A Tale of Two Brothers

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
True Crime Brewery contains disturbing content related to real life crimes.
Medical information is opinion based on facts of a crime
and should not be interpreted as medical advice or treatment.
Listener discretion is advised.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Welcome to True Crime Brewery.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
I'm Jill and I'm Dick.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Raised in Riverside, California, twenty year old college student Jason
Bautista and his fifteen year old brother Matthew were living
roller coaster lives with their mentally ill and abusive mom, Jane.
Jane Bautista's mood swings and unpredictable behavior affected the two
young men in ways really not understood at the time.

(00:56):
Then one January night, the family's dysfunction and led to
unfathomable decisions and a truly shocking crime. Join us at
the Quiet End for a tale of two brothers. On
January fifteenth, two thousand and three, Jason returned to his
college courses at cal State Bernardino, explaining that their mother

(01:18):
had run off with yet another boyfriend. The two brothers
tried to carry on with their lives pretty much as before,
but when Jane did not return home, the truth of
what had really happened with the family of three would
forever change them.

Speaker 3 (01:32):
We're going to drink a nice beer today from Firestone
Walker Brewing Company. It's called Old Manhattan. It is an
English barley wine, about ten percent alcohol by volume. Beer
is a dark brown color with a thin tand head
leaving a little honey, bit of lace, nice boozy aroma, caramel, toffee,
some dark fruit. I get mostly caramel and toffee in

(01:54):
the taste, of course, some whiskey and maybe a little
raisin and some cherry. Very smooth for a ten percent beer,
Very very drinkable. I think you'll like it.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Okay, Yeah, sounds pretty rich and heavy, but let's go
for it. Open it up, Okay, come on down here.

(02:25):
We're going to talk about this case, which is pretty horrific.
I'm just gonna say that now. Jane Bautista was a
beautiful teen. Her clear complexion, wry smile, and her tall,
slender frame really went perfectly with her thick head of
auburn hair. She was pretty, but she really didn't dress
up or wear much makeup. She wasn't into that. She

(02:47):
did not like to have pretenses even with the guys
she dated. So with wealthy men, charmers and athletes, to
choose from. She decided to be with and fell in
love with a simple and plain work king class man
from Belize. So Jane met Armando Bautista while she was
a student at the University of Wisconsin Parkside, where she

(03:09):
was taking classes toward her goal of becoming a teacher.
So Jane was just nineteen in nineteen eighty one, the
year she traveled to Bautista's home in a lobster exporting
town on the northern coast of Belize. So it was
there that he asked her and she agreed to marry him.
For her wedding, she wore a hand me down pink

(03:30):
prom dress that was donated by Armando's sister. Most of
Armando's family, unfortunately, though, had an immediate dislike of Jane.
They thought she was stuck up because she insisted that
Armando rent a hotel room for their visit and not
stay in the family home, which was quite simple.

Speaker 3 (03:49):
Yeah, but it's kind of a matter of courtesy to.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Do that, Yeah, I suppose, I think sure.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
Armando's mother was particularly hurt and resentful when her son
and his new ye refused to stay with the family
during their visit, but Armando was so determined to please
his new bride he borrowed money from his mother to
cover the hotel stay, as well as having nice meals
at local restaurants. Now, the couple seemed to be quite
an odd match. Jane came from an upscale, white, strictly

(04:17):
Christian family. Her immigrant husband didn't fit in with anyone
in her circle. But then again, Jane had always been rebellious.
Her older sister was the quiet one who rarely caused
their parents to worry. Jane, though, was the one who
drew everyone's attention. She was stubborn and spoke her mind,
having constant disagreements with her family, especially her mother Nellie.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
Yeah, so that in itself is not that unusual. No,
not at all.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
So.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
Jane was born in December of nineteen sixty one in
a small suburban hospital in Illinois. She was the granddaughter
of Benjamin Klois Thunderburke, founder of Thunderburke Builders. Everyone's heard
of that, right, the thunder Burke Huh.

Speaker 3 (04:58):
You got to count to dynasty one who forgot to
hear about that?

Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yeah? Well, anyway, this was a large and successful construction company,
and because of the wealth the company provided for the family.
Jane and her big sister Deborah, who was six years older,
had everything they needed along with the stability of living
in a small town. Parents Nellie and Don, dressed their
daughters well, sent them to expensive private schools, and took

(05:25):
them on frequent vacations, and Acapulco was a favorite destination.
So when Jane was in grade school, her parents moved
to the even smaller town of Winthrop Harbor, Illinois. Despite
her family's wealth and connections, they moved into a simple,
single story brick home with a two car garage on
a half acre of land. So not fancy, but certainly

(05:47):
a fine home, nothing wrong with it. The backyard wasn't huge,
but it was big enough for large family get togethers,
and they had a lot of barbecues. Now, this was
a very conservative town. Jane's father, Don chose not to
work for the family business and instead made his own
living at a local boating company. Finances allowed Nellie to
be a stay at home mom, but neighbors would say

(06:10):
that Nellie ran a very strict home. She often clashed
with her strong willed daughter Jane, and frequent fights broke
out between mom and daughter.

Speaker 3 (06:19):
These are verbal fights or physical fights mostly verbal.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
Now, when Jane became involved in frequent schoolyard fights and
those were physical, Nellie decided to send her to a
private Christian school. So Jane was outgoing and sociable in
high school, and she loved going to school basketball games
or just driving around with some friends and listening to
music things like that. As a teenager in a small town,

(06:44):
there really wasn't a lot to do, but Jane seemed
pretty much happy, and she stood out for her academic successes.
Jane was always in the college prep courses and friends
sometimes called her mother Jane because of her talent for
dolin out advice. So she did seem to have a
maturity and a wisdom that made the other girls trust

(07:06):
her and confide in her. But the weird thing was
when it came to her own life, she was just
very quiet and even secretive. She was especially quiet when
it came to information about her mother, her father, and
her sister. And we don't know why.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
That's interesting. And she's very free to give advice to
people who wanted it, but was very close mouthed about
her own family.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
Yeah, it's always easier though, right, It's easier to tell
people what to do with their lives. Oh, yeah, absolutely,
you know I've been guilty of that.

Speaker 3 (07:37):
So Jane made straight a's in high school and graduated
a year early. After graduation, she enrolled at the University
of Wisconsin Parkside, which is about an hour's drive north
of home. Jane talked about becoming a teacher someday. She
loved studying languages. It was almost fluent in Spanish, which
is probably thanks to her family's frequent Acapulco vacations. But

(08:00):
Jane's academic success ended when she entered college. Her attendance
was sporadic, and over the years she would return to
college several times, never earning a degree.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
Yeah. Then after high school, Jane's relationship with her mom
also deteriorated. I mean it was never ideal, but it
got bad. She said that Nellie favored her sister Deborah,
and Jane resented her mother for this. Her anger came
to a head with her mother one evening when Jane
was nineteen, and Jane decided she needed her mom's car

(08:30):
for the night to take some friends joy riding. So
Nellie was usually generous with the car, letting Jane use
it to drive to and from college or for nights
out with friends, but that night Nellie said no, she
had plans of her own and she needed the car,
and this sent Jane into a rage. Nellie was frightened
of her own daughter, so she reached out, trying to

(08:52):
put her arms around Jane and calm her down and
kind of make up with her. But just being touched
by her seemed to send Jane like right over the edge.
She began throwing punches at her mother's head and stomach,
and it turned out that Jane beat her mom so
severely that Nellie ended up in the hospital, which is
just unbelievable.

Speaker 3 (09:12):
That's a beating.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yeah. Now, Nellie was treated for multiple lacerations and bruses,
so something wrong there for sure. But Nellie never called
the police and her daughter, so she was a private
lady and she kept domestic problems inside the family. So
maybe that's where Jane learned her secrecy. But this may

(09:33):
not have been the first sign that something was changing
with Jane, because the normally bright, outgoing Jane was demonstrating
a dark side. Her short temper pushed people away from her,
and her out of control behavior likely was a sign
of mental illness. So This is an age when a
lot of these illnesses will show up, right.

Speaker 3 (09:53):
Yeah, late teens, that's a pretty good time for things
like schizophrenia to be showing up. I wonder she didn't
press charges or anything, But did they seek out psychiatric evaluation.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
It really seems like they didn't. All indications are that no,
they kind of kept it all private and didn't get
her help, which probably a big mistake, you know. I'm
sure it affected the rest of Jane's life and the
lives of her sons, definitely. Yeah. So Jane met Armanda
Bautista at a friend's house. He was a local handyman

(10:25):
who'd immigrated to the US from Belize. Armando wasn't someone
a girl with Jane's background would typically even notice. He
wasn't educated, and although he did have some skills at
fixing electrical things and often did have a job, he
was broke most of the time, kind of did odd
jobs here and there. But Armando thought he'd found his

(10:47):
American dream when Jane agreed to date him. Now, he
wasn't really her intellectual equal, but she may have preferred
it that way because Jane seemed to really kind of
like to dominate the relationship. So Armando and Jane dated
for less than a year before traveling to Belize and
getting married, and that was in March of nineteen eighty one.

(11:08):
Not one member of Jane's family was there, though her
father Don picked up his youngest daughter and her new
husband from the airport in Chicago when they returned, So
that was good. And neighbors were surprised to see Jane
come home married. It was kind of a shocking Really,
wasn't what you would expect in the neighborhood and in
the family.

Speaker 3 (11:28):
Oh, I can only imagine, he said, this is a
fairly conservative neighborhood. Yeah, and here comes their daughter home
with a non Caucasian individual. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
I think it was a very white Ozzie and Harriet
type life.

Speaker 3 (11:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
And it was the eighties.

Speaker 3 (11:43):
Yeah. And he's her husband. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:45):
And she's not just dating him, she's married him without
really anyone being there or anyone really knowing him for
that matter. Now, when they returned, on the outside, Jane
did seem happy. She introduced her husband around to her
friends and her neighbors, and neighbors did accept the couple,
so that's one good thing. Her parents also seemed to

(12:06):
accept the marriage, but it turned out it wasn't a
happy marriage. Problems between the newlyweds began right away, and
despite her family's money, Jane found herself living in poverty
as a married woman. Her mother and father gave her
very little to know financial help, but through those tough times,

(12:27):
Jane did turn to her grandmother for financial support and
that would be something that would last for the rest
of Jane's life. So in many ways that was positive
because it did help her from staying into really deep poverty.
But at the same time, she kind of depended on
that over the years as she got older, especially so
Armando really struggled to find steady work as a handyman.

