Mango Murder Mystery, Murdaugh Retrial, & Black Dahlia Breakthrough

Forensic death investigator and host of Body Bags, Joseph Scott Morgan joins us as we break down the shocking murder allegations surrounding the son of Mango founder Isak Andic after his father’s deadly cliff fall. We also unpack the latest forensic battles in Alex Murdaugh’s possible retrial and the explosive new claims about Bryan Kohberger’s knife sheath evidence in the Idaho student murders. Plus, a Tennessee triple murderer gets a last-minute execution reprieve, and an urgent Amber Alert grips Los Angeles. Tune in for all the details. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This program features the individual opinions of the hosts, guests,
and callers, and not necessarily those of the producer, the station,
it's affiliates or sponsors. This is True Crime Tonight.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome to True Crime Tonight on iHeartRadio. We're talking true
crime all the time. I'm Stephanie Leidecker here as always
with Courtney Armstrong and body move in. We hope you
had a fabulous Memorial Day weekend, hopefully some rest. And again,
our hearts and prayers are with all of the troops
and anybody who's serving servicemen and women. We love you

(00:42):
and we're so grateful and for anyone who has served,
our hearts are with you.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
Flags are up and listen everybody.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
It's Tuesday, May twenty six, and we have a stacked
night of headlines. So that the son that's been accused
of murdering his own father, the father that owned and
founded that Mango clothing line that was originally out of Australia,
while he has officially stepped down from his job, which
is not a great sign. And plus, will the forensics

(01:11):
of the convicted Alex Murdau be admissible in court?

Speaker 3 (01:15):
Because some of this is really being debated.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Right now and again he may be looking at a
death sentence this time. And there's also some forensics that
was initially unseen by the defense, or at least they
didn't share it fully in the Idaho student murders, So
we're going to unpack some of.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
That as well. We have a stacked house here tonight.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Of course we have Taha, our producer, who is back.

Speaker 4 (01:41):
Taha.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
You're not allowed to even take one day off.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
No, no, no, never again. We hope you had a
wonderful time. And of course Sam and Adam are in
the control room. They are waiting by the phone if
you want to call us live eight eight eight three
one Crime or keep those talkbacks coming, because guess what
it is Forensics Tuesday and Joseph Scott Morgan, host of

(02:05):
the hit podcast body Bags, also with a killer YouTube
channel named body Bags as well. It's so good, please
check it out. He's joining us tonight as well. So
so much to get to Boddy. How is your weekend?

Speaker 5 (02:18):
So much excellent? But you know, I'm really excited to
talk to Joseph about all this forensics that we're going
to talk about tonight. I mean, this is going to
be a forensic Forrenzy like the Hi Joseph, are you
Oh it is Joseph there yet? Why don't we go
to a talk back in the meantime just in case

(02:39):
we have. We actually have a couple of talkbacks that
have been stacking up because you know, Joseph fan favorite
is getting some love, so maybe we can go to
one of those.

Speaker 6 (02:48):
Thanks you, Rime, I have to.

Speaker 4 (02:49):
Give you my two cents.

Speaker 3 (02:50):
I love Joseph Scott Morgan.

Speaker 7 (02:52):
He reports on what he knowes.

Speaker 8 (02:54):
He speaks about what he knows.

Speaker 7 (02:57):
He doesn't speculate, and if he does, he lets you
know it's pure speculation.

Speaker 9 (03:02):
Unfortunately, with the news media and way too many people
across the country, they re poored on things they don't
know because they think they gotta have a one up
on everybody, and they report crap that is incorrect and
then sends everybody into a chizzy.

Speaker 5 (03:17):
Just couldn't say a better Missay is that gg I
recognize her voice. She's one of my favorites because she's
so like real right, like listen, I'm sing t straight
and this is how it is, this is how it's
one of us, right, and she's so it is. Gg
I knew it was Gg.

Speaker 4 (03:34):
I recognize her voice.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
She she really does.

Speaker 5 (03:37):
She lays it out and she's you know when GG speaks,
body listens. Let me just say, yeah, here, here, I
listen to.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
We all lean in and by the way, she's right,
it is harder and harder to find sourcing right now.
And you know, to that end, we're going to be
launching kt TV in July, so we're definitely going to
make giving you some updates along the way. But kind
of what that's saying purpose in mind, which is independent
you know, news, news, adjacent, crimes of the day, all

(04:06):
the things, because the sourcing is getting really difficult, and
I too love how Joseph speaks to what he knows
and we need more of it.

Speaker 10 (04:16):
We do.

Speaker 5 (04:16):
I totally agree we should get into this like Mango story,
because it's let's do it. It's pretty interesting. So remember
last week we talked about this, but if you if
you missed it, download the podcast. However, I'll give it
to you again. So Jonathan Andick a right. He's the
forty five year old son of that late Mango Clothing

(04:37):
Empire founder Isaac and Dick all Right. Isaac was seventy
one years old his son is forty five, all right, yes, well,
his son stepped down today from his role as vice
president of that company's board, and he said that this decision,
you know, is so that he can focus on his innocence.

(04:59):
It follows rese his recent arrest in Spain in connection
with his father's fatal fall back. In December of twenty
twenty four, in an open letter to Mango's staff, he said,
you know, he vehemently denied the murder allegations. He labeled
them as serious, unjust, and unfounded, and he is scheduled

(05:22):
to appear before Spanish investigating judge next month to face
the next face of the judicial process. And listen, none
of us are Spanish, you know, like none of us
are from Spain. So it's going to be interesting to
see how this plays out because none of us are
really familiar with how the judicial system works over there.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
Well, we are going to have some insights sourcing on
that because we do have some dear friends and colleagues
in Spain. This is a huge case, th big, big, big,
and listen, it can clearly be seen both ways. What
if this is the son of a billionaire who is
you know, raised also succession kind of coming up in
your dad's business. They had a strained relationship, and these

(06:06):
are the things that are being written about. He's just
when someone dies, their immediate family is always brought under suspicion, right,
So maybe this is nothing. This really could just be
absolutely nothing except for the fact that this is a
son that maybe had a potentially strained relationship with his dad,
or or this is a son that was holding his

(06:30):
father hostage for financial reasons, and perhaps that is a
part of the larger plot. That's the debate at least
being put forward. But either way, he's out of a job, right, Well,
it's much sad.

Speaker 10 (06:44):
But oh, I was just going to jump in and say,
real quickly. I mean, this whole case I find so
fascinating in the.

Speaker 4 (06:49):
Aspect of whether he was pushed or whether.

Speaker 10 (06:52):
He actually fell on his own. So I wanted I'd
love for us to dig into the forensics. And good news,
Joseph is now reconnected, so we can actually do that
with in.

Speaker 6 (06:59):
My now, Yeah, I can hear you can hear me,
so draw did.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
You just hear that little southern giggle coming in here?

Speaker 2 (07:11):
Joseph, you tell dark things in the kindest ways.

Speaker 3 (07:15):
Tell us everything. We're so happy you're back.

Speaker 5 (07:18):
Well, we were talking about the we were talking about
the what ifs in this case, right, and a lot
of the forensic evidence is the reason the sun was apprehended. Now,
the first line, the top line of the forensic evidence
against the son in this case for pushing his father
off the cliff, I guess is that his injuries and

(07:40):
body position did not match an accidental slip. Instead, they
appeared as if he had launched himself down a slide
feet first. That's a quote. Okay, Joseph, what does that mean? Like,
what do you how can they tell? What does that mean?

Speaker 6 (07:59):
Well, I would imagine that what they're observing. And people
might not know this, but I've actually walked, I've actually
worked falls involving people that strike feet first. Had a
rather infamous case on an oil rig one time, and
the energy from the impact of landing in an erect

(08:21):
position where the heels making contact first, it sent the
energy up the back of the legs and we had
what was referred to as a ring fracture around the
frame and magnum. So the fame and magnum is actually
the large hole in the base of the skull that
the spinal cord dumps into off of the brain. It's

(08:42):
where the brain stem is and you have energy transfer.
And I find it interesting that they're saying almost launched
itself off of a slide. So are there injuries that
are consistent with maybe a lower body impact? And the
reason that's important is that we as humans are top heavy, right,

(09:03):
so the lion's share of us are heavier up top.
You know, the average human head. And I know you
guys will giggle because you'll know.

Speaker 3 (09:12):
What I'm for getting my vest by waiting best as
we speak.

Speaker 6 (09:23):
When the little voice says average human head weighs about
ten pounds, he's absolutely right. And you know with the
upper body, we're weighted that way. So if you if
you impact on your lower body, we are standing fully
and you're free falling through the air. It's kind of
an odd position to be in u So you're going
to look at injuries that would be consistent with a

(09:45):
lower body striker impact perhaps. And again this is speculator
on my part, going to what our friends said earlier
about stating the facts as we as we see them,
and so we look at what the scientific evidence is
going to reveal to us. And those initial evidences of
impact when an individual free falls through the air is critical,

(10:09):
I mean it is hypercritical. And other things that you
look for are going to be any kind of soft
tissue injuries, Like was an individual struck saved by a
closed hand or an open hand in order to control
them before their launch. I'll use that term because that's
being used before they were launched into air. And so

(10:32):
you have to be very very meticulous and careful in
these cases because trust me, y'all, falls are some of
the most difficult cases to interpret.

Speaker 5 (10:43):
And that's that's what they're saying. The claim was here
was a fall, like an accidental slip. He lost his
footing and fell down this embankment or cliff that ultimately,
unfortunately ended his life. A mark near the cliffs edge
indicates a deliberate exertion of pressure against the ground, ruling

(11:05):
against some sort of natural loss of footing. What does
that look like and how do they know?

