October 10, 2023 • 56 mins
If you betray all those to blame for your problems, who is left in the end?
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Marcy (00:00):
Welcome to Crime Raven; true crimes, real life stories
(00:03):
from law enforcement and issuescrime fighters face.
This podcast highlights crimesresearched by retired Detective
Sergeant Mark Rein, usingpublicly available information,
court records and personalrecollections.
Content may be graphic,disturbing, or violent.
Listener discretion is advised.
Suspects are considered innocentuntil found guilty in a court of
(00:25):
law.
One of the places that you canlisten to Crime Raven is on
Audible.
With an Audible membership, youcan access podcasts, audiobooks,
and original content.
To support Crime Raven, Audibleis allowing our listeners to try
it for free for 30 days if youvisit
audibletrial.com/crimeraven.
(00:47):
That's free access for 30 daysat audibletrial.com/crimeraven.
We'll also put the link in theshow notes.
Mark (01:15):
Brutus and his partner stood face to face in the living
room of the painfully small twobedroom apartment.
It was dark save for theflickering television on one
wall, but the light was enoughfor him to see the fear in her
eyes.
He wasn't worried.
The pep talk where Brutus hadlaid it all out had gone well.
She agreed that the plan was agood one.
(01:36):
These were people who hadscrewed them over, tried to ruin
their lives, but it hadn'tworked.
So here they were at theprecipice.
They were simply going to givethem what they had coming.
This was their play andpayback's a bitch.
And revenge is best when itcomes with a cash bonus.
Brutus reached up and grippedthe girl's shoulders.
(01:58):
You ready?
She nodded.
Eyes downcast.
Okay, we'll do it.
Just like I said, it'll bequick.
Brutus paused long enough to seethe second nod before releasing
her.
She picked up the TV remotewhile he retrieved the knife
from the kitchen.
The girl raised the volume onthe television slowly.
Going for that sweet spot thatwould cover other noises Yet not
(02:20):
be immediately alarming initself she looked at the bedroom
door Brutus was there, hunchedover, one hand on the handle,
controlling the size of thecrack as he peered into the dark
room beyond.
Brutus clutched the knife in hisother hand.
It hung down in front of him ashe concentrated.
The blade's silver flickeringbright in time with the
(02:42):
television.
He turned his head, smiled, andnodded just before opening the
door wide enough to slip inside.
The girl put the remote down andfollowed Brutus into the
bedroom.
She could see the woman layingasleep on her back a split
second before Brutus jumped ontop, straddling her chest while
simultaneously pulling a pillowacross her face.
(03:02):
The lady barely got out a soundbefore it was muffled.
She began to struggle andthrash, but Brutus rode her
writhing body, his legs pinningher arms down as his chest and
forearms crushed the pillow ontoher face.
Once Brutus stabilized, hereared back, centering the knife
blade, gripping with both fists.
He plunged the blade downward,using his weight to drive it
through the pillow and into thewoman's face.
(03:28):
Brutus laid over his victim ashe felt her intentional
movements turn to spasms andthen to tremors.
A couple of minutes later, sherelaxed, and Brutus sat up.
Still straddling the woman, helooked down at the knife hilt.
Turned to the girl, standing afew feet away, and smiled.
It's done.
The girl, her expression flat,nodded.
(03:51):
What happened next was not partof the plan.
Brutus and his partner had beensniffing around each other for a
couple of weeks.
He, the elder was more forceful.
She the younger, impressionablewith low impulse control.
Having just broken one of thestrongest taboos.
They blew through others withoutthought.
While the woman in the nextbedroom lost her mortal heat,
Brutus, and the girl burned uptheir bed.
(04:14):
The completion of phase onemeant that the partners were
locked in.
There could be no turning back.
But in phase two, the advantagehad shifted.
If phase one was an invasion,they would now be operating from
their captured beachhead.
yes, the peril of discoveryremained.
But Brutus now had the sensethat the odds were in their
favor.
So after a period of relaxationand more illicit sex, he
(04:38):
directed the girl to make aphone call.
The old woman knocked on theapartment door, and the girl
opened.
They exchanged greetings,smiles, the girl stepping aside
to allow entry.
And as she passed, the old womanasked, She's still in bed?
And receiving a nod, the womanmarched confidently past.
(05:02):
Brutus slid from behind theclosing door, trailing the lady
as she crossed the apartment.
He intercepted his prey in themiddle of the living room.
The plastic bag held at chestlevel, gripped on each side with
the opening facing down.
He pulled it forcefully over herhead.
The gathered plastic functionedas a garotte, cinched tight by
the lady's forward momentum.
(05:22):
He jerked the slack out,twisting the excess into one
fist, effectively sealing herhead in plastic.
His training kicked in, wrappinghis free arm around her throat,
pulling her off balance, andspinner down to the floor.
Brutus could feel shock anddisbelief run through the old
lady's body.
There's almost no resistance asshe collapsed.
Even then, her struggle waspitifully weak just to
(05:44):
disorganized, attempt to freeherself.
As she panicked, Brutus feltnothing but contempt for her as
she did the same act as theother lady.
Flailing, shaking, he'd heardpeople call that the funky
chicken.
Then she was all limp noodle.
He was only sorry that shewasn't facing him.
He wanted to look into her eyes.
(06:05):
He wanted to be the last thingshe saw in this life.
She had been merciless with him.
He bet she wanted to repent thatshit now.
So with phase two complete andthe women's body stacked in the
bathtub, it was time to goshopping.
Brutus's list included areciprocating saw, industrial
trash bags, shovels, buckets.
Jackhammer, and rental car.
(06:26):
Phase three started with Brutus,sitting quietly in the most
comfortable chair in the livingroom of a modest house in the
city's east suburbs.
Late afternoon, sunlightfiltered through the blinds,
creating a dusky patchwork oflight and dark.
Brutus chair was cast in shadow.
(06:49):
He had a little time to think.
Almost done.
The apartment was clean as cleanas it was gonna get the car
parked in the driveway outsidewas not outta place.
It would ring no alarm bellswith nosy neighbors and they
would never know about hiscargo.
Thankfully, this was January, soeverything was cool.
(07:10):
Brutus allowed himself to dreamabout the future.
He was about to hit the lottery.
It would be a new start.
Of course, you can only play thefortune you're dealt.
And in the game of life, he hadbeen drawing shit for years.
He lost so many hands that heforgot what winning felt like.
But that was changing.
Now, he controlled the cards.
(07:31):
And if need be, he was going todeal himself some luck from the
bottom of the deck.
After a little while, Brutusheard stirring in the back of
the house.
Floorboards creaked, the toiletflushed.
A water faucet on, then off, adoor open, and movement in the
hallway.
Brutus stood, smile on his face.
(07:53):
The old man, a little stooped atninety one, and stiff from his
afternoon nap, stepped into theliving room and flipped the
light switch.
Headed to the kitchen, he almostdidn't see the young man a few
feet away.
And when he did, he looked up, asmile and recognition spreading
across his wrinkled face.
Oh, you're here.
A little confused.
Brutus grinned back as a floodof rage washed over him.
(08:16):
He stifled a laugh, closing onhis prey while bringing the tool
up.
He thought, hammer time, as hesmashed it down.
Marcy (08:43):
On February 8, 2005, St.
Charles County Deputy SheriffAnthony Hoisick.
was conducting a traffic stop onInterstate 70, westbound, just
outside of St.
Louis, Missouri.
Deputy Hoisek spotted a sedandriving over the speed limit,
weaving aggressively in and outof traffic without signaling.
(09:04):
He had difficulty catching up tothe car, and when he could
finally start a traffic stop,the vehicle didn't pull over
immediately, but made severalcat and mouse evasive maneuvers.
The car abruptly swerved to exitthe highway.
Say spread across the parkinglot, and then back into busy
traffic on a side street.
just as Deputy Hoysik was aboutto call out that he was in a
(09:26):
pursuit, the car pulled to theside of the road and stopped.
The deputy approached withcaution.
The vehicle, a mid sized fourdoor with Indiana plates, had
two occupants.
Hoisick noted that householdproperty cluttered the back
seats.