(12:50):
The couple moved to Wakegan, which was just ten miles
south of Winthrop Harbor, and it had a much larger
population of about ninety thousand, but still Armando's sporadic odd
jobs just couldn't keep the couple out of low income housing.
Jane did find an office job in a nearby electrical plant,
but the couple's financial problems were just persistent. Just eight

(13:14):
months into the marriage, Jane was pregnant too, so there
was additional stress and in nineteen eighty two, in a
Waukegan hospital, Jane would give birth to her first son,
Jason Victor. So those who knew her back then don't
remember seeing her much before and after she gave birth,
and many friends from high school had already lost touch

(13:34):
with her. So that was unfortunate because she really didn't
have much for support, not just financially, but emotionally.

Speaker 3 (13:41):
It must have been difficult. Now. Any joy that Jane
may have felt after having her son was overshadowed by
her marital problems. Before Jason was a year old, Jane
left Armando in August of nineteen eighty three. She packed
up with her infant son and moved into another low
income apartment in this town. Under local housing programs, the

(14:02):
county supplemented monthly rental payments for anyone with a minor
child and earnings under the poverty level. But Armando took
the failure of his marriage very.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
Hard, very hard. By all accounts, Armando became deeply depressed,
and he tried to reconcile with Jane many times, despite
their many differences and their frequent fights. He was convinced
that he couldn't live without his wife and son. He
told Jane this repeatedly, but Jane had made up her
mind and the marriage was over as far as she

(14:33):
was concerned. She told Armando that she didn't love him anymore,
but still he just refused to take no for an answer.
He was determined to get back together, so on April
third of nineteen eighty four, he visited Jane and their son,
and he demanded that she come back to him. Despite
the money problems. He told her they could work it out,

(14:54):
but Jane just ignored her estranged husband when he begged
to come back. Then, Jane thret to call the police,
telling Armando she could have him deported. Now that wasn't true,
but he believed her, and that really frightened him, so
at least on that day he left.

Speaker 3 (15:10):
Then a few days later, Armando proved to Jane just
how desperate he had become. Without his wife and without
his new son. He was a man with nothing to lose.
On the afternoon of April seventh, nineteen eighty four, just
before six pm, Jane drove along the road leading to
her small apartment, which also took her past her office.
As her car passed the office, she noticed Armando's Chevy

(15:32):
Monte Carlo sitting in the parking lot. So she's annoyed,
annoyed that he had driven to her office building and
she stopped.

Speaker 2 (15:38):
Well, yeah, I think she was kind of feeling like
he was stalking her at that point.

Speaker 3 (15:41):
Yeah, So she pulled up next to the car, but
she didn't see Armando. Wasn't until she walked closer to
the car, looking into the driver's side window that she
saw his body slump to the side and his headlining
in the passenger seat. There's a gaping wound to his chest.
She opened the passenger door and reached across to shaken,
but she saw the three fifty seven revolver. Armando had

(16:03):
used it to shoot himself in his own chest. The
bullet had ripped through his body ended up deep in
the seat's backrest.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
Yeah, so this really was a heartbreaking situation. Despondent over
the breakup of his marriage, Armando had driven to his
wife's workplace and taken his own life. Now, thankfully, Jason
was probably young enough that he didn't understand. But in
Armando's final act of desperation, he also left behind a
two page note which blamed Jane for the suicide. So

(16:33):
Armando wrote I wish you the best and all the
happiness in the world to you, to Jason, and to
all my family and loved ones. My earthly belongings belonged
to you and Jason. Living without you and Jason is
as good as being dead. I've come to terms with
myself and the fact that I'll never live happy without you.

(16:53):
You're all I ever wanted. So as the estranged spouse
in the situation, Jane was investigating, but no charges were
ever brought against her. She was a nervous wreck after
Armando's death, but she tried to keep it together. She
held a part time clerical job and sporadically took classes
at the university. She survived financially with some extra cash

(17:16):
from her grandmother, and then since Armando's death, she got
social Security checks from the state. So though she had
a rocky relationship with Armando's relatives, she did spend some
time with his sister, mostly so the family could stay
in touch with Jason. So I think they just kind
of put up with her so they could see the
little boy.

Speaker 3 (17:36):
Yeah. Armando's sister, Queria, absolutely despised Jane because she blamed
her for her brother's death, but she tolerated her and
invited Jane and Jason over for dinner on occasion, and,
as is common when people leave their home country, they
spent time with others in the same situation, so Querier's
home was often visited by other immigrants. One of these

(17:56):
regular visitors was Jose Monteo mother, both natives of Belize.
One Friday evening in the early spring of nineteen eighty six,

(18:18):
during a small dinner party there, Jane met Jose Monteo.
He was a twenty four year old laborer in a
sheet metal factory and he was attracted to her. His
mother noticed his attraction and tried to steer him clear
of Jane. Her husband just died, she told Jose, and
everyone is suspicious of her. You better watch it with
her because everyone accused her of killing her husband. Yeah,

(18:38):
so how'd you like to get that message?

Speaker 1 (18:40):
Well?

Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yeah, and I'm not quite sure why that was the feeling,
but there will be some questions about the whole situation
as the years go on.

Speaker 3 (18:48):
You mean that maybe she did have something to do
with it?

Speaker 2 (18:51):
Maybe Now Jose knew that Armando's sister was bitter over
her brother's death and wanted someone to blame and he
thought that Jane was just an easy target. But Jose
ignored this and asked Jane out. And though she was
still living in low income housing and only working part
time as a receptionist, she never seemed to need any money.

(19:12):
She usually had more cash than Jose, so she would
pay for their dates. Jose had been abusing alcohol for years,
but after he got together with Jane he cut back.
Then as he grew closer to her and her little boy,
he stopped drinking all together, so that was very commendable.
Jose's favorite times were with Jane and when they'd cuddle

(19:33):
up on the couch and watch TV, so he really
did care for her. Within three months, Jose had moved
in with Jason and Jane, and he had plans to
marry her one day, anyone, to have a few kids
with her and create a family together. But now Jane
was really in no rush. If she remarried, for one thing,
she'd lose her state benefits because she'd have to report

(19:54):
Jose's income. Then Jose had his own reason to postpone
the wedding, and that was because Jane had a really
bad temper. It seemed like Jane was mentally and emotionally unraveling.
But Jose probably just couldn't see it for what it was.
She could be really sweet or she could be a monster,
and he really didn't know what to do about it.

(20:16):
He was just a young guy. He didn't know anything
about this. She forbade anyone from ever mentioning Armando's name,
but not because she mourned him. She would say, I
hate that motherfucker, and that was really shocking to everyone
that she would speak that way.

Speaker 3 (20:32):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
Yeah, At times that loathing became so intense that she
would lash out at Jose, And over time, Jose thought
he noticed a pattern. Whenever he paid attention to Jason,
she got mad at him. Even though little Jason wasn't
his own child, he was caring about the toddler. He
loved him, He wanted to be a father to him,

(20:52):
and he really looked forward to the times when they
could play together. But it was weird because it really
enraged Jane that she didn't just hate Armando, but she
hated her own son, Jason, because he reminded her of Armando.
I guess. Sometimes Jose used his own money and he
would buy Jason a toy or his favorite meal, and

(21:13):
Jane would lash out at him, why are you doing this?
She would scream, why are you spending money on him?
Don't buy him anything? So that was bizarre.

Speaker 3 (21:22):
Yeah, Jane never bragged about Jason, and she certainly was
not outwardly affectionate, but she was a competent caregiver. Jason
never went without food, he was clean, and he was healthy.
Jose tried to fill the gap by showing him love
and attention. But Jason was a nervous, anxious child. Well
sure wouldn't be, yeah, who often seemed on the brink

(21:43):
of crying. Jason continued to wet his bed even as
he got older, and Jane beat him for it.

Speaker 2 (21:49):
Well, yeah, and we're talking about like he's three or four,
he's wetting the bed, and that's really not unusual at all.
Plenty of kids wet the bed till they're nine or ten, even, Yes,
they do. And it's not like they're doing on purpose.

Speaker 3 (22:01):
Right.

Speaker 2 (22:01):
There's a physical reason for that, isn't there.

Speaker 3 (22:03):
Yeah, immature bladder.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yeah, so they don't have the control and it just happens.
But boy, he really caught hell for it, so they
had to damage him emotionally. Jose did have a temper
of his own, though he wasn't perfect. The worst fights
he had with Jane, though, were over her treatment of Jason.
He was upset about that, but she would get really
angry if he brought it up. It's none of your

(22:25):
fucking business how I raised my son was what she
would say. So just months into their relationship, Jose decided
he had to leave. But before he could be packed
up and get out of there, Jane was pregnant again.
So despite their problems, Jose did love her and he
was happy that he could be a father for the
first time. So he resolved that he would stick it

(22:47):
out no matter what, and he asked Jane to marry
him before the baby was born. He really wanted them
to be legally husband and wife, especially since he'd been
brought up in a Catholic household. His mother really would
never accept having her first grandchild born out of wedlock.
Oh no, no, but Jane refused. Jane was much more
practical than her passionate, loving boyfriend. She was still getting

(23:10):
Social Security benefits from the state for Jason, so she
turned down his proposal. Still, they did have their child,
Matthew Montejo was born in July nineteen eighty seven, and
Jose was just thrilled with his son, and at this
point even Jane seemed really happy. At home. Jane became
a really doting mother to her new son. Now, this son,

(23:33):
she would kiss on the face and cuddle in a
way that she never did with Jason. It was really
heartwarming to see until Jose realized that all this newfound
affection was reserved only for Matthew. So Jason was still
wedding the bed, still getting beaten for it, and most
of the time he was just ignored by his mother.
So Jane's soft side was coming out less and less,

(23:56):
but you know, it was still there a little bit.
And during one of these soft moments, she finally decided
to share with Jose the real story of Armando's death.
So she said, no one knew what had really happened
that day, not even the police, and she said she'd
been carrying the burden of it all by herself. So,
according to Jose, Jane told him how she'd fought with

(24:19):
Armando in the last weeks of his life. Armando had
wanted a reconciliation, Jane said, and she hadn't, so desperate
to get her attention, Armando had told her I won't
live without you. He wrote her a letter warning her
that he was going to buy a gun and he
was going to kill himself, And Jane had even kept
that letter in her little, locked filing cabinet, so she

(24:42):
showed it to Jose, although she'd never shown it to
the police.