Speaker 6 (11:12):
Well, you're looking for scrapes and drags in a specific area,
and that's the mill tale sign, particularly if you're out
in kind of an It's very difficult if you're talking
about somebody that goes over there, say on a tall building,
you know, you think about something in Vegas, you know,
or if you're talking about la or you know New

(11:33):
York in particular. It's hard to pick up on a
scrape if you're or a mark on the ground we have,
you know, maybe foot contact. One of the things you're
looking for is like a struggle. Hey, just think about
it this way, and all of our friends out there
can think about this. And you've ever been alongside of
a pool, right and you're not taken unaware, but somebody

(11:54):
grabs you and pushes you into the pool. Well, you're
fighting against them. So if you were on a dirt surpose,
you'll have scrapes and perhaps perhaps drags heal marks, those
sorts of things adjacent to where you are going over
in the pool are into a pond and on soft
surfaces that that could be a telltale sign. The trick

(12:18):
is I think did they go to that point of origin?
And I hope that they did casting on the ground
because are these marks consistent with an individual wearing shoes
at any level? And also the height if you scrape
up against a rock, if you look at the profile

(12:38):
of a shoe in profile, is there a mark on
an adjacent rock that's in an upright position. That's going
to be key as well.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
And Joseph, is it possible that it's just a sexy
story that you know, this is a son that maybe
had a strained relationship with dad and that just seems
like an obvious POV, given that falls are so hard
to frankly diagnosed, if you will, for lack of a
better word, I'm thinking of Grace Kelly, the beautiful Grace
Kelly of Yesteryear. Remember she lost her life in that

(13:09):
tragic car accident and her daughter was driving and you know,
a crash and of course the daughter was not found
culpable in any way. But you know that probably in
today's times would have been more of a spectacle.

Speaker 5 (13:26):
Right.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
It feels like in today's day and age, if there's
a story surrounding anybody of financial.

Speaker 3 (13:32):
Wealth, it gets all this press.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
And or as your gut telling you that maybe forensics
will will say otherwise.

Speaker 6 (13:42):
Well, right you are, and I think that it's key
and this is why you know the story, like you mentioned,
stuff has the potential being very salacious. And anytime you
have that cause of celebrity that is mixed standing this,
you know, a lot of people think that celebrity is
going to free ride, right. I admit to you that

(14:04):
it's because of events like this that the officials many
times are compelled to take a harder look at this
case than they would say, for instance, if it was
you know, any of us, all right exactly. You know,
I'm certainly I'm not in that atmosphere, you know, where
you're talking about a billionaire. I assume you know, I'm
just throwing that number out there, and it's son And

(14:27):
you know, I love the term sallacious in this because
it's going to draw eyes. As they used to say
back in the analog times, the press is going to
sling a lot of ink over this, you know, and
there'll be a lot of knowledge. And I hate to
sound so I don't know, I'm not being snarky, but
I am palloused to these sorts of things, and so
I kind of raise an eyebrow anytime something like this happens.

Speaker 3 (14:50):
Same here.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
I mean, I really do go On the one hand,
and by the way, if that's true, if this is
somebody who's being you know, kind of falsely accused, how tragic.
Can't circle that you can't unring that Bell. You know
you can't get that person's reputation back.

Speaker 5 (15:07):
Well, and you know Jonathan and Dick hasn't formally been
charged in the way they Americans think of it. He's
formally under investigation. That's how they That's how they handle
it in Spain. And this is a preliminary phase that
allows the court to arrest him, confiscate his passport, and

(15:27):
demand bail. So we will definitely be keeping everybody up
to date on this case as it unfolds and coming
up next stick around, could convicted killer Alex Murdoch get
a new trial? Well, Joseph Scott Morgan is going to
stay with us to unpack the blood spatter, the missing weapons,
and the forensic battles surrounding this case. Keep it right here,

(15:48):
True Friend Tonight.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
Welcome back to True Crime Tonight on iHeartRadio. We're talking
true crime all the time. I'm Stephanie Leidecker here with
body Movin who has shaking her head. Listen, I stress
her out during the commercial break.

Speaker 4 (16:12):
Why do I stress you out?

Speaker 5 (16:14):
You don't even understand The intro is the intro to
the show is something I get very nervous about doing.
And when techniques not in her chair. When the music
is going, my heart is just like boom boom boom boom.

Speaker 2 (16:29):
Yeah, listen, what would you do without me here screwing
up the intro?

Speaker 4 (16:33):
And I mean listen, if I only.

Speaker 2 (16:38):
Got it right once, but listen, I just try to
keep you on your toes.

Speaker 3 (16:41):
But I wouldn't be the world.

Speaker 10 (16:44):
It always comes at the time my blood pressure rises
as well.

Speaker 3 (16:49):
A girl needs some sprite around here.

Speaker 4 (16:54):
Well, listen.

Speaker 3 (16:55):
Welcome back to Forensics Tuesday.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
We have Joseph Scott Morgan with us, host of the
hip podcast body Bags and.

Speaker 3 (17:01):
Please check out his new YouTube channel. Obviously. We have
Taha also back in the seat, who is jumping us
jumping in with.

Speaker 2 (17:09):
Us tonight as well, and Sam and Adam waiting by
the phone.

Speaker 3 (17:12):
Let's go to a talk back.

Speaker 11 (17:14):
Hi, True Crime Tonight family. This is Deana from Georgia
regarding the Alex Murdock case. A coworker of mine has
a good theory that Alex is taking the fall for Buster.
That Buster was there that night and killed him, and
Alex told him to run, and she said the murder
weaponism bound and she thinks Buster ran away with it.

Speaker 2 (17:39):
Now listen, Oh my god, inside thoughts that I have
had that have now been said officially out loud. So
I can't wait to theorize about this again. This is theorizing,
but boy, I am interested in this.

Speaker 5 (17:54):
His alibi that night was he was at his girlfriend's
house in rock Hill, right, they were together. That's his alibi.
So Buster is you know, this is all just speculation, right,
He's definitely not been accused of anything, but a lot
of people have this theory and listen, I'm open and

(18:17):
when it comes to this.

Speaker 4 (18:17):
Case, it could go anyway.

Speaker 10 (18:19):
But to your point that he was in rock Hill,
South Carolina, just to clarify, that's almost two hundred miles away,
so that is a pretty distance to have to come
back and forth from it is it can be done,
I mean.

Speaker 3 (18:33):
Definitely can be done.

Speaker 2 (18:34):
Jody Aarius for example, you know Joseph remember that one. Well,
you know she killed her boyfriend or her ex boyfriend,
and in Mesa exactly and traveled very far and why
to be back in the bed with her new boyfriend
after the murders.

Speaker 3 (18:50):
So it does happen.

Speaker 2 (18:52):
It's an interesting theory and I have got it in
my head as well, because you know, Buster's really stood
by his dad. Blame him and Alex maybe was just
a bad guy, a scoundrel and a drug addict. Maybe
he didn't kill his wife and his beloved youngest son.
But for Buster, you know, his brother was definitely.

Speaker 5 (19:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:13):
I don't want to accuse Buster or anything as loud.

Speaker 5 (19:17):
It makes me feel bad because I mean listening, I
don't like it.

Speaker 4 (19:19):
Uster.

Speaker 5 (19:20):
Buster has lost his entire family, right, he lost his mom,
he lost his brother, and of course his dad is
now in prison. Right like, this is a this is
a victim, right, so I feel I feel like, ooh,
it makes me feel icky. Okay, So, but if you
haven't heard of this case though, right, this is going
to be everywhere. So you need you need to get

(19:42):
up to speed, and I'm here to help you, all right.
March second of twenty twenty three, after less than three
hours of deliberation, the jury found you know, the fancy
pants South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdall guilty for the June seventh,
twenty twenty one murder of his wife, Maggie and their

(20:02):
twenty two year old son Paul at their hunting estate.
I mean, these guys are so fancy pants. They have
estates different seats. This was their hunting estate, all right,
where I was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences. However,
very recently, the South Carolina Supreme Court reversed his double
homicide convictions due to jury tampering by the former Clerk

(20:26):
of Court, Becky Hill. Now, as the state swears to
pursue a rapid retrial, a lot of controversy and unresolved
evidentry issues might rear their ugly heads in this case. Right, definitely,
Now we should probably revisit we have Joseph. I mean,
this is like a kind of like a once in

(20:48):
a lifetime opportunity to talk to him about this forensics
inity case. Right, So Joseph, what do we Okay, let's
go through some of the forensics that convicted basically Alex
at all right, the ballistics in the ammunition, let's start
with that. Right, Maggie the wife did did this within

(21:08):
the victim. She was shot four to five times with
a three hundred blackout rifle. And then Paul the sun
the victim was shot twice with a shotgun.

Speaker 6 (21:23):
Right, Yes, yes.

Speaker 5 (21:26):
Neither of these weapons were recovered.

Speaker 3 (21:27):
What does that tell us?

Speaker 6 (21:29):
No, they they weren't And that's always been the traveling
thing and just put a finer point on it. First off,
the shotgun that was used, it was loaded with probably
a small game or bird shot that's made out of steel.
And if if you were a flagged back, you know
one of Murdoch's Murdo's myrtal always get it wrong.

Speaker 4 (21:54):
One of the two.

Speaker 6 (21:57):
Yeah, was hunting, you know, quail, quail and dove and
that sort of thing, which is very very popular in
that area. As a matter of fact, they have locations
hunting lodges you can go to and you can take
your dogs out with you hence the kennels right, and
you can go bird hunting and you know, people make

(22:17):
it's quite a sport in that area. It is throughout
South There are many places you can go and do this.
And it struck me because I got to tell you
if if you're utilizing a twelve git shotgun, okay, small
game load is not the load you're going to go for.
You're going for a buckshot. And the reason to call

(22:38):
it buckshot is because it's something you could literally take
down a buck with a white tailed deer and you know,
we has got little steel balls in it. There are
about thirty two caliber in diameter. So if you just imagine,
if you will, with a buckshot round, you're talking about

(23:01):
multiple thirty two caliber rounds striking a body simultaneously, and
it creates all kind of cavitation injuries with the body.
There's it's hit or miss with small game load, which
when I'm saying small gameload, I want everybody out there's
probably seen a bb Okay. So that's what that's what

(23:24):
this is. So in order to effectively use it, you
have to be where it's going to have a level
of lethality where you're talking about taking down, you know,
a grown person, which in his mind he may not
have been grown, but he's a grown man. The Sun,

(23:45):
you know this, you know Muster infamously, I mean not Buster,
but the Sun that you know Paul that of course
Alex became famous suddenly referring to him as Paul Paul
you know all the shot you.

Speaker 4 (24:01):
Know, and he went on and on.