The driver identified himself as29 year old Kenneth Allen Jr.,
(09:47):
producing a Florida driver'slicense and an Indiana ID card
to back up that claim.
The girl didn't have any ID, buttold the officer that her name
was Carrie Allen,
Mark (09:58):
junior's
Marcy (09:59):
18 year old sister.
She gave a home address inNoblesville, Indiana.
When asked for a vehicleregistration, he handed over a
rental agreement.
The paperwork showed that theychecked the car out in
Indianapolis with a scheduledreturn in Las Vegas.
The long distance, one wayrental was unusual.
(10:21):
Deputy Hoisick thought that thecouple in the car was unusually
nervous.
The whole situation seemssuspicious.
His driving, the one way rental,the girl with no ID.
He questioned them separately.
The first interview was thedriver, on the side of the road
standing between two cars.
The deputy learned that thedriver was unemployed and was
(10:42):
moving to Las Vegas to...
Start a new life.
As the passenger sat inside,Hoycik leaned into the window,
speaking quietly.
With the noise of passingtraffic, the driver couldn't
hear what they said.
These interviews only increasedthe deputy's suspicion that
something was seriously wrong.
(11:03):
Next, Deputy Hoisek asked forconsent to search the car, which
the driver allowed.
As he sorted through thecontents of the back seat, he
found several suspicious items.
Credit cards and identificationbelonging to Leander and Betty
Bradley.
The driver and passengervolunteered the Bradleys had
(11:23):
been their grandparents.
but were deceased.
A deeper dive into the trunkproduced a bag containing a
stash of jewelry and a largeamount of cash.
There were also clothes andbedding that were alarmingly
stained with dried blood.
The contents of the car furtherintensified Deputy Hoisick's
(11:44):
suspicions.
Working through his dispatchcenter, he learned that the
Bradleys were listed as stillbeing alive.
So he requested an Indianapolispolice conduct a welfare check
at the Noblesville apartment ofSharon Allen, the mother, and
the Linwood home of Leander andBetty Bradley, the grandparents.
(12:06):
The officer wanted to not onlymake sure that they were all
alright, but also to contactsomeone who could verify the
driver and passengers stories.
Indianapolis police dispatchedOfficer Michael Horn.
A welfare check request from anout of state agency is unusual,
so he called Deputy Hoisickdirectly.
(12:29):
Upon hearing the circumstancesof the traffic stop, Officer
Horn agreed that the situationwas suspicious.
He arrived at the Linwoodaddress, knocked, and received
no answer.
He ran a computer check on thevehicles parked in the driveway
and confirmed that they belongedto the Bradleys.
At that moment, a neighbor fromacross the street approached
(12:51):
Officer Horn and said somethingis wrong in that house.
The neighbor explained that theBradley home was the talk of the
neighborhood.
No one had seen the owners inweeks, but their grandchildren
had been hanging around doingthings that made people nervous.
Officer horn with help from theneighbor was able to break into
(13:12):
the house.
The officer walked through,seeing nothing immediately
alarming, but noticed that partof the concrete slab in the
basement had been recently repoured.
Horne called Deputy Hoisick backand described his observations.
When he got to the part aboutthe cars parked in the driveway,
(13:34):
Hoisick asked the passenger toconfirm that those were her
grandparents only vehicles.
Instead, she exclaimed, Hekilled him and buried him in the
basement.
Confused, Deputy Hoisick asked,Who?
She replied, My brother killedthem and he buried them and he
killed my mother, but I don'tknow what he did with her body.
(13:57):
The passenger's revelationchanged a simple traffic stop
into a full blown murderinvestigation.
The brother and sister weretaken into custody and quickly
transferred to the St.
Charles County Sheriff's Officewhile they impounded the rental
as evidence.
Back in Indianapolis, policetaped off the Linwood and
Noblesville's residences.
(14:21):
While the Indy cops waited,investigators began digging into
the prisoner's backgrounds.
For the first 14 years of hislife, Junior was raised
Indianapolis by his mother andfather.
Theirs was an unhappy marriage,burdened with financial
(14:43):
problems, a new house, and whenhe was 11, a baby sister.
The new child did nothing toslow the marriage death spiral,
with mom Sharon and dad KennethSr.
fighting with increasingregularity.
Finally, in 1990, the unhappycouple split, in more ways than
one.
(15:03):
The agreement was that Ken Sr.
would take Junior to live withhim in Florida.
While Sharon kept a baby sisterin Indianapolis.
Junior didn't react well tobeing separated from his mother,
sister, and extended family.
He was rebellious through histeenage years and a marginal
student.
Shortly after Junior graduatedfrom high school, he got married
(15:25):
and joined the Marines.
He didn't adjust to adultingwell.
He nurtured substance andgambling addictions and was
abusive towards his wife.
The gambling took over his life.
When he was still working, hetook his paychecks directly to
the closest casino.
When he had no job, he wouldbeg, borrow, and scrape just to
(15:47):
feed his habit.
One source of money that Juniorregularly tapped was his
grandparents, Leandra and BettyBradley, who lived in the
Indianapolis suburbs.
Junior lied to them, leadingthem to believe that he was just
having cash flow problems commonto young men.
They felt sorry for him afterthe forced move to Florida, so
(16:10):
they regularly gave him money.
Junior's problems came crashingdown on him in 2002 when he was
convicted on multiple charges,including counterfeiting, theft,
forgery, and credit card fraud.
He served two years in prison.
His conviction opened hisgrandparents eyes who realized
(16:32):
that he had lied to them foryears and they had been enabling
their grandson's addictions.
They decided that tough love wasthe best course of action and
they cut him off financiallywhile he was still in prison.
Junior was 29 when he wasreleased.
Broke and with nowhere to go, hetried to cajole his grandparents
(16:53):
into starting up monthly supportpayments again, but they
refused.
The Allen divorce, back in 1995,hadn't worked out well for
Sharon Allen or her daughter.
Despite the fighting overfinances, the family had lived
comfortably.
Once separated, Sharon could notmaintain the lifestyle, and
(17:15):
after losing the new house, wasforced to live in government
subsidized housing.
The daughter grew up surroundedby poverty.
Fresh out of prison, Junior wasforced to move in with his
mother and sister in their smallapartment.
His new living situationdisgusted him, and it wasn't
long before he brought hislittle sister in on his plan to
(17:38):
improve their circumstances.
During the afternoon and eveningfollowing the traffic stop,
Missouri police interviews andbackground investigation broke
open the entire case.
It turned out that Junior,bitter from being cut off,
blamed his grandparents for hisfinancial situation.
He convinced his sister thatthey hadn't been exactly
(18:00):
generous to her either.
He told her that they were rich,they were old, and at the end of
their useful lives he said thatthey could take grandma and
grandpa's money and start fresh.
They would just have to killthem.
She was shocked at first, butwarmed to the idea as her
brother talked.
Their grandparents were old,after all, and it wasn't fair
(18:25):
that they got to live in adecent house.
She agreed to the plan, as longas their mother approved.
The problem was, when Juniordescribed his scheme to his
mother, she was not at allenthusiastic.
She dismissed the idea ofmurdering her parents and warned
him not to mention it everagain.
Junior told Baby Sister abouttheir mother's refusal,
(18:47):
convincing her that the mother'sknowledge of the plot was a
liability for both of them.
One night, right before NewYear's, and barely one month
after his prison release, Hisbaby sister turned up the
television in their living roomto cover the noises, while
Junior crept into the bedroomwhere their mother lay sleeping.
(19:13):
Brother and sister left thebedroom exhilarated.
They celebrated with vodka andsex in the only bedroom that
didn't hold a corpse.
With their mother's dead bodyrotting in her bed they found
themselves on a clock.
The smell from the room startedalmost immediately.
And that had to be addressedbefore it attracted attention.
(19:35):
The pair ransacked theirmother's belongings.
It was a pitiful loot.
They didn't get much because,quite simply, she didn't have
much.
Continuing with the plan, shecalled her grandmother, 76 year
old Betty Bradley.
She told Betty that Sharon wassick, and they needed help.