Speaker 4 (24:45):
Now.

Speaker 2 (24:45):
Jane said she was actually working a late afternoon shift
at her job when Armando drove up into the plant's
parking lot, and according to this version of the story,
Armando called her out of the plant to tell her
something and they got into his car to talk. Because
she was working, Armando was watching Jason, so he had
the baby in the car with him, and at some

(25:08):
point in their conversation he took out the gun and
he shot himself, So Jane said she ran away hysterical,
taking little Jason with her. She said then she drove
home to think for a while before she finally returned
to the scene and called security. Then she decided to
tell them she just found Armando that way, already dead.

(25:29):
But in Jane's mind, Jason reminded her of Armando and
of that day, so she really should have sought out therapy,
but she never did, and she just resented Jason really forever.
And because of all this, we really don't know. Did
Jason see this happen?

Speaker 3 (25:46):
You don't know, Well, it sure sounds like he must have.

Speaker 2 (25:49):
Yeah, it kind of does. But it's kind of hard
to believe that Armando would have done that with his
son in the car too. And I think that's where
the suspicion comes in against Jane, because he really loved
a son and a relationship with him. So it's hard
to believe he would do that with his son in
the car.

Speaker 3 (26:05):
The Dodd was with him, Uh huh, he couldn't have
been far away when the shooting occurred.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
No, you must have been in the car if it
happened the way Jane said.

Speaker 3 (26:13):
In the car, pretty close to the car.

Speaker 2 (26:15):
Yes, if it happened according to this story, yes, yeah,
Now I remember initially she said that they came upon
him in the car already dead, which could be true.
We don't know if she made up this second story,
if that's how it really happened, But you have to
consider that this could have damaged Jason in some way.
Was time passed, Jane tried to ignore her own mother

(26:37):
and father, even though they really wanted to visit their grandchildren.
Neighbors would remember that once Jane left home, she rarely
came back for any visits. In a year together, Jose
said he only saw Jane's parents a total of three times. Now,
even talking about them could put Jane in a violent mood,
so Jose really avoided the topic of her family altogether.

(27:00):
So one source of tension did come from Jane's rivalry
with her big sister. By all accounts, Deborah was close
to her parents, and when Deborah got married, her parents
gave her a house and some land. So the way
Jane saw it, it was her sister who got everything.
And if that's true, Jane may have had a point.
I think, regardless of how close you are, or how

(27:23):
obedient or how much you agree, you kind of need
to treat your children equally according to their needs at least, right,
no one.

Speaker 3 (27:31):
Will disagree with that. On the other hand, you know,
she's the greasy wheel, squeaky squeaky right, She's just the.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
Squeaky wheel of the family, right, But she's not getting
the grease right. She's squeaky wheel is supposed to get
the grease yep, but it seems like, you know, she'd
probably distanced herself from them quite a bit, so it's
really hard to see where to put the blame. Yeah,
it did seem like they wanted to be in the
grandchildren's lives and Jane wouldn't let them. So maybe they

(28:00):
would have done more for her and the children. We
don't really know, But mostly what Jose had shared was
what he'd heard from Jane. Yes, So, after a visit
with her parents in January of nineteen eighty eight, Jane
came home in one of the worst moods Jose had
ever seen her in. I hate my fucking family, she
tearfully screamed, and she vowed never to see them again. Now.

(28:23):
Her yellings scared baby Matthew, who began to cry. So
as she spoke, she reached for Matthew, lifting him into
the air, and then she dropped him. This might have
been an accident, Jose thought, just because she was agitated
and unstable, but he didn't care. This really upset him,
you know, he'd watched her brutal treatment of Jason over time,

(28:44):
and suddenly he was afraid that she was going to
be taking her anger out on her younger son as well,
who was only six months old.

Speaker 3 (28:52):
Yeah. U plus, he was supposed to be the favorite.

Speaker 2 (28:55):
Right But you know, Jose wasn't the most stable person either,
and he flew into rage, grabbed Jane's shirt and ripped it,
so the two got into a fight. They physically struggled
with each other, and Jose grabbed Jane by the throat
and threw her on the ground. So this is just
bad all around. Sure, Jose stormed into the kitchen to

(29:17):
get away from Jane, but she was enraged and she
ran after him, and she grabbed a knife. You're not
leaving me, she yelled at him. I will kill you
before you leave me. Neighbors must have heard the screaming
and called the police, because an officer showed up at
Jane's front door, and Jose did not deny hitting Jane.
He went to jail for it, but then a few

(29:38):
months later, Jane filed a petition to have all of
the battery charges dropped, so in May of eighty eight,
a judge granted her request. But the incident had been
enough to push Jose away and he decided he had
to leave Jane. He moved in with some relatives, but
within days Jane came looking for him, and this time

(29:59):
she was the one asking him to come back, but
Jose resisted. He knew this was very unhealthy.

Speaker 3 (30:05):
Yeah, but before long, Jose went back to Jane. Jane
became a full time stay at home mother, and Jose
threw himself into his work to make more money, so
working two jobs, he turned every check over to Jane,
who claimed she was better with finances than he was.
And while they were far from living a middle class life,
with the money from Jose's jobs, Jason's Social Security checks,

(30:27):
and whatever extra she got from Grandma, the couple ended
up doing pretty well financially.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
Well well, I mean, they were able to pay their bills.
They weren't going on vacations or you know, they weren't
living a very comfortable life.

Speaker 3 (30:39):
Right, but they were above water.

Speaker 2 (30:41):
They were above water, which sometimes when you're young and
have little kids, that's the most you can hope for.
But then Sylvia, an old girlfriend of Jose's, moved back
into town that summer, and Sylvia contacted Jose trying to
get back with him, and she even left letters on
Jane's car promising to beat her. So Jane filed a

(31:01):
restraining order against Sylvia. In her handwritten petition, Jane told
the court that Sylvia had repeatedly harassed her by phone,
leaving obscenity laden messages on her machine, and sent letters
filled with death threats to her family and to her.
So the order was granted and Sylvia was instructed to

(31:21):
stay away from Jane, Jason, and Matthew. But Jane was
not satisfied with that. She wanted to go somewhere sunny
and started talking about Florida. So she just wanted to
get away. Jose was reluctant because he had a job
and his family. He didn't really want to leave that.
So what Jane did is she suggested a family vacation
for just a week or two in Florida. Jane was

(31:44):
like another person. She was happy and affectionate, and it
was the side of Jane that Jose had first fallen
in love with. But the only problem was Jane didn't
want to come home. So the two week vacation went on.
They went to Orlando, Miami, and Pensacola. Months passed and
they stayed in hotels and ate out at restaurants. So
Jose was worried about the money, and he figured by

(32:07):
then he'd lost his job back home.

Speaker 3 (32:10):
Then another month passed before Jane finally agreed to go home.
They had bills piled up at home, but Jose was
able to get his job back because he was willing
to work so many hours. Jane's misery returned almost immediately
upon their return. This time, she didn't want a vacation.
She wanted to move, and now she had decided on
another place, another state, California, San Diego in particular. Jose

(32:35):
didn't understand because they had no ties to the area
and had no jobs waiting them. But that's why Jane
wanted to go. She wanted to get away from everyone
and start over.

Speaker 2 (32:44):
Yeah, So at the end of nineteen eighty eight, the
family packed up and prepared for the long drive to
San Diego. Before they left, Jane stopped by to say
goodbye to her family. Jane insisted that Jose come with
her this time, saying she didn't trust her family enough
to be alone with them. So he wasn't sure what
that meant. It was really odd, but he went along,

(33:05):
and as she told her mom and dad, they seemed
to just, you know, kind of accept it. The goodbye
was tense and there were no tears or I love
you between the mother and daughter. Jane obviously still wanted
a loving goodbye from her parents, but she didn't get it.
So she seemed kind of taken aback by her mother's
cool dismissal, and Jane said fine, to hell with y'all

(33:27):
and walked out and that was it. So after the
family reached California, they stopped at a hotel in San Marcos.
It was thirty five miles from San Diego, but housing
there was cheaper, and Jane seemed okay with that. Jose
found work almost immediately, and Jane found the family a
two bedroom, one bathroom apartment, and she enrolled little Jason

(33:49):
in the first grade. But this time Jane was really odd.
Her affections for her kids grew more and more divided.
She gave Matthew kisses and held him when he cried.
Matthew looked nothing like his older, darker skinned brother. Despite
her early draw toward Hispanic men, in later years, Jane

(34:09):
became hateful toward other races, almost like racist, and the
lack of affection clearly hurt Jason. He was a quiet
child who preferred to sit alone with a toy and
entertain himself and can you blame him? Jane was never
diagnosed with any mental problems. She never saw a psychiatrist
and she refused counseling. But throughout Jane's life, people always

(34:33):
suspected there really was something wrong with her, so she
really could have benefited from some help.

Speaker 3 (34:40):
Aside from her temper, there were clear signs that something
darker was happening with Jane, but as she entered her thirties,
her paranoia and temper tantrums worsened. Jose's patience with Jane
was coming to an end by the early nineteen nineties,
and Jane in turn accused Jose of cheating on her,
and she became obsessed with the idea of him cheating
on her. She routinely looked for phone numbers in his pockets.

(35:03):
One time, she found the phone number of a male
friend in his coat pocket. She called the number and
the man's wife.

Speaker 2 (35:08):
Answered, yikes, yeah.

Speaker 3 (35:10):
Jane really lost it. She grabbed a knife from the
kitchen and opened a closet filled with Jose's clothes. She
stabbed at them, shredding everything. Jose decided not to engage
in the fight. This time, the Staddy packed his bags.
He was done.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
Well, I mean, that's wise of him to do, But
what about those poor kids. You know, they're left with
this woman who clearly has serious issues. Jose had no
money because he'd turned his checks over to Jane, so
he slept in his car that night. He became deeply depressed.
He rarely worked, and he even found himself unhoused for weeks.