Speaker 6 (24:02):
With that, Yeah, with that drivel, which I never bought into.
And so the fact that you're both of these weapons.
These weapons platforms are what are referred to as long
arms or shoulder fired arms, so and they're very hard
to manage. Like if you're if you're in the army, okay,

(24:23):
and you're carrying a long arm. You think about what
we carry, which is an M four and well that's
changing around a little bit, but traditionally you've seen all
of our troops carrying it during the Global War on
tear terar and then they have a side arm. Right, Well,
it's hard to carry a full sized twelve gay shotgun
and a three hundred blackout And that's three hundred blackout

(24:46):
that Maggie was shot with. That round is very robust.
It's bigger than a five point five to six. Uh,
it's it's a three hundred, so that means it's point
three zero in diameter. The round is I'll put to
you this way, with a three hundred blackout, you would
go you can go wild hog hunting with us thing,
and those animals are very difficult to take down.

Speaker 5 (25:09):
You're mentioning a lot of hunting. So were these weapons
of opportunity because it's that the hunting estate.

Speaker 6 (25:16):
I think they were, Yeah, I truly do you know,
you use those tools that are at hand. And this
is not just limited to this, you know, to the
so called Southern aristocracies like this. It applies across the board.
If you suddenly make a decision to take someone's life,
it might be a claw hammer, it might be a screwdriver,

(25:38):
it might be the Maltese falcon statue, you know, whatever
is within reach. And of course everybody equates lethality with
a firearm, and these are both potentially very powerful firearms.
If you look at the injuries that Paul sustained, and
again forgive me because this is orthographic, but if you
think about Paul, well, his his brain was completely a

(26:02):
visperted from the cranial ball. I mean, it was outside
of the body and intact. Now I've had cases like
this where that does in fact occur. So his head
was essentially empty. So in order to derive that kind
of injury and insult, whoever fired this weapon, they would

(26:23):
have had with this ammunition would have had been in
very very close proximity. Because guys, that's not just people
think that it's the projectile that does that. It's actually
in addition to the projectile, it's also the gas that's
coming out of the end of that muzzle, and it's
rapidly expanding hot gas. And that's why you get these

(26:45):
devastating injuries at close range with the shatga.

Speaker 3 (26:48):
It would be wild.

Speaker 2 (26:49):
But we're talking, you know, a little bit about dad
who did have motive, right, So just to make sure
we're laying that at as well, because Pawpaw Paul his
youngest son, Alex's youngest son. He was about to face
a very serious trial in the death of one of
his dear friends. He was riding a boat recklessly and

(27:11):
with alcohol and someone lost their life in that crash.
So he was about to stand trial which was extremely
expensive and was about to be extremely expensive. And you know,
Alex's wife was also ready to leave him under these
circumstances because of the drug use, et cetera.

Speaker 5 (27:32):
But without a gud drug addiction, right.

Speaker 3 (27:34):
He had a real drug addiction.

Speaker 2 (27:36):
You know, some say that drug addiction may have even
been exaggerated. There have been numbers that would suggest he
was in the thousands and thousands of dollars a day
to keep up with his pill addiction and was also
like a bezzling cash everywhere left, right and backward. But
those are very different crimes, right, So somebody being a
drug addict who's basically stealing money and embezzling it from

(27:57):
his firm that he was a lawyer at. It's not
the same of murdering your wife and son. Again, even
though it's a juicy link, it's possible that they're separate
or again, am I just trying to sugarcoat it because
there was real motive there by many assertions?

Speaker 5 (28:16):
Yeah, no, I think it's real motive.

Speaker 6 (28:17):
Oh yeah, and I think the jury agreed.

Speaker 5 (28:22):
Right, No, No, you're good, Joseph. I think the motive
was pretty well laid out at the trial. But you know,
that was one of the criticisms of the court was
that they went too hard basically on the financial crimes
part of this case. Now they didn't get admonished. I
don't think they're going to be able to not present it,

(28:44):
but I think that, you know, they did receive a
fair amount of criticism from the court for going a
little too in to the financial crimes of it all.

Speaker 3 (28:52):
This trial was a hot mess.

Speaker 2 (28:54):
I mean, let's remember, Joseph, we were all talking about
this real time body you as well.

Speaker 3 (28:58):
This trial was off the rails.

Speaker 2 (29:01):
If you were watching it live, you know, it seems
like this guy was unraveling live on the stand. Now
he's been through the process. He knows what that's all about.
He was really being called to the carpet on his
financial crimes in this trial, and was I caught lying
every step of the way, which didn't help the murder
charges because you're looking at a man who's just lying

(29:24):
on the stand.

Speaker 3 (29:25):
Yes, body, go ahead, rais in that hand.

Speaker 5 (29:27):
I want to get into the next subject, but I
want to tell Taha live on the show that I
think we might have to extend this into the next segment.

Speaker 3 (29:36):
Let's do it. I agree, this is an interesting unpack.
Is that okay?

Speaker 10 (29:41):
So you know, I was hoping you would say the
same thing.

Speaker 5 (29:44):
So that's okay, good because I didn't want to start
without knowing. The next part is this bloodstain and shirt controversy.
Before the trial, there was a big fight over a
white T shirt Alex Murdo wore the night of the murders,
right a blood state. A blood stain expert first said

(30:07):
the stains on the shirt were just transfers. So that
means like, let's say Alex discovers his wife and his
son murdered, and he runs to their side and blood
transfers from their wounds onto his clothing, that's a transfer okay, and.

Speaker 3 (30:26):
You're like your loved one, yeah, Or he rubs.

Speaker 5 (30:29):
Up against the wall that had like blood spatter, that
would be a transfer stain. So that was what the
blood stain expert first said. Okay, State investigators sled, which
is this, you know, the South Carolina law enforcement I
can't remember what it stands for now anyway, it's it's
basically like South Carolina's Bureau of Investigations. Okay, it's their coat.

Speaker 2 (30:52):
Yes.

Speaker 5 (30:54):
They later used photoshop photoshop to enhance photos of that, Okay,
and then they claimed it had actually over one hundred
microscopic misting stains, which would mean Alex Murdall was standing
right next to the victims when they were shot. We're

(31:17):
going to unpack this, you guys. This is a big
part of this case.

Speaker 3 (31:20):
So so much to unpack in this murder case.

Speaker 4 (31:23):
Court.

Speaker 2 (31:23):
Do you want to give us a little set up
again in case anybody is not fully.

Speaker 3 (31:27):
Up the speed on the case.

Speaker 9 (31:29):
Yeah, absolutely so if you're just joining us, it's the
case of Alex Murda. He was that really fancy lawyer
in South Carolina who ultimately was found guilty of murdering
his wife Maggie and his twenty two year old son Paul. However,
that case has been overturned and with that, you know
the fact that a retrial will be coming up. It's

(31:51):
brought up a lot of questions and Body was just
throwing out one thing at the end of the last
segment about blood stain and now, so this is something
we want to get into with forensic expert Joseph Scott Morgan.
So it has to do with the white T shirt
that Alex Murda was wearing the night of the murders.

(32:11):
And honestly, let's start with the misting stains that investigators
claimed were ultimately found. What even are missing stains?

Speaker 12 (32:25):
Joseph Okay, So when they're using using the term misting,
what they're talking about is that the blood itself becomes aerosolized,
and the way it becomes aerosolized is a virtue of

(32:45):
a high velocity event.

Speaker 6 (32:48):
And when I say high velocity, we're talking about close
proximity to a firearm is generally where you see it.
Like I'll give you an example, if you swung them
baseball bat at a subject, Okay, and say you struck
them inside of the head, you're not going to get
the same response from the deposition of blood. You're not

(33:13):
going to hit it hard enough, hit that surface hard
enough to take blood droplet and break it down in
a fractionalized sense to the point where it looks like
a well, it looks like the head of a pen almost.
And that requires a tremendous amount of velocity. So when
they say missing, and let me give you a great

(33:35):
exercise for all of our friends out there, if you're
curious about the way this looks, if you have a
can of airsol hairspray in your house, go to your
bathroom mirror, take the airsoft hairspray and just do one
simple press of the button onto the surface of the mirror,

(33:56):
and you will get an idea what missing looks like.
And I know that seems rather obvious, but it's because
that the hairspray, the substance itself is aerosolized. That's what
happens with blood. So one of the problems is with
this T shirt is that you would first obviously have

(34:17):
this misting event that occurred. And let's just say you're standing,
I don't know, you're standing maybe with a shotgun, and
I think that it's going to be the shotgun where
this is coming from. When those rounds slam into the body,
you're going to have this kind of cloud that arises,

(34:40):
only it's going to be traveling a very high rate
of speed and anything that is there, like even backing
it up. This is what many people some people will
say the term blowback. That's not necessarily accurate. It's more
like a shower okay, showering down of the stuff. And
so it it deposits itself on a white background, which

(35:04):
the contrast is really pretty impressive when you see it
on white. We use white in a lab as a
matter of fact, to study blood blood deposition white T shirts.
But then if you've got somebody that comes in and
body had mentioned this earlier where you had this transfer,
So what you're doing is you're overlaying the missing area

(35:25):
which arrived there first with a bloody transfer. And let's
say that he walked up, the subject walked up and
cradled Paul's head okay, in his arms and held him
held him. Okay, Well, that's going to be a transfer,
and that would overlie, but it's still not going to
cover the whole area because the misting is so it

(35:49):
disperses in such a wide range. He would have had
it under his neck, probably on his arms, the dors
some of his hands. He will have it. I've seen
it drop down inside of shirts. You found it inside
the collar many times, as well as the outside. It's
a very dynamic event. So when you're doing this examination,

(36:11):
it's very very complex, y'all.

Speaker 4 (36:16):
Sounds wol.

Speaker 5 (36:18):
So this shirt is so controversial, and you know they
had to use photoshop to find these microscopic missing stains.
And then we learned too, Joseph, I don't know if
you remember this or not, but he washed his shirt
the night of the murders and the shirt wasn't confiscated

(36:40):
or taken by the police until the.

Speaker 12 (36:42):
Next day, right, and.