When Betty arrived, Junior mether inside the apartment door.
(19:58):
Now with two generations ofwomen stacked in the bathtub,
they went shopping.
They had a complete list ofitems to help clean up their
crime.
The pair used their newpurchases to dismember and wrap
their mother and grandmother.
They stowed the parts in thecar.
Fortunately for them, theweather the first week of
January in Indianapolis is cold,slowing decomposition.
(20:23):
Junior drove the death mobile tothe Linwood residence using his
grandmother's keys.
He let himself in.
When he arrived, he found 91year old Leander napping in his
bed When his grandfather finallywoke up and walked into the
living room, junior attacked himwith a hammer, crushing his
(20:44):
skull and face.
With two buddies stashed in thecar and one in the bathtub.
He used a rented jackhammer toopen up a hole in the basement
slab of the house.
It took a while to open theconcrete.
Dig the pit, dump the bodies in,cover them and repour the slab.
(21:04):
With her brother disposing ofthe evidence.
She kept busy on the computer.
She liked the new, anything goestack her life had taken.
She invited several onlinefriends to the house to party
and have sex with her in junior.
They were meticulous in theirlooting of their grandparents
financial assets.
Leander and Betty Bradley had aliquid nest egg of about 200,
(21:28):
000.
And it didn't take long for thegrandkids to access it.
Junior celebrated by feeding hisaddiction.
He hit the paddle boat casinoson the Ohio River.
Hard.
He lost 60, 000 in four days.
After a couple of weeks ofliving in his grandparents house
and burning through their money,Junior grew restless.
(21:52):
It seemed like they were on anew clock.
It was only a matter of timebefore someone, friends,
relatives, came looking.
He preferred not to be here toanswer uncomfortable questions.
Las Vegas, ground zero for a manwith his proclivities, was
calling.
Fortunately, the trip would putalmost 2, 000 miles between him
(22:14):
and the people buried under thehouse.
This was how, on February 8,2005, they were stopped in a
rental car headed west just pastSt.
Louis, Missouri.
They had made it barely fourhours before getting caught.
After her initial admissions atthe traffic stop, she and Junior
(22:35):
soon found themselves inseparate interview rooms at the
sheriff's office.
Her tactic was to blameeverything on her brother.
So she told the investigatorseverything she knew, while
minimizing her part.
She was just along for the ride.
She loved her brother, but shefeared him.
Junior held out for a while,denying all the investigators
(22:58):
assertions about the murders.
Eventually, under the weight ofjust the known evidence, his
denial defense collapsed.
Junior took what he saw as thehonorable route, as if that was
possible, admitting what hadhappened and agreeing with his
sister that he was solelyresponsible and she had nothing
(23:18):
to do with any of it.
Once the dam broke, he wentthrough the planning and
execution of every phase of thecrime.
He gave details of killing hismother and grandparents,
including what they did beforeand after each.
Junior sold the whole thing as away for them to start a new life
with money.
(23:39):
After moving to Vegas, heexplained, Once I felt like
things were wrapped up, and Igot pretty much all the credit
cards I could, had all the ATMcards, that was when I was ready
to just get on out of the area.
Back in Indianapolis, the policewere talking to witnesses and
(23:59):
relatives about the situation.
Early on, one of Leander'sbrothers provided the motive for
the crime, confirming that hisnephew was an addict.
He said Junior was angry enoughthat he had threatened to kill
the Bradleys, but no one in thefamily took him seriously.
The neighbors at both theNoblesville apartment building
(24:20):
and the Linwood house recognizedboth siblings.
The residents on Bradley Street,knew there was a problem and had
discussed it amongst themselves.
In recent days, they had notseen Leander or Betty since just
after the new Year yet there wasa lot of activity in and around
the house.
One neighbor, Doug Davis, sawJunior taking a jackhammer
(24:42):
inside the sister, following theshovels in five gallon buckets.
Another neighbor, MerlinAndrews, when asked if he had
noted anything suspicious, said,The whole neighborhood did.
We all thought we should callhim just in case.
And nobody did.
When the interviews in St.
Louis were complete, theIndianapolis police got warrants
(25:04):
for the The search would beginthe next day.
Investigators were confidentthat this was the real deal, so
they recruited a University ofIndianapolis anthropologist to
assist.
It didn't take long to breakthrough the concrete crust and
the odor that greeted themserved as confirmation.
What followed was a painstakingcycle of photographing,
(25:27):
removing, and examining thehuman remains piled in the pit
below.
The process, conducted in hazmatsuits, was unpleasant, but
necessary for two reasons.
The status of the remainsprovided important cooperative
evidence siblings had alreadyconfessed to.
(25:47):
And the dismembered bodies hadto be identified and sorted for
final processing.
When it was done, the bodies ofSharon Allen, 54, Betty Bradley,
75, and Leander Bradley, 91,were positively identified.
The siblings waived extraditionand were shipped home.
(26:09):
The Indianapolis prosecutor CarlBrizzi, charged them with three
counts of murder and a host oflesser counts related to
conspiracy, financial crimes,and robbery.
Brizzi also announced that hewould seek the death penalty for
Junior, justifying the decisionwith these statutory
aggravators.
He had just been released fromprison and was on parole.
(26:31):
There were multiple victims.
The deaths involved a robberyand mutilation of the corpses.
The siblings may have thoughtthat the sister would avoid
charges, but they were wrong.
The confessions clarified thatshe was a willing participant.
She may not have physically donethe killings, but she was
present, functioned as alookout, and assisted in the
(26:52):
aftermath.
She was, however, spared thedeath sentence because of her
age and a lack of prior criminalhistory.
After months of legal wrangling,the attorneys came to an
agreement that would avoid atrial.
The prosecutors were concernedthat the facts were so heinous
that the defendants would garnersympathy from a jury with claims
(27:14):
of mental illness.
The deal was that the deathpenalty would be removed.
Junior would plead guilty tothree counts of murder.
The judge sentenced him to lifewithout parole plus 130 years.
They now house him at thePendleton Correctional Center in
(27:35):
Madison, Indiana.
A few months later, Carrie wassentenced to 38 years.
The prosecutors asked for 100,but the judge cited her low IQ,
passive demeanor, and herbrother's influence as
mitigators.
She is serving her time inRockville Correctional Facility
in Park County, Indiana.
(27:57):
Leander Bradley, born in 1913,was an army veteran and a
retired electrical foreman.
His wife of 57 years, Betty, wasa homemaker.
The couple had two children,Sharon and a son, Ronald.
Leander, Betty, and Sharon wereburied together at Forest Lawn
(28:18):
Memory Gardens in Indianapolison February 19th, 2005.
(28:43):
Switching to the discussionportion, let's start with why
was this traffic stop sosuspicious?
Mark (28:53):
Police officers across the country will make thousands of
traffic stops every day.
Some of them will be targetedfor a particular reason, like
drunk driving, speeding, redlight running.
Some will be driving concernsjust observed by officers that
are driving, say, between twolocations When I was working as
a patrol officer in the city, Imainly pulled people over for
things I saw them doing, or whatsomebody called them in for,
(29:16):
like DUI or reckless or,suspicious activity.
It's important to understandthat most of these traffic stops
will turn out to be mundane.
Maybe they ended a ticket, maybethey ended nothing.
For suspicious circumstances,you go out and there's nothing
suspicious at all.
You find out what the reasonthey're there is and you go on.
There's not even a warningthere.
A few of them will end in arrestfor a crime and some will be a
(29:39):
major crime.
I myself have been involved intraffic stops, for murders, for
armed robbery, burglaries,basically every violent crime.
But despite the crazy videos onthe internet, most stops are
unremarkable.
Marcy (29:53):
But officers know and are trained that any traffic stop
can be the
Mark (29:57):
big one.
Yeah, officers are trained tolook for, during the traffic
stops, for what is abnormal.
And in this case, it'ssuspicious to start with that
the guy didn't pull overimmediately.
So that's your first clue thatsomething's up here.