(35:46):
By the spring of nineteen ninety, Jose had pulled himself
out of his depression. He got a job as a
mechanic and put a security deposit down on an apartment
in Escondido, which was just a few miles from San
Marco Ho. He didn't want to go too far, hoping
he'd be able to at least visit with the boys.
When he contacted her, Jane sounded happy to hear from

(36:08):
Jose again, and she did let him visit Jason and Matthew.
But then Jose realized that the visits had become an
excuse for Jane to just check in on him, So
on a summer day in nineteen ninety, Jane called from
a payphone and said, Matthew wants to see you. Then
on her way to his front door, Jane saw a

(36:29):
woman leaving Jose's apartment, so she let the woman walk by,
and she knocked on Jose's door. But then Jane yelled
at Jose and demanded child support. Their argument did become
physical and the police were called, and again it was
Jose who was put in jail. So the next time
he saw Matthew he was a teenager, so he was

(36:50):
estranged from his son and from Jason for years.

Speaker 3 (36:54):
Cookre. What Jose would never know is as Jane moved
just a few miles away to a tube story home
in a middle class neighborhood in San Marcos. Three bedroom

(37:15):
home had a fireplace, two bathrooms, a double car garage,
and big front and backyards. Cash from their sympathetic grandmother
helped Jane afford the place. She sent monthly checks to
her granddaughter, usually between fifteen hundred and two thousand dollars each,
so that was a big deal.

Speaker 2 (37:32):
I mean, otherwise she would have been in bad shape.
Jane's new San Marco's neighbors would remember this pretty petite
single mom who moved in with her two sons in
nineteen ninety two. They noticed she was always impeccably made
up and dressed, so neighbors assumed from her looks that
she was a well off woman, especially since she didn't

(37:53):
appear to have a regular job. Now, although she was
a private person, it was important to her that people
knew she came from an upscale background, So a divorced
woman in the neighborhood would often babysit for Jane, whose
dating life had become very active. She had so many
guys coming and going from her place it was impossible

(38:14):
to tell who was who. According to her next door neighbor,
Jane enjoyed being a single woman again. Her favorite place
to go was to the upscale community of La Joya,
known for its high end retail shops and oceanside homes
worth millions. Jane was again drawn to men of different ethnicities,
but now she was going after Arabic men. They tended

(38:37):
to have a lot of money. Jane said. She even
enrolled as a student in a nearby community college, where
she said she was learning to speak Arabic. Some of
these men did take Jane on trips. She hinted that
some of her boyfriends were paying her rent and giving
her spending money. Now, though she didn't have many friends
on the block, she did have a way of drawing

(38:58):
attention to herself. The hours she kept became a huge
topic for gossip. She was home most afternoons, but then
around eight thirty pm every night she would leave and
sometimes not come home until the very early morning, if
at all. And all this time, Matthew and Jason would
be left by themselves. They were quiet, well behaved children,

(39:20):
especially Jason, who was very shy and introverted. So most
of the neighbors did agree that Jason was a victim
of abuse, at least mental, if not physical. They couldn't
remember seeing bruises or cuts on him, and that's why
no one called the authorities. Even when Jane's screaming at
Jason could be heard throughout the neighborhood, nobody did anything

(39:42):
to get him help.

Speaker 3 (39:43):
At times, Jane was an overly concerned parent, especially when
it came to her son's education. As Jason entered junior high,
Jane became obsessed with his academic performance. Friends, teachers, and
neighbors who'd known Jason over the years said he was
a very smart little boy. Through was the sweet one,
more outgoing, but Jason was the more intelligent one. The

(40:04):
better he did in school, the more pressure Jane put
on him to excel. She expected him to bring home
straight a's, which he did. Jane showed off his report
cards to her friends. Still, as seemed it was more
about Jane than her son, you know, proved as she
was a good mother.

Speaker 2 (40:20):
Yeah, it did seem that way, you know. Jason, of
course knew that his mom had a horrible temper, but
he didn't know enough to really question her mental health
until one day she was watching a singer on TV
and she claimed that he was singing a song she
had written. So Jane claimed that this singer wanted to
kill her, and soon she focused her entire life around

(40:44):
the idea that the music industry executives were spying on her.
She stopped going out during the day, convinced that they
wanted her dead. She stopped using her cell phone and
refused to let her sons use them either, too easily traceable.
She said, So, it really does sound like schizophrenia, A
lot of paranoia.

Speaker 3 (41:04):
There's a lot of paranoia here.

Speaker 2 (41:06):
Yeah, it's normally connected with that. What el the kind
of mental illness?

Speaker 3 (41:10):
Could that be bipolar? Some antisocial personality?

Speaker 2 (41:15):
Disorders, so she really could have done with an evaluation
if nothing else.

Speaker 3 (41:19):
Oh, absolutely yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:21):
So Jane's descent into madness got much worse after she
left San Marcos. Because of her paranoia, it became hard
for her to feel comfortable in anyone place for very long,
so now she was moving constantly. This pattern continued for
so long that Matthew began to lose count of all
the places he'd lived in. In nineteen ninety eight, Jane

(41:43):
took an unusually long break from her transient lifestyle after
settling into a house in Menefee, Convinced everyone was out
to get her. She had few contacts outside of her
own sons, so Jason and Matthew were very unhappy. Despite
her screaming and her erratic behavior, Jane would have some

(42:04):
periods of lucidity where everything seemed okay. During these times,
she would cook meals, do laundry, watch TV, and even
laugh with her sons. Jane tried to set up a
life for herself and her sons. She rented a two
bedroom home in a middle class neighborhood, and then she
even appeared to start dating again. According to the neighbors,

(42:24):
they remembered seeing her go out at night, often very
well dressed, and then she even let Matthew play in
organize sports. But her behavior was never entirely normal. Everyone
in the neighborhood could hear her yelling and screaming, and
she was still very paranoid, telling one neighbor not long
after they'd met, that she was hearing voices in the

(42:45):
events of her home. This is scary stuff.

Speaker 3 (42:48):
It really is. Going along with a story, I'm just
getting a sinking feeling more and more. Yeah, it's not
end up well.

Speaker 2 (42:57):
Well, I mean, besides the fact that we're talking about it.

Speaker 3 (43:00):
Well, I know that. But yeah, if I was just
sitting down and reading a story, I'd be having a
sense of foreboding.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
Yeah, there really was. Fortunately, I guess the two boys
did seem very close. They were together all the time,
you know, and probably because they could never have friends over.
But you know, outwardly, both boys seemed happy enough. One
of their favorite things was playing roller hockey on a
side street near their home. But it wasn't only Jane's
temper that brought her to the attention of the new neighbors.

(43:30):
They noticed that she always kept her drapes closed and
she sometimes covered her windows with tinfoil, so that's a
red flag. Neighbors frequently saw her leaving her house at
one am. But Jane, who did take pride in looking good,
was now becoming overly thin, almost frail and pale, and
kind of not maintaining herself the way she used to.

(43:52):
Sometimes she'd be gone for hours, and she now kept
her schedule a secret, even from her own sons remark
through it all, Jason kept his grades up. As a
freshman in high school, he made a's and b's. He
really liked his science classes and he was good at them,
but you know, he wasn't popular. And when he finally

(44:13):
did ask a girl out on a date, Jane forbade
him from going out with the girl. So that was
pretty devastating.

Speaker 3 (44:20):
But it was Matthew and not Jason, who seethed with
anger at his mother. He thought his big brother was
weak for not lashing back at her, But Jason rarely
talked back to his mother. He had learned from experience
that it just made her worse. His best to ignore her,
Jason told Matthew. Though Matthew had it easier. They both
walked on eggshells when they were around their mother. Now

(44:40):
Jason's high GPA and advanced computer skills turned them into
a bit of a snob at home. He was a nobody.
By school, he was superior. As a senior, Jason could
sign up to be on the school's yearbook staff. His
fellow yearbook staff for recall Jason complaining about his mother
that year. He hated her. He hated that she never

(45:02):
let him go out. He was seventeen years old and
wasn't even allowed to date. A guy's night out was impossible.
He said. He wanted to graduate early to get out
of the house and get far away from her control.

Speaker 2 (45:13):
See now, he said that, but that's not what he
ends up doing. And that's one of the curious things
to me about this story. So in nineteen ninety seven,
Jane went home for a summer weekend visit, and despite
the minimal contact, her family still saw big changes in Jane.
They saw that she was paranoid about something, but for
the most part, she did seem rational. Her family just

(45:36):
ignored her oddities. So Jane had always been quirky and
temperamental and in need of attention, so they seemed to
kind of overlook that she needed help. Two years after that,
Jane's condition was much worse. She agreed for her grandparent's
sake to see them for Christmas, so she and the
boys stated at her grandparents house for the first few

(45:58):
days of the visit. Then her parents came next door
to visit with their estrange daughter and grandsons, and they
were really hoping to repair the broken relationship. But kind
of as expected, Jane immediately clashed with her mom and dad.
Then she told them she was being stalked by powerful
people who wanted to do her harm. So her mom, Nellie,

(46:19):
knew her daughter was deeply disturbed, and they tried to
tell Jane she wasn't thinking straight, but all that did
was send her into a rage. So by day four
of the family reunion, Jane made a tearful call to
an old family friend asking to stay at her place
for the rest of the visit. So her mom was
coming over too much and she just couldn't take it anymore.

(46:41):
It's not clear why Jane's family didn't try to get
her psychiatric help. Then there could no longer be any
doubt that Jane was seriously mentally ill, but she went untreated.
A short trip in nineteen ninety nine was the last
time Jane would ever visit home again, and it was
the last time her family or her childhood friends would
even see her alive. So back at home, Jason was

(47:04):
settling into college life. He was at California State University
San Bernardino. He paid for school through financial aid, which
he easily qualified for since his mother hadn't had a
job of any kind since he was a little boy,
so with no source of income for the family to
report aside from Jason's monthly Social Security checks from his

(47:25):
father's death, Jason was entitled to a state grant to
cover tuition fees and low interest loans to cover books
and living expenses. He even held down his first part
time job, working as a clerk for a mail order company,
But at seventeen years old, he was still a minor,
so despite his graduation from high school and his college enrollment,

(47:48):
he was still bound to his mother. But in the
spring of two thousand, Jane's behavior did seem to stabilize,
but unfortunately the paranoia persisted.

