay, it's not but I am sorry.

Speaker 3 (01:28:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:28:29):
We are going to end this episode here. What comes
next is Kelly's graphic eyewitness account of what she says
she saw the night Anastasia was murdered, details about the
June fifth recorded phone call, and how she feels about
Byron getting a chance to prove his innocence. And so

(01:28:51):
your reaction to the possibility of a new trial is
bring it. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast
are solely those of the individuals participating in the podcast.

(01:29:13):
If you, or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts
or a crisis, please no help is available. Call or
text nine to eight eight, or chat online at the
Suicide and Crisis Lifelines website at nine eight eight lifeline
dot org. To see photos, maps and documents related to

(01:29:33):
this season's story, follow The Real Killer podcast on Instagram
and at TRK podcast on TikTok. The Real Killer is
a production of AYR Media and iHeartMedia, hosted by me
Leah Rothman. Executive producers Leah Rothman and Elisa Rosen for

(01:29:55):
AYR Media. Written by Leah Rothman, editing and sound design
by Cameron Taggy, Mixed and mastered by Cameron Taggi Audio
engineer Justin Longerbeam studio engineer Graham Gibson. Legal counsel for
a y R Media, Gianni Douglas, Executive producer for iHeartMedia,

(01:30:18):
Maya Howard