Now, people can be nervous andnot want to pull over and you
have these delayed driving, takea minute, and maybe you get the
(30:18):
idea that, this guy's like kindof slowing down and maybe going
faster at times and it heightensyour awareness when they do pull
over and you contact them,they're really nervous and don't
know what, what to do for sure.
And that kind of stuff isnormal, but what you're trained
as a police officer to do islook for is this normal, or is
it not?
(30:39):
And the next thing that wouldhave gotten my attention on the
stop, especially in a situationwhere they're saying they're
going to drive across thecountry here's an older guy and
a young girl, no ID, she lookedyoung.
Like I said, they're on a longdistance trip.
My concern, having worked whereI worked, is was this girl a
runaway?
Was she abducted?
(30:59):
Do her parents know where she'sat?
What's going on with her?
And so those two things wouldlend me to believe I gotta dig
deeper to find out what's reallygoing on here.
They're moving to Vegas.
There's no job.
This is a rental car.
All these unusual things.
Why is your sister coming withyou?
You don't have a job there.
You didn't have a job fromIndianapolis.
(31:20):
What's up with this?
Then the next thing is what doyou got in the car?
I can see you got a bunch ofstuff in the car.
Do you mind if I search to seewhat's in there?
And, keep in mind this deputy Iprobably would not have done
that unless there was a realreason to, like looking for
drugs or something.
But keep in mind, this deputy isworking traffic duty on a major
interstate.
Those guys, in addition tomonitoring for safety and
(31:43):
keeping the chaos on theinterstate to a dull roar, are
trained to interdict in drugtrafficking.
and in human trafficking.
So what he found was concerningand he needed to dig further.
Marcy (31:57):
Do you have a traffic stop that went way beyond what
you expected from the
Mark (32:01):
beginning?
Yeah, oh yeah.
Sometimes things fall into yourlap.
When you happen to be in theright place at the right time
with the right information.
There were times I can thinkabout I bumped into armed
robbers that I recognized, basedon a locate description given
from another part of town Andthen there's the times that you
figure out what's going onunexpectedly at the time.
(32:23):
I remember I stopped out on avehicle, we just had a
snowstorm, and a vehicle wentinto the snowbank, which is
pretty benign and not uncommon.
And I go up and I'm alone on, ona major roadway and it's,
getting later at night.
There aren't many people aroundand there's three guys in this
car and they're out trying todig it out.
(32:44):
And, I talked to them, they'recool, but they look really
nervous that I'm there.
You get this sense.
Within a range what's normal.
These guys seem really nervous.
Usually people are joking aroundwhen the cops show up and
they're, they did somethingstupid like driving in a
snowbank.
I check the driver's license andas I'm walking by the car I
notice there's a whole bunch oflike the officer on the stop, on
(33:05):
the case we're talking about,there's a whole bunch of
personal property in the back.
And what really got my attentionis, there's a VCR and a short
coaxial cable.
And it looks like the coaxialcable has been pulled out at the
wall.
So you have a frayed cablethere.
And it's just sticking up nextto the rear window where I can
see it, like it's displayingitself to me.
(33:27):
So I go, okay this is odd.
And maybe it's, maybe there's noproblem.
I call for backup.
And we pull them out from theirdigging, put them in the cars,
and we start to talk to them.
And the guy I get basicallysays, yeah, we just broke into a
place and stole all that shit inthe backseat.
Completely unexpected, butbecause of observations, we're
(33:47):
able to crack that case.
In fact, the guy that that ownedthe place that they broke into
was like out at a movie.
And we went back and tried tocontact him, contacted some of
his neighbors.
We knew he'd been broken intoeven before he knew he'd been
broken into.
So that's an example how youjust bump into things and based
on your observations you canbreak open a bigger case than
(34:08):
you ever thought.
I stopped out on a car in a snowbank and turned into a set of
burglary arrests.
Marcy (34:13):
Why on earth does a guy who just killed three people
give consent to search his car?
Mark (34:18):
Two reasons.
A lot of guys, or bad guys,underestimate officers.
Maybe they've had lots ofcontact with officers, the
officers are casual and justdidn't dig into stuff, and maybe
they've gotten away with stuffin the past.
There's this underestimation ofa cop's level of interest and
the cop's level of attention todetail.
They want to get through thatcontact and they also think that
(34:40):
denying consent to search inthat situation will be a big red
flag.
Like it's a flag that you'vedone something wrong.
So oftentimes people giveconsent because they just want
to get past this moment andthink you won't notice anything.
It's important to notice, toknow in this situation that an
officer's ability to search islimited by state and federal
law.
People don't really know wherethat line is.
(35:01):
In some states you can prettymuch search anywhere in the car
if you're looking for weapons orhave some bit of probable cause.
And that's not so much the casewhere I worked.
Marcy (35:13):
Alaska had really strong privacy protections that limited
certain justifications forvehicle searches that would be
totally fine in other states.
Can you talk a little bit about
Mark (35:24):
that?
Yeah, that's right.
It's a side, but when I was intraining and when I was a
sergeant, we watched for theseprocedural issues when training
people, especially with officersfrom other states.
I remember one time as asergeant, I went out on an
officer who had stopped avehicle and was searching a car.
It's common when you go up andsay, hey, what's going on here?
The officer gave me the rundownand it turned out he had an
(35:46):
inappropriate justification forthat traffic stop.
And I'm like, holy cow, wait aminute, tell me the whole
situation.
So it turned out he had aseparate, there was a reason for
him to make the search inaddition to the justification
that he had.
So we were able to the secondlegal justification for the
search salvage that case Lessonslearned, but yeah, in general
(36:09):
Alaska had pretty rigid privacyprotections on stuff like
traffic stops, more rigid than alot of other states.
Marcy (36:20):
What that officer was searching for would have been
fine in the state that he camefrom, but in this, in Alaska, it
wasn't fine, but he had asecondary reason.
That was legitimate.
Yeah,
Mark (36:30):
That's right.
Yes.
So there was legitimate reasonin addition to what the officer
at first conducted the searchfor.
We didn't make anything up byany means, but if that had been
the case and he hadn't had ajustification in another, if the
justification from the otherstate wouldn't hold up in
Alaska, I would have said stop,right?
And we would have either weprobably would have taken any
(36:51):
contraband and applied for awarrant if that were the case
and maybe gotten turned down ortaken some action basically to
correct that, that mistake.
Marcy (37:01):
But the suspect in this murder case, he let that deputy
search and it seemed like thatcould have been an inflection
point where the stop could havegone many different ways.
Mark (37:22):
Yeah, the thing is, once the officer dug into these
questions and started diggingthere was no going back.
He had to know the answer tothese questions.
He had to know who the, we hadto verify who the girl was.
And actually in my experience,the difference between a great
officer and a mediocre one is,asking the question in the first
place.
In this traffic stop, had thatdeputy been a slug, he could
(37:44):
have taken the story at facevalue.
Either, okay, you're driving toofast I don't want to, I don't
really want to know who the girlis, I don't want to know what's
going on with you, I just wantto issue the citation and away
you go.
And but that's not whathappened.
A good officer is going to askthose questions and try and
detect the deeper crimes if theyexist.
And sometimes they don't, orsometimes you don't detect them
and you know that there'ssomething suspicious, but the
(38:06):
guy goes on his way and that'sjust the way it goes.
Marcy (38:10):
But at some point asking those questions could be
dangerous because somethingcould set that driver off and
then suddenly the officer is inreal
Mark (38:16):
trouble.
Yeah, you bet.
And that's something you worryabout working as a police
officer.
The idea that you can stumbleinto something that, and you
have no awareness of what that,that person's situation is, what
they may have just done, whattheir mental state is.
Especially with drug addicts.
They can perceive you as beingthe guy or the, they can
(38:36):
perceive you as being the thingthat's going to keep them from
their next high.
And some people are desperateenough to kill over that.
And because of that, you becomehyper aware of people's
reactions to your presence,particularly when you're in
uniform.
Because to be attacked as apolice officer be perceived as a
threat, you don't have to beaware of that, of how that
(38:58):
person's feeling.
You just have to have youruniform on.
The deputy that made thistraffic stop did a great job and
things could have easily gonesideways.
I don't, you can't work as apolice officer long before
things go sideways.