Speaker 3 (47:58):
Your life with Jane had been hard. She was unpredictable,
verbally abusive, sometimes physically abusive. She kept her sons on
edge with her stories of imaginary people who were out
to get her, but although that would be nothing compared
to the life Matthew and Jason are going to have
after the year two thousand. In the summer of two thousand,
Jane's insanity took a turn for the worse, and the

(48:19):
pattern began to say in Jane settled down in the
late spring to early summer, and his fall approached and
winter holidays came, she seemed to lose her grip on reality.

Speaker 2 (48:30):
Yeah each time her sickness got worse. Even though years
had passed, Jane still hung on to her belief that
that singer was out to get her, so she decided
to call the police. An officer came out to the
house and Jane tried to explain that her life was
in danger. Now, when the officer wouldn't help her, she
decided to move again. She was in such a state

(48:52):
of panic neither of her boys knew what to do,
so they just helped her pack up. I would think
that the police could have intervened at that point and
had her at least evaluated psychiatrically, but they did not.
So they did leave those boys with a woman who
was very unstable. She rented a moving van and loaded
it up with all the furniture that they had in

(49:13):
the house. Neither boy knew where they were even going,
but Jane wasn't in the mood to answer any of
their questions. Her only thought was to get out of
there immediately. She said she'd figure out what to do
next when they were out on the road. So Jane
never spoke to her neighbors. As she left, and before
deciding where to settle down, she made a stop at

(49:36):
Sun's City Mini Storage, which was just a short drive
away from their house, so once she was there, she
dumped most of the furniture there, then spent several weeks
at a Best Western hotel in Beaumont, California. Jason lost
his job because of this move, but he was able
to get a job as a clerk at the hotel.

(49:57):
But then just two months later, Jane and said it
was time to move again.

Speaker 3 (50:02):
Yeah. This time, Jane headed to the tiny town of Wildemart, California,
population of just over fourteen thousand. It was about ten
miles south of their old neighborhood, but Jane decided it
was secure, but just in case, she kept most of
the family's things in storage. She wanted to be free
to run on a moment's notice if necessary, but she

(50:24):
took on an obligation that made no sense for a
woman on the run. She decided she wanted a pet,
so Matt and Jason drove to the local shelter and
picked up a puppy. The dog would become the one
object in her life that Jane would shower with love
and affection. She took the dog everywhere with her and
treated her like a member of the family, and for
that reason, Jason began to hate the puppy.

Speaker 2 (50:47):
Well, yeah, he'd been neglected and not loved by his
mother his whole life, so I don't know, it's hard
to imagine how he felt. So on August twenty fifth,
two thousand, Jason turned eighteen years old, so technically now
there was nothing stopping him from leaving Jane's life for good.
But he didn't so only three months after leaving the

(51:07):
Best Western, he started working at the front desk at
the Country Inn in Corona, which would bring in a
few hundred dollars a month. Though at eighteen he no
longer got his monthly Social Security benefits from his father's death,
he was doing okay, and he could have supported himself independently,
but Jason didn't pick up even one of the flyers

(51:28):
on the school campus searching for a roommate. Instead, he
stayed at home with Jane. So, after Jason had turned eighteen,
the family had bought a second car, and this was
really a big deal for Jason. With his own car,
he felt like he'd have some freedom. It would be
very practical with Jason's part time work and full time

(51:49):
school schedule. Sharing a car just didn't work, and since
Jane had no job and no work history, she couldn't
even qualify for a car loan without a co signer. Remarkably,
Jason was able to co sign on the loan and
get the car. He was the one who was employed,
plus he had student loan income. The new car was
a big step up from the family's old car, so

(52:12):
Jason was having really good feelings about this, and quite reasonably,
he thought that as the co signer, and with his
school and work money helping to pay the bills, he
would get to share the new car with his mother.
But no, she told him that he would use the
old car, which was really a mess. It was missing
a back window, so it was taped up with plastic

(52:33):
and it was about twenty years old, so this really
pissed him off. He was infuriated. He really resented having
to drive the ugly car all the time, especially since
his money was going to a share of the payments
on the new one. So I'm trying to think here
about Jason's state of mind, because he could have gotten
a car and left, but he didn't, So I just

(52:54):
have to think it was something from his upbringing that
he wasn't able to leave his mom behind, because it
could have partly been to help out his brother, but
there was more to it than that. Then, living in
Wildemar did not work out for very long either, and
Jason saw the signs coming that things were bad. Only
four months passed before Jane claimed that a neighbor, a

(53:17):
man who lived across the street, had become part of
the conspiracy against her. She said he was watching their house.
She also believed her life was now being taped and
broadcast on Mexican TV stations. It's almost funny, but of
course it's not, because she truly believed this. With fewer belongings,

(53:37):
they were packed up to move, this time within minutes
she put everything she could into the family cars and
left behind anything that wouldn't fit in them. Then she
drove just a few miles into the city of Hemmet,
where she checked them into another hotel. So this wasn't
very far. I don't know why she thought this would
make a difference, but of course she was not thinking clearly. No,

(54:01):
So she brought the dog along too, and in the
morning she said she'd find a temporary kennel to keep
the dog in. So, even though most of the family's
furniture was in storage, she did have mattresses, Jason's computer,
and one TV. So life for the boys got much worse.
After leaving Wildemar. For over a year on the run,

(54:22):
Jane refused to find another place for them to live.
Over a year, she checked in and out of motels
all over eastern California. She never stayed in one place
very long. She said that would give the bad guys
time to find her, so the family of three was

(54:51):
constantly moving. Worst of all for the boys were the
nights when Jane decided that she needed to skip renting
a room altogether and forced them to sleep in their cars. Now,
occasionally Jane would pick up her dog from the kennel
where she kept her most of the time, and she
would sleep in the car with them as well. But
what the boys hated most was that they couldn't shower,

(55:13):
they had no bathroom, and they had no TV. They
were homeless, and it was also very humiliating when their
friends would know where they were living and how they
were living. So Jason would later call this time the
worst of his life. Everybody was always out to get them,
according to Jane, and Jason had contemplated suicide many times,

(55:33):
faced was sleeping in a car each night. The boys
could only look forward to the times when they had
a hotel room for a night or two. At least,
then they could have a hot shower, they had cable,
and they might even get access to a swimming pool
or a hot tub. But then most of the times
Jane just chose motels that were dirty and cheap and
were really filled with some scary people, some criminal types.

(55:56):
So their lives became so unstable that Matthew could not
attend high school five days a week. By this time,
Jane was too worried about his safety to let him
go to his classes anyway. Ultimately, Jane decided no one
could teach her son better than she could, so in
the winter of two thousand, she enrolled Matthew in a
home school program, and this was through a small area

(56:19):
in San Bernardino County. Now, under this program, Matthew checked
in with a supervising teacher just every few weeks. The
teacher would issue him his books, his lesson plans, and
his tests, and then give him his final grades. But
it was Jane who oversaw his day to day class work,
and of course Jane was really not in any position

(56:41):
to do this. Meanwhile, Jason's grade point average fell so
dramatically that the university put him on academic probation, so
that meant he'd have to improve his grades by the
next quarter or he'd be suspended. But as their life
on the run continued, Jason couldn't get his grades back
on track, and he ended up being barred from the campus.

(57:02):
So we don't know if Jason told Jane about his expulsion.
For a kid who'd always seen himself as an academic achiever,
this expulsion really damaged his self esteem. Of course, he
blamed his crazy home life, and that was valid, but
he was determined not to let it interrupt his education.
So Jason did take it upon himself to enroll at

(57:23):
San Jacento Community College in Menefee, attending for a semester
until he was able to pull his grades up enough
to re enroll at the San Bernardino College.

Speaker 3 (57:35):
Now, Jane refused to look for an apartment. For the
whole year of two thousand and one, the family slept
in a car most nights, but in two thousand and two,
as the winter nights got colder, Jane rented a low
end motel room in the city of Corona. It was
so dirty Jason thought about sleeping in his car anyway,
but it was the only place Jane considered safe for

(57:55):
the night. Now, at this point, Jason had had enough.
He was miserable in his grades. The one thing he
always took pride in had fallen from a's to c's
and THATTT wasn't happy either, But only Jason was old
enough to walk away. Finally, Jason decided to do just that.
When he told Jane, she didn't believe that he would
go through with it.

Speaker 2 (58:14):
Yeah, so this is just the part that I don't understand,
because I realized that these are young people who might
not know all their options, But Jason was pretty much
on top of things. He was able to enroll in
another college and get his grades back up and get
jobs and even buy a car. But he just remained
with his mother. Now, even if he was concerned about
leaving Matthew behind, that wasn't necessarily what had to happen either.

(58:38):
I mean, Matthew could have gotten help from the school.
I would think if they just went to the administration
and explained the situation they were living in, certainly there
was help to be had. Now, you can't totally blame
the boys either. What about Jane's family, What about teachers?
What about all the people in their lives that knew
what was going on? So they were really failed by

(58:59):
a life lot of people.

Speaker 3 (59:01):
And the other thing you might consider is maybe Jason,
even though his mother and his relationship was fractious at best,
maybe he figured he couldn't leave her alone. She could
harm herself.

Speaker 2 (59:14):
Yeah, but that's kind of where we're heading, is to
her harm anyway, So you know, I don't know. Plus,
you have to think the best thing for her would
be to go get help. She's not doing well either.

Speaker 3 (59:25):
She's not willing to get help.

Speaker 2 (59:27):
No, but I think she was at the point where
she could have been involuntarily put into a hospital. She
was so severely ill. If the criteria is being a
danger to yourself or others, she exceeded that. Yes, yeah,
And what about CPS find out these kids are living
in a car. That's not cool. CPS has taken kids

(59:48):
for less than that and put them into foster homes.
So I don't know. I just think that there was
a lot of falling through the cracks here. So things
went from bad to much worse because j and did
arrange to live with a college friend, and he continued
to go to work and to school, but then Jane
took the car away from him, so he ended up

(01:00:10):
going back to her, and this is when he started
thinking about killing Jane to make a new life for
himself in Matthew and this is where things really go bad.

Speaker 3 (01:00:19):
As he sat in his beat up Honda with his
little brother, Jason whispered the idea to Matt, I wish
she was dead. Matt didn't respond. He knew his brother
hated his mother. Wouldn't be great if we got rid
of mom, he said, life would be a hell of
a lot easier. Without her around, and matt thought that
Jason was just mad and blowing off some steam. He'd
never really hurt her. He couldn't even stand up to

(01:00:40):
her when she yelled at him.

Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
Yeah, clearly something's really askew in Jason's mind as well.
And you have to wonder if he did suffer some
mental illness. His father had killed himself, his mother was
kind of paranoid schizophrenic, so even though he did seem
like the high functioning one, some things is definitely wrong
in his thought process. Now, things did stabilize after Jason's

(01:01:04):
attempt to leave home, and Jane allowed them to stay
in a motel for several weeks. Jason used this time
to try and reason with her, so he begged her
to rent an apartment so he and Matthew could be
successful in school and have some friends, because that's one
thing Jane did seem to care about, was their education.
Despite all this, now his financial aid check came in,

(01:01:27):
so the family had extra money to cover a security
deposit and a first month's rent. Jane was still hesitant
with this, but finally relented. She was scared, but even
she was tired of running and sleeping in the car
and all that. So she promised Jason she'd look for
a place. Of course, this was not easy because Jane

(01:01:47):
didn't have a job, she had no references. But somehow,
despite her sketchy background, the landlord at a pretty well
kept apartment complex approved the family's application on a two
bedroom apartment. But the approval we immediately sent Jane into
a panic. I don't trust it, she kept saying. The
manager over there is against us. We can't take it.

(01:02:08):
So she applied to a complex and a well to
do community in Rancho Cucamonga, but Jane's income status wasn't
good enough and this application was rejected. But in her mind,
Jane interpreted that to mean that they were out together her.
So now the boys think they're never going to have
a home again, and they continued living in motels and

(01:02:30):
in the cars. So finally, after a year and a
half of life on the road in hotels, sleeping in cars,
Jason did co sign and convince Jane to move them
into an apartment, and Jason and Matt were really relieved
and excited about this.

Speaker 3 (01:02:46):
Yeah, Jason was hired at the college computer lab for
six dollars and seventy cents an hour. With his new job,
he could come and go at all hours of the
day and night. Occasionally he brought along that who sometimes
did homework, but mostly played video games and watched downloaded
TV shows. No one ever said anything to Jason about
matt being there. Jason used the extra computer time to

(01:03:08):
download music and computer games. He knew ways to download
copies of TV shows, too, including That Seventies Show and
The X Files. He burned them to discs and took
them all home to watch with Matthew. His favorite download
was the HBO show The Sopranos, a show about modern
day mob life in New Jersey. Episodes included scenes of

(01:03:29):
a mobster dragging his pregnant stripper girlfriend into an alleyway
and brutally kicking and beating her, or one showed the
vicious rape of another character, and every season fans watched
his characters got whacked or killed for disagreements or betrayals.
Jason wasn't exactly obsessed with the show, but he loved it.
He never missed an episode, including one called Whoever Did This?

(01:03:53):
In what was one of the most infamous Sopranos episodes ever.
Lead character Tony soprano gets into an argument with a
fellow hench over a racehorse. The fight escalates until Tony
beats his buddy to death. Tony and his cousin dragged
their dead associate to a nearby bathtub, where they cut
off his head, then saw off his hands before dumping
the body. So this move was supposed to make it

(01:04:15):
nearly impossible for the police to identify the corpse.

Speaker 2 (01:04:19):
Yeah, and no, don't even know if that would be true,
would it? I mean, what about DNA?

Speaker 3 (01:04:23):
Oh well you know that.

Speaker 2 (01:04:24):
Well, then why would it be nearly impossible? Well, I
guess if you don't have anything to reference or compare
it to. Yeah, it's probably like an old mob thing,
I would guess.

Speaker 3 (01:04:34):
Oh yeah, probably yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:04:36):
Well, Jason recorded that episode at school, then he watched
it on his home computer along with Matt. According to Matt,
the two watched the episode several times, but that really
wasn't unusual because they often rewatched their favorite shows. In fact,
they never talked about the episode at all, and Matt
couldn't have known, at least at that point, what kind

(01:04:57):
of impact that show would have and his brother. Life
with Jane was never normal, and she was still refusing
to get their furniture out of storage, so there were
no mattresses in the bedrooms and instead they slept in
sleeping bags on the floor. They did have a computer,
but no internet because you know, internet people can trace you,
so a TV too, but no cable, no phones, no couch,

(01:05:21):
not even a refrigerator. Still, to Matt and Jason, these
were some of the good times.

Speaker 3 (01:05:26):
Yeah, if you've slept in a car for a year, yeah,
most anything would look good.

Speaker 2 (01:05:31):
Yeah. Really, Now, we don't know what Jane did all
day while her sons were at school, because she really
had no friends, never spoke to her neighbors, didn't work,
and really rarely went outside. But to her sons, she
seemed pretty content at that point, and they were just
grateful to have her not ranting and raving or moving,
you know. But to her sons, she seemed content and

(01:05:51):
they were grateful just that she wasn't ranting or raving
at them. So after that, Jason took on more of
a fatherly role in Matt's life. He would make make
sure homework was done and that Matt got up for
school every day. When Matt got into trouble, Jason is
the one who would go to the campus and deal
with the school administrators, and Jason told Jane nothing. So

(01:06:12):
here's another thing where I think the school really failed them.
If you have a parent who won't come in and
the brother's coming in, that should be looked into.

Speaker 3 (01:06:21):
There's something there, Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:06:24):
So.

Speaker 2 (01:06:25):
Matt's grades were slipping and he was using pot, but
he never got into trouble at school after Jason spoke
to him about keeping his mother happy and staying out
of her way, but untreated for her mental illness. It
was really just a matter of time before Jane's paranoia
would return in full force, and this threatened the boy's

(01:06:45):
home and their sense of stability.

Speaker 3 (01:06:48):
Sometime in late November, fearful of what was coming next,
Jason told Matt they needed to make a decision. I
won't be homeless again, he said, he thought, as the
little brother understood what he was getting at Matt, We've
got to stop her this time. I think I'm going
to do it, but I need your help.

Speaker 2 (01:07:04):
So again, here's some very faulty thinking. Why not take
his brother and live in an apartment and work and
go to school.

Speaker 3 (01:07:12):
Why?

Speaker 2 (01:07:12):
Indeed, I don't understand this soul deciding to murder, So
it's really difficult to understand why Jason would think of
murder before considering, you know, just simply trying to move again.
He even had a second job at this time, so
he could have spent a few weeks saving up and
then just moved out. But for some unknown reason, murder
had become the more attractive option for him, and maybe

(01:07:34):
his thoughts were skewed by the shows like The Sopranos.
Who knows, you know, at that age the brain is
not fully developed and the thought processes are a little
bit off, So the thought had to have occurred to
him that if Jane were gone, no one would really
miss her either because she had no friends and rarely
talk to any family members, so only Matt would know

(01:07:54):
she wasn't around, and if Jason could get Matt involved,
Matt would be an accomplice, so he wouldn't tell anyone
about what happened. The monthly fifteen hundred dollars checks from
Jane's grandma would probably keep coming too. Jason was the
one who endorsed them most of the time anyway, and
he would deposit them into a joint account that he
shared with Jane, so he felt like he'd kill his

(01:08:17):
mother and life would just go on. But without the
constant threat of Jane's meltdowns, Matt remained quiet and he
listened to his brother hint at murdering their mother, but
Matt said he still didn't believe that Jason was really
serious that he would do it. Now, that's at least
what Matt says.

Speaker 3 (01:08:33):
We don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:08:34):
But of course Matt was just as scared of being
homeless again as Jason, and he did know their mom
was spiraling downward again, but he refused to help Jason
kill their mom if his brother could actually pull it off.
Matt decided, though, that he would not stand in Jason's way,
and that was good enough for Jason. So, okay, Jason said,

(01:08:55):
I'm going to bait her, get her angry, and then
she'll get real violent and I'll just fight back this time.
So we told Matt just to stay in his room
and wait, and he would kill their mother. Yikes, huh,
I tell you so horrifying.

Speaker 3 (01:09:10):
Now, Matt didn't know when exactly it would happen, and
in fact, he still doubted that his brother would go
through with it. But on the evening, of January fourteenth,
two thousand and three, Jason picked a fight with his mother.
When things got physical, Matt left the living room and
stayed in his room. He sat frozen in front of
their old television, holding their dog. Now, the last few

(01:09:30):
minutes were a blur, but Jason killed his mother as
she lashed out at him. He knocked her to the floor,
grabbed her heart around her throat, and choked her her death.
He stood thinking for a moment before going to get Matt.
Although the TV was on, Matt was staring at his
brother's direction when Jason opened the door. Jason didn't say
what he had done, but Matt knew he had killed
their mother. His mom was dead and his brother was

(01:09:52):
her murderer. He should have cried or felt sad, but
he didn't. Maybe after years of living the insane life
with Jane, he'd become used to dealing with but now
he felt nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:10:02):
Yeah, so Matt did walk into the living room and
saw his mom lying there, face down on the floor. Still,
there were no tears. This was his mom and he
had loved her, but she was also a brutal woman,
and the truth was that he felt like life would
be quieter without her, so Matt did roll her over
to check her pulse and there was none. Well, now what,

(01:10:24):
he asked his brother, Now what happens? So Jason took
a deep breath and said, well, we're going to have
to take care of it, just like on The Sopranos. So, wow,
it's just hard to believe this really happened. But you know,
Matt had watched the show and he knew what Jason meant.
The gruesome scene flashed through his mind of Tony Soprano

(01:10:46):
and his nephew slicing off their victims head and hands.
We have to get rid of the body, Jason said. Now,
he didn't know what he was going to do with
the head and hands after he severed them, but right
then he just wanted to dump the body. So without
a head or fingerprints, he believed the remains would be
almost impossible to identify. So Matt said he had to

(01:11:09):
go outside and smoke some pot, and as he thought
it was all over, he never even considered calling the police.
Jason was now all that he had, and if Jason
went to prison, Matt would be alone. So Matt knew
that he would protect his brother as much as he could,
because he needed his big brother now more than ever.
So what Jason did as he drove to the grocery

(01:11:29):
store for supplies. He bought rubber gloves, trash bags, bleach,
some mountain dew, and some chewing gum. I guess, you know,
just to keep hydrated and whatnot.

