"Who's to Blame" takes you into the heartbreaking story of Emma Lovell and her husband Lee. Emma was killed during a home invasion on Boxing Day in 2022.
Lee tells us about the events leading up to that terrible night and explores the impact on their family and the community around them.
The podcast goes beyond the headlines to tackle the bigger issue of youth crime. We sit down with the people who know it best -offenders, psychologists, program leaders, and police - to get real about what's driving these young people to commit such shocking acts and what can be done to stop it from happening again. and ask the question, Who's to blame?
Episode one is out Monday, August 26th
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Episode Transcript
Appoche production.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
There's growing community anger over Queensland's youth crime crisis after
a woman was held at knife point in her own
Teens have been arrested following a dangerous chase in a
stolen car.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Queensland's youth crime crisis has reached new highs this river
the arrest Good morning.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
A woman has been killed in a horrifying home invasion
in Brisbane's North.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
I think we both like rushed to the door and
opened up the bedroom door, and yeah, there was this
guy sort of standing right in front of the bedroom door.
And then you don't really think about what you're doing.
You act on impulse, I think, and you know, you
just sort of remember trying to get the one who's
immediately by the door like out of the house. And
there was a bit of a scuffle by the door, and.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Then forty one year old Emma Lovell was allegedly stabbed
while fighting off her attackers who broke into her property
at North Lakes.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
She was like this, you know, she'd moved a bit,
but she was on in front of me, like laying
on the floor with her back to me, you know,
you know, and it was a shop to like see
her there because it's like, you know, second ago, she
was like standing up standing in front of me there
and next thing she's lay on the floor and like,
I think I've got my phone in casey come back
with the phone, and you know, she was like the
(01:22):
mummy's bleeding.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
And they say that a scuffle broke out at the
front of the property and both that man and woman
have sustained injuries. The woman, Emma Lovell's injuries so severe
that specialist paramedics could not save her.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
For me working and coming from the police, there is
massive gaps in the system in relation to kids that
sit at the pinnacle of the system.
Speaker 5 (01:48):
Go and round the ball up and lock them up.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
Everybody hopes the government will do something about it.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Youth bar laws are the strongest in the nation.
Speaker 5 (01:56):
I just met a bad crowd. They gave me a
taste for it. The youngest was probably fourteen or fifteen.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Young people require a consolidated community effort and everyone plays
a role. Parents, gear givers services, neighbors, sporting clubs, groups,
random person walking down the street.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
I suppose, yeah, community programs, but again it comes down
to like you know, you can't put on the government
and the wider community failings of a child. To a
certain extent, these kids making choices to do what they're doing.
Speaker 5 (02:33):
At this point, I was using ice. I would buy
bigger quantities of ice and sell it to friends of friends.
During the day, they'd lays around and smoke pot all day,
and then at night they go out and do what's
called a creep or a search.
Speaker 6 (02:47):
Enemy of I think what a good youth justice program
can be lived experience has a cool factor that kids
want to engage with as his inspirational factor of that
person who's may one time and this is what he's done.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Until people get locked up and have some sort of
consequence the action, nothing is going to change because at
the moment people see that they can rob a cart,
maybe get locked up, but they'll be out tomorrow for it,
or there's some way of putting a consequence to what
they're doing. I don't think this is ever going to change.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
The challenge at the moment here in Queensland and the
gap that I identify, young person commits offense, Young person
goes to court for the offense. But that process between
committing the offense and going to court is months, and
during that period of time, that's when the majority of
offending takes place. I've been caught, so I'll just go
all out, and the seriousness of offenses rises, the.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Grass on the ground, on the brown behind your back.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Who's to blame, my honest opinion, not the police, not
government services, not the young people. I go back to
our puzzle piece analogy. You know, I think everyone plays
a role.
Speaker 6 (04:04):
Everyone is to blame, and no one's to blame because
every day there's an opportunity for an adult to see
a young person in a different light and provide them
with that pathway to being a good human. And every
day there's a choice of that young person to be
a good human and to feel like they have an opportunity.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
I just think that the community values have changed a lot,
you know. It's where we're so accustomed these days to
seeing a young person in need and stepping back as
opposed to stepping forward. A lot of the issues that
could be affected proactively with a lot of young people
(04:42):
were identified many years ago before they stabbed people, before
they broke into a home, before they broke into a car.
But we turned our blind eye. We turned the blind
eye when they were at school and got suspended for
the first time. We turned the blind eye when we
saw the neighbors arguing and yelling and just thought that
it wasn't our business. We turned the blind eye where
we saw the kid walking down the street with no
(05:03):
shoes on and just thought, oh, oh, that's horrible. I'll
tell my friends at dinner tonight.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
You're almost going to get people commit crimes. I don't
think you're ever going to get away from that. But like,
if you can just help people from a younger age,
you know, like maybe they can be identified or whatever,
then maybe they can help be supported and you know,
guide did better.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Like we've got a boy sitting here in the studio.
I mean he's here because you know, two days ago
his house was shot up. He's got nowhere to go.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
It's such a complex issue, Like it's not just a
one size fits all, like responds to answer, I understand
people need help, but I also can't get away from
people being locked up. If you're murdering people, you just think,
in my view, and I've never changed that, you've got
to be punished for that. So who's to blame? A
youth crime crisis Coming Monday, August twenty six,
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Burden
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.