The situation I talked to youabout the, I mentioned the
vehicle that went into the snowberm.
Had that not been a horriblysnowy day, these guys had just
(39:20):
burglarized the house and stoleall this property.
They probably would have split,they probably would have run.
But it's difficult to run indeep snow, honestly.
So that's why we're able toround them up and arrest them.
On the other hand, they couldhave attacked me.
And I have been in in somepretty serious situations,
fights on traffic stops before.
Marcy (39:40):
So more on the searches.
The Indianapolis officer triedto open a window to get into the
house.
Let's talk about the dangers ofbreaking into that Bradley home
to conduct a welfare check.
How are they able to do that?
Or are they?
Mark (39:54):
In this situation, there's an articulable reason for it to
fear for the Bradleys.
Welfare.
There's blood in the car.
The grandchildren say they'redead, but they're not listed as
dead.
Their cars are in the driveway,so it appears like somebody's
living in the Bradley house.
It wouldn't be my first choiceon this, because, if this is as
bad as you think it could beyou're endangering a search
(40:15):
warrant.
But my fear on going into thiswould be somebody...
In their, some, especiallysomebody who's old, this guy's
91, waking up as I'm breakinginto the window and shooting me
as I'm coming in as a burglar,unfortunately.
Other than that there's not alot of concern with what
happened with them going in.
And the idea is if you can go inand locate them, cool.
You can, they may object to youcoming in, but we're gonna try
(40:36):
and explain why we did it.
And while we have and we havesome questions, and by the way,
are your grandchildren tellingthe truth kind of thing?
But then again, if you go in andsee something, you back out and
you get a warrant like they didfor a more detailed search.
Marcy (40:54):
Is that common to go back and get a warrant after some
evidence has been found?
Mark (40:59):
Yes, it's common.
It's not optimum.
It's not, you want to get asearch warrant before any
searching has been done.
You might end up having a courtchallenge as in this case, I'll
talk to you about court, thecourt challenge in a minute, but
The exigency was, it was thereason they went in, make sure
that everybody's okay.
And the, and it turns outthere's lack of standing for an
objection, but I'll talk to thathere in a minute.
(41:20):
And after the warrant, yoursubsequent fines are fine.
It's protected.
And in my experience, you can'tgo wrong with going back and
getting a warrant to cover yoursubsequent fines.
Marcy (41:31):
Is this something that you've ever done?
Mark (41:33):
What, breaking in or getting a subsequent warrant?
I've done both.
Yeah, for example I was in anarea of town called Spenard, and
there was a call that there wasa little kid outside of a house
that was locked out of hishouse.
And I go there and the kid is, Idon't know, maybe he's six or
eight, and it's getting dark.
(41:54):
I'm a night shifter, so it'slater.
And I talked to the kid, andthere's no neighbors that know
what's going on, and he doesn'tknow how to contact any
relatives or anything, and thedoor is locked up and it's dark
inside the house.
And what I notice is there is awindow up high that that's a
jar.
I get up there and I break inthrough the window and go in and
(42:16):
it turns out the mother has hada medical issue and is actually
near death.
I get there and call the medicsand we get her her taking care
of and we take care of the kidand stuff.
But that's a good example of howsometimes you just gotta go in
and check things out, and itturned out the woman was inside,
Marcy (42:33):
I dispatched you
Mark (42:33):
to that call.
Yeah.
When I think about had I, that'sone of the, if I just did okay
let's put this kid somewhere andI'm not breaking into this
house.
Had I not done that woman wouldhave died.
I think about that.
Marcy (42:44):
And following up with a search warrant, have you done
that?
Mark (42:47):
Yeah, there, there are a lot of exigent circumstances,
entries that police make thatrequire follow up with a search
warrant.
There's, like I had a guy whobeat the crap out of a woman in
an apartment building and we,when we arrived, you could hear
her inside.
And when we knocked on the door,everything got quiet.
Now, it sounded pretty bad whenI was outside, so I got extra
(43:09):
units there, S.
A.
P., give me units, code, and webooted the door and went inside,
and it's funny because we go inthere, and the guy had beaten
his girlfriend so bad she hadblood all over the floor, and he
threatened to kill her if shesaid anything when we were
outside the door, and he hadpoured Paint all over the
ground, and it was white paint.
And the white paint was designedto cover up all the blood she
(43:32):
had spilled on the ground.
So here I am in my, dark blueand black uniform.
The guy meets us after I bootthe door in, the guy meets us at
the door and we're fighting andmy uniform is covered with white
paint.
We're both covered with whitepaint.
And fun was had by all.
Now, so now we get her, shedoesn't live there, we hook him
up, and now somebody's got to godowntown to get a warrant so we
(43:54):
can process this scene, right?
So we have all theseobservations from inside based
on the exigency of thesituation, the emergency
situation.
But we can't just go in andsearch the place now, we have to
get a warrant so that we canprocess it.
That's a great example, a verycommon example.
of how we would go in, make someobservations based on the
emergency, and then we have togo back and get a warrant so
(44:17):
they can process and get all theevidence that will ensure a
conviction for him.
Marcy (44:21):
As a side note, you are extremely famous for your
expertise in kicking doors
Mark (44:26):
in.
Yeah, I'm not a small guy, andthere was a while there where I
came probably in my time ofpatrol about 65 doors.
I was young, it's a fun thing, afun kind of stat to keep.
But I like going to places wherepeople needed me and going in
the door first was one of thosethings, right?
Back up your people around you.
Marcy (44:48):
One of the interesting things about this case is it
crossed jurisdictionalboundaries.
It seems like the request fromSt.
Louis could have gone reallybadly if they didn't receive it
and act on it with the energythat they gave it.
Mark (45:06):
Yeah this case was handled very well and how you'd want it
to be handled.
Like I mentioned, it could havebeen handled by not asking
questions in Indianapolis, thoseIndy cops could have gone,
knocked on the door and walkedaway and this would not have
wrapped up like it was.
the person to person contact,that Indianapolis officer I
wonder what this is about.
It's unusually a call from, onestate over.
(45:28):
And I found this to be true inmany aspects of my career.
And not only with otherjurisdiction I, once I learned
this, I used it.
I would send a case over to theprosecutor's office And if you
just send the paper over, that'seasy to ignore, right?
So I started going over andselling my cases if I had them
ready, to prosecutors that Iknew.
(45:49):
And that's a way to get theminvested, right?
You sell it, they buy in,they're on board, and they're
gonna use their authority to, tohelp you and you're gonna help
them work together.
And that's what happened whenthe Indy cop called the deputy.
One said, this is what I got.
The other said, yeah, this issuspicious.
And now they're both on thehook.
Marcy (46:09):
So what's been your experience with multi
jurisdictional cases?
Mark (46:13):
What I just said holds true.
Good cops are similar whereveryou go.
You tell the story and you getthe feel for the other guy.
And if you get the sense of themthinking that asshole isn't
going to get away with that.
You're, it's going to turn outfine.
I have been disappointed.
But for the most part, I've hadgreat experience working with
state troopers and the smallerPDs in my state as well as out
(46:34):
of state jurisdictions.
I can think of a homicide casethat I helped work as far away
as Florida.
Most of that, the out of statestuff was in the drug realm.
Also conversely, if I got an outof jurisdiction request, I
always make contact with thewith the requesting officer for
two reasons.
Number one is safety.
By having that conversation, youmight find out how dangerous the
(46:55):
people are, involved are, whatthe concerns are and you also
might, you put yourself on thehook because you think about,
you feel like, ah, that guy'snot getting away with that
living here now.
The second thing is, areprofessional reputations on the
line?
And I wanted to do everythingthat was possible.
I don't want anybody walkingaway saying, that, that police
department sucks.
And just and that's possiblewith just one contact, right?
(47:16):
How often do you call thatdepartment over there?
And when you call them theysuck.
I didn't want that to happen onmy watch,
Marcy (47:23):
yeah, the good extremes and the bad extremes always
stick with you longer.
So talk about Junior'ssociopathy and anger.
How could he so easily just killhis mother and grandparents?