Speaker 3 (01:11:39):
Oh, it's probably hard work hacking up a corpse. Oh
my god, so you need a had some liquids, some
caffeine now. When he returned to the apartment, Jason took
everything to the bathroom and laid out his purchases on
the counter. He then searched the house for the family's
kitchen knife set. This was brand new, with most of
the knives still wrapped in plastic. Jason took the large

(01:12:01):
butcher knife and a pair of shearing scissors, putting them
on the bathroom counter with the rest of his supplies.
Back in the living room, he picked up his mother's
dead body. She was a heavier woman now because she'd
lost interest in her appearance a while back, so he
really struggled to drag her one hundred and seventy pound
corpse into the bathroom. Once there, he undressed her except

(01:12:23):
for her panties, he could hear Matt returning home, and
he stepped out, and Matt was quite startled to see
his brother in only his boxer shorts and a tank top.
And Jason said stay out of the bathroom, so Matt
said okay and didn't ask anything else. I guess he
didn't really want to know anymore. Matt walked back into
Jane's room, stepping over some small blood spatters that were

(01:12:46):
staining the living room carpet, and that was from the
fight that Jason and his mother had had. He turned
on the TV and waited, and Jason went back to
the bathroom. Now Jason was in there for a couple
of hours. First he put Jane over the edge of
the tub and cut off her hair. Then he decapitated
her and let most of her blood drain into the tub.

(01:13:07):
He began to saw her hands off in the tub
as well, so as blood spilled from her neck, Jason
threw up. He wrenched until his stomach was empty, and
then went back to this gruesome work. When Jason went
out to see his little brother again, he looked like
he'd been.

Speaker 2 (01:13:22):
Up for days.

Speaker 3 (01:13:24):
After stopping outside the closed dog boarding facility and dumping
the family dog. Jason got back on the freeway and
headed towards San Diego County, pulled off the highway and
into the city of Oceanside. Abruptly, he stopped the car
in front of a two story home, where the car's
headlights lit up a huge dumpster. This dumpster sat in
front of a home that was obviously being renovated. So

(01:13:45):
the boys got out and pulled at the edges of
Jason's dark round sleeping bag. But as they walked towards
the dumpster, they heard a man's stern voice. They frozen,
looked up at security guard Pete Martinez. Trying to stay
as calm as possible, Jason looked at Pete. He was
in uniform, but Jason doubted he was a cop. He
was just a security guy, so he couldn't arrest them.

(01:14:06):
The boys yanked on the bag again, intent on returning
it to their trunk, but suddenly the guard began giving
them orders. Hey stop, put the bag down, he shouted,
reaching for a pistol at his side. Jason quickly turned
from frightened to angry. Fuck you, you're just a security guard.
You can't do anything. They tossed James's remains into the
trunk and sped off, never realizing that Pete suspected they

(01:14:28):
were driving off with the body. He knew because he
had seen.

Speaker 2 (01:14:31):
A foot right, so Jason trembled behind the wheel as
he drove away. The knight had left him emotionally and
physically exhausted. He drove back onto the freeway, heading back
home with a new plan to keep the body in
the trunk of the car until morning. Now. As he
drove for a while, Jason realized that he was alongside
a very steep cliff. It was about two am and

(01:14:54):
the road was pretty deserted, so he decided this was
the place to do it. He pulled over to it
rest stop and got out. Then Jason scooped up the
bag from the trunk. As he stood on the cliff's edge,
he lifted Jane out of the sleeping bag, deciding that
it might be too much evidence to leave behind, so
he pushed Jane's nearly naked remains as hard as he

(01:15:15):
could over the edge, but even drained of most of
her blood and missing her head and her hands. She
was so heavy that the shove unbalanced him. He slipped,
and for a minute he thought he might follow her
right down that hill, but he didn't. Once they got

(01:15:42):
back home, the boys went to Jane's room and they
fell asleep. I don't know how, but despite his exhaustion,
it was a restless night for Jason. He gave up
at around five am and decided to take care of
some more details. So he grabbed a bunch of trash
bags and gathered up the club that his mom had
been wearing, his shoes and pants, the sleeping bag, and

(01:16:04):
the rubber gloves. It was still dark out when he
drove to Hemmett, a few cities over and tossed everything
into a dumpster behind a mini mart. Now when he
got back home, Matt was awake. You should go to
school today, he told him, because just because she's not
here doesn't mean you don't have to go to school.
So while Matt was at school that day, Jason cleaned

(01:16:24):
up the apartment. He scrubbed at the bloodstains on the carpet,
but they wouldn't come out, so he decided he would
buy a large rug later and just cover them up.
He drenched the bathroom with bleach and cleaned until every
spot of blood was gone. Once he felt satisfied that
he'd done the best he could. He took his backpack
and he left for his afternoon classes. Before he left, though,

(01:16:46):
he put Jane's head and hands in a coat closet
and a Duffel bag in their apartment, so those were
still there.

Speaker 3 (01:16:52):
They clearly didn't give this much thought in terms of
disposally the body.

Speaker 2 (01:16:56):
Well, not thinking clearly at all, you know. Matthew didn't
know for sure that his mother had been dismembered until
he saw news report the next day reporting that a
woman's body had been found with no head or hands.
Jason told Matthew not to touch the Duffel bag in
the closet. So Jason's plan was for them to say

(01:17:17):
that Jane had run off with a new boyfriend. The
last they'd heard she was in Chicago. So for the
next several days, Jason and Matthew had the freedom that
they'd been hoping for all along, and for the first
time they were able to have friends over to go shopping.
They bought themselves cell phones, which Jane had always forbidden.

(01:17:37):
But after about just one week of this new lifestyle,
things would fall apart for Jason and Matthew. The security
guard who had approached them near the dumpster on the
night they dumped Jane's body. Had taken down their license
plate number and reported suspicious activity, so when the plate
was run, the names of Jason and Jane Bautista came up.

(01:17:59):
After pulling up their driver's license information, they confirmed that
Jane fit the description of the headless body that had
been found. So they're able to put this together pretty quickly,
and I witnessed basically basically.

Speaker 3 (01:18:12):
Yeah. The security guard, Peter Martinez, also confirmed that Jason
was the man he had seen trying to unload a
body into the dumpster. That night. Police went to the
college and confronted Jason, and Jason agreed to go down
to the station for an interview, and when he was there,
he finally confessed to killing his mother. He went back
through his childhood, explaining all the emotional and physical abuse

(01:18:34):
he and his brother had endured. He said that in
the night of her death, Jane was coming at him
with a knife, so he's arguing self defense. But then
you might say, with someone who acted in self defense,
really goes so far to hide and dispose of her
course well.

Speaker 2 (01:18:48):
And dismember her. Yeah, yeah, and that makes no sense.
I think if he wanted to get away with the
self defense thing, he should have called the police right away.

Speaker 3 (01:18:57):
Yeah, right after he killed her.

Speaker 2 (01:18:58):
Yeah, yep. Then he may have gotten some kind.

Speaker 3 (01:19:01):
Of a break. Well, he would have gotten a big.

Speaker 2 (01:19:03):
Break probably, yeah, because she's an abusive mother. And if
he'd fought with her and said he was trying to
defend himself and his brother, yeah, I mean, he might
have got manslaughter at most.

Speaker 3 (01:19:14):
Well, he would have gotten a lot better deal.

Speaker 2 (01:19:16):
Well, yes, because this was first degree murder with dismemberment.
So this was all confirmed after a search of their
apartment found the rest of Jane's remains. Investigators arrested Jason
on January twenty fourth, two thousand and three, and later
that same day, Matthew was also arrested for first degree murder.
He was facing twenty five years to life in prison,

(01:19:39):
as the prosecutor planned to try him as an adult
right alongside his brother. Matthew had not participated in the
murder itself, but he certainly had aided and abedded his brother.
So the police offered Matthew a deal if he would
testify against his brother and tell them that Jason had
murdered their mother In premeditation and not in self defense,

(01:20:01):
he would face a much lighter sentence. So Matthew said
that his brother had spoken about killing Jane at least
a year prior to her murder, and that he had
planned to start a fight with Jane so that he
could claim self defense. So I really think Matthew had
no choice but to do that. There was no way
that Jason was going to get out of this first

(01:20:23):
degree murder conviction no matter what Matthew did.

Speaker 3 (01:20:26):
True, but Matthew's also looking out a bit for himself.

Speaker 2 (01:20:29):
Oh, He's totally looking out for himself. Yeah, but I'm
just saying, even if he decided to go down for
his brother, they both would have gone down. So he
saved himself. And you know, he didn't commit the murder,
but he certainly should have called for help.

Speaker 3 (01:20:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:20:44):
Yes, So, when Jason went on trial in January of
two thousand and five, Matthew took the witness stand and
told the jury that Jason had mentioned killing his mother
multiple times before he actually went through with it. Even
more damning was testimony from the medical examiner, who said
that Jane was not just knocked down and strangled in
self defense. She'd been severely beaten, so there'd been some

(01:21:08):
rage involved. He had to have had his hands squeezing
her neck for at least five minutes before he could
be sure she was dead, and he had definitely wanted
her dead. So Matthew had held up his end of
the bargain in testifying against his brother, and he had
pleaded to being an accessory to murder. So he was
sentenced to just seven hundred and forty nine days in jail,

(01:21:31):
so a little over two years. He had already been
in jail for that long though by the time the
trial happened, so he was immediately released. Afterwards, Matthew reunited
with his father, Jose, for the first time since he
was a young child.

Speaker 3 (01:21:45):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:21:46):
Yeah, so that's interesting. So you have to wonder was
Jose trying to be a part of his life and
was just held off by Jane. It's quite possible, I think.

Speaker 3 (01:21:54):
So. Yeah, Jason was found guilty of first degree murder
and he was sentenced to twenty five years to life.
After sentencing, the judge gave a strong statement in Jane's defense.
She said, you saw no help from professionals. It is
inconceivable that you were unaware that there are means to
deal with your mother's illness other than resorting to violence.

(01:22:15):
Rather than explore those options, he chose to dismember the body.

Speaker 2 (01:22:18):
Yeah, I mean it's a good point. You can't really
think that Jason was thinking. Clearly, he'd certainly suffered his
own problems and abuses. But I would think a kid
that's smart enough to go to college and work and
do all these things should have known better, should have
known to get her help. But like I said earlier,
not just him, many many people who encountered Jane and

(01:22:40):
the children throughout their lives.