Speaker 5 (36:45):
They did so. This was so controversial in court in
pre trial that they weren't even allowed to talk about
this missing versus transfer stains at the trial. However, they
did have an ex spurt testify that there was actual
gunshot residue on the shirt and that survives. Apparently some

(37:10):
LAWNDO detergent. Is that right?

Speaker 13 (37:13):
Oh?

Speaker 6 (37:13):
Yeah, I can and yeah, And not to belabor the point,
but just a brief little lesson here there's three components
to gunshot residue, it's lead, antimony, and bury them. And
so those all of those go into the process of
making propellant. And even with the primer strike, which is

(37:38):
the little the little dot on the base of any
kind of projectile, the primer is different than the actual propellant.
So you'll have different types of combinations here, and it's
rather resilient, it can be. It's hard to get rid
of it totally.

Speaker 9 (37:56):
You know.

Speaker 6 (37:56):
One of the things, guys, that I reflect back on
this case. Now you know all of these I don't
know if I can say years, but I remember, I
don't know if you guys recall this. Do you just
remember him being in the backs are in the front
seat of.

Speaker 5 (38:11):
That cser that and his buddy right now.

Speaker 6 (38:17):
Yeah, I know it's well, I don't know, and I
think that we're sympatico body, the moment of being some
the I'm not looking over your shoulder, I'm not promise,
I'm yeah. I mean, and that that goes to that
goes to this really deep thread that runs through this

(38:37):
whole thing, you know, And I know that down here
in the South, people refer to the good old boy
system the good old voice system exists everywhere in the world,
is not down here. It's just that down here in
the South, we tend to put our crazy out on
the front porch so everybody can see it. And and
in this particular case, it was it's really magnified. Because

(38:59):
that's a huge no, and that gives you an indication
at least that the controls were not all in places
they should.

Speaker 3 (39:06):
Be, right.

Speaker 5 (39:08):
I mean, they had to destroy this shirt basically, the
the the I'm sorry, the they spread chemicals on this
shirt to process it that turned the entire garment black.
This is a white like Haines shirt kind of style thing,
and it was completely back. They can't retest it properly.

(39:28):
And you know, these this is going to be an
issue I think at retrial.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
You know what's interesting just to add to that, Oh sorry, Joseph,
just to add to this whole shirt detail about it
being laundered too, because we know that also the their
cleaning lady who was sort of an assistant who did
all the laundry of the house, and she sort of
was in this, you know, said crime scene area or
in the house even before cops had arrived or were

(39:53):
able to do any inventory, and she allegedly went ahead
and was washing things, and that was pretty controversial at
the time during the trial. She has since come out
with her own you know interview. I somehow watched like
an hour and a half of this interview, Joseph, You
and I talked about it at the time, and she's
written a book and her perspective is out there, and

(40:15):
her perspective is that she is suspicious of Alex and
doesn't believe that he had nothing to do with it.
So I've never seen this go down in terms of
forensics before. Usually it's a case where new information is
found and therefore there's a trial. I'm thinking of the
Menendez brothers top of head, right, they were maybe up

(40:35):
for a re sentencing or a retrial because there was
this new information that had been found and identified years
later that would shape the narrative. In this case, the
narratives already out there so many ways left side and backward.

Speaker 3 (40:50):
You really can't put that genie back in the bottle.

Speaker 2 (40:53):
In fact, they're trying to say, pretend you didn't hear
any of this.

Speaker 3 (40:56):
We're going to try this again.

Speaker 2 (40:57):
And meanwhile, the defense team and Alix behind bars has
already had a dress rehearsal, so he already knows what
the scoop is like. All of the dirt that somebody
might bring to trial is already out there. So it's
an exceptionally tough case. The forensics will likely be the
guiding light here.

Speaker 9 (41:18):
The forensics absolutely will be the guiding light I think
in this retrial. And listen, if you are just joining us,
this is true crime tonight, and we're talking about the retrial,
as yet unscheduled of attorney Alex Murda, who was convicted
of killing his wife and son and will now be
up for retrial.

Speaker 4 (41:37):
Joseph.

Speaker 9 (41:38):
There was a question about conflicting crime scene theories, so
the defense claimed that it was two shooters, and they
even had a forensic engineer who reconstructed the crime scene
using the bullet trajectories and what their conclusion was that
the both shooters would have been between five two and

(42:00):
five four. Well, Alex Murda is six foot four, so
defense argued, hey, he's simply too tall. And meanwhile, the
prosecution thencounter argued that it was one mobile shooter and
the different trajectories were because of movement. How how often
do both sides, you know, really not agree on trajectory,

(42:24):
which to me just seems like science.

Speaker 6 (42:27):
Right, yeah, it does. And the thing you have to
keep in mind with any kind of shooting event is
it is these things are not done in a static universe.
You know, we think about you know, people watch like
a television show perhaps where shooting takes place and you
have a static target, a human being, and they fire

(42:48):
around and somebody goes directly down. That doesn't happen. You
have people that are actually squatted down. You have people
that are on the ground, maybe firing from a knee,
maybe firing from a prone position. So just because there's
veriability in the trajectory does not necessarily dictate height. It
dictates attitude, physical attitude relative to the target. So if

(43:14):
everybody at home right now will just envision if you
take an imaginary long arm, you know something, you have
to fire from your shoulder, and you bend your needs,
you can take four to five inches off of your
height right there. That doesn't point to an alternative, an
alternative shooter. That points to humans being humans right in

(43:38):
our physiology, our anatomical makeup. So and then on top
of it, they really went all in and they said
that they didn't just have one really short shooter, they
had two. And listen, the oddball thing about this. I'm
not going to completely poo poo this idea of another
shooter because I still go back, who in the world

(44:01):
shows up with too long arms boat? Yeah, both of
them have to be shoulder fired. This is this is
an unmanageable almost an unmanageable set of circumstances from a
firing a weapon. And you know, and twelve gay shotguns
in and of themselves, you know, they feel like they

(44:23):
weigh like a boat anchor. They're not light, you know,
they're not light like well, it can be that can
be made out of composite, but like when you think
about this three hundred blackout that is, you know, kind
of a military style platform weapon. It's much lighter. It's
going to be made out of composite material. You say,

(44:44):
you go swing in a twelve gay shotgun around and
the barrel just a barrel itself. All right, It's cumbersome,
it's hard to manage. And that's one of the things
guys that always like stuck in the back of my
head with this case that was really problem for me
in my wildest dreams. If I was trying to, you know,

(45:04):
perpetrate something and try to make it like two people
look like two people, this might be the road that
I was going to go down. Yeah, but because it's
so complex, there's no guarantee that you're going to that
you're going to succeed because the weapons platforms you're using.

Speaker 5 (45:23):
Well, I have to tell you, Joseph, when when I
was watching this trial, the two shooter defense strategy that
they presented, I was kind of convinced I ain't gonna lie.
I kind of bought it. I was like, oh, yeah,
that makes sense. They were five four. But you explained
it so well. If you're in a prone position or
but here's the thing I have.

Speaker 6 (45:42):
About that squad.

Speaker 3 (45:43):
It let's say like you're.

Speaker 5 (45:44):
Squatted down, right, you have to be like, yeah, really mobile,
you've got two targets that are moving. Are you really
going to squat down as an older, bigger man and
get back up very quickly to chase down the next target?
I don't know.

Speaker 6 (45:59):
Yeah, I think that it's highly implausible and you're certainly
not going to go fully erect you. Okay, if you
just look at our war fighters overseas, and how they train.
Just like if you watch guys, they've got seals and
special ops people where you can watch them going and
do what's called CQB or where they're clearing a house.

(46:20):
None of those guys are standing fully erect, so good
way to get shot. All of them.

Speaker 4 (46:24):
That's true, all of them at the willin point.

Speaker 9 (46:28):
Listen, thank you so much, and do stick around. We're
going to talk about their new claims in Brian Koberger's
knife sheath evidence and it's raising a lot of questions.
Forensic expert Joseph Scott Morgan sticks around to break it
all down True Crime Tonight.

Speaker 2 (46:54):
Welcome back to True Crime Tonight on iHeartRadio. We're talking
true crime all the time. I'm Stephanie Leidecker here as
always with Courtney Armstrong and Body move in, and we
have Joseph Scott Morgan, our most favorite forensics expert here
with us tonight, breaking all the forensics down so Idaho,
the Idaho student murders, which we've all covered very closely.

(47:17):
We made the documentary on Peacock and this is a
case that's close to our heart, so close that our
hearts are almost too broken to talk about it.

Speaker 4 (47:26):
To some degree.

Speaker 2 (47:27):
It's like we dedicated so much time I'm speaking even
for myself just personally making the doc and the podcast.
You get sort of hyper invested, and you know, at
some point you almost want to.

Speaker 3 (47:41):
Put it away.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
Justice has been handled and what shall be shall be,
But you're really not able to do that, and family
members aren't really able to do that because here we
are yet another book and it's drawing a lot of
attention about some of the information that perhaps the defense
team had in their custody or in their orbit that is,

(48:05):
you know, potentially controversial, or it's just a bunch of
noise and clipbait and reasons to sell a book.

Speaker 4 (48:13):
We don't know.

Speaker 2 (48:14):
But fortunately we have Joseph Scott Morgan with us to
kind of go through some of this, and again, if
you want to join the conversation, we'd love to hear
from you. Eight eight eight three one Crime And if
you've missed any of the first hour, just download your
iHeartRadio app. It's free and you can always catch us
as a podcast. Joseph, I don't even know where to

(48:34):
begin with this one.

Speaker 4 (48:36):
Yeah, this is.

Speaker 5 (48:39):
Let me set the table.

Speaker 4 (48:41):
Yeah, please, you know, I know this.

Speaker 5 (48:43):
Might help too, right. So this all happened back on
November thirteenth of twenty twenty two. So it's been many
years for University of Idaho students. And I always want
to say their names because that's important, right, Kaylee Consalveus,
Madison Mogan, Xanakernodle, and Ethan Chapin. They were stabbed to death.
They were very young, vivacious college students, and they were

(49:05):
stabbed to death in their off campus home. This was
a very highly publicized case. I mean it was everywhere
you went, right, highly publicized case. It ended with the
bang right in the summer of last year when the
suspect and the accused in this case, Brian Coberger, he
was a criminology graduate student. He pled guilty to avoid

(49:27):
the death penalty. He received four consecutive life sentences without parole.
And because the case never went to trial, the defense's
evidence and arguments that they were going to present, of course,
remains unseen now. Experts that were that were working with
the defense, you know, on the case that were set

(49:48):
to testify, a former FBI agent Christopher Whitcomb and planned
forensics expert Brent Turvey. They controversially detailed some of that
evidence into their new book, this controversial book. Right, it's
called a Broken Plea And the big thing I'm on

(50:09):
you guys, I'm on social media all all day, okay,
and this is like on my algorithm, big all right,
And it's the biggest point in the book I think,
out of all of them, and it's this knife sheath
chain of custody. Okay. The defense planned to target this

(50:31):
chain of custody because it had that so super important
DNA on it that links back to Brank Oberger right
on that little button snap right, Well, the defense plan
to expose some severe anomalies in its chain of custody
logging that they believe happened. Okay. What they're presenting in

(50:54):
the book is forensics expert Brett Turvey says that the
evidence bag was filled out twice and that six different
custody signatures are written in identical handwriting, and that wouldn't
make sense, right, Like if you and I, Stephanie and
Courtney Phil signed something, we would have different handwriting. So
that's what they're pointing out, okay. And based on this

(51:17):
flawed chain of custody paper trail, the defense aimed to
target that in this crucial DNA link would not be admissible. However,
I have a lot to say about this, and Joseph, please,
you're the expert here, so pop in at any moment,
I beg you, okay, had this been accurate, the motions,

(51:44):
there were no motions to challenge this in court, the
chain of custody, and if there were, we would know
about it. We would know about these motions. There was
no chain of custody issue with the Moscow Police Department.
Because this book is overlooking the fact that the Moscow
Police Department transitioned to a digitized barcode evidence tracking and

(52:07):
chain of custody system about ten years before the murders
even happened. The claims in the book about this alleged
Oh please, I'm sorry, Joseph.

Speaker 6 (52:19):
No. No. I was going to say, as have most,
well most, that many police departments across the country use
barcodes now because of this reason, because you have this
kind of this level of accountability now electronically. You know,
I'm not saying that people don't still sign evidence seals,

(52:41):
because they do signing things in and out, but our
code is kind of one of those solid things. And
let me just kind of interject one thing here please,
This is this is an individual defense team's biggest point
of contention that it could have flipped the entire Trail
trial on its ear. From an evidentiary standpoint, I'm going

(53:07):
to probably tell you to go back and try again,
because this is not something particularly with accountability. As you
mentioned with the bar codes, this is not something that
is going to cripple cripple the prosecution in this particular
case like this.

Speaker 5 (53:24):
Was this was like an OJ type of situation where
they were like passing off evidence in you know, on
the sidewalk with no gloves on and whatnot. Right, everything
was documented, reports of officers that were part of it
were documented, and if it was challenged in any pre
trial notions, the judge would have brought in all the parties,

(53:45):
placed them under oath, and started with the first person,
officer Talbot, and asked him how he logged the sheet
and who he gave it to, and then Detective Pain
would have come in and taken the stand and testified
that he received the sheet from Talbot, you know what
I mean. It would have played out and the judge
would have been like, yeah, there's no tampering or unreliability.

Speaker 6 (54:05):
With this evidence, well said correct, you know, yeah, and
I concur with that completely. That's why I just don't
I don't think that there there's a lot here is
the problem, and it's certainly not enough to have crippled
crippled the prosecution's case, I don't.

Speaker 3 (54:24):
Think, right.

Speaker 5 (54:25):
And they have a lot of inaccuracies in this book
there they say that they can't find that this identity
of this officer or when this is because they spelled
it wrong in the book. It's a totally completely I mean,
it's a similar last name, but there's definitely letters misplaced.
It just doesn't make any sense to me. I don't
even know. I truly don't even know how this is

(54:48):
like an expert, you know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (54:50):
Like the problem is.

Speaker 2 (54:52):
Just to pay Devil's advocate to that though this is
somebody who was insider in the beehive. Yeah, try And
even though the trial didn't happen, he was in the
room for a lot of these conversations. So if you're
in any way connected to the now guilty Brian Coberger,
if you're a family member or somebody close to him

(55:13):
in some way, yeah, it opens this box back up
where they're thinking, maybe he's innocent, maybe he didn't get
a fair chance, or if you're family members of the
victims who have been through so much, too much, and
then some who have been jerked around so many times
with the trial getting pushed and then getting to a
different location and them having to now just accept the

(55:35):
plea deal without an allocation. For them, it almost must
be very anxiety producing that, oh, this is going to
bubble up again and now I'm going to have to
go back to basics in square one. And I can
only imagine for them how difficult this must be.

Speaker 4 (55:49):
I can't.

Speaker 5 (55:50):
I cannot imagine they're going to be at crimek on
this weekend. The Consultist family's coming, the.

Speaker 3 (55:56):
Beautiful Gonsalvez family.

Speaker 5 (55:57):
Yeah, they're going to be there, So that'll be interesting
saying I'm sure they're going to get a lot of
questions and hopefully people will you know, give them some
space and whatnot. But yeah, you know, that's one of
my favorite things about about, you know, going to crime
con and whatnot is seeing in talking to you know,

(56:18):
victims who want their cases heard, you know, and they're
always walking around and anyway, so they're going to be
there that's.

Speaker 4 (56:25):
Going to be interesting.

Speaker 5 (56:26):
But uh yeah, this this book is I feel like
a nothing burger for me.

Speaker 4 (56:31):
I think that's fair.

Speaker 9 (56:32):
And I also think that lead defense attorney Ann Taylor
would agree with you strongly, body, because she has publicly
admonished these two co authors. She said the defense was
appalled about the breach of confidentiality.

Speaker 4 (56:49):
So you are in good company.

Speaker 9 (56:52):
But speaking of Crime con and listen if you are
just joining us, this is true Crime Tonight, and we
are joined by forensic expert Joseph Scott Morgan who as
well will be at prime Con.

Speaker 4 (57:05):
Where and how can people find you? Joseph, Well, come by.

Speaker 6 (57:11):
I think I'm either I'm on Creator's Road. I'll be
at booth thirty or thirty one. I think it's myself
and for those of you, you know Cheryl McCollum a
Zone seven, we're side by side. Yeah, so we'll be
there together, and we'll be right across from the Queen's

(57:31):
area from Nancy's area right there. So we will be
there and I'll be presenting I think it on Saturday
morning with David Middleman from off from my kids at
Jacksonville State University, our Cold Case class and our Medical

(57:54):
Legal Death Investigation class had a big hand in working
on a cold case that people said would never be solved,
and I've got a big reveal for that in my
time with David up on the stage. So I'm excited
to talk about stuff that my students did this past
semester and some of the challenges that we met and

(58:17):
met with, and I think that it will be a
good time for all And we'll be taking a live
episode of Bodybacks about cases that yeah cases we do
that every year, cases that seemed unsolvable but yet were solved.

(58:39):
One of my favorite ones from this year we'll be
talking about is the case out of Canada, the Lady
in the Well case, which is fascinating about a lady
that went missing right after World War One and she
was identified i think this past year, and we did
an episode about her on Bodybacks. And there's a couple
other cases too that will be highlighted that in that episode.

(59:02):
So I encourage everybody come by. I'll have all kinds
of trinkets to give away, and all I ask is
that you subscribe to my YouTube channel. Today we launched
the video element for the very first time for body
Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan on YouTube. So please please
go and subscribe. It would mean a lot to us. Yeah,

(59:23):
that way for your money to subscribe.

Speaker 2 (59:26):
And it looks great, Joseph, and we're so incredibly proud
of you.

Speaker 3 (59:30):
Also, Joseph, Cheryl.

Speaker 2 (59:31):
I think she is the one who I watched for
an hour and a half when I couldn't sleep, talking
about the murderer case. I think she was the one
that interviewed their you know, family cleaning person.

Speaker 3 (59:43):
Yes, is that accurate. We talked about this.

Speaker 2 (59:45):
I feel like she did such a good job and
she's also the real deal. I would encourage everybody who's
there to I'm just saying this as a straight fan.

Speaker 3 (59:55):
I've never met her, but I really enjoyed ther Lork.
You would have a feeling, I would, I know, you
feel like.

Speaker 6 (01:00:01):
She's she was an absolute angel.

Speaker 4 (01:00:02):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's amazing.

Speaker 6 (01:00:05):
Southern Southern trauma to say the very least, and she'll
she'll reel you in and the next thing you know,
you calling in love with her.

Speaker 3 (01:00:14):
So she he watched her for an hour and a
half of three in the morning.

Speaker 5 (01:00:18):
Yes, my favorite My favorite story is my favorite story
about Cheryl is I had messaged I tell the story
all the time. I messaged her when Brian Coberger was arrested,
and I was like shy because I've known her for
a long time. And I was like, Cheryl, what do
you this criminology student? Do you think that this helped
him in some way? Like get away with it for
so long? Because it was you know, it had been
six weeks. And she was like, and I tell everybody

(01:00:40):
this all time, Honey. Just because you know how to
read a cookbook doesn't mean you know how to cook.

Speaker 3 (01:00:45):
That's how she talks.

Speaker 4 (01:00:46):
You know, she's the best.

Speaker 3 (01:00:49):
Well really again, super fan, but.

Speaker 6 (01:00:53):
A shameless slug for Cheryl real quick. She just dropped
her new book called Lawns Don't Swim and the Sewer
and it is about a serial killer whose daughter a
true story. And I helped her with this case, a
serial killer whose daughter was murdered and dismembered, And we

(01:01:14):
worked on that case together along with her cold case team,
and wound up getting it solved. But they well, it's
a big reveal. But swans don't Swim in the Sewer?
Doesn't that sound like Cheryl's.

Speaker 3 (01:01:28):
Such a great title.

Speaker 6 (01:01:30):
It is if you can give a chance you can find
it on Amazon. I know definitely. She's starting a book
tour right now, and so, yeah, it's such a great story.
You guys are not going to believe it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it.

Speaker 5 (01:01:44):
Just dropped and we're all very proud of Cheryl. Well, Joseph,
thank you so much for joining us tonight. We always
appreciate your help understanding these cases and all the friends
expined it. Anyone who wants more of Joseph, you can
find him as body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan on Instagram, YouTube,
and you know wherever you get your podcasts, and if
you are at Crime Con you can see him there

(01:02:05):
booth thirty or thirty one, he said. Stay tuned for
more updates about our launch of KTTV coming this summer
by following us on Instagram at kt Underscore Studios, or
go to our website and you can see all our
pictures and everything at ktdashstudios dot com. And coming up next,
a convicted triple murderer gets a last minute execution reprieve

(01:02:30):
after a disturbing failed procedure. Keep it right here a
True Crime Tonight.

Speaker 3 (01:02:45):
Welcome back to True Crime Tonight.

Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
An iHeartRadio, we're talking true crime all the time. I'm
Stephanie Leidecker here with Courtney Armstrong and Body Move In.
And just to get a little business out of the way.
As a heads up, our new podcast AI We Die
will be premiering on iHeart as well on June tenth,
and also KT's documentary Murder one oh one, also based

(01:03:09):
on the true crime podcast. The podcast was one school
class and the documentary is based on a whole new class,
but with the same incredible teacher, Alex Campbell. So it's
a high school show with the backdrop of true crime
and we hope you'll watch that too. That premiere is
on Amazon Prime on July sixth, So getting all of

(01:03:34):
that business out of the way, and right around that time,
we will be launching KTTV. Well we'll be able to
see video of our projects and keep that interactive so
we can continue making sure this continues to grow in
that our community and you all, we are all still
communicating on the daily, so make sure you go to

(01:03:55):
the website or at kt underscore studio dot com if
you want to see any updates on when that will
officially launch. We are knee deep in it now, so
Courtney big case in Tennessee about this really horrendous situation
should have been a death sentence, but now there's a delay.

Speaker 3 (01:04:19):
Yeah, there's a delay.

Speaker 9 (01:04:20):
And this case, I mean, there are many many roadbubs.
So back in nineteen ninety six, a guy named Tony
Carruthers was convicted of a brutal triple murder and this
had to do with the drug trade, Okay, So he
maintained his evidence throughout and many advocates for social justice
have joined him. They highlight a complete lack of physical evidence,

(01:04:43):
completely discredited informants which really were the basis of the
conviction at the beginning, from the beginning. So Tony Caruther's
recent execution, it was halted and delayed of with a
one year reprieve from the Governor of Tennessee, Bill Lee.

(01:05:04):
And this was after medical staff spent over one hour
attempting unsuccessfully to get the required backup IV line into him,
and it was excruciating and after the failed procedure, his
defense team, as well as the ACLU.

Speaker 4 (01:05:26):
They're challenging.

Speaker 9 (01:05:28):
They're challenging the execution in general on the Eighth Amendment
grounds and also arguing that Tony Carruthers is mentally incompetent
due to severe schizo effective disorder and brain damage.

Speaker 5 (01:05:41):
You guys, Okay, there's a lot of problems here, and
I like, I get it. It's so easy to be like, oh, well,
this guy did this, and so who cares? Right, everybody
in this country and I know I get on my soapbox,
but everybody in this country is supposed to be free
from cruel and unusual punishment. That's right, the government, and
that's what just Eighth Amendment violation means. That's what they're

(01:06:05):
that's what they're complaining about. And I agree with them.
This is cruel and unusual and it's possible. This a
soapbox with you. How is it humanly possible?

Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
Given that we know that the medications do in fact
exist for assisted suicides not legal in this country.

Speaker 3 (01:06:22):
However, in certain cases, medically speaking, it is. I think
it's possible if you have.

Speaker 2 (01:06:27):
A terminal disease where you're no longer to control the outcome.
You know, specific doctors here in the United States, can
you know, supply a certain cocktail of drugs that are
I don't know the combination of anything, but likely you
you know, nod off and go to sleep peacefully, and

(01:06:47):
and that's the end. There's not an IV there's not
an electric chair. Like this seems.

Speaker 3 (01:06:53):
Wild to me that we can't be.

Speaker 2 (01:06:55):
More humane given where we are in the medical world,
not to mention other countries. We know that assisted suicides
really are are legal in many places and happened daily,
and that's done with grace and dignity. People elect to
do that because of whatever disease is. They have this man,

(01:07:16):
you know, putting aside what he's been accused of, you know,
also has his fair share of you know, disabilities, et cetera.
That doesn't excuse what he's being accused of. But again,
it's so inhumane. How are we not perfecting the system here?
The idea of a person getting a bag put over
their head and electrocuted or given a drug that doesn't

(01:07:39):
even work is unbelievable.

Speaker 5 (01:07:42):
Well, they couldn't get this backup line in. Meanwhile, the
guy's sitting there. He knows it's good, like he knows
he's knocking on dust store right Like can you imagine?

Speaker 2 (01:07:51):
No, it gives me nightmares just thinking about it. No,
it gives me nightmares. The idea, and we've talked about this,
not to go back to the Idaho massacre, but also
you know that had Brian Cooberger, who's now behind bars,
had he been convicted and sentenced to death, he would
have been killed by a firing squad, which again we

(01:08:11):
all were like, that seems like, what are we in
the sixteen hundreds. This seems like we're a cavemen. We've
gone so far. People are having surgeries left and right,
and transplants and hand give me a break. That is inhumane,
absolutely and even apparently and yeah, the governor agrees, and honestly,

(01:08:33):
the controversies of these you know, again all I will
emphasize zero physical evidence, and really it was jail house
informants and they have recanted their testimony and another one
was discredited another person who helped put this man behind

(01:08:54):
bars and in death's line of fire, and one turned
out to be paid police informant.

Speaker 9 (01:09:02):
So it's really bad, and there's been the case itself.

Speaker 2 (01:09:06):
Is the case has self real drawbacks to it. Yeah,
it knows, honestly, it really does. And it seems a
little targeted. And we cover this stuff a lot. And
again this is a divisive conversation, but you know, we've
covered cases. The Rodney Reid case comes to mind, and
we see celebrities that get behind certain cases and therefore

(01:09:30):
there's a stay of execution. God bless that that happens.
But again, that is not how the justice system is built.
It doesn't require an influencer or a celebrity, you know,
raising their hands so that your case can be heard
or looked at differently. That is like a problem number
one and number two. It does seem like this case

(01:09:51):
inherently does have some real problems if it were we
tried today.

Speaker 7 (01:09:55):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:09:56):
It's a horrible case.

Speaker 2 (01:09:58):
So I'm not trying to stir anything up for anyone
associated with it.

Speaker 3 (01:10:01):
But it's a tough one.

Speaker 2 (01:10:03):
It's a tough one when we think about imagine being
in that moment you know they're getting their last meal.
Why not make it just in a meal? And it's
a surprise, like why does it have to be in
a room? Simpler watching and so bizarre.

Speaker 3 (01:10:16):
Like it's not a surprise, but well, I mean, you
know it's coming.

Speaker 2 (01:10:19):
But maybe not exactly when Like even just the I
don't know, dead man walking of it all is so
macab But to quote Courtney Armstrong's one of her favorite
smart words.

Speaker 4 (01:10:31):
You know.

Speaker 9 (01:10:32):
But in this two things number one, Stephanie, you are
correct that our justice entire systems should not rely on influencers. However,
in this case, Kim Kardashian once again raised the profile
and over one hundred and thirty thousand people put their

(01:10:52):
signatures and it was trying to demand a permanent stay
to allow DNA and fingerprint testing.

Speaker 4 (01:10:59):
So it's not a solution, but.

Speaker 2 (01:11:03):
There was no fingerprints being tested. This is a big
thing I'll get on my soapbox now. And this does
remind me of Rodney Reid. Rodney Reid is an African
American man also on Death Row who Kim Kardashian also
rallied for to get a day of execution successfully. We
were actually going to do a documentary about it, and
long story short, but the long story short is there

(01:11:24):
was DNA in that case that hasn't been tested. What
is the company we're We're going to go to death
Row before the actually all the DNA's been tested.

Speaker 3 (01:11:33):
That's wild, send it to author them. We know what's possible.

Speaker 2 (01:11:37):
We can rebuild things and we can get real answers
based on forensics. And it appears that in this case,
that might be happening as well. And again, if not
for Kim Kardashian, is that And by the way, buss me,
I love my Kardashians, and God bless her for having
the platform and using it in such a way. But
what about everybody else who's in a similar situation. You

(01:11:59):
have to hope that Kardashian reaches back out to you.

Speaker 3 (01:12:02):
That's insane. We saw this in the crash.

Speaker 2 (01:12:04):
Remember when we saw the documentary that we've all talked
about here, and the girl Mackenzie was like, well, maybe
Kim Kardashian is what planet are we on? We again,
this is not ditching or being rude to Kim Kardashian.
I've seen every episode. Hats off. That's additive, though. That
is not how the system has been built. We have

(01:12:25):
a constitution and there's a process and a checks and balance.
It seems like it's getting a little confused.

Speaker 9 (01:12:31):
Absolutely, and you know it, just one last thing on this,
the Eighth Amendment violation, as you mentioned body, which is
cruel and unusual. Tony Carruthers was wincing and groaning during
this more than an hour, and I have to say
I'm a very bad stick and this I was not
waiting for my execution. I was waiting to have a baby.

(01:12:55):
And yet it took them more than an hour. Also,
and ultily a surgeon had to come and put my
line in.

Speaker 4 (01:13:02):
Oh my god, it's.

Speaker 9 (01:13:04):
Like being stuck and stuck and stuck in your veins
and having it miss.

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):
Anyway, I had a nightmare about this case. Honestly, did
you researching it last night? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:13:14):
I had a really scary nightmare about it.

Speaker 2 (01:13:16):
And it's so scary and sad, and well, it really
is why.

Speaker 3 (01:13:21):
We're talking about it because it's important.

Speaker 5 (01:13:24):
It is important, and that he's got a year, that
the governor gave him a rebrief for a year.

Speaker 4 (01:13:29):
Is that right, That's exactly right.

Speaker 5 (01:13:31):
Okay, well, yeah, I'll see what happens.

Speaker 4 (01:13:33):
Yeah, we'll keep you updated.

Speaker 5 (01:13:35):
And this is your crime tonight. If you this is
I'm we're stepping over each other. If you want to
give us a call about anything that we've been talking about,
give us a call. Eighty eight thirty one Crime.

Speaker 4 (01:13:45):
Now.

Speaker 5 (01:13:45):
Listen, we weren't here yesterday, so we missed missing persons Monday.
But we have a case that has an amber alert
attached to it as of is it today or yesterday,
Courtney tell us all about it.

Speaker 9 (01:13:59):
Yeah, this is happening where I am in Los Angeles,
And there's been an Amber alert issued for a beautiful
five year old girl, Deliza Forgoza. So she was allegedly
abducted by her father, Reuben Forgoza, and the abduction allegedly
happened in Los Angeles on the twenty fourth of May.

(01:14:20):
The father also is considered a person of interest in.

Speaker 4 (01:14:24):
The violent death of the girl's mother.

Speaker 9 (01:14:30):
And also this father allegedly indicated that he had an
intent to flee the country. So yeah, and this I
don't know if it's for better or worse, but it
is the facts. The vehicle has been located, and as
we know in Amber alerts, the Amber alerts are tied

(01:14:51):
not just to the tech school vehicle, descriptions of the
people involved, to the So the vehicle again has been locate. Hated,
but Ruben Forgoza and missing five year old Dealiza, do
you remain missing? Everyone with any kind of information is
of course urged to just contact nine to one one.

Speaker 4 (01:15:14):
And Delisa, the five year.

Speaker 9 (01:15:16):
Old, she's about three feet tall, she's forty five pounds,
and she has black hair.

Speaker 4 (01:15:23):
And brown eyes.

Speaker 9 (01:15:25):
And the suspect, Ruben, her father, Rubin Forgoz. For Gooza
also the husband of the victim who is found dead,
so the girl's mother.

Speaker 4 (01:15:36):
So he was, oh my god, married to her.

Speaker 9 (01:15:39):
Well, Ruben is five feet nine, about two hundred pounds,
also black hair and brown eyes.

Speaker 4 (01:15:48):
So yeah, what do you guys?

Speaker 5 (01:15:51):
Do we know how did they discover the mom? Do
we know there they went?

Speaker 9 (01:15:57):
Yes, there was a wellness check. That's an excellent question.
So just in terms of the TikTok, it appears that
the five year old Aliza was taken around four am
on Sunday, the twenty fourth, So the next day, Deliza
Forgoza's mother was found deceeized by police.

Speaker 4 (01:16:16):
And this happened during a wellness.

Speaker 9 (01:16:18):
Check at approximately twelve forty the afternoon of Memorial Day yesterday.
And what police state is that she died as a
result of violence.

Speaker 4 (01:16:29):
We don't have information beyond that.

Speaker 10 (01:16:32):
Yeah, that's about it we have at the moment on it.
But yeah, I'm glad you're sharing this case, and it
just highlights how important the Amber alerts are. And I
was going to bring this up, Stephanie, I feel like
you said a while back that you got to see
the behind the scenes.

Speaker 3 (01:16:45):
Oh yeah, I went in.

Speaker 4 (01:16:47):
I went.

Speaker 2 (01:16:47):
I flew to Sacramento with my old boss, Jonathan Kotch.
We went to Sacramento and we were in the beehive.

Speaker 4 (01:16:57):
We went.

Speaker 2 (01:16:58):
We were developing a show at the time with Amber Alert.
COVID happened and then the show didn't. But it was
fascinating because again, it's like so smart, but it's really effective,
and the it's kind of like going into beehive where
there's you know, video everywhere, and you know there's a
very specific criteria that someone has to meet in order

(01:17:20):
for an amber alert to be sent. But the stories
are harrowing of success, frankly, of it's the stuff that
you would think in the scariest movies, like oh, there's
this certain you know, license played on a white truck
and then somebody who just happens to be watching the
TV seeing the amber alert, the white truck drives by.

(01:17:41):
They say something and there's like five children in the truck.
Like that kind of level of very very work. It
is so effective and it just again it proves that
crowdsourcing and a community like ours keeping our eyes open
can really be effective.

Speaker 5 (01:17:58):
Oh, I totally agree. If any body has any information
regarding the whereabouts of five year old di Lego for
Grosa or her father, Reuben, please call the LAPD Robbery
Homicide Division at three two, three seven eight six fifty
one hundred and stick around. We've got more to dig
in too. We wrap the night with some of your talkbacks.

(01:18:19):
Keep it right here, True Crime Tonight.

Speaker 2 (01:18:31):
Welcome back to True Crime Tonight on iHeartRadio. We're talking
true crime all the time of Steph here with Courtney
and Boddy, and of course we have Taha with us
and the boys Adam and Sam.

Speaker 3 (01:18:42):
In the control room. If you want to join us.

Speaker 2 (01:18:45):
Live or just keep those talkbacks coming, Let's go to
one right now.

Speaker 14 (01:18:50):
Just reflecting on the six year old with a gun
to staff the search for all children, maybe poor people,
and I.

Speaker 1 (01:18:57):
Think that if you allow them to search some children
thought I.

Speaker 2 (01:19:04):
Thought about it that night. He's right, I take it back. Actually,
it's such a good point. I actually fell asleep stressing
about that exact point. I'm so glad we're talking about
it because I thought, well, let him search.

Speaker 4 (01:19:16):
Like what have you.

Speaker 2 (01:19:17):
But then now you get racists doing searches and certain
racers are being targeted, or you know, maybe the rich
kid kid gets exactly kid that's a little unfortunately, you know,
not in the same financial category of than another kid.

Speaker 3 (01:19:35):
It's so easy to.

Speaker 2 (01:19:36):
Get picked on these days and so easy to get
targeted that that wouldn't be a great solution.

Speaker 5 (01:19:42):
Probably, And I take it back, I'm so glad we're
talking about this because I adn't even considered that. And
you're you're right, Stephanie, and are at the top pack
is right. Yeah, kids will be targeting.

Speaker 4 (01:19:53):
Maybe they're not.

Speaker 5 (01:19:55):
The religion that you know, exactly the right race or
like you sadly they are the they come from the
wrong side of the track, so to speak, right, the
exactly holy shirts instead of like the you know, button
down polos or something. I don't know a lot of this,
oh well, just a little different.

Speaker 10 (01:20:14):
You could even be a child or person that like
has you know, maybe a little bit of attitude or
maybe like a tougher kid or something. Just I thought
I listened to everyone talking about it on Thursday when
the other day I was here. But that's the first
thing that crossed my mind was that I feel like
I would be sometimes that kid that they would pick
on or something and maybe I'm that they check. Well,

(01:20:37):
you know, I mean, thank god it doesn't happen, but
you know they might be that person.

Speaker 4 (01:20:41):
Check is that again?

Speaker 10 (01:20:42):
Do it again?

Speaker 2 (01:20:44):
And I thought everybody's bag should get checked the same
as just a protocol, right, But again, it doesn't work
that way in the real world.

Speaker 6 (01:20:51):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:20:51):
That sounds good and eurie until you know you're you're
the one that's being targeted, who maybe has a bad
attitude at school, but doesn't mean that you're a total
a gun, you know, So that can get kind of muddy.
And where do you find cause? And and and and
it's a complicated by the way, Like I went to
the best high school. I'm actually doing the commencement speech

(01:21:13):
at this year stage from high school graduation and a
long island, so if you have any commencement.

Speaker 3 (01:21:21):
Speech, hy know.

Speaker 2 (01:21:24):
Yeah, And like we went to at the time, it's
the largest school in terms of population in the country.
I graduated with like sixteen hundred students in my senior class,
so those class sizes are really big. But imagine having
to do that level of screening with that many kids.

Speaker 3 (01:21:42):
Every single day. Nobody would ever go to class.

Speaker 2 (01:21:44):
And again, I'm looking back, I'm like, those are not
the things that we were super stressed about. Kids did
smoke and probably carry knives in their pockets back then.
I don't know what we were in, Like West Side
Story all of a sudden in my head, so every.

Speaker 4 (01:21:56):
Version of Jet Yeah, yeah, we were the Jets.

Speaker 3 (01:22:03):
But I know it's so complicated.

Speaker 4 (01:22:07):
It's hard.

Speaker 5 (01:22:07):
It's hard to make decisions in the world.

Speaker 9 (01:22:10):
I was gonna say that you made a really good point.
You made a great point with your talkback, and I
as well, I simply had not thought about it. That said,
I've been mulling it over listening to you guys as well,
and I think, and boy, there is no right answer,

(01:22:30):
but I think for the greater good still, in the
case of an allegation that so and so has a gun,
so and so has said they have a gun, that
given the age which is not of just having a
pack quote just having a pack of smokes and a
little knife in your pocket, it is the age of
more than one school shooting per week, every single week.

(01:22:55):
And I still I think that's right. And I think
is an allegation of a gun that.

Speaker 4 (01:23:03):
It should be checked, it should be checked.

Speaker 10 (01:23:05):
Yeah, I can understand the lot because it's there are
other people I.

Speaker 5 (01:23:08):
Worry about, like kids weaponizing it, like to absolutely rights
or the nerd or something.

Speaker 10 (01:23:18):
The introverted kid that. Yeah, sometimes they could use that
as a way to say, let's tell them that he
has a gun in his bag exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:23:27):
But they could do that. Now, I was going to
say that we can't prevent that from happening.

Speaker 4 (01:23:31):
That does happen.

Speaker 2 (01:23:32):
I mean, obviously they're swatting in the real world, but
yes you can. I think that's going to require a
more mindful layer.

Speaker 4 (01:23:40):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:23:41):
It's who has the money.

Speaker 2 (01:23:42):
Those public schools have all the money in the world,
and now add another layer of screening to it.

Speaker 10 (01:23:47):
What do you think about metal detectors and schools, Like
if they had to go through.

Speaker 5 (01:23:51):
One, are they effective?

Speaker 4 (01:23:55):
What I mean?

Speaker 5 (01:23:56):
I know the thing at the airport that you stand
in and a little swish comes by, you know, you
get sure up.

Speaker 4 (01:24:02):
Above your head.

Speaker 5 (01:24:03):
I know that's effective, right, But I don't Is our
metal detectors even effective?

Speaker 4 (01:24:08):
I don't know.

Speaker 10 (01:24:08):
I feel like I walk through them every time I
go through a concert, and I'm assuming they are probably
on par with even if you.

Speaker 2 (01:24:17):
Knew that you were going to have to go through
you know, medical detector and you were trying to bring
a gun. I mean, these are such specific things that
we're screening for too, Like we're looking for guns, not smokes, right,
But if you too that there was a potential for that, No,
it's tough.

Speaker 5 (01:24:34):
Wasn't there a big uproar about metal detectors? They didn't
want kids to think they were going into like a
prison every day? Or yes, people, wasn't it.

Speaker 10 (01:24:42):
That's why I asked how you guys felt, because I've
heard people push back on it. But this, this topic
has been something that has really hit with a lot
of our listeners.

Speaker 4 (01:24:51):
As a matter of fact, we have a New York.

Speaker 10 (01:24:53):
City public school teacher who left one to hear, oh great, yes.

Speaker 8 (01:24:58):
Had your crime tonight from New York City. I'm a
New York City public school teacher, and I'm just going
to tell you what the protocol is in New York.
If we think a child has something that they shouldn't have,
we have to immediately and notify administration. Administration would then
come and check the child with security present and make
sure that child was safe to return to class.

Speaker 13 (01:25:19):
I'm not saying that this is what I would do
if I thought we were an eminent danger.

Speaker 8 (01:25:24):
But I think that there's a lot of situations that
happen in schools that you would be very shocked of.
There are children that hurt teachers every.

Speaker 13 (01:25:32):
Day, that there have been warnings after warnings after warnings
that they are a risk to their peers and the teachers,
and yet they are able to return to school.

Speaker 2 (01:25:44):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (01:25:46):
I literally just got covered in teachers have job.

Speaker 5 (01:25:50):
It's such everybody's little Timmy is the best Timmy ever
and they would never never behave that way in yeah, okay.

Speaker 3 (01:26:00):
But I don't feel that way as a parent.

Speaker 2 (01:26:02):
I'm always like when I open I'm always like, really,
let's make sure that we're.

Speaker 3 (01:26:06):
Keeping the cleans, keeping the streets clean here.

Speaker 2 (01:26:08):
You know, we're trying to add, not take, you know,
like I am not the mom that's like showing up
saying never never. And by the way, I haven't really
been in that situation, thankfully, But you know, teachers are
putting their lives at risk as well, So what's the
answer there. You know, you're being underpaid, undervalued, not by us,

(01:26:29):
in fact, not by us.

Speaker 3 (01:26:31):
But that's a tough thing.

Speaker 2 (01:26:33):
And now there is that protocol as it should be,
But then why didn't that protocol really happen in this case.
I think it was because it was elementary school and
the kids.

Speaker 3 (01:26:42):
Were so young.

Speaker 4 (01:26:43):
Nobody was really assuming.

Speaker 3 (01:26:44):
That the six year old was going to come jamming
into school with a with a gun.

Speaker 4 (01:26:48):
Yah, it is. It's unimaginable.

Speaker 9 (01:26:50):
But I have to say, I do think that the
protocol of having an administrator and a witness, kind of
like you do four to be above reproach in a
penacological exam or something, I think that's actually smart. It
adds no additional personnel. It is just a quote, just
a witness, and I think New York has a smart

(01:27:14):
and pa Stephanie, I am absolutely with you, and I have.

Speaker 2 (01:27:17):
Had a couple of like, yeah, I think the way
similar moms are that way, we're not like we're pro
teacher pro teacher.

Speaker 4 (01:27:29):
And also, you know, yeah, it isn't perfect, but it's
not as perfect.

Speaker 2 (01:27:35):
God knows I wasn't perfect. I don't even expect that. So,
but it takes a village, and you're really looking to
your teachers in your school to sort of be on
the same page with you, and more importantly, the school
and the teachers are looking for the parents to be
on the same page in alignment with them. You're not
just they're not babysitters, you know, And sometimes you'd be

(01:27:56):
surprised what probably happens by the way I'm looking at
myself in high school.

Speaker 3 (01:28:00):
Yeah, like sometimes you do.

Speaker 2 (01:28:02):
Goofy things that are maybe out of character or you know,
not in alignment with your family values.

Speaker 4 (01:28:10):
No doubt.

Speaker 2 (01:28:11):
We might have spoken a cigarette together, though, like on
a curb somewhere near a bus without anybody knowing.

Speaker 5 (01:28:18):
But other than that, I was the animal, like, I'm
loving this conversation though about what I think. It's interesting
and I think that you know, we're getting a lot
of different answers from a lot of people that live
in different places, and everyone's different, and it's very interesting.

(01:28:41):
Let's go to another time back right now.

Speaker 7 (01:28:43):
Heye, true crime. You're talking about the crash on Netflix. Yes,
infuriating to watch those sweet young men lives got short
and the fact that her parents gave her no guidance
in her life or any parenting. There was no parenting happening,
and he was a feature, Like, it's horrific. Shame on
them because now look what's happened. Two young men lost

(01:29:04):
their lives and their daughters in jails.

Speaker 3 (01:29:09):
Shame, shame, shame.

Speaker 9 (01:29:12):
And also I have to say that it was and
I'm forgetting it was. It was one of the victim's
fathers who was saying, and I thought it was so
graceful of him to say that because because her, the
perpetrator's parents were so like lenient and saying she was perfect,

(01:29:34):
that they were simply doing her an absolute disservice in life.
And he's like, I hope they stop doing that so
for the time that she remains in prison, she doesn't
just think, oh, everyone else is wrong.

Speaker 4 (01:29:48):
I'm the only one who has it right.

Speaker 5 (01:29:50):
I feel like they're still doing that though. Have you
listened to excuse me, I went down a rabbit hole
on the top my algorithm was on f the other night.
Like it was just like one thing after another, and
they were a lot of these prison calls and they
weren't talking in the gibberish language that they were speaking,
and I just feel like, Mom, it was the ones

(01:30:11):
I listened to were mostly with mom, and like, there's
just no accountability. I feel there's no.

Speaker 3 (01:30:20):
And this isn't it.

Speaker 2 (01:30:20):
Yeah, And maybe that goes back to the even previous
conversations about bringing in guns to school and all of
the above. You know, lack of consequence. You know, it
is a little cause and effect. And this is a
perfect example of children that maybe have no consequences at
all and get away with at all in her mind.

Speaker 3 (01:30:43):
I have to assume that Mackenzie didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:30:45):
Realize that even though she was going this level of
speed and maybe even thought this was going to end
in tragedy, that it would actually end in tragedy.

Speaker 3 (01:30:56):
You know, sometimes at that.

Speaker 2 (01:30:57):
Age, you don't really know what the percussion is to
your actions, even if you go into it thinking you
did you know, because she seems real confused when she's
she starts to see it in the car when she's like, well, no, no, no,
you're not going home anytime soon. Like life got real
for McKenzie. Well because almost as though she had no idea.

Speaker 5 (01:31:15):
Yeah, because that way she never was held accountable for anything.
There's a lot of people that I mean, I deal
with literally every day every day the same way they
grew up with no consequences. Like, what do you mean.

Speaker 4 (01:31:30):
It's a service.

Speaker 9 (01:31:33):
It's such a service to turn your child out into
society a with that, you know, with that thought that
that's how it should be, and then yeah, like it's
bad for how they act in society.

Speaker 3 (01:31:46):
And also it's dangerous and dangerous.

Speaker 2 (01:31:50):
You know. Part of being a parent is making sure
that you're making your child be a functional part of
the world and that they're not going to be not
only dangerous or annoying, and they're going to be reductive
and add to the world, you know, as opposed to
just assume the world is coming to them.

Speaker 3 (01:32:05):
It's a hard one.

Speaker 2 (01:32:07):
That's a hard line because you want to be liked
and you want to be you know, you want to
be easy going, but you can't always be. Again, I'm
not doling in advice here. I just found mom and
dad crazy making. When you watch How Out to Lunch
they appear to be when it comes to consequences.

Speaker 10 (01:32:26):
Well to that point, we actually we have time for
one last talk back that says exactly that. Let's hit
that one.

Speaker 14 (01:32:31):
Right, Hi, True Crime tonight. This is April from Akron.
I just want you to know that I really love
your show and totally respect what you all do. I
finished the crash and I'm sorry. I think the parents
and the friend of that girl Mackenzie are in denial
because I.

Speaker 3 (01:32:51):
Really think that she did that on poom.

Speaker 14 (01:32:53):
It's really sad that she ruined her life and the
lives of other people.

Speaker 3 (01:32:58):
Have a great night, April so Well said April double a.

Speaker 5 (01:33:02):
We love it.

Speaker 4 (01:33:04):
I mean a hun if you could hear we in Unison?
Just what you with you?

Speaker 8 (01:33:11):
April?

Speaker 5 (01:33:13):
When she said she wouldn't even eat she's so good
or healthy, she wouldn't even eat a chicken from McDonald's,
I was like, what does I always do anything?

Speaker 4 (01:33:24):
You are?

Speaker 3 (01:33:24):
How did you make anything? Yeah? I couldn't leave it.

Speaker 5 (01:33:27):
I was like, what's she talking about? It's another one
they probably No, I'm not going to say it.

Speaker 3 (01:33:33):
I'm not hold me back. I hold you back and
we have your back.

Speaker 2 (01:33:41):
Yeah, that's why this documentary is worth a watchca We
don't make it, but it's so interesting to sort of
see these different perspectives and how we can apply better
in our own world as well. So important stuff. How
is the show over? Already know why we are? We
in a time warp?

Speaker 4 (01:34:02):
Anyway?

Speaker 2 (01:34:02):
Flew by so happy for tomorrow. Make sure you join us.
We have Jared coming tomorrow. Sarantina so Jared Barantino, our
favorite prosecutor answering all your legal questions.

Speaker 3 (01:34:16):
Have a great night. Everybody, stay safe.

Speaker 7 (01:34:17):
Bye bye.