Mark (47:36):
Yeah.
Actually, I've known a lot ofpeople that I thought, Yeah,
this could happen to them.
This could be them.
The thing is, he didn't see thatthe problem was his fault,
right?
His, it's what his grandparentsdid by betraying him, cutting
off his money.
I had a professor tell me, andthis stuck with me because it's
so true.
These people think differentlythan you and I.
(47:58):
They don't worry how they look.
They don't feel bad abouthurting someone or ripping
somebody off.
They look at the world in termsof, and this is a quote, so
what's mine is mine, and what'syours is mine, if I can get it.
And as far as Kenneth'srelationship with his mother she
betrayed him also.
She sent him away with his dadto Florida and it didn't go
(48:21):
well.
Then she refused to kill herparents, so Kenneth couldn't get
their money.
I think it as sad as it is.
I think that stabbing herthrough the face is a pretty
good indicator of how angry hewas at her, but notice he
stabbed her through the faceonly through a pillow.
So it's not like he looked herin the eyes.
He did that.
He was a coward.
He tried to smother and then hejammed the knife into her head,
(48:43):
which is pretty cowardly.
As she's laying in bed, tryingto sleep.
So with Carrie I think there'ssome indication she was
impressionable, not too bright.
She grew up under her mother'sthumb.
there's some mention that sheresented that that control the
mother had on Carrie.
They lived in crappy conditions,which Carrie blamed on her.
(49:04):
And Kenneth stepped in, tookmom's authority away by
murdering her.
He promised to be a betterleader, promised her a new life,
and she just went with it.
Marcy (49:17):
This crime itself is actually pretty dumb.
Three people are gonna vanish,but there's lots of people
living in the area, relativesand neighbors.
Like eventually somebody's gonnafigure out something's wrong and
start asking questions and thepolice are gonna get involved.
One of the first patrol officersnoticed immediately there was
new concrete in the basementslab.
(49:39):
And Junior had threatened tokill the grandparents loud
enough that other relatives knewabout those threats.
So he sold this as some bigcomplicated plan.
You'd think that if he reallyhad planned all these details
out, especially if the planningwas commensurate with the
brutality of the crime, but inthe end it just seems almost
(50:00):
unbelievably stupid.
In a plan
Mark (50:04):
yeah, it's just dumb.
It really reminds me of some ofthe crimes I saw that were
committed by drug addicts.
My, there was one time my team'sworking a project in the high
drug area.
There's a stabbing murdercommitted in the center of the
area we were watching.
It turned out the guy who did itwas out of prison on an ankle
monitor.
Duh they, okay, who did it?
(50:24):
We think it might be this guy.
Isn't he an ankle monitor athome?
No, we can track his anklemonitor.
He actually took a city bus to ablock away and he's on the city
bus video a block away fromwhere he committed this knifey
murder.
It was a drug related thing.
This guy just didn't care.
It wasn't a big plan.
He was just angry and dopeaddled brain.
This is real fiend behavior.
(50:45):
They have no concern for outcomeor consequence.
And I see that in this case.
These suspects are going to becaught in St.
Louis or in Vegas.
It was just a matter of time.
It's almost a gift to a homicidedetective.
The dots are not difficult toconnect.
This guy's out on parole.
You can't just leave the area.
They're going to come lookingfor you.
(51:05):
And like I said, they're goingto connect those dots.
And there was a mountain ofevidence to condemn them back in
Indianapolis, no matter how farthey got.
Marcy (51:18):
There's definitely a domestic violence aspect to this
whole case, which is really sad.
Mark (51:24):
Yeah, from the victim side it is, it's extremely sad and
you see this with especiallyparents and siblings who have a
drug fiend in their lives andhere, obviously the mom and the
Bradleys loved him.
The mother allowed him to staywith them despite, even after
he's shooting his mouth offabout wanting to kill people and
(51:45):
stuff despite his obviousproblems the grandparents are
supportive until it's obviouslytime for tough love I don't
think anyone wanted to believethat this guy was capable of
what he did and, so nobodywanted to contact the police
because getting him in moretrouble was the last thing he
needed, and the families I knowthat have people like that in,
(52:07):
in them are just treading watertrying to get by, doing what
they have to do to protectthemselves hoping that person
gets better, hoping that persongrows out of it, hoping that
person gets effective help withthe problem.
I think just in this case thatthey underestimated how bad it
was and it went deeper than justsimple addiction.
(52:27):
There is a depravity, it's,serious depravity here that is
way beyond the norm.
Marcy (52:37):
So there was no trial in this case, so we don't need to
talk about that.
The sentence seemed right forhim, but people have criticized
the term that Kerry got as toolenient.
Mark (52:48):
Yeah, the prosecutors asked for 100 years and she was
given just under 40 with otherkind of stipulations that really
keep a 40 year term solid.
So her first eligibility forparole, and hopefully she
doesn't get it, is in 2024,which is just, right around the
corner.
And that just doesn't seem likethere's enough time.
There are lots of peripherallyinvolved accomplices to multiple
(53:09):
murder, like robberies thatinvolve multiple murders, who
would love to exchange sentenceswith her.
It's easy to be involved in amultiple murder homicide as an
accomplice that wasn't directlyinvolved and get life in prison
also.
But she didn't get that.
And like I said, that, thatwould, that's the envy of a lot
of the people that do.
Do
Marcy (53:29):
either of them have the right to appeal?
Mark (53:32):
Yeah, they had a right to appeal and there was an appeal
and it was denied.
In, in fact, bring up theappeal, even in that Kenneth had
no shame.
His appeal was actually based onthe idea that he had a privacy
interest in his grandparentshome.
So the initial search and allthe evidence should be
suppressed.
It.
It's not surprising the judgecompletely slapped him down,
(53:54):
basically saying that a criminalcan't claim a right to privacy
while committing a home invasionrobbery and murder.
Marcy (54:01):
Geez.
You said that this case reallycaught your attention in terms
of how senseless and sad it was.
The grandparents were targetedbecause they stopped giving him
money.
And the money they did havesaved really wasn't all that
much.
He kept talking about this newlife, but they weren't rich.
There was no way they were goingto get away with any of this for
(54:24):
200, 000.
Mark (54:26):
Which he spent 60, 000 of like in the first four days in
the casinos, which is crazy.
Yeah, all of those things andthe brutality of it stabbing mom
in the head, smothering grandma,crushing grandpa's skull just
outrageously deplorable.
I've done a lot of these cases,and this is one of the more
horrible detail wise, especiallybecause of the family aspect of
(54:48):
it.
It's hard to think about,military vet, retired a couple
who've been together for almost60 years and to end up the way
they did is tough to thinkabout.
Marcy (55:06):
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(55:53):
hosted by Mark Rein and MarcyRein is written and directed by
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a 3 Little Birds, LLCproduction.
Welcome to Crime Raven; true crimes, real life stories
(00:03):
from law enforcement and issuescrime fighters face.
This podcast highlights crimesresearched by retired Detective
Sergeant Mark Rein, usingpublicly available information,
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Content may be graphic,disturbing, or violent.
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(00:25):
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That's free access for 30 daysat audibletrial.com/crimeraven.
We'll also put the link in theshow notes.
Mark (01:15):
Brutus and his partner stood face to face in the living
room of the painfully small twobedroom apartment.
It was dark save for theflickering television on one
wall, but the light was enoughfor him to see the fear in her
eyes.
He wasn't worried.
The pep talk where Brutus hadlaid it all out had gone well.
She agreed that the plan was agood one.
(01:36):
These were people who hadscrewed them over, tried to ruin
their lives, but it hadn'tworked.
So here they were at theprecipice.
They were simply going to givethem what they had coming.
This was their play andpayback's a bitch.
And revenge is best when itcomes with a cash bonus.
Brutus reached up and grippedthe girl's shoulders.
(01:58):
You ready?
She nodded.
Eyes downcast.
Okay, we'll do it.
Just like I said, it'll bequick.
Brutus paused long enough to seethe second nod before releasing
her.
She picked up the TV remotewhile he retrieved the knife
from the kitchen.
The girl raised the volume onthe television slowly.