Speaker 3 (01:22:42):
He just went on the list.

Speaker 2 (01:22:43):
I mean, what about Jose Why didn't he step in?
There's just a lot of questions there that, you know,
this tragedy probably didn't have to happen, So violence is
never the answer, of course, But I still do wonder
why neighbors and family members didn't do anything to try
and help the family and put an end to the abuse.
And I did read that CPS had been called to

(01:23:04):
the house at least once, but ultimately they did nothing.
Jason had been hit by Jane with a hockey stick
once and he'd gone to the hospital, but the family
had lied and told doctors it was an accident, so
that was never reported. Jane's parents, though, had to have
known that she was mentally ill, so why did they
do nothing to help her or their grandchildren? Also, Jason

(01:23:27):
had either seen his father take his own life or
seen him dead, you know, bleeding and taken away on
a stretcher, So how did that affect him? So did
the system fail? Jason and Matthew and Jane?

Speaker 3 (01:23:39):
You want the short answer.

Speaker 2 (01:23:41):
No, I want the long answer, because you always give
me the short answer.

Speaker 3 (01:23:44):
They certainly did fail.

Speaker 2 (01:23:45):
What could have been done differently?

Speaker 3 (01:23:47):
Someone could have stepped forward. I'd even say right from
the very beginning when she beat her mother up so
badly that she needed to be hospitalized, that would be
the time to get an evaluation.

Speaker 2 (01:23:58):
Yeah, because that's not normal at all. No, I mean,
teenagers and parents do fight, but not like physically, and
certainly not to the point of hospitalization. And that makes
you wonder did the mental illness go back generations? Perhaps?

Speaker 3 (01:24:11):
Perhaps? Yeah, but that's still beating of that magnitude. There
should have been some follow up as to why that occurred.

Speaker 2 (01:24:19):
Yes, And I would think the schools had to know
something was going on too. With these kids.

Speaker 3 (01:24:24):
Yeah, neighbors. I know she didn't socialize very much.

Speaker 2 (01:24:27):
But no neighbors heard screaming and yelling.

Speaker 3 (01:24:30):
People were around them enough to get some idea of
what was going on.

Speaker 2 (01:24:34):
Yeah, I mean, I think sometimes it's important to be
a nosy neighbor when it gets to a certain point.
It's looking out for your fellow humans, really, especially when
you're speaking about children. So a horrible thing that Jason did,
but also just a complete tragedy for the family for
Jane as well. I do agree with the judge that
Jane was mentally ill. She did not deserve to be murdered.

(01:24:57):
That certainly wasn't the solution. No, Okay, well, we do
have some feedback we're going to do today, So before
we move on to that, a quick reminder about our
premium TCB show where you can get early, ad free
and bonus shows. Also get yourself a gift and a
thank you note because we do love our members in
we have a lot of fun doing our bonus episodes.

(01:25:19):
So if you're interested in this, you can just go
to tigrabber dot com slash subscribe, or you can go
to Patreon dot com slash ti Grabber other ways we'd
ask you to give us some support is we always
love to get a five star review on Apple Podcasts,
and we love to get your emails and voicemails with
feedback and case suggestions. If you do have feedback or

(01:25:42):
a case suggestion, you know, just a comment on anything
we've covered or something you'd like us to cover, send
us an email to True Crime Brewery at tigrabber dot com. Also,
voicemails can be sent by clicking on the voicemail link
in our show notes or on our website and you
can record right from your device. We would love to
hear from you.

Speaker 3 (01:26:09):
It's time for listener feedback. So we've got a voicemail
from Bex, who's a frequent contributor to our voicemails.

Speaker 2 (01:26:29):
I think Bes and Justin, who are two voicemails, are
frequent flyers friends of the show.

Speaker 3 (01:26:36):
Yeah, Justin's been a couple times. I think Bes has
been three or four times. We love to hear from
you guys.

Speaker 2 (01:26:41):
Well, thank god for that. We do get a lot
of voicemails, but it's mostly just saying nice things about us,
which we love, but we don't really like to play
those on the show. I'm sure not everyone wants to
hear our praises as much as we do. So first
let's play Bex's voicemail and then we can talk about it.

Speaker 3 (01:26:58):
Let's do Jill.

Speaker 5 (01:27:00):
It's Becks. It's been a while, but I'm back with
a case suggestion. This is the attack of Eric Hill
and the murder of Selma Hill. And apparently there's an
episode of the TV show Worst x Ever about this case,
but that's not where I heard about it. It's super fascinating.

(01:27:22):
It's about a marriage goat gone wrong, and I feel
like you both do an excellent job on domestic cases
like this. There's lots of twists and turns. It's really strange,
very unique. So definitely would recommend it for a future episode,
regular episode or Patreon. And if you are all listening

(01:27:45):
and don't already, follow Dick and Jill on Patreon, their
episodes there are definitely worth it. Anyway, hope you all
are well, take care bye.

Speaker 2 (01:27:55):
All right, a little plug there from Bes as well,
that's right. Yeah, so yeah, Becks, I actually did watch
the episode on Worst x Ever. I do remember this
and it really interesting. Actually, when I watched it, I thought, oh,
we should cover that. So great suggestion, thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:28:12):
Yeah, she's given us the impetus to do that.

Speaker 2 (01:28:14):
Yeah. So this case, Selma Hill was killed January seventh,
two thousand and nine, and her grandson Eric Hill was
attacked but survived. So Eric was in the midst of
an acrimonious divorce from Rosa Hill. He had full custody
of the couple's daughter. But Rosa and her mom were
kind of like over the edge about this. They had

(01:28:35):
really you know, I'm not going to say crazy, but
not real stable, and they intended to kill Eric and
take the daughter back. As if how would that work, right?
How would they even think that was going to work?
So really interesting case.

Speaker 3 (01:28:48):
Well, it was an interesting case that I read about,
and we should do it.

Speaker 2 (01:28:54):
Okay, Well, I think that's a great suggestion. Thank you,
becks And we have a voicemail from Justine.

Speaker 4 (01:29:01):
Hello, Dick and Jill. My name is Justin. I have
a case suggestion of the strange death of Monica Dunn
where she was married to a motor officer Paul Dunn
in New Mexico. It's a true story of lies, family, secrets,
and death. I also have another case suggestion on Joanne

(01:29:25):
Katrinac from Casquilla, Pennsylvania. So on Thursday December fifteenth, nineteen
ninety four, she was supposed to go shopping with her
mother in law and her three month old son, Alex,
but she never arrived at her mother in law's place.
And there's the suspicion of Patricia rhar did she actually
kill Joe Anne or is there something else involved? I

(01:29:45):
would definitely like to hear your guy suggestins on that case.
I have also I mentioned before in the past about
don Hackney where she died shortly shortly before Christmas. I
would definitely like to hear if your thoughts about returning
of that case or suggesting and looking into that as well.

(01:30:06):
And also have the comment on the Scott foo Later
case that you did last week. Oftentimes people join the
Church of Juice Christ of Latter day Saints because they
find something missing in their life, maybe the church they
belonged to, like Scott's case that the Catholic Kurachi didn't
everything I think it was they wanted to have, or
they're looking for a potential spouse or a relationship with God.

Speaker 2 (01:30:30):
Oh he must have run out of time. Okay, Well,
thank you, justin so what have we.

Speaker 3 (01:30:36):
Got here, Well, just some quickies. Nineteen ninety four, Paul
Dun's a strange wife, Monica died by a gunshot at
her home. Her children and Paul were in the house
when the shooting occurred. Paul claimed his wife had killed herself.
Paul was fired from his job as a policeman and
has tried for murder. The jury deliberated for just one
hour before finding him not guilty.

Speaker 2 (01:30:57):
No, that's unusual, such a short deliberation for a not
guilty verdict.

Speaker 3 (01:31:01):
Yeah, well, the evidence against someone else being the perpetrator
was so overwhelming.

Speaker 2 (01:31:07):
Okay, so that's what the defense had, as they had
an alternate suspect. Yes, okay, that's interesting. We'll look into
that one.

Speaker 3 (01:31:14):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:31:14):
What about joe Anne. April nineteen ninety five, the decomposed
bodies of Joanne Katrinak and her toddler son Alex were
discovered in the woods of Heidelberg Township, Pennsylvania. So they've
been missing for four months and Joanne had been shot
once in the face and stabbed nineteen times. Now, her
husband's ex girlfriend was found guilty of these murders. So

(01:31:37):
that's brutal, isn't it.

Speaker 3 (01:31:39):
I mean, getting shot in the face, that will pretty
much take care of killing you, yep. Than stabbed nineteen times.

Speaker 2 (01:31:45):
Well, that's very hateful. But then the sun too, jeez,
and the infant son that's horrible, yeah, very horrible, and
then the later case. I think that there had to
be a lot more going on behind the scenes there.
Not sure of why he decided to become a Mormon,
but I think it means that he kind of had
his own direction. He was going in a little bit

(01:32:07):
different than her.

Speaker 3 (01:32:08):
I can see that.

Speaker 2 (01:32:09):
Yeah, it seems like she kind of went along with it,
maybe just to be with him at some point, but
they were both very intelligent people. And I don't know.
I mean, there's still a bit of a doubt that
maybe he was sleepwalking. Don't really know, because he certainly
didn't seem like the murdering kind. I think the police
and everyone were surprised when they did not find a
girlfriend or life insurance or anything like that. I think

(01:32:31):
they expected to find something like.

Speaker 3 (01:32:33):
That, okay, but there was so many other actions and
evidence at the time of his sleepwalking mishap.

Speaker 2 (01:32:41):
The things he did that seemed like a sleeping person wouldn't.

Speaker 3 (01:32:44):
Do cannot by him being asleep the whole time.

Speaker 2 (01:32:47):
Yeah, that's a really strange case. Okay, so we just
had the two voicemails, going to do the emails next week.
Is that the plan.

Speaker 3 (01:32:53):
That's the plan.

Speaker 2 (01:32:54):
Okay, Well it has been a long episode, so that
seems acceptable to me. So thanks everyone for listening and
for everything you do. We really appreciate it, and we
will see you next time at the quiet end. All right,
bye bye bye, guys.

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