The $10 Million Verdict, Diddy’s Prison Transfer, and New Clues in the D4VD Case

A jury delivers a $10 million verdict in the case of a Virginia teacher shot by her six-year-old student — a ruling that could reshape how schools handle safety and accountability. Transformational expert Christine Collopy joins us to decode the subconscious patterns behind human behavior — and how our fascination with true crime may reveal more about our own minds than we think. Plus, prisoner rights advocate Kevin Scott shares how his “Just Income” program is giving people a real second chance after incarceration. Tune in for all the details.

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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. It's Thursday, November six. Thank guess what, everybody,
We have a stack night of headlines. Listen to the
Virginia teacher who was shot by her six year old
student at a very big day in court today, we
have a verdict and we can't wait to share it
with you. Also, Sean Diddy Combs, we spoke about this

(00:42):
last week. He had been transferred to his new forever home,
or at least for the next fifty months, and he's
now been moved to this low security prison while more
sexual allegations are being filed against him. And also the
private investigator we spoke about this briefly last night. He
was hired by singer David's landlord to get as much

(01:03):
information as possible about the case, and he's released some
new evidence about the relationship between the singer and the
deceased fourteen year old Celeste Reevas. We've all really been
looking for details into that case. Cannot believe there has
not been any sort of person of interest identified or
anybody brought into custody. Also, this whole idea of Diddy

(01:26):
and victims, and we.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
Talk about such heavy stuff here.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
So as promised, we have one of my most favorite
humans in all of the world here with us today.
Christine Klapi is going to be joining us. She's a
transformation expert, and it's going to help us with some
tools about how to navigate all of this true crime trauma,
if you will, whether we're experiencing it or even just
hearing about it. So she has real tips and tricks

(01:53):
to keep us all sane, especially as we are heading
into the holidays. Come on, we all need to ban
to get everyone. And also one of our most favorite
topics is really how we can help prisons and sort
of move things forward. And prison rights expert Kevin Scott
joins us later in the show as well. He's the

(02:14):
real deal. So we have a lot to get through,
so I'm going to probably fast talk. I'm Stephanie Lai Decker,
I head of KAT Studios, where we make true crime
podcasts and documentaries. Please please please check out in Cells
out now. Also The Idaho Massacre Season three. The podcast
also out now both on iHeart and Ladies. I get

(02:36):
to be here with Body move in My True Crime
Gal and Courtney Armstrong my other true Crime Gal, and
then of course Sam, Adam and Taha are in the
control room doing their things.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
So, Ladies, did you have a good Thursday?

Speaker 4 (02:51):
Tomorrow is Friday.

Speaker 5 (02:53):
That's what's good about Thursday is Tomorrow's Friday.

Speaker 6 (02:56):
That is so true.

Speaker 3 (02:57):
I love a Thursday. It's crazy for a Thursday.

Speaker 6 (02:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (03:00):
Do you what I call Thursday? Yeah, you call it Friday, Eve,
I call it little Friday.

Speaker 4 (03:05):
Oh, yes, Friday. Jor it's Friday, Junior.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
It's maybe Friday.

Speaker 6 (03:11):
So yeah, I love it.

Speaker 3 (03:12):
Ye see that's a perfect tip. Already, I see.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
I already feel mentally better now that I get to
be here.

Speaker 4 (03:18):
So my little jokes that I told you didn't work.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
It was terrible. That was terrible. We were like a
little frazzle. We were having some audio issues in Body.
I was like, Buddy, I think I need to hear
a giggle or a joke or something. And she asked
chat GPT for the funniest joke in the world.

Speaker 6 (03:31):
I mean, it was the delivery was great.

Speaker 3 (03:34):
The joke so the chat GPT is not that hilarious.

Speaker 6 (03:38):
Still, time layer, I'll tell her.

Speaker 4 (03:40):
Let the audience decide, all right to make a smile.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
Which you did and you both are doing. So let's
kick it off right now. In fact, we have a
talk pack.

Speaker 8 (03:51):
Here.

Speaker 9 (03:51):
I'm listening to your podcast from yesterday and you're speaking
about the teacher that was shot by six year old
and she said something that has my blood boiling. The
assistant principal said she had no legal duty to intervene.
Are you kidding me?

Speaker 3 (04:09):
How?

Speaker 6 (04:09):
There's no way.

Speaker 9 (04:10):
Her defense actually said that I worked in education for
more than twenty five years, and it is everyone's duty
to intervene.

Speaker 6 (04:18):
Thank you little duty of thank here, I think, is
what she said. Right, That's exactly right.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
I guess got covered in chills even hearing that perfect talkback.
I couldn't agree with you more. All of us are accountable,
you know, you see it. You have to say it
and help and report and act, and yeah, it's infuriating
to hear that.

Speaker 7 (04:36):
Well, we do have an update, So a Virginia jury
has awarded the former teacher Abby's werner. She is still
with us. She was the one who was shop but
she's just no longer teaching right now. She has been
awarded ten million dollars in her lawsuit that was against
ex principal Ebony Parker. So Parker was indeed found liable

(04:59):
for failing to act act before the teacher Abby's Werner
was shot by her six year old student. This happened
back in twenty twenty three. So this happened back in
twenty twenty three. The first grade teacher was shot by
her six year old student at rich Neeck Elementary School
in Virginia. Staff had allegedly and reportedly raised concerns that

(05:19):
the child might have a gun, but the teacher was
excuse me, I'm sorry, guys, I'm losing my train of thought.

Speaker 4 (05:26):
It's okay, I'm here, that's okay.

Speaker 6 (05:28):
Yes, says yes. This one has me really heated.

Speaker 4 (05:31):
No, I know, yeah, I totally it's crazy.

Speaker 7 (05:33):
So Abby's werner had tried to sue for forty million dollars,
but again she got ten million in it. And the
jury deliberated for about five and a half hours before
delivering the verdict. This is a civil trial and it
previewed evidence that will in fact likely appear in Parker
the Assistant Principles upcoming criminal case, and in that criminal case,

(05:55):
she faces eight felony coylens accounts of child neglect. And
you know, it'll be interesting to see how and if
things change in the future, because this frederict really does
highlight accountability like what happens in school safety failures and
what may influence future legal standings for school shootings.

Speaker 5 (06:14):
So they must have found reasonable cause that she should
have acted, like she had enough information. I mean, this
is what I'm gathering just from like looking at it
from the outside. She must have had enough information that
she should have intervened, right, Like she had knowledge that
was tangible and actionable and didn't act on it. So

(06:35):
remember we were talking the other night about she had
been given warnings since some scenario in some situation. I
don't know the details of that, but she had been
given some kind of warning that this kid had a gun,
and she said she was no duty of care to intervene,
so she knew that he had a gun. Right, This
is what I'm thinking they proved by awarding her so
much money.

Speaker 6 (06:56):
That's right.

Speaker 7 (06:56):
And in fact, multiple staff members had allegedly warned the
assistant principle that the student might have a gun reportedly
four separate times that day, and the defense falls on
in my case, on sympathetic ears. The argument that the
assistant principles attorneys put forth was that yes, school stay safety,

(07:20):
of course is a shared responsibility, but that no one
could have predicted a six year old would carry a
gun except for the fact that allegedly four teachers.

Speaker 4 (07:30):
Warned that that is rightly.

Speaker 5 (07:33):
And she did not intervene or intercede in any way,
and this six year old pulled out a gun and
shot this woman. And it's my understanding she was initially
asking for like forty million, right, that's right. Wow, I wonder,
I wonder what the deciding factor was on the ten million.

Speaker 4 (07:48):
I don't know.

Speaker 7 (07:49):
Yeah, I'm not sure. And but here's a little bit
of context. So, according to the K through twelve School
Shooting database, with is a sad world we live in
where one exists and is updated so frequently. According to
that database, there were three hundred and thirty two shooting

(08:10):
incidents on school properties last year twenty twenty four. The
school year is one hundred and eighty days long, so
that is almost two times per day. Every single day
that children are in school, which is it is absolutely
it's horrible and the teacher is she of course she

(08:33):
was shot.

Speaker 6 (08:34):
She was shot in the hand.

Speaker 7 (08:35):
She testified that she suffered severe trauma. She has had
multiple surgeries. She still has a bullet. No, she still
has a bullet lodged in her body. And her testimony
was really emotional. Of course, she thought she was dying.

Speaker 6 (08:52):
In the moment.

Speaker 5 (08:53):
She said that she remembers kind of like blacking out
and then waking up in all of her like a
so she had some students were kind of like on
top of her.

Speaker 4 (09:02):
I mean she thought she died, right wow.

Speaker 6 (09:05):
Absolutely, poor lady, poor lady.

Speaker 7 (09:07):
So in any case, we have that update, we will
continue and of course follow the criminal. This is true Creme. Tonight,
we are on iHeartRadio. I'm Courtney Armstrong, I'm here as
always with Buddy Movin and Stephanie Leidecker. We have been
talking about former teacher Abby's Werner's ten million dollars a win.
I'd call it in her lawsuit. If you have any

(09:27):
thoughts on this, we do want to hear from you.
Give us a call. We're at eighty eight three one
Crime or hit us up on the talkbacks on the
iHeartRadio app. And Boddy, you have an update about Sean
Diddy Coombs.

Speaker 5 (09:39):
Oh, Diddy, Diddy, Diddy Diddy. Can't you see listen? Diddy
got fast tracked and appeal. Can you believe this? I cannot.

Speaker 6 (09:48):
I can't.

Speaker 7 (09:49):
Well, I can only because of all everything leading up
to it.

Speaker 5 (09:53):
But go ahead, right, So, Sean Diddy Combs has been
transferred to a low security federal prison in New Jersey
and he's been granted a fast tracked appeal of his conviction,
while in the meantime, a new civil suit alleging sexual
battery has been filed against him in Florida by a
man named Jonathan Hay. Again, so music mogul Sean Diddycombs.

(10:17):
He was convicted just recently on counts of transporting individuals
to engage in prostitution under the Man Act and sentenced
to fifty months in federal prison. He is also facing
numerous civil suits in recent years alleging sexual misconduct, including
one from his former partner, Cassie Ventura, which was settled
in twenty twenty three. Well, he was just moved to

(10:40):
this little security federal prison at Fort Dix, which is
the place that he was like actually requesting to go.
He hand were selected, hand selected it, and the judge
was like, listen, I don't care where you go, just
go right. Totally understandable, but yeah, he hand selected this
after complaints about unsafe and unsanitary conditions in the gale
he was at at Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center. Well, he's

(11:04):
not going to stay in a detention center. I mean,
he's going to go to federal prison. And that's where
he went, right, So his defense team described the Brooklyn
facility as hell on Earth, setting extreme temperatures, poor food,
and some safety concerns. And listen, this is probably true
because this isn't the first prisoner at this facility that
I said such, right, Like, people that are at this

(11:24):
Brooklyn facility are not happy with it. It's some pretty
poor shape. So Judge Beth Robinson approved an expedited appeal,
which could if he I mean listen, if his appeal
is granted, he could go, he could be home. And
now the appeal is curiating. No, it's one hundred percent
in fear. That never happens to anybody.

Speaker 4 (11:45):
Not nobody normal, right, nobody normal.

Speaker 2 (11:48):
Right, like that wouldn't happen to any other person accused
of these things to get such a speedy change of
anything venue so quickly. Now the appeal in just a
couple of months.

Speaker 5 (12:00):
So let me give you Let me give you guys
a schedule, okay, because I have the paperwork in front
of me from the court. Okay, the Catherine Wolf, she
is the Clerk of court, and she put an order
in that the appellants moved to expedite the appeal is
on the following schedule, Okay, So here we go. The
appellants opening brief and appendix is due by December twenty third,

(12:20):
so just coming up next month. So that's when the
appellate brief is due. Then the Government's brief is due
by the twentieth of February, so just a few months
after that, and then the appellant's reply brief is due
March thirteenth, and then oral arguments, you guys are going
to begin in April. In April, in four months, Well,

(12:41):
he's going to walk us.

Speaker 6 (12:42):
Do you think he's going to walk?

Speaker 10 (12:44):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (12:44):
And I think he's making every plea to the President
to get a part in and just based on what
we're seeing with the speediness, and yes, these conditions are
hell yeah, that's where a lot of prisoners are experiencing
the same conditions.

Speaker 3 (12:58):
Suddenly he's getting white glove service.

Speaker 5 (13:00):
H yeah, he's getting everything he wants except for to
go home. Really, he gets to choose his prison. And
now he gets an appeal in four months.

Speaker 6 (13:10):
That's insane.

Speaker 7 (13:11):
Month fifteen month sentence, so that would be he's served
fourteen So in four months he would have served eighteen
out of fifty.

Speaker 6 (13:23):
Right, and to already have have that.

Speaker 3 (13:25):
On the dog, I get it a math, but like
that's insane.

Speaker 5 (13:29):
So this battery lawsuit that's just been filed by this guy,
Jonathan Hay out of Florida, it's a sexual battery lawsuit
and he's accusing Diddy of assaulting him in twenty twenty
while he was producing a project for the Notorious BIG's estate. Hey,
the accuser in this is alleging that he was kidnapped
and assaulted with the help of c. J. Wallace, who's

(13:51):
Biggie Son, and Willie Mack who's the co founder of
the cannabis company Think Big along Biggie Son c J Wallace.
So yeah, through c J. Wallace's attorney. They called the
claims absurd and baseless, and Hey, you know, he stated
that he is pursuing both civil and criminal action against Diddy,
who has not commented on these allegations. So we're gonna

(14:14):
have to wait and see what happens with this. But
so did Hey's and he's in prison in more cases
or just being piled on top of it.

Speaker 4 (14:20):
I don't know. I don't know if he's going to
be able to get out of it.

Speaker 3 (14:23):
I know it's not making on it right now.

Speaker 6 (14:25):
A dollar ten dollars, I'll bet you ten dollars.

Speaker 4 (14:28):
Oh my god, I don't have ten dollars.

Speaker 6 (14:29):
I have a dollar.

Speaker 3 (14:30):
Okay, ten dollars, Yes you do. I'll lend you to
ten dollars.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
Will But no, it's just it's an unfortunate time to
be a victim in any of these cases and to
have the courage to come forward.

Speaker 6 (14:40):
I totally agree. That's right. Well, stick around.

Speaker 7 (14:43):
We have Christine Collopy who is going to be here
to decode the patterns that are running your life sort
of whether you know it or not. And later we're
gonna hear from heaven. Scott, keep it here, true, grin.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
Tonight, welcome back to true crime tonight on iHeartRadio.

Speaker 6 (15:09):
We're talking true crime all the time. Everybody.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
We made it to Thursday, and we are so grateful
to be with you tonight. I'm Stephanie Leidecker here with
Body Move In and Courtney Armstrong. Is the moon still full?
Are we still under a blue moon right now?

Speaker 7 (15:25):
It's beautiful and it looks I mean the light emanating
from it, you know how sometimes it'll just have light. Yeah,
it's like a spotlight. It's like the Batman light.

Speaker 3 (15:36):
It is.

Speaker 2 (15:37):
I think it is causing some havoc and all of
our stuff.

Speaker 3 (15:41):
Maybe we'll blame it on the moon. Yeah, I think
that as well.

Speaker 6 (15:45):
But it's pretty.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
I think the moon it's really beautiful. Well, we're so
glad that you're with us. And again, if you want
to jump in join any of the conversation eight eight
eight three one crime, or you could always leave us
a talk back on the iHeartRadio app. Just download the
app and in the top right hand corner is a
little microphone icon. You push that leave a message and
then we will play it on the show. Or of

(16:07):
course you could leave us a DM Let's go to
a talk back now.

Speaker 3 (16:10):
In fact, hey, ladies and Rare from Missouri.

Speaker 6 (16:14):
Just wanted to say.

Speaker 11 (16:15):
That I absolutely love your show. You guys are amazing.
I love your camaraderie, and you guys are just like
the nicest people on the face.

Speaker 6 (16:24):
Of this planet.

Speaker 11 (16:24):
It cracks me up.

Speaker 6 (16:26):
Stephanie.

Speaker 11 (16:26):
I can tell you're smiling when you talk because your
voice changes, and it is the cutest thing.

Speaker 6 (16:31):
I just want to.

Speaker 11 (16:31):
Let you know body that I found the Pimento cheese
and one of my local grocery stores. You know you
want me to send you some.

Speaker 7 (16:39):
Have a great night. Gosh, yes, yes, yes, talk about
the nicest person in the world.

Speaker 6 (16:44):
I know.

Speaker 3 (16:46):
Oh that's a nice thing.

Speaker 2 (16:48):
Please, we've all been a little I'm seeking for myself
right now, which is why I'm so glad Christina will
be joining us, because.

Speaker 3 (16:53):
A little frazzled.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
I'm a little frazzled too, a little bit, I know,
and we never really get so frazzled.

Speaker 6 (17:00):
So thank you.

Speaker 2 (17:01):
That was actually just what the doctor ordered to hear.
So thank you, and we're sending you love right back.
And yeah, even in these you know, weird times, weird
weird conversations and the diddy stuff makes me so mad.

Speaker 6 (17:15):
I should we go to another talk back.

Speaker 7 (17:17):
Well, all I was going to say real quick is
that Stephanie indeed does have smiles for miles. So you
are totally accurate in what you are hearing. And speaking
of the smile you put on body's face when you
mentioned the existence of grocery store pimento cheese is pretty.
It's like as bright as that moon we were just
talking about.

Speaker 3 (17:37):
So we're going to you cash immediately.

Speaker 6 (17:41):
I'll send you my case.

Speaker 5 (17:43):
Do you guys know those chicken and the biscuit crackers
that like you give to kids, like their chicken in
the biscuit, those with the pimental cheese. I'm serious, but
it has to be the one in the can and jar.
It can't be like this fancy stuff. It has to
be the you know, cheap pamental cheese.

Speaker 6 (17:59):
It's so good.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
Have a confession, I haven't had it this cheese pimento
cheese you speak of.

Speaker 3 (18:05):
I mean, I think I can picture to figure it out.

Speaker 2 (18:07):
You know, we got to well, I think we just
got it figured out thanks to an amazing, beautiful caller
who's going to who's going to hook us up. So
we're going to sidebar you and DM you so make sure,
we'll get some cheese our way, and let's go to
another talk that.

Speaker 12 (18:19):
Hey, guys, former dispatcher here, I know we're talking about
the perfect neighbor.

Speaker 9 (18:23):
My question is is how was she.

Speaker 12 (18:25):
Able to call Nielo one that many times and in
a row at some point and not get a abuse
of niel on one. I'm just really confused on that.

Speaker 4 (18:36):
Yeah, I've heard this.

Speaker 5 (18:37):
I've heard that dispatchers, if you are an if you
abuse nine one one, if you keep calling, and it's
like unfounded so to speak, that you'll be flagged in
some cake in some way.

Speaker 4 (18:48):
But I don't know.

Speaker 5 (18:48):
Hey, listen, if you're a dispatcher, or you've worked in dispatch,
or you have knowledge of it, give us a call
eighty day thirty one crime because I would love to
pick your brain about this, because I have heard that
they'll get flat in some way and that didn't happen
in this case, and I'm not sure why by the.

Speaker 6 (19:03):
Way it should have been.

Speaker 2 (19:05):
And just to reiterate that, first off, what a hard
job to have to be a dispatcher for law enforcement.
You are in crisis central literally and the calm, cool,
collected personality type that's needed for that is next level.
So to all the dispatchers and all the lands, thank
you number one, number two. Yeah, what a waste of

(19:26):
everybody's time, including the dispatchers who has to listen to
her just drone on and drone on about non criminal things.

Speaker 3 (19:33):
It's absurd.

Speaker 2 (19:33):
There should be some sort of a checklist of hard
no after a while. But at the same time, yeah,
how do you gauge that to your real crimes?

Speaker 4 (19:40):
Because what if there's something real?

Speaker 5 (19:42):
Now she's cried She's cried wolf, right, because that's literally
what's happened. This is like a prid wolf scenario, so
that at some point the police are going to be like, oh,
it's just Janet again or you know whatever, and then
not go and then maybe she's really getting murdered.

Speaker 7 (19:54):
Who knows, right, which just thinking, since we live in America,
thinking of the lawsuit that would in sue if indeed
something was wrong.

Speaker 6 (20:04):
So it's interesting though.

Speaker 2 (20:06):
Yeah, the lawsuit being a wrong call. Yeah, I mean
I guess that answers the question. So yes, it's easy
for us all to Monday morning quarterback on it, but
in reality those.

Speaker 3 (20:16):
Are tough jobs.

Speaker 2 (20:17):
And yeah, we shouldn't be placing judgment I suppose. So
I take it back. I take it back that just
that documentary made me crazy.

Speaker 11 (20:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (20:25):
So, by the way, I'm a little amped. So we
have the perfect guests.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
Who's going to be joining us real time, My de
amping expert, literally Christine is here because a number one,
I feel like we're all kind of taking in a
lot of traumatic information and anybody listening has had their
own fair share of lumps thrown their way.

Speaker 3 (20:46):
I don't know that anyone's the exception. So you know,
as we enter.

Speaker 2 (20:50):
These you know, Thanksgiving times and holiday times, sometimes things
come up, they get a little extra triggered for us.
And I have found myself very stuck in my day.
And this goes back, I don't know, fifteen years ago,
almost I found my stuckself in the most stuck phase.
I was literally getting a facial, it was gifted to me.
And while I was getting that facial, the facialist was

(21:12):
talking about this amazing transformation expert and you know how
many wonderful things she learned, and I was like, I'll
take the number, you know, as I'm like sobbing on
the facial table.

Speaker 6 (21:23):
Oh well, how quickly and sure enough.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
This becomes Christine who I am now sharing with you
all because she is really Her thing is sort of
the subconscious mind, and sometimes our subconscious mind is really
running the show in not really reality, and that's really
hard to escape. Sometimes we get in these loops, whether
it's a loop of trauma or shame or fear or

(21:47):
victim you know, based loops. Whatever the thing is, we
all have our own, and she's really able to identify
it and like kick the door down and kind of
tell you how to get yourself safe, armored up and also.

Speaker 3 (22:00):
To have a great, amazing, happy, grateful life.

Speaker 6 (22:03):
So Christine, cal the.

Speaker 13 (22:08):
Thank you for bearing with us.

Speaker 6 (22:11):
You look adorable. You look adorable? Are you can?

Speaker 2 (22:15):
I just let's explain she's wearing the cutest outfit right
now and we should start selling that on the website
too to.

Speaker 13 (22:24):
Support the vibe.

Speaker 5 (22:25):
You look great, Charlie.

Speaker 6 (22:29):
Oh so Charlie is the brother of Dodger. My Dodger.

Speaker 14 (22:37):
I was gonna say Dodger through Christine. Sure, yes, made
us that's exactly right, sister in law. Now our pets,
Oh my goodness, yes, how.

Speaker 6 (22:50):
Beautiful is that? Hi, Charlie? Christine?

Speaker 4 (22:54):
What is it a terrier?

Speaker 6 (22:56):
Yorkshire?

Speaker 13 (22:57):
When Stephanie tells you how Dodger was her.

Speaker 6 (23:00):
Like, this is the same thing.

Speaker 3 (23:02):
Yeah, we don't have Charlie yours.

Speaker 4 (23:04):
That's so cute, so cute.

Speaker 6 (23:06):
Well you look great, thank you, usual fabulous.

Speaker 2 (23:09):
She's wearing like a satin you know, beautiful, beautiful pajama
set right now, which is what we all are going
to be on. We need toward. She just gave us
our team uniform. Looking at it right now.

Speaker 6 (23:19):
There it is to all of you.

Speaker 2 (23:21):
Yes, so before by the way, if you're just joining us,
welcome to true crime tonight. We are trying to look
at our subconscious mind and sort of how we process
trauma and things that we're hearing, and also sort of
this true crime.

Speaker 3 (23:36):
Space in general.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
It's heavy stuff, right, We've all just witnessed an assassination.

Speaker 13 (23:41):
Yes, and Stephanie, we were talking about women's fascination with
true crime. Yeah, And it's so interesting because if you
think about women are so fascinated with true crime, and
then men are really fascinated with war and like Greek mythology,
and that even goes back to subconscious programming because women are,
you know, for thousands of years just trying to keep

(24:02):
themselves safe and so we I think that's our fascination.
It's like, if we can study it enough, can we
get enough information to keep ourselves safe? Same thing with men.
If we're going to have to go to battle someday
or we have to, you know, be that form of ourselves,
how can we learn? And nobody's thinking that's why I'm
interested in that exactly consciously, there's a reason we do everything.

Speaker 6 (24:27):
So it's just like, yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (24:29):
So are we all got so excited? We all just
erupted at the same time.

Speaker 6 (24:34):
I have to say that you literally described my house.

Speaker 7 (24:37):
I guess I live in a cliche because if you
look at each of our bedside tables, my husband always
it's boats, it's war, it's guns, it's everything, and mine
is all jaggetage and true crime.

Speaker 6 (24:52):
And yeah, so I'm living what you're speak of.

Speaker 13 (24:55):
And we don't know why we're not. We're not making
that choice, but we're just so interest I have smoke
coming in here because I have a fire pit going outside,
So let's just take fire for instance. If you look
at this, and we'll talk about holidays. And I even
posted something last night just about sensory therapy, Like my
house is sensory overload, but pretty sensory calming. Sensory Christmas

(25:18):
is already happening here, and so we take fire. If
you come to my house, and Stephanie, you've been to
my house tons of candles. Let's say that your house
burned down when you were three years old, and you
heard the story about how your family lost their house
and all of this trauma, and you come and meet
me for the first time, and we've talked on the phone.
I really don't meet people in person very often. We

(25:40):
talk on the phone for years and years and years,
and all of a sudden, you're like, I really liked her,
but something about her is making me really uncomfortable. Now
you can't find you can't find a reason, but you
know you're trying to.

Speaker 15 (25:51):
Not like me.

Speaker 13 (25:52):
Now it's not me, it's the candles.

Speaker 3 (25:54):
It's going it's triggering an old memory in you.

Speaker 13 (25:59):
And you're you can't figure out. But you're like, I
don't know, she just rubbed me the wrong way in person?

Speaker 15 (26:04):
Did I really?

Speaker 13 (26:05):
Because we've known each other for ten years, But now
you saw the candles, and on a subconscious level, it's
like there's a lot of fire here.

Speaker 15 (26:12):
Get away.

Speaker 13 (26:13):
So the subconscious mind.

Speaker 15 (26:14):
Is always, always, always working to keep you safe.

Speaker 2 (26:17):
What is the subconscious mind just for like the basics,
like the baseline Paine numbers' safe.

Speaker 13 (26:23):
So it runs all. It runs your speech, your lungs,
your heart, your blood, you're just everything. So imagine a
big Have you guys watched those space movies where they
always show.

Speaker 15 (26:34):
The command centers, of course, that's how I.

Speaker 13 (26:37):
Imagine the subconscious like it's a huge command center and
it's constant direction to keep everything going at one time.
So imagine that if you had to listen to heartbeat,
heart beat, speak, walk, talk all, it would drive you insane.
So the volume is down. It's like a dog whistle.
We don't hear it because it would drive us crazy

(26:59):
to hear that our heart needs to be and that
our lungs need to pump, and that all the things
need to happen. The control center would drive us insane.
So that control center is quiet, but it's controlling everything
all the time. So the subconscious thinks it's keeping you
safe by telling.

Speaker 2 (27:17):
Yes, there is an actual alarm, right, it's the fire moon.
By the way, that is the full moon in action.
Right now, this is the most fun off the rails
two hours.

Speaker 4 (27:29):
Right, Okay, what is happening?

Speaker 10 (27:31):
Is it?

Speaker 6 (27:31):
Really? I have to bring it all in.

Speaker 4 (27:34):
I have to bring them in.

Speaker 6 (27:35):
Yeah, we don't, like.

Speaker 2 (27:36):
We don't usually have that much tech issues. I mean
sometimes I do. But before the show, we just all
of a sudden, like it was hitting the fan in
a real way. Suddenly people's mouths were not matching. I
couldn't hear, you couldn't see Courtney. Also, they're just it
went off the rails.

Speaker 6 (27:53):
I was perfect.

Speaker 3 (27:53):
And that's like the worst scary feeling body was.

Speaker 7 (27:56):
And then someone I got the advice of a microphone
that I I've been speaking into for more than five
years to talk to the side of it. I'm like,
what is happening everything?

Speaker 2 (28:07):
So we all get like and then we all get
like church ladies, and we're bad in church because we
get the giggles. So you know, there we go yet
again and the giggles kick in. So now you're catching
By the way, Christine, who is the one who is
the Chiese settler, now her alarm is off. So we're
gonna blame this on the full moon and let's go
to a talk back in the immediate Does that work
all right?

Speaker 6 (28:27):
Great?

Speaker 3 (28:27):
Oh and she's we'll go to the talk back and
then Cutie is back.

Speaker 16 (28:30):
Hi everyone, I'm more from Hamilton, Ontario. I just want
to call in and say that my favorite food is
always Chipotle, hands down, chicken Chipotle fowl with fiscala dressing.
I have a gluten allergy and a dairy allergy and
Chipotle is always really good and I've never gotten gluten there.
But yeah, that's my favorite food. You guys are awesome.

(28:50):
You guys are my favorite and have such a great night.

Speaker 6 (28:53):
Oh we love you. I love Chipotle too.

Speaker 2 (28:56):
I love Chipotle.

Speaker 6 (29:00):
I like the tassos, I like it all.

Speaker 7 (29:03):
I'm going to plead the fifth And I know this
is controversial.

Speaker 6 (29:08):
Yeah you don't like it, I tell you what. You
know why?

Speaker 7 (29:11):
And Stephanie though, Jason Franks is the most wonderful guy
we ever worked with it, But I watched him eat
Chipotle every day, and he would eat chicken and rice
every day, and I literally got sick of it just
watching him eat it.

Speaker 2 (29:28):
You were like plotting, poor Jason Franks, He's so sweet.

Speaker 6 (29:32):
You were like, if he eats that chicken one more time.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
We love chipotlet here too, So and then Christine's back.
The fire is out, but it is a real example
and what we were just talking about. If you're joining us,
it's the smoke from the fire pit. But it is
interesting that we were talking about things kind of triggering
us and then suddenly the alarm goes off, right, So
that's we only have a little bit of time in
this segment, so we'll come back and wrap up, but

(29:59):
we're we're going to talk about how to regulate ourselves
as we enter the holiday season and why the fascination
about true crime.

Speaker 3 (30:06):
I'm Stephanie Leidecker here with my girls. It is that night.

Speaker 2 (30:10):
We have Body Moven and Courtney Armstrong and one of
my most favorite people, Christine Kolopi, is here, who's going
to help us unlock our minds a bit. She has
her own creation, the Unlocked Mind and also kind of
working on your subconscious to maybe stop repeating behaviors or
you know, as we're entering the holidays, during these really

(30:30):
confusing times in the world, none of us are immune
to that. How do we kind of gear up to
not repeat the same patterns necessarily?

Speaker 13 (30:38):
You know what the holidays are great for, They bring
us opportunities to grow. So what I always start a
call with is, so tell me what's going on in
your world, and the holidays will give you a stage
to clean things up because we put it away for
a year and then we're around family that we haven't
been around. Our experiences we didn't have to look at.
So always look at what's showing up in your life

(31:01):
and that'll tell you what's ready to heal, what's ready
to go. So things don't show up randomly, they're showing
up as an opportunity for you to look at that.
We want to look at what's happening outside of us.
But if we're always asking what was going on with
me that pulled this to me? If I'm a magnet,
think about a magnet. If I'm a magnet and I'm
pulling to me every experience that's giving me the opportunity

(31:25):
to grow and heal, what's going on in me that
is ready to go. So holidays will do that for you.

Speaker 2 (31:31):
And that's an interesting thing because sometimes we've I've heard
this before or maybe I've read this before, where you
know we're magnetic. We sort of bring experience. And I'm
going to use a very baseline example and jump in.
I know this is probably inaccurate, but if somebody experienced
trauma and then suddenly it seems like they're attracting it
in a weird way. So say you're in an abusive
relationship as a child, Now suddenly you're almost like in

(31:55):
repeat relationships that are in that same cycle. You know,
I think sometimes you know, women and men feel like,
oh my picker is off, but.

Speaker 3 (32:03):
That's not accurate. Really, we're choosing familiar.

Speaker 13 (32:07):
I want to try to simplify it. So if we
think we all have iPhone or phones with apps, right,
if I have an app for it, it can be open.
If I delete the app for Instagram, I mean, I
have my phone here. If I delete the app, I'm
going to keep pressing and I can't open that app.
Life will open the apps that you own. So simply put,

(32:27):
if I have an app for rejection, trauma, stress, and
the positive ones too, exhaustion, exhaustion, then those apps can
be opened. So when we clear subconscious programs, we are
actually deleting the app. So let's say you're someone that
experiences rejection your whole life, and then.

Speaker 2 (32:47):
You come every single person just raise their hands in
some way, because who hasn't. Yeah, that's like a human experience.
No one's immune from that either.

Speaker 13 (32:56):
I hear this a lot during the holidays. I just
realized I have no support. I never get support. Well,
do you have an app for that? When we check
into your subconscious You've never experienced support, you have no
file for that. So support could be all around you,
and you're seeing everyone be supported, but you Well, then
we download an app and all of a sudden, I'll
hear from people and Stephanie, you can speak to this, yeah,

(33:19):
and they're like, it's the weirdest thing. Everyone's supporting me
this year.

Speaker 2 (33:23):
It's so strange, like ancessing the world as we see
it a bit?

Speaker 6 (33:28):
Is that like the bottom.

Speaker 13 (33:29):
Line as you see it as you're wired? So you
have a subconscious pro where we like to think we're
really unique as humans, but we're.

Speaker 15 (33:37):
Kind of like computers. I don't want to burst the bubble.

Speaker 13 (33:39):
But we really are mechanics, you know, And so we
run data. So our subconscious programs run what we experience.
They don't only run it, they order it. I mean
they build the apps for it. So when people are
coming into our life that are rejecting us or ignoring
us or whatever it is, or even loving us. You

(34:01):
see those people who are just so loved they have
an app for it. You're like, what's different about them
than me? Like, I'm lovable. They have an app.

Speaker 15 (34:09):
You don't. It's not personal.

Speaker 4 (34:11):
So can I download the app?

Speaker 10 (34:13):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (34:13):
How do we get the app?

Speaker 10 (34:14):
How do I get you?

Speaker 13 (34:15):
I will download it for you. Okay, I write code
for all of that.

Speaker 4 (34:19):
I need it.

Speaker 15 (34:20):
I need it. Yeah.

Speaker 13 (34:21):
But as sometimes we do the direction on how to
use those apps and how to navigate through the world
with language and things like that.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
Right, that makes sense that people are grieving too, because
it's the holidays, right, Sometimes people are so happy and
exciting and it's presents and holidays, and then the other
side of that, you know, Thanksgiving coming up. You know,
sometimes there's a seat empty at the table and that's
challenging for everyone, myself included. And sometimes for whatever reason,
that gets triggered at the holidays. You know, it's like

(34:49):
a random Tuesday, it's fine, but the holidays kick in
and it can be really hard.

Speaker 13 (34:54):
You can put that away and then it's we're all
great at compartmentalizing. I had a son that was born
to I passed away on December twelfth, and I remember
that the holidays came shocking because I'm in grief and
I'm just looking around, like, how.

Speaker 15 (35:08):
Is the world moving on?

Speaker 6 (35:10):
Functioning?

Speaker 15 (35:11):
First year really hard? Second year?

Speaker 13 (35:13):
You you know, time is happening, it doesn't You just
get used to it. It's kind of like walking around
with a rock in your shoe. After a while, you
just stop feeling it as much. So you yes during
the holidays. Now you're watching children and you're watch and
it's triggering. Now, this is what I want to say
about that. The first couple of years, when I wasn't
doing this work, I got really lost in that grief

(35:36):
and it stole my holidays from me. Now I process grief,
but I really do it for like forty five seconds.
And I know that's not a popular opinion. However, it's
a recipe that works. So I'll feel my feelings because
feelings buried alive never die.

Speaker 3 (35:52):
So when we keep burying, buried alive never die said.

Speaker 13 (35:58):
And if we keep burying them, they're waiting to pop
up all the time. So if we feel them, the
subconscious doesn't attack us. It lets us feel it and
move on. So we can feel them really feel them.
Forty five seconds is a long time when you're feeling grief,
by the way, So if you're sitting there and you
really feel your grief for forty five seconds and then

(36:18):
you choose, be ready to choose how you want to feel.
I want to feel happy, I want to feel calm,
I want to feel whatever it is you want to feel.

Speaker 6 (36:27):
And then what.

Speaker 13 (36:28):
Would make me feel that way? So have a plan
of action and then you're you're not going to sit
in grief and it's not going to steal your holiday.

Speaker 5 (36:35):
One thing that my grief counselor told me, and it
always really stuck with me, and I think it's really
good advice is she said, grief is something you have
to go through.

Speaker 4 (36:43):
You can't get around it. You can't go around it.
You have to go through it, so you won't heal it.
If you yeah buried alive, will never die.

Speaker 8 (36:51):
Right.

Speaker 4 (36:51):
So, like what you're saying really resounds with me a lot.

Speaker 13 (36:54):
I don't think people are given permission to grieve and
short increments.

Speaker 4 (37:00):
That's true, that's true.

Speaker 13 (37:02):
In a collective conscious way. We've got to say this
out loud and it.

Speaker 15 (37:06):
Has to become our normal.

Speaker 13 (37:08):
I don't know, if you guys are familiar with collective consciousness,
it's that thing that's not familiar, and over time but
becomes familiar and then it all of a sudden becomes
all of our conscious meeter gauge for life. So if
we all start talking about this and we're like, it's
okay to gree for forty five seconds, and then she
was a different feeling, And boy, what would happen if
we if we really started teaching children that they could

(37:31):
choose their feelings. So one of my clients, her little
girl was really sad. She was at the park and
she felt left out with her friends. Apparently the mom
was telling me she felt so left out and it
was so sad, And I go, did she tell you that?
And she said no? And I go, so you thought she.

Speaker 15 (37:47):
Felt left out?

Speaker 13 (37:48):
The mom was already putting her own feelings on the
little girl. And so then when she asked her later
because I told her maybe you should ask, the little
girl wasn't feeling that way at all. So I said,
even if she had been feeling left out, ask her
how she wants to feel, If she wants to feel happy,
if she wants to feel included, How does she see
herself getting there, Let's give her a solution. Let's tell

(38:09):
her that she could actually choose any feeling she wants.
I'm working with a preschool right now, and it's a
really evolved preschool, and they're going to start teaching this
to kids, that they can choose their feelings.

Speaker 3 (38:20):
And it's human to get stuck in them, right.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
So, I mean, I think that's a real human experience
that we all have that occasional weird day where you're like, oh,
everything seems off today, and then we all look around
like it today today, Today's today.

Speaker 6 (38:34):
So it's not.

Speaker 2 (38:35):
Because we don't like love each other or the job,
or we don't love our partners or the home or
the place or the thing.

Speaker 6 (38:42):
You know.

Speaker 3 (38:42):
It's so easy to assign feelings, you know.

Speaker 2 (38:44):
Or it must be because we're sad for you know,
we lost a parent or a loved one, or a
sister or a best friend. It's easy to assign our feelings.
But sometimes it's okay to just feel it and just
be in it and then kick yourself out of it
a little bit and choose a different to move right.
I know, when you say it, it sounds so simple,
but sometimes it's hard to get out.

Speaker 6 (39:04):
Of the loop.

Speaker 13 (39:05):
Well, and we we as humans, we want permission, So
like we're giving you permission right now. We're saying it's
okay to feel it for forty five seconds and then
choose a different feeling and move into that feeling, because
that really is going to set up the next few
weeks of your life. So you're gonna you're gonna lose
a few minutes or you're going to lose weeks, and

(39:25):
you're gonna lose moments with your family. You know that
can actually help you.

Speaker 2 (39:29):
Heal right, it's precious time. There's a little beep in
the background.

Speaker 11 (39:33):
I know.

Speaker 7 (39:34):
Yeah, I mean, I'm just I'm also really resonating with
everything you're saying. And you know, the thought of the
apps is so interesting, and I really want to have
some installed and I would like to have a few
wiped away. So yeah, I'm just your process sounds unbelievable
and it doesn't make sense.

Speaker 6 (39:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (39:55):
And by the way, if all of our if we
look at our brain and again jump in if I
have this wrong, but if you look at our brain
as like a screen and all of our apps are
open full volume, that's exhausting. And fatiguing and confusing and
stressful and it's triggering, you know, take it down like
everything is, Stepanie. That's no, it's fine.

Speaker 13 (40:15):
So if you look at your computer and how much
space is being taken, if you have twenty five tabs open,
you're running at left capacity. Right, So when you have
and people are so good at this, raise your hand.
If you ask yourself a lot of questions but you
never answer them, You're going to ask yourself all these questions,
but you never answer them. That's a tab the tab,
the tab, the tab, the tab, the tab, the tab.

(40:37):
So you want to answer the question. If you're going
to ask yourself the question and it's some kind of
devastating question that you're dumping on yourself, answer it and
watch what happens.

Speaker 15 (40:46):
It goes away.

Speaker 13 (40:47):
So that's another tool that I give people. I say, well,
if you're going to ask the question, answer it. So
you're not dumping. You're not a dumping.

Speaker 3 (40:54):
Ground, right right, I guess that's true.

Speaker 2 (40:57):
And you have to be your own best bud and
sort of have your own back to some extent, what
do you have to do the work too?

Speaker 5 (41:03):
Like you have to be responsible for you have to
do a lot of work to get kind of self
aware of these apps and whatnot too, right, Like, nobody
can fix this for you. You have to put in
the work too well.

Speaker 13 (41:13):
What trying to say, awareness is a powerful tool. However,
the beauty of this work is that it actually does
go in and change the system. And so it isn't
like a constant mantra or it just happens.

Speaker 15 (41:27):
I don't know how to explain it.

Speaker 13 (41:28):
So, no, you're not constantly working where Oh okay, once
you get the I mean, think about an app. I
don't constantly have to download Instagram.

Speaker 4 (41:36):
I have to constantly download updates.

Speaker 13 (41:38):
Not constant, it's maybe once a year.

Speaker 5 (41:40):
The life of the app, I have to download updates,
and I have to know that work the app. I
have to know how to post to my story, post
real add text, you know, so I have to have
knowledge and work the app. I have to be able
to know how the social media sel works so that
I get you know, views and hits and whatnot. So
you do have to put in work right well, it's.

Speaker 13 (41:59):
An and that's where the coaching part comes in because
a lot of people, I mean I only own an iPad.
I don't even own a computer, So like I did
own one, and then I didn't want to learn how
to use it, and so.

Speaker 15 (42:10):
I gave it away.

Speaker 13 (42:11):
Right, doesn't mean that computer wasn't amazing, couldn't do amazing things.
It meant I wasn't willing to learn how to work.
So the same thing happens here. You're going to have
all the downloads and then I'm going to give you
the tools to actually learn that system and use it.
The fun part about this work is when you start
using it, it works so quickly and you start having
different reactions from people, and your life starts changing so much.

(42:35):
You just want more and more and more. It's like,
what's next, What do I want to clear next? So
it's just really fun.

Speaker 2 (42:42):
So as we're like entering scenarios where you know, we
talk about like Diddy and these victims and things, you know,
people being unheard and unseen, and you know, it's hard
for you know, anyone who's hearing my voice even right now,
who has been through something traumatic to just like shake
it off, right, that's a hard thing. Or you keep
talking talking about it again and again and again, whether
that's in therapy or otherwise, it becomes your story.

Speaker 3 (43:05):
I know, we only have a couple of minutes left.

Speaker 2 (43:07):
Is there like one simple tool just to get us
on the right track.

Speaker 13 (43:11):
I would say, pay attention to what's loud.

Speaker 15 (43:13):
I will always ask.

Speaker 13 (43:14):
You where's the volume in your life? Wherever that volume is,
it's not there to torture you. It's there to tell
you that that's ready to go and peel. And that's
the good news. So if something's really loud for you
and it continues to be loud, it's being loud so
that you can change it, not.

Speaker 6 (43:30):
So that you can stay in it.

Speaker 13 (43:32):
So I'm always asking people where's the volume?

Speaker 10 (43:35):
Right?

Speaker 3 (43:35):
Like, you know what we resist persists, right?

Speaker 2 (43:37):
So you know the things that just keep showing up
and showing up and showing up rather than dreading it,
how do we lean in and learn from it? I
don't It seems so practical, but I know it's hard.

Speaker 13 (43:46):
Well, I mean we were talking about I was married
for twenty two years the first time, awful situation, and
I never left or got divorced. But then when I
started changing my subconscious programs, everything changed. I got divorced,
and my sister got divorces, my brother and a divorce,
like it was all the paradigm changed and everyone was like, well,
that's safe, it's not dangerous, and now I'm in the
happiest relationship that Oh yay, that the life meets the downloads.

Speaker 6 (44:11):
Oh yeah, oh man. Thank you so much, Christine.

Speaker 7 (44:15):
Seriously, this was such a joy and a pleasure and
gave us so much to think about. So yeah, we
all got a little peek into what's running us beneath
the surface. Christine Collopy is a transformational expert. She is
the creator of the Unlocked Mind and you can reach
her at the unlockedmind dot com and you.

Speaker 6 (44:34):
Should keep it here.

Speaker 7 (44:35):
We have a lot more coming up at the top
of the hour, including another great guest, True Crime Tonight.

Speaker 2 (44:52):
Welcome back to True Crime Tonight on iHeartRadio. We're talking
true crime all the time. I'm Stephanie Leidecker and I
head of KATI Studio and I get to be here
every night with the two best of the best, Courtney
Armstrong and Body Move In. So thank you Christine for
being with us. Listen, what one funny story about Christine.
So she was in this relationship. I guess, as she

(45:13):
just mentioned, you know for many many years. I may
be getting this wrong, but I don't think I am.
And she had a package delivered to her home. Now
she's single package delivered to her home, and it was
sent to the wrong address, so she had to deliver
it to the correct address, like the person a couple
doors down and that's her. Now, husband, stop it, Oh,

(45:33):
are you serious?

Speaker 6 (45:34):
That's so yeah. So you know, you never know, like
every bend.

Speaker 4 (45:40):
So she was doing a good deed and she was rewarded.
She said, the best relationships for life.

Speaker 3 (45:46):
Yeah, good deeds can go unpunished, right, and you just
don't know, right, like every interaction could lead to another.

Speaker 2 (45:54):
And maybe there's something beautiful around the bend, whether we
see it crystall eyed or so. Anyway, welcome back everybody.
If you've missed any of the first hour of the show.

Speaker 6 (46:05):
Buggle up.

Speaker 2 (46:06):
You can always catch us after as a podcast. You
could also join us live eight eight eight three one crime,
or you could of course leave us a talkback We
love them, keep them coming, or of course you could
always hit us.

Speaker 3 (46:19):
Up on our socials. So, buddy, whe shall we begin.

Speaker 4 (46:23):
Let's start with the Celeste Hernandez.

Speaker 5 (46:26):
So, yes, Stephen Fisher has found an interesting piece of
new information. Okay, so this information suggests that Celeste Revas
Hernandez may have been at Six Flags Amusement Park with
her cousin and David shortly after she was reported missing.
So remember Celesti's fourteen years old, and she went missing

(46:48):
on April fifth of twenty twenty four, and her dismembered
body we don't know, but her dismembered body was later
discovered in the front of David's tesla in Los Angeles
a year later in September. Okay, David has not been
accused of any crime related to her death, although his
home and car were involved in the investigation and probably

(47:09):
still are. So this what he found was this build
a Bear certificate and it's dated April twenty first, twenty
twenty four. So what seventeen days after after Celesco's missing,
there's this build a bear certificate?

Speaker 6 (47:22):
Okay, what's a build a bear? Build a bear bear?

Speaker 2 (47:25):
Like the little builed beer bears that you build in
the mall.

Speaker 6 (47:28):
Yep, yep.

Speaker 2 (47:29):
So I go and there's like a stuffed animal and
I stuff it and then I have a receipt of that,
and that is now well, you get like.

Speaker 5 (47:35):
A certificate and you get to Nate cut do you
remember the cabbage patch dolls and it came with like
a birth certificate.

Speaker 4 (47:41):
It's kind of like this little birth certificate for your
build a Bear.

Speaker 3 (47:44):
I see that you.

Speaker 7 (47:45):
Are American girls, they have now as well, and it's special,
it's unique, so it's not right, it's only yours.

Speaker 5 (47:52):
Right, So this is how it all connects though, because
you're probably like, well, who cares that her cousin had
a build a Bear certificate dated October or April twenty first, right, Well,
the reason it's significant is that David posted a TikTok
video the same day at a rollercoaster, likely the same
Six Flags location that the as the builder Bear.

Speaker 6 (48:16):
Oh, they do have that at the six Flags.

Speaker 3 (48:18):
They do that six Flags where that the bear exists.

Speaker 5 (48:22):
Yes, so the cousin of Celeste was with David and
Celeste at six Flags after Celeste was reported missing.

Speaker 4 (48:37):
Does that make sense?

Speaker 6 (48:39):
It does?

Speaker 3 (48:39):
But is that surprising? Particularly so we.

Speaker 2 (48:41):
Know she ran away, we know she was with him,
we know he was found in her vehicle.

Speaker 5 (48:48):
Her family, her family reported her missing April fifth. She's
with her cousin, her family, her cousin, not her cousins in.

Speaker 4 (48:57):
Her cousin are we all on the safe page.

Speaker 3 (49:01):
Yeah, okay, totally.

Speaker 5 (49:03):
So Steve Fisher again, he's the private investigator. He was
hired by the owner of the Hollywood Hills home that
David had been renting. He believed Celeste and Esmeralda, the cousin,
and David were all at the same amusement park together
after Celeste went missing. Evidence suggests that adults may have

(49:23):
been present and aware of celest whereabouts, but did not
notify authorities.

Speaker 6 (49:28):
No, yeah, no, yes, she's fourteen years old.

Speaker 2 (49:33):
I want to always say shame anybody's family or anybody
who's in lass, but that is not okay, if.

Speaker 7 (49:39):
And NPS was thirteen at the time, she was thirteen
at the time, correct.

Speaker 2 (49:44):
Now, and if I'm remembering this correctly, you know, one
of the incidents, of which there were many, was that
neighbors had reported Celeste having an argument with family outside
of her house.

Speaker 3 (49:54):
That was an incident.

Speaker 2 (49:55):
I think authorities were called to that, so she had
had to repeat behavior at home. Obviously she ran away
so or went missing, right, But there's a real big
difference between running away and being taken right, So I
guess that's the that's the crossroads. I always assumed she
ran away. Maybe mom was, you know, and brother they

(50:16):
were all missing her dearly, of course they are, and
you know, there had been reports that they kind of
knew where she was, that she was with this you know,
pop star, whether they were just friends or or more.
By the way, if it's or more, that's also statutory
rape and illegal. But we're not making those accusations. And

(50:37):
of course, you know, David, the pop star whose concert
was canceled world tour was world tour Gonzo. He also
has not been named in any of this, nor have
I ever seen him do any press or speak nothing.
I don't think I've ever really seen a visual of
him since his you know concert being canceled.

Speaker 4 (50:58):
No, soh Lapd.

Speaker 5 (51:01):
Just as an update, Lapd states that her body may
have been in the Tesla for several weeks before the discovery,
and we're still waiting for these talks results and this
may clarify a time frame, manner and cause of her death.
She has been laid to rest by her family after
her remains were found, and David is cooperating with the police.
He canceled, as you noted, he canceled the remainder of

(51:23):
his tour but he's not been named as a suspect,
and the case remains open, with the LAPD emphasizing the
need for further investigation before determining any criminal criminal culpability.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
So is it possible, like just like going with me
on it. I'm just theorizing right now, person's theory. Is
it possible that she was running from something? Again, no accusations,
if she was running away, and maybe David the pop
star was who maybe has a little arrested development as well.
You know, he's been a star. He was like a
COVID kid apparently. I think he dropped out of school

(51:56):
soon thereafter and was homeschooled, So maybe he has a
little of that's arrested development in that regard because he
hasn't been as socialized. And then he knows that maybe
Celeste appears to be in a scenario that might not
be good for her at home fill in the blank
whatever that means. And he was like a safe place

(52:19):
for her to run to. Maybe she had nowhere to go.
Maybe if my cousin is there.

Speaker 7 (52:24):
Too well, And I I was making the assumption that
the cousin, as Marelda was her age was Celeste's age,
but she in fact, was a grown adult. Correct, So
that hadn't sunk in when I was hearing cousin. So yeah,
she was indeed an adult. And yeah, that's crazy. This

(52:47):
is why hands out like a thing.

Speaker 5 (52:49):
Like if she was maybe younger or something, it might
not be such a feel.

Speaker 6 (52:53):
But she's an adult.

Speaker 7 (52:55):
And also she must be I would imagine, incredibly close
to the family, as she's the one at least looking
at the GoFundMe, she's the one who actually posted on
behalf of the family.

Speaker 9 (53:09):
Stop.

Speaker 6 (53:10):
Yeah, and I'm seeing in.

Speaker 7 (53:11):
This moment that the donations are paused on that go
fund me. I don't know, stop when that happened.

Speaker 2 (53:20):
Yeah, by the way, if this, you know, maybe this
does speak to it, if this has you know, if
it bears out that this beautiful fourteen year old young
woman was found decomposing in the trunk of this man's car,
the pop star David, and he had nothing to do
with it. This was just you know, maybe maybe he

(53:40):
went on tour and you know the rest of the
crew stayed at home and you know, maybe her family
allegedly this is nothing even alleged. This is just we're
just theorizing right now. Maybe people maybe everybody knew where
she was. She wasn't really missing. Maybe she was just
not home, right, That's a very big difference.

Speaker 5 (53:59):
But you would think that at that point, if you
know where she's at, you know that she's safe and whatever,
you would call the police and be like, she's not
missing anymore.

Speaker 2 (54:08):
But she had also been taken from David the pop
stars residence once before, because this had actually happened before too,
and they knew where she was and they brought her home,
and then this happened yet again. It may be young love,
like maybe she's just crazy for this pop star. It
just keeps running away from home to be with him.

Speaker 5 (54:28):
Remember David's friends thought, you know, she was a student
at USC and that they said that she was shy,
But it did appear that her and David were in
a romantic relationship. So I do think that this was
a little bit more than like a big brother trying
to take care of a wayward girl. I do think
there was a romance going on.

Speaker 2 (54:47):
Not to mention his video, it's all coming back to
me in terms of the video that actually has you know,
the implication of murder and his song lyrics doesn't really
help the cause I just feel very confused by it.

Speaker 7 (55:02):
I know, well, we will keep everyone updated as information unfold,
and it has been coming out in drips and drabs.
But this is, you know, some information, and this is
true crime tonight. I'm Courtney, I'm here with Body, I'm
here with Stephanie. We have been speaking about Celeste Weaves,
Hernandez and Body.

Speaker 6 (55:20):
You have an update on God's Misfits.

Speaker 5 (55:23):
Yeah, So they had court and Tad Cullum, who is
one of the suspects. He's one of the God's Misfits,
and Cole Twombly, who's also a God's misfit in one
of the suspects. They pled not guilty to the murders
of Veronica Butler and Jillian Kelly. Their trials are scheduled
for June and October of twenty twenty six, so in

(55:44):
about seven months it'll start. Veronica Butler and Jillian Kelly
disappeared in March over Easter weekend in twenty twenty four
while traveling to Oklahoma. Their bodies were later discovered in
a freezer buried under this concrete slab in Texas County
in the Oklahoma Multiple defendants, including Tag Colum and Cole Twombley,

(56:04):
who I just mentioned, as well as Tiffany Adams, Cora Twombley,
and Paul Grice have been charged in connection with these killings,
which authorities say were linked to a custody dispute.

Speaker 6 (56:15):
That was a lot to get out. It's a mental case.

Speaker 3 (56:20):
Though there are really gruesome details about it.

Speaker 5 (56:22):
There is something for it. Yeah, there is some gruesome details.
But I kind of wanted to get into their pleas.

Speaker 6 (56:27):
A little bit.

Speaker 5 (56:28):
So Tag Cullum, he's he's one of the accused. Again,
he formally pled not guilty. Cole Twombly remained silent and
the court had to enter a plea for him. And
I kind of wanted to talk about this because God's
Misfits one of their tenants. This is kind of like
a religious organ well, I'm going to say loose community

(56:48):
like group. Let's say who there's They have a lot
of sovereign citizen beliefs and a lot of cute annon beliefs.
And uh, you know, when I read that Cole stood silent,
it triggered me a little bit because this is something
that sovereign citizens do.

Speaker 4 (57:05):
They will stand.

Speaker 5 (57:08):
They'll often base this on some sort of pseudo legal
interpretation of what they believe the law is. Okay, they'll
refuse to enter plea at all. They'll either remain completely silent.
They'll say something like I don't consent to these proceedings,
or argue that the court doesn't have any jurisdiction over them.
When this happens, the judg and as we know Brian

(57:30):
Cooberger did not, he stood scientific, he didn't enter a plea.

Speaker 4 (57:34):
That's right, he stood silent. AnyWho.

Speaker 5 (57:36):
So when this happened, the judge, as required by law,
simply enters a not guilty plea on their breath. And
that's in Oklahoma and pretty much every other state. So,
but what sovereign citizens believe is that this is going
to somehow stop the proceedings because the court doesn't have
any jurisdiction over them. They believe they are sovereign individuals
not subject to any federal or state law. Courts only

(57:59):
have jurisdiction over corporate or fictional versions of them, which
they refer to as strawman and refusing to consent or
enter into contract with the court keeps them outside of
the system, which of course is not true. But this
is their belief. Okay, So him standing silent. I think
is much different than Brian Koberger. It's more tied to

(58:21):
the sovereign citizen movement, which they're all a part of.
It's very interesting the sovereign citizens are.

Speaker 6 (58:27):
It's so I really.

Speaker 7 (58:28):
Want to read a book on this or read a
bunch of articles because it's.

Speaker 5 (58:31):
So fascinating if you want to see them in action.
I cannot recommend enough to please watch.

Speaker 4 (58:37):
The Daryl Brooks trial. Darryl Brooks is the man convicted
now that ran his truck in that Christmas parade.

Speaker 5 (58:46):
I think it was in Wisconsin or Minnesota, that's right, Yes,
do you remember this?

Speaker 10 (58:50):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (58:50):
It was I want to say Minnesota, Yeah I do.

Speaker 6 (58:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (58:54):
And when many died, many died, right, And he's a
sovereign and his trial was televised, and he did so
many sovereign citizens stunts throughout his case in the trial.
And this judge, she's like a saint, you guys, this
judge is a saint. He's yelling at her, he's degrading her,

(59:18):
he's building forts out of banker boxes and hiding behind them.
And I mean, it's crazy the things that they believe
are true. They really believe that they are not part
of the system, and that the court doesn't have any
jurisdiction over them. And the Daryl Brooks Brooks trial is
on full display of the sovereign citizen movement.

Speaker 2 (59:36):
Yeah, you can take the life of somebody who's not
one of your fellow sovereign citizens and therefore not have
to pay for it.

Speaker 3 (59:42):
That's where it gets a little wonky.

Speaker 2 (59:44):
You can believe whatever you want, but when you maul
down other individuals not on sovereign land.

Speaker 3 (59:49):
Hey, guess what, there's a price to pay and you
have to right the end.

Speaker 5 (59:53):
So it was Wisconsin, it was praise, and it was
twenty twenty one. But yeah, if you're interested in the
sovereign citis movement, go on YouTube look for the Darryl
Brooks trial and watch it.

Speaker 4 (01:00:04):
It's a couple of days. It's literally fascinating.

Speaker 6 (01:00:06):
Interesting.

Speaker 7 (01:00:07):
Okay, Well, what else is fascinating is what's coming up.
So keaven Scott is here. He's going to expose what's
really happening behind prison walls, and he says that the
fight for justice does not end at sentencing.

Speaker 6 (01:00:22):
Keep it here True Crime tonight. While we are talking
true crime all the.

Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
Time, welcome back to True Crime Tonight on iHeartRadio. We're
talking true crime all the time. I'm Stephanie Leidecker here
with Courtney Armstrong and body move in and we just
have an extraordinary guest with us now, Kevin Scott.

Speaker 6 (01:00:49):
Welcome to the show.

Speaker 2 (01:00:50):
We are talking all things, you know, prison reform and
things that we can be doing to make sure the
system is running smoother and better at all costs and time.
You're the real deal, so a number one. We're so
grateful to have you here, Courtney.

Speaker 7 (01:01:03):
Drumroll please, Okay, we're so excited to have Kevin Scott here.

Speaker 6 (01:01:10):
Seriously.

Speaker 7 (01:01:11):
Kevin is the director of Guaranteed Income at Community Spring.
This is in Gainesville, Florida. Keaven helped create and he
leads Just Income. It's a groundbreaking guaranteed income program. It
is by and four people who've been incarcerated. Kevin is
also an outspoken advocate for criminal justice issues, prisoner rights,

(01:01:34):
and Kevin's work has led to critical policy changes. Drum
roll again, and hello, tell us everything about Community Spring.

Speaker 17 (01:01:46):
Okay, amazing, thank you so much for just letting me
join your conversation.

Speaker 10 (01:01:51):
That's really awesome.

Speaker 17 (01:01:52):
Yeah, So Community Spring. We are in Gainesville, Florida. We
are an economic justice organization. We're a nonprofit that we
are a community led sort of built on this very
seemingly obvious idea of people closest to the problems are
closest to the solution. So prioritizing people lived experience of
poverty and incarceervation. These are the experts, These are the

(01:02:14):
geniuses sort of the thinking. These are the folks that
we should listen to most in terms of how we
can make change. So we sort of base our work
on these three principles of income, power, and community, meaning
we think everyone needs to have income to meet their
basic needs and take.

Speaker 15 (01:02:31):
Care of themselves.

Speaker 17 (01:02:32):
Shotting power to address and dismantle unjust system systems that
have kept them down in the community, to provide a
place of action. So these are the three pillars in
any kind of are three area just income.

Speaker 7 (01:02:47):
Our you know, our full moon is really shine and
bright on every issue imaginable. I think it's April fools
in November, which is news to me. Is not going
to get the best of us Courtney vs. Dry and
the best of us. Uh, there is no keeping us down.
The guys are going to work with Kevin's audio for

(01:03:09):
a second, and in the meantime, let's go to a
talk back, Hold on back.

Speaker 6 (01:03:13):
Kevin Cricket in Connecticut.

Speaker 8 (01:03:15):
You're talking about the nanny who killed the grandfather with
the screwdriver. And yes, it is one percent possible and
even plausible that she is experiencing a substance induced psychotic break,
which is common even with a seemingly innocuous substance such

(01:03:38):
as marijuana, and sometimes it doesn't go away.

Speaker 10 (01:03:41):
Mmm.

Speaker 5 (01:03:43):
Interesting because remember yesterday we were wondering that can somehow
this flick a switch right like yeah, on these mushrooms
that she that she had taken. What's interesting has come
out today is that she was on a FaceTime call
with her boyfriend right before this happened. Oh yeah, so
she met this guy on TikTok. He lives in Oregon,
and she's planning on leaving Michigan and going to Oregon,

(01:04:06):
and they're face timing and you know, they finally they
were going to meet in person. When she moves out there,
it gets crazy. And she told them she wanted to
start a new life far away from this long string
of trauma, abuse and disappointments that she had been facing
in Michigan. So this is all news. This is all
very much news, and we're probably going to stick with
us because we're probably going to cover this next week.

(01:04:26):
There's a lot more.

Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
Yeah, no, there is, and it seems to be unfolding
pretty quickly. As a matter of fact, we might even
have another talk back to go to now.

Speaker 18 (01:04:35):
Hi, guys, Jephanie from Detroit, I am hopping on here
about the nanny killer. I live in the city near
where this curd and you were talking about mushrooms. In
this area, psilocybin aka magic mushrooms are decriminalized. You can
go to the store like you can go to a
dispensary and you can buy mushrooms and pill form for
micro dosing. You can buy a bag of mushrooms for consuming.

(01:04:56):
You can even buy food with it in it. Love you, guys,
love the show. Thirty seconds is not enough, have a
good night.

Speaker 7 (01:05:04):
That should be whenever our magical merch comes. Thirty seconds
is not enough. That's a great tag, it is.

Speaker 5 (01:05:16):
Yeah, and yeah, so mushrooms. Yeah, she apparently they had
found some mushrooms on her purse or something, and they
think maybe this is why, you know, but we're gonna.

Speaker 3 (01:05:24):
Mean, that's a real snap. I think I know a
lot of people who have tried mushrooms.

Speaker 5 (01:05:28):
So yeah, we're getting some signals that Kevin's audio is back.

Speaker 3 (01:05:32):
Heven, Yay, Kevin's back, baby.

Speaker 6 (01:05:35):
Go ahead.

Speaker 2 (01:05:36):
Where were we until we were so rudely interrupted by
the moon?

Speaker 4 (01:05:39):
I don't know, is Kevin? Are you there?

Speaker 2 (01:05:41):
Doesn't seem like we could hear Kevin quite yet, but
I'm dying to hear what he has to say because
I know it's going to be good.

Speaker 6 (01:05:46):
So we're going. I'm so excited. Yes, please lo.

Speaker 19 (01:05:50):
To my favorite girls. I won't say my name, so
this is anonymous, but I'm listening to Tyler talk about
his hometown stories from last night, and I was reminded
of a case in my hometown in my high school.
This gal was in my high school class, the case
of Chelsea King and Amber du Bois. One of their
bodies was found about two minutes from my home, directly

(01:06:11):
across the street in one of the lakes there, and
it was an extremely scary case.

Speaker 15 (01:06:15):
You guys should look into that.

Speaker 6 (01:06:17):
Oh, we have to look into that.

Speaker 2 (01:06:19):
It's an interesting thought though, too, and please keep those
talkbacks coming. Thank you for sharing that because how excitingly,
horrifyingly traumatic is that to know that there was a
murder so close to your home. That's the ripple effect,
you know, we always we talk about the ripple effects
so often, even if it's a complete stranger.

Speaker 6 (01:06:37):
But you know, you live in.

Speaker 2 (01:06:38):
The apartment building where on the same corner somebody lost
their life. It changes the air, right, and it of
course it's scary.

Speaker 6 (01:06:48):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:06:48):
We should definitely look into that, and if anybody else has.

Speaker 2 (01:06:50):
Tales of that kind, these become like core memories, right,
that is undeniable.

Speaker 4 (01:06:57):
No, yeah, definitely core memories.

Speaker 7 (01:06:59):
I witness to a well, it was quite a memory
for me. I had only lived in Los Angeles for
a year, so twenty two is young enough and you're
living on your own. And I had a new roommate
and she was the most sweet, naive person you could
call to your imagination. It was her first day moving in.
So we're there at night, we're so excited. We hear

(01:07:21):
all this crazy commotion. We look out the window and
we see a man there shouting, and we see a
man running with a bat in his hand, like, what
is going on? Well, he was being chased by another
man who was in his underpants holding a gun. Whose
house the guy with the bat had come in to

(01:07:45):
burgle and was, yeah, so.

Speaker 6 (01:07:48):
And I don't know.

Speaker 7 (01:07:49):
I that was just thinking, you know, don't bring a
bat to a gunfight.

Speaker 6 (01:07:53):
But yeah, nothing's funny to see it. So that's also.

Speaker 7 (01:08:00):
Scary people running around with guns and weapons, and yeah
it was.

Speaker 6 (01:08:03):
And it was her first night in Los Angeles.

Speaker 2 (01:08:06):
Wow, I guess in some ways, I guess that's the
news also as witnessing so much. Sometimes the news, even
right now, is just sharing way too much real stuff,
you know, the real footage, like the real time.

Speaker 6 (01:08:18):
I'm like, I'm.

Speaker 3 (01:08:19):
Seeing the plane and I'm seeing this.

Speaker 2 (01:08:21):
It's I know, the goal is to shock us and
make us feel emotional, but it's like, what's the line.

Speaker 3 (01:08:26):
It's almost too much?

Speaker 7 (01:08:30):
Okay, So I do you believe everything is technically pulled together?

Speaker 4 (01:08:37):
His voice, I'm not going to believe it, I know,
but I want it there.

Speaker 6 (01:08:40):
Sound good? Better? Sound good? Hell? Yeah, we hear it.
Sounds great. Yeah you sound awesome.

Speaker 4 (01:08:49):
You were right in the middle of telling us all
about community ed. Can you can you give us a
little refresher?

Speaker 10 (01:08:57):
Yeah? The real short version is prison, bad, money, good,
that's okay, that's a good one. I mean, really, we
focused at the intersection of poverty and incarceration because we
know from our own experience many of our staff are
formally incarcerated, that poverty and incarceration are two systems that

(01:09:18):
feed each other very well. And so what we are
doing is providing resources, dignity, and support and providing an
exit from this revolving door of poverty and incarceration.

Speaker 6 (01:09:28):
Because if they.

Speaker 5 (01:09:29):
Can break this cycle, right, they can stay out of
prison and become productive members of society.

Speaker 4 (01:09:34):
That's the point, right, It really really helps.

Speaker 10 (01:09:36):
Yeah, and so we kind of came up with this
seemingly radical idea of what if we just gave people
money after they come home from incarceration. And so that's
what I do. That's my role is I'm the director
of this sort of groundbreaking guaranteed income program and happy
to talk about some of the nuts and bolts and
the results of how it's been going.

Speaker 6 (01:09:57):
Yeah, let's do that.

Speaker 7 (01:09:58):
We love to year.

Speaker 10 (01:10:01):
Okay. So yeah, well, like I said, like, we're in Florida,
and if you've heard anything about Florida in the last forever,
you know it's it's kind of a mess. I am not,
although I am surrounded by Florida men and women. Florida
is one of the handful of states that prisoners are
forced to work under threat of violence for exactly zero

(01:10:22):
dollars and zero cents. You must work or you will
be violently visited. And so there's only a handful of
states that do that, and they are all in the South, surprise, surprise.
So this is you know, forced labor, no compensation. This
is slavery under any other So that's the reality that
folks faces while they're inside. Any money that comes to

(01:10:44):
you for a commissary things like that must come from
the outside, typically from families that can least afford it.
So you're earning nothing. Your loved ones are going broker
while you're inside. You are released, typically with fifty dollars
maybe in Florida fifty bucks, and expected to go go
build the life you've been released. You might have court costs,
probation fees, an ankle monitor, drug testing. You must pay

(01:11:07):
those things, and if you cannot make those payments, ultimately
the solution is to reincarcerate you. Not because of any crime.
The crime is your bank account. You are too poor
to be free, and so you are reincarcerated because of
virtue of your lack of resources. So that was sort
of the inspiration for our guaranteed Income program. And so

(01:11:29):
the way it goes now is we give folks eight
hundred dollars a month for twelve months. So this is
not like enough to like coast on. This is just
enough to give some cushion, some breathing room. We've heard
people say, like, I don't know what was scarier going
into prison or coming out. So this is something that's
like alleviating some of the pressure, some of the fear.

(01:11:49):
It's expensive to be a human being on the planet
Earth in twenty twenty five, as you may have noticed,
just ordinary cost of rent, food, transportation, So imagine you
have those plus this extra set of debts under fear
of incarceration. So we've been providing this money. It's a
random selection. People that came home in the last year

(01:12:11):
can basically put their name in a hat. We do
a lot of redrawn that way. We're not assigning virtue
to any single person. We think everyone is worthy of
this support. You are ready to receive this to the
support today as you are. We have given out over
a million dollars. We've helped over one hundred and fifty
people in this community. And yeah, I mean it's good.
And we thought this was a good idea, but we

(01:12:33):
didn't want to just have our own opinions be the
thing that that's good, you know, like some ding dangs
in Florida saying it's good, it doesn't mean a whole lot.
So we actually partnered with the University of Pennsylvania Center
for Guaranteed Income Research and did a full randomized control trial, quantitative, qualitative,
deep dive analysis, and the results exceeded even what we

(01:12:54):
intuited might come from this work. So the pilot year
recidtism rates, which everyone always wants to know, incarceration, we're
thirty one percent lower for people that got this money,
statistically gigantic, huge, And all we did is we gave
people money and we treated them with the excellence that
they deserve. So vercissivism went down thirty one percent, that's great.

(01:13:17):
Financial security went up people like ninety percent of people
had less than fifty dollars when we started, just to
paint a picture of how dire it was. So even
after getting the money, even six months later, savings still
way up. Food insecurity went down, mental health went up.
Employments did not go down. Employment actually got better. So

(01:13:39):
you know, as a skeptic might say, like, oh, they're
going to be lazy, that is simply not the reality.
People use the money too, and exactly they invested in themselves.
They were able to leave sort of disrespectful, predatory jobs
and actually get into jobs that were more in line
with their ambitions, that treated them better. They were able
to pursue education, things like that. People tend to invest

(01:14:02):
in themselves when they have resources, and our folks were
no different.

Speaker 7 (01:14:06):
Wow, it's so beautiful and just the it's so dignified.
I love everything you're talking about. The philosophy of that.
It's a lottery, like you said, so there isn't some
hand saying you deserve and you don't. And also just
the thought of what you're saying with mental health going
up and having jobs going up, because you're also affording

(01:14:30):
a little a little bit of dignity to somebody which
can allow them then to go out into the world,
you know, as you said, without fear of being reincarcerated
because you can't pay for your ankle monitor.

Speaker 4 (01:14:44):
Right, I mean, you get out of prison.

Speaker 5 (01:14:45):
Let's imagine you're you know, you found God or you
know you want to you know, whatever you spend some time.

Speaker 4 (01:14:52):
You get out of prison, you get fifty bucks.

Speaker 6 (01:14:53):
That's it.

Speaker 5 (01:14:54):
That's all you got in your pocket. Where you gonna
where you're gonna live, Where are you gonna work? Nobody
wants to hire felons. Like, there's all he's things stacked
up against you. I love this program. We'll stick around.
Kevin Scott is going to be here to tell us
some more powerful stories from inside the justice system.

Speaker 4 (01:15:08):
Keep it right here in True Crime Tonight, we're talking
true crime.

Speaker 6 (01:15:11):
All the time. Welcome back to True Crime Tonight.

Speaker 7 (01:15:23):
We're on iHeartRadio and we are talking true crime all
the time.

Speaker 6 (01:15:28):
I'm Courtney.

Speaker 7 (01:15:28):
I'm so lucky to be here with Stephanie and body
move in. Don't forget if you missed any part of
the show, you can always catch the podcast. And right
now we are heading right back in with Kevin Scott.
He's director of the groundbreaking Guaranteed Income program by and
for people who've been incarcerated out of Gainesville, Florida.

Speaker 6 (01:15:51):
So, Kevin, how did you start with this?

Speaker 10 (01:15:55):
Like?

Speaker 6 (01:15:55):
How did this come to me?

Speaker 10 (01:15:57):
Sure? So A lot of this came from my own
lived experience with someone who had been incarcerated on somebody
that came from a family of addicts, And like every
other person, I swear I will never I will never
become an addict myself, and oh my god, I became
an adict myself. And so you know, I should say
I just celebrated thirteen years clean. Last anyone who anyone

(01:16:23):
who may have this struggle in their life, it is
not over. You are not in prison. Yeah. Yes, I
was in prison for a little over three years in Florida.
There's a lot to be said about the realities of
Florida prison. There is nothing that even resembled transformation or rehabilitation.

(01:16:45):
In my experience. It was nothing but brutality from start
to finish. You know, they might advertise that like we're
helping change people's lives, and a really quick anecdote is,
I was I used to be a touring musician, so
I taught music for a while in there, I gave
people like music lessons and that was like a really
rewarding thing for me personally. And then they were like,

(01:17:08):
you're now going to be in the cabinet making vocational
department here at the prison, and I didn't ask her.
I didn't want it, but they were like you, I
don't care what you want. You're going because that gives
us more funding, more you know, more people in the class.
So that's what I did, and when I by the
time I came home, I had a certificate in cabinet
making from the Department of Corrections. Greats. However, no one

(01:17:31):
ever taught me how to make a cabinet ever, not once,
not ever. The teacher was the janitor who sold tobacco
to the prisoners and took naps in his office, a
lot of smoking mirrors, So like it's sort of funny. However,
the flip side, the reality is, you know, I'm released
and now it sort of falls upon me to go

(01:17:53):
get a job at a cabinet shop. They can say,
we did everything to provide this person with the skills A,
B and C. So you know, very much set up
for failure. So anything that poses anything positive happened to
me while I was inside was not with thanks to
the Department of Corrections. It was in spite of and
so support came from my loved ones, from other prisoners,

(01:18:16):
from their loved ones. So Yeah, the reality is of
Porter prison is brutal. If you complain too much, they
will drag you into the laundry room. Because there's no cameras,
they'll beat the hell out of you in there. You know,
this is a very common reality inside it. It's famously brutal,
and it lives up to the reputation. So I came home.
I had been in no way prepared to come home.

(01:18:37):
I slept in the parking lot of a homeless shelter
here in Gainesville, and ironically, painfully, our local homeless shelter
is an old prison retrofitted to be a homeless shelter.
It's a great organization, is a very lovely organization. However,
if you've been in prison, you know exactly where you are.

(01:19:00):
You are at it. You can tell it's recognizable as
a person, and so you know, I was. I was
homeless for a while. It was really hard to find
a job, hard to find a place to live. It
was only through really the goodness and mercy of people
who cared enough to give me a shot. Then I
got a job at like a restaurant. I found the
found somebody that ever rent to me. It took a

(01:19:20):
while and so it shouldn't hinge on chance like that.
So when I had the opportunity to join the Fellowship
of Community Spring, they were looking for people who had
experienced poverty before. They took a chance on me, which
I'm so grateful for, and that sort of led to

(01:19:41):
us formulating this program now where we provide this guarented
income for folks coming home. It's a huge part of
what we do. We also have this like fellowship where
we continue to hire people who have lived experience of incarceration.
They can get skills, they learn how to do advocacy.
It's sort of this sort of leadership development a situation

(01:20:01):
that we have going on there. Alongside getting people money,
We've been able to celebrate some really big policy lens
here as well. The guaranteed income is supporting individuals. However,
we need to reshape the system. So we passed Florida's
first and still only fair Chance Hiring ordinance for employers
here in Gainesville, Florida, which means that people with a
record have a higher likelihood of getting a job. We

(01:20:24):
were able to eliminate fifteen discretionary court and jail fees
that kept money in the community, phone calls are now
free from the county jail, which is absolutely massive because
those calls are extraordinarily expensive, And then we were able
to sort of form the or provide the inspiration for
this counties first ever, we've never had a re entry

(01:20:45):
center at all, and there's no re entry support and
that organization is led in staffed by formally incarcerated people,
some of them our alumni. So a lot of this
work is driven by our own lived ex experience of
what we know of incarceration and the very difficult realities
of coming out, and a lot of what we've done

(01:21:08):
has been so impactful and so real, I think just
you know, rooted in community, rooted and lived experience that
we are now seen as like a blueprint as a
model for success that can be rolled out in other
places and be consulted with over forty cities around the
country who are either in planning phases or some who

(01:21:30):
have already launched their own similar programs customized to their communities.
But what's happened here in Gainesville, Florida, of all places,
Florida has now become like, yeah, a bit of like
a methodology or an approach, a way of doing things.
We're excited to see that's been implemented and very successful

(01:21:50):
around the country, and it's connected us with this sort
of other coalition of folks who are working on similar issues.
So it's the privilege of my life. You know, I
love it. You can I can see it, thinking I'm
never going to make it out of here, So to
be doing what I'm doing now and to seeing the
impact of all the things that we do really feel

(01:22:10):
surreal at times.

Speaker 4 (01:22:12):
Yeah, you can see it in your face that you're
passionate about this.

Speaker 5 (01:22:14):
I mean, you just spoke for about five minutes and
everything you hit on no please, oh my god.

Speaker 6 (01:22:21):
This is a talk show.

Speaker 5 (01:22:23):
The right and the reason it's so important too for
like people listening that you might be thinking, oh, you
know why I don't care about prisoners, and you should.
And the reason you should is you're listening to a
true crime show. And you know, we talk about people
who do really bad things and when they go to prison,
it's not just for punishment. It's supposed to be for rehabilitation.

(01:22:47):
And when they get out and they fail after fail
after fail, they might commit another violent crime to get money,
or to get whatever drug they need, or or just
to go back to prison where they're going to get
through hots and a cop. So if we can help
them stay on straight and narrow, so to speak, it
benefits society as a whole. Right, that's the whole spirit

(01:23:11):
of this. Am I right about that? Or am I
like off track?

Speaker 6 (01:23:15):
Kevin?

Speaker 10 (01:23:15):
No, No, you're I mean yes, people, the very very
the vast majority of people, that ninety five percent plus
easily of people are coming home. They're coming home whether
we no matter what, folks are going to be releasing thecarceervation.
So it's up to us as a community to decide
they will be released with instability, which we know leads
to more harm for sure, like there's so much evidence

(01:23:39):
for that, or we can provide some stability. So the
way we look at this metaphor of people are released
from prison, they are dropped at like the very edge
of a cliff precarious from second number one, we can
shove them off and keep sending emergency services to the
bottom at our own expense in every possible sense, or

(01:23:59):
we could build a sturdy fence at the edge of
that cliff. And a huge component of that is access
to resources, community support, dignity, treating people like people, and
that pays dividends that costs less in the long run
and the short term, fiscally, socially, in every way, the
return on investment for just providing people with resources without conditions.

(01:24:22):
When I say that our money that we give to
people is no strings attached, I mean literally no strings attached.
No one tells you what you can and cannot spend
this money on. It is up to you. We think
that is very important that you are seen as the
expert in your own life. You are honored as a person,
whole person, one hundred percent. And a lot of people

(01:24:44):
have said, you know, great, This money allowed me to
purchase X y Z, which allowed me to like whatever
it may be. However, the thing that has had the
lasting ripple effect on me is that I was treated
like a person for the first time and maybe a
long time or ever. We used the word re entry.
That's how we talk about somebody returning home from incarceration.

(01:25:06):
Some people have been like re entry. How about just
some entry for the first time ever in my life.
This is the first time I ever had any sort
of like breathing room. This is the first time I
had a chance, The first time somebody treated me like
a whole person, and so that we we think that's
very important that it's providing practical and emotional support for people.

(01:25:26):
It's a real space of healing as well.

Speaker 5 (01:25:30):
You've mentioned this re entry center that your organization was
able to help implement.

Speaker 6 (01:25:36):
What is that.

Speaker 10 (01:25:40):
Yeah, so this is sort of a partner organization here.
But because of all the work we had been doing,
we'd been illuminating the need. We need support, we need support.
We've never had re entry services here, and so finally
the county, I guess a year and a half ago,
two years ago, decided to put some funds into actually
we actually have a re entry center. And so the

(01:26:03):
group that now is that center is a nonprofit called
Release re Entry here in Gamesville, Florida, and it is
staffed and led by formerly incarcerated people as well, and
they provide like, you know, free mental health counseling. I
think you get like twelve free appointments, which is a
huge deal. Can help you get like bus passes, clothing

(01:26:23):
rental assistance, a computer lab, peer support, all the things
very much based on like evidence based practices that have
been proven to help people come home from incarceration. Wow,
that's awesome.

Speaker 4 (01:26:38):
Yeah, no, that's really cool, and it's something that community needs.

Speaker 6 (01:26:41):
Right.

Speaker 5 (01:26:41):
It's kind of like a community center for re entry, right,
I mean, it's exactly what it sounds like.

Speaker 6 (01:26:46):
I guess, yeah.

Speaker 10 (01:26:52):
I mean, And so you know, it's very much sort
of like you would see like in a twelve step program,
Like that's sort of like the unparalleled value of people
with similar experiences supporting each other. And it's just sort
of being applied into a space of people coming home
from incarceration and it's working. But we've done here. It works.
The evidence shows supporting people.

Speaker 2 (01:27:13):
Works, and it gives everybody hope. You know, even in
the darkness of days, there's still some hope. Right, So
you know, listen, the other side to that, the chatter
is always, well, what about the victims and what about this?

Speaker 3 (01:27:24):
We are all in it together.

Speaker 2 (01:27:26):
It's a community, right, So you know, manned down in
any category affects all of us. So the work you're
doing is is really tremendous because you know, the systems
that built to people to set up for.

Speaker 5 (01:27:39):
Success, right, you're one hundred percent right, Stephanie, Like they
want you to go back to prison. It's financially beneficial
it's during the break. It's big business to have people incarcerated, right,
that's correct, And.

Speaker 7 (01:27:56):
Kevin, I'm on, I'm actually I'm looking on the website
right now, and you mentioned that you guys got fees eliminated,
and I just can't imagine what a big deal that
would be like just looking at this. In twenty twenty three,
roughly fifteen jail and court service fees were eliminated. Four

(01:28:18):
dollars a day subsidence fee in jail, a five dollars
day electronic monitoring fee for people on pre trial release,
and twenty dollars a week to participate for drug court.

Speaker 6 (01:28:32):
You have to pay all of these things.

Speaker 7 (01:28:34):
You're mandated to pay them or be returned to prison
or were.

Speaker 10 (01:28:39):
Yeah, that's right, yep, yeah. Ultimately, this solution is to
put you into a cage and only exacerbate those problems
the next time you're released.

Speaker 6 (01:28:47):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (01:28:47):
So pre trial would mean they get arrested, they get
their trial set, they get out on bond, they have
to wear an ankle monitor while they're wait for pre trials,
so they haven't even been convicted yet, and they get
this bary more few forms instance right now, right, Barry
Murphy's out, he's out on bond, he's wearing an ankle bracelet.
He's going to have to pay X number of dollars
per day to monitor his whereabouts, right, And this is

(01:29:13):
one of the fees that they've eliminated in Gainesville.

Speaker 10 (01:29:16):
W Yeah, just between the phone calls and the fines
and fees that we've eliminated, it has kept millions of
dollars in the community, typically from communities that can least
afford to lose more money. So it's actually been like
a huge, huge boost for the entire.

Speaker 5 (01:29:30):
Community, right because, like you know, four dollars a day
doesn't seem like a lot of money to people who
have money, right, But if you only have eight hundred
dollars a month period, four dollars a day adds up quick.

Speaker 4 (01:29:41):
That's a big chunk of money for people.

Speaker 6 (01:29:43):
You guys have done so so much good.

Speaker 7 (01:29:45):
It's I think we're all having a hard time digesting it, honestly,
but Kevin, we just really so sincerely want to thank
you for joining us and for all the incredible work
you and the OKA Organization does. The Just Income program.
As a reminder, it is a privately funded and that's
to maintain independence. It is currently accepting donations for a

(01:30:06):
fourth round of recipients, and anyone who is interested and
able to support financially or to learn more about just
income can visit at Community Spring on Instagram or visit
csg n V dot org. Kevin, you're so rock star. Yeah, seriously,

(01:30:31):
I think that was making the world better. Thank you,
Thank you, sybody.

Speaker 6 (01:30:35):
We'll be back on Sunday.

Speaker 2 (01:30:36):
We are not here tomorrow, but we will be here
on Sunday for Scientific Sunday.

Speaker 6 (01:30:42):
Stay safe, everybody, and have a wonderful night.