Going for that sweet spot thatwould cover other noises Yet not
(02:20):
be immediately alarming initself she looked at the bedroom
door Brutus was there, hunchedover, one hand on the handle,
controlling the size of thecrack as he peered into the dark
room beyond.
Brutus clutched the knife in hisother hand.
It hung down in front of him ashe concentrated.
The blade's silver flickeringbright in time with the
(02:42):
television.
He turned his head, smiled, andnodded just before opening the
door wide enough to slip inside.
The girl put the remote down andfollowed Brutus into the
bedroom.
She could see the woman layingasleep on her back a split
second before Brutus jumped ontop, straddling her chest while
simultaneously pulling a pillowacross her face.
(03:02):
The lady barely got out a soundbefore it was muffled.
She began to struggle andthrash, but Brutus rode her
writhing body, his legs pinningher arms down as his chest and
forearms crushed the pillow ontoher face.
Once Brutus stabilized, hereared back, centering the knife
blade, gripping with both fists.
He plunged the blade downward,using his weight to drive it
through the pillow and into thewoman's face.
(03:28):
Brutus laid over his victim ashe felt her intentional
movements turn to spasms andthen to tremors.
A couple of minutes later, sherelaxed, and Brutus sat up.
Still straddling the woman, helooked down at the knife hilt.
Turned to the girl, standing afew feet away, and smiled.
It's done.
The girl, her expression flat,nodded.
(03:51):
What happened next was not partof the plan.
Brutus and his partner had beensniffing around each other for a
couple of weeks.
He, the elder was more forceful.
She the younger, impressionablewith low impulse control.
Having just broken one of thestrongest taboos.
They blew through others withoutthought.
While the woman in the nextbedroom lost her mortal heat,
Brutus, and the girl burned uptheir bed.
(04:14):
The completion of phase onemeant that the partners were
locked in.
There could be no turning back.
But in phase two, the advantagehad shifted.
If phase one was an invasion,they would now be operating from
their captured beachhead.
yes, the peril of discoveryremained.
But Brutus now had the sensethat the odds were in their
favor.
So after a period of relaxationand more illicit sex, he
(04:38):
directed the girl to make aphone call.
The old woman knocked on theapartment door, and the girl
opened.
They exchanged greetings,smiles, the girl stepping aside
to allow entry.
And as she passed, the old womanasked, She's still in bed?
And receiving a nod, the womanmarched confidently past.
(05:02):
Brutus slid from behind theclosing door, trailing the lady
as she crossed the apartment.
He intercepted his prey in themiddle of the living room.
The plastic bag held at chestlevel, gripped on each side with
the opening facing down.
He pulled it forcefully over herhead.
The gathered plastic functionedas a garotte, cinched tight by
the lady's forward momentum.
(05:22):
He jerked the slack out,twisting the excess into one
fist, effectively sealing herhead in plastic.
His training kicked in, wrappinghis free arm around her throat,
pulling her off balance, andspinner down to the floor.
Brutus could feel shock anddisbelief run through the old
lady's body.
There's almost no resistance asshe collapsed.
Even then, her struggle waspitifully weak just to
(05:44):
disorganized, attempt to freeherself.
As she panicked, Brutus feltnothing but contempt for her as
she did the same act as theother lady.
Flailing, shaking, he'd heardpeople call that the funky
chicken.
Then she was all limp noodle.
He was only sorry that shewasn't facing him.
He wanted to look into her eyes.
(06:05):
He wanted to be the last thingshe saw in this life.
She had been merciless with him.
He bet she wanted to repent thatshit now.
So with phase two complete andthe women's body stacked in the
bathtub, it was time to goshopping.
Brutus's list included areciprocating saw, industrial
trash bags, shovels, buckets.
Jackhammer, and rental car.
(06:26):
Phase three started with Brutus,sitting quietly in the most
comfortable chair in the livingroom of a modest house in the
city's east suburbs.
Late afternoon, sunlightfiltered through the blinds,
creating a dusky patchwork oflight and dark.
Brutus chair was cast in shadow.
(06:49):
He had a little time to think.
Almost done.
The apartment was clean as cleanas it was gonna get the car
parked in the driveway outsidewas not outta place.
It would ring no alarm bellswith nosy neighbors and they
would never know about hiscargo.
Thankfully, this was January, soeverything was cool.
(07:10):
Brutus allowed himself to dreamabout the future.
He was about to hit the lottery.
It would be a new start.
Of course, you can only play thefortune you're dealt.
And in the game of life, he hadbeen drawing shit for years.
He lost so many hands that heforgot what winning felt like.
But that was changing.
Now, he controlled the cards.
(07:31):
And if need be, he was going todeal himself some luck from the
bottom of the deck.
After a little while, Brutusheard stirring in the back of
the house.
Floorboards creaked, the toiletflushed.
A water faucet on, then off, adoor open, and movement in the
hallway.
Brutus stood, smile on his face.
(07:53):
The old man, a little stooped atninety one, and stiff from his
afternoon nap, stepped into theliving room and flipped the
light switch.
Headed to the kitchen, he almostdidn't see the young man a few
feet away.
And when he did, he looked up, asmile and recognition spreading
across his wrinkled face.
Oh, you're here.
A little confused.
Brutus grinned back as a floodof rage washed over him.
(08:16):
He stifled a laugh, closing onhis prey while bringing the tool
up.
He thought, hammer time, as hesmashed it down.
Marcy (08:43):
On February 8, 2005, St.
Charles County Deputy SheriffAnthony Hoisick.
was conducting a traffic stop onInterstate 70, westbound, just
outside of St.
Louis, Missouri.
Deputy Hoisek spotted a sedandriving over the speed limit,
weaving aggressively in and outof traffic without signaling.
(09:04):
He had difficulty catching up tothe car, and when he could
finally start a traffic stop,the vehicle didn't pull over
immediately, but made severalcat and mouse evasive maneuvers.
The car abruptly swerved to exitthe highway.
Say spread across the parkinglot, and then back into busy
traffic on a side street.
just as Deputy Hoysik was aboutto call out that he was in a
(09:26):
pursuit, the car pulled to theside of the road and stopped.
The deputy approached withcaution.
The vehicle, a mid sized fourdoor with Indiana plates, had
two occupants.
Hoisick noted that householdproperty cluttered the back
seats.
The driver identified himself as29 year old Kenneth Allen Jr.,
(09:47):
producing a Florida driver'slicense and an Indiana ID card
to back up that claim.
The girl didn't have any ID, buttold the officer that her name
was Carrie Allen,
Mark (09:58):
junior's
Marcy (09:59):
18 year old sister.
She gave a home address inNoblesville, Indiana.
When asked for a vehicleregistration, he handed over a
rental agreement.
The paperwork showed that theychecked the car out in
Indianapolis with a scheduledreturn in Las Vegas.
The long distance, one wayrental was unusual.
(10:21):
Deputy Hoisick thought that thecouple in the car was unusually
nervous.
The whole situation seemssuspicious.
His driving, the one way rental,the girl with no ID.
He questioned them separately.
The first interview was thedriver, on the side of the road
standing between two cars.
The deputy learned that thedriver was unemployed and was
(10:42):
moving to Las Vegas to...
Start a new life.
As the passenger sat inside,Hoycik leaned into the window,
speaking quietly.
With the noise of passingtraffic, the driver couldn't
hear what they said.
These interviews only increasedthe deputy's suspicion that
something was seriously wrong.
(11:03):
Next, Deputy Hoisek asked forconsent to search the car, which
the driver allowed.
As he sorted through thecontents of the back seat, he
found several suspicious items.
Credit cards and identificationbelonging to Leander and Betty
Bradley.
The driver and passengervolunteered the Bradleys had
(11:23):
been their grandparents.
but were deceased.
A deeper dive into the trunkproduced a bag containing a
stash of jewelry and a largeamount of cash.
There were also clothes andbedding that were alarmingly
stained with dried blood.
The contents of the car furtherintensified Deputy Hoisick's
(11:44):
suspicions.
Working through his dispatchcenter, he learned that the
Bradleys were listed as stillbeing alive.
So he requested an Indianapolispolice conduct a welfare check
at the Noblesville apartment ofSharon Allen, the mother, and
the Linwood home of Leander andBetty Bradley, the grandparents.
(12:06):
The officer wanted to not onlymake sure that they were all
alright, but also to contactsomeone who could verify the
driver and passengers stories.
Indianapolis police dispatchedOfficer Michael Horn.
A welfare check request from anout of state agency is unusual,
so he called Deputy Hoisickdirectly.
(12:29):
Upon hearing the circumstancesof the traffic stop, Officer
Horn agreed that the situationwas suspicious.
He arrived at the Linwoodaddress, knocked, and received
no answer.
He ran a computer check on thevehicles parked in the driveway
and confirmed that they belongedto the Bradleys.
At that moment, a neighbor fromacross the street approached
(12:51):
Officer Horn and said somethingis wrong in that house.
The neighbor explained that theBradley home was the talk of the
neighborhood.
No one had seen the owners inweeks, but their grandchildren
had been hanging around doingthings that made people nervous.
Officer horn with help from theneighbor was able to break into
(13:12):
the house.
The officer walked through,seeing nothing immediately
alarming, but noticed that partof the concrete slab in the
basement had been recently repoured.
Horne called Deputy Hoisick backand described his observations.
When he got to the part aboutthe cars parked in the driveway,
(13:34):
Hoisick asked the passenger toconfirm that those were her
grandparents only vehicles.
Instead, she exclaimed, Hekilled him and buried him in the
basement.
Confused, Deputy Hoisick asked,Who?
She replied, My brother killedthem and he buried them and he
killed my mother, but I don'tknow what he did with her body.
(13:57):
The passenger's revelationchanged a simple traffic stop
into a full blown murderinvestigation.
The brother and sister weretaken into custody and quickly
transferred to the St.
Charles County Sheriff's Officewhile they impounded the rental
as evidence.
Back in Indianapolis, policetaped off the Linwood and
Noblesville's residences.
(14:21):
While the Indy cops waited,investigators began digging into
the prisoner's backgrounds.
For the first 14 years of hislife, Junior was raised
Indianapolis by his mother andfather.
Theirs was an unhappy marriage,burdened with financial
(14:43):
problems, a new house, and whenhe was 11, a baby sister.
The new child did nothing toslow the marriage death spiral,
with mom Sharon and dad KennethSr.
fighting with increasingregularity.
Finally, in 1990, the unhappycouple split, in more ways than
one.
(15:03):
The agreement was that Ken Sr.
would take Junior to live withhim in Florida.
While Sharon kept a baby sisterin Indianapolis.
Junior didn't react well tobeing separated from his mother,
sister, and extended family.
He was rebellious through histeenage years and a marginal
student.
Shortly after Junior graduatedfrom high school, he got married
(15:25):
and joined the Marines.
He didn't adjust to adultingwell.
He nurtured substance andgambling addictions and was
abusive towards his wife.
The gambling took over his life.
When he was still working, hetook his paychecks directly to
the closest casino.
When he had no job, he wouldbeg, borrow, and scrape just to
(15:47):
feed his habit.
One source of money that Juniorregularly tapped was his
grandparents, Leandra and BettyBradley, who lived in the
Indianapolis suburbs.
Junior lied to them, leadingthem to believe that he was just
having cash flow problems commonto young men.
They felt sorry for him afterthe forced move to Florida, so
(16:10):
they regularly gave him money.
Junior's problems came crashingdown on him in 2002 when he was
convicted on multiple charges,including counterfeiting, theft,
forgery, and credit card fraud.
He served two years in prison.
His conviction opened hisgrandparents eyes who realized
(16:32):
that he had lied to them foryears and they had been enabling
their grandson's addictions.
They decided that tough love wasthe best course of action and
they cut him off financiallywhile he was still in prison.
Junior was 29 when he wasreleased.
Broke and with nowhere to go, hetried to cajole his grandparents
(16:53):
into starting up monthly supportpayments again, but they
refused.
The Allen divorce, back in 1995,hadn't worked out well for
Sharon Allen or her daughter.
Despite the fighting overfinances, the family had lived
comfortably.
Once separated, Sharon could notmaintain the lifestyle, and
(17:15):
after losing the new house, wasforced to live in government
subsidized housing.
The daughter grew up surroundedby poverty.
Fresh out of prison, Junior wasforced to move in with his
mother and sister in their smallapartment.
His new living situationdisgusted him, and it wasn't
long before he brought hislittle sister in on his plan to
(17:38):
improve their circumstances.
During the afternoon and eveningfollowing the traffic stop,
Missouri police interviews andbackground investigation broke
open the entire case.
It turned out that Junior,bitter from being cut off,
blamed his grandparents for hisfinancial situation.
He convinced his sister thatthey hadn't been exactly
(18:00):
generous to her either.
He told her that they were rich,they were old, and at the end of
their useful lives he said thatthey could take grandma and
grandpa's money and start fresh.
They would just have to killthem.
She was shocked at first, butwarmed to the idea as her
brother talked.
Their grandparents were old,after all, and it wasn't fair
(18:25):
that they got to live in adecent house.
She agreed to the plan, as longas their mother approved.
The problem was, when Juniordescribed his scheme to his
mother, she was not at allenthusiastic.
She dismissed the idea ofmurdering her parents and warned
him not to mention it everagain.
Junior told Baby Sister abouttheir mother's refusal,
(18:47):
convincing her that the mother'sknowledge of the plot was a
liability for both of them.
One night, right before NewYear's, and barely one month
after his prison release, Hisbaby sister turned up the
television in their living roomto cover the noises, while
Junior crept into the bedroomwhere their mother lay sleeping.
(19:13):
Brother and sister left thebedroom exhilarated.
They celebrated with vodka andsex in the only bedroom that
didn't hold a corpse.
With their mother's dead bodyrotting in her bed they found
themselves on a clock.
The smell from the room startedalmost immediately.
And that had to be addressedbefore it attracted attention.
(19:35):
The pair ransacked theirmother's belongings.
It was a pitiful loot.
They didn't get much because,quite simply, she didn't have
much.
Continuing with the plan, shecalled her grandmother, 76 year
old Betty Bradley.
She told Betty that Sharon wassick, and they needed help.
When Betty arrived, Junior mether inside the apartment door.
(19:58):
Now with two generations ofwomen stacked in the bathtub,
they went shopping.
They had a complete list ofitems to help clean up their
crime.
The pair used their newpurchases to dismember and wrap
their mother and grandmother.
They stowed the parts in thecar.
Fortunately for them, theweather the first week of
January in Indianapolis is cold,slowing decomposition.
(20:23):
Junior drove the death mobile tothe Linwood residence using his
grandmother's keys.
He let himself in.
When he arrived, he found 91year old Leander napping in his
bed When his grandfather finallywoke up and walked into the
living room, junior attacked himwith a hammer, crushing his
(20:44):
skull and face.
With two buddies stashed in thecar and one in the bathtub.
He used a rented jackhammer toopen up a hole in the basement
slab of the house.
It took a while to open theconcrete.
Dig the pit, dump the bodies in,cover them and repour the slab.
(21:04):
With her brother disposing ofthe evidence.
She kept busy on the computer.
She liked the new, anything goestack her life had taken.
She invited several onlinefriends to the house to party
and have sex with her in junior.
They were meticulous in theirlooting of their grandparents
financial assets.
Leander and Betty Bradley had aliquid nest egg of about 200,
(21:28):
000.
And it didn't take long for thegrandkids to access it.
Junior celebrated by feeding hisaddiction.
He hit the paddle boat casinoson the Ohio River.
Hard.
He lost 60, 000 in four days.
After a couple of weeks ofliving in his grandparents house
and burning through their money,Junior grew restless.
(21:52):
It seemed like they were on anew clock.
It was only a matter of timebefore someone, friends,
relatives, came looking.
He preferred not to be here toanswer uncomfortable questions.
Las Vegas, ground zero for a manwith his proclivities, was
calling.
Fortunately, the trip would putalmost 2, 000 miles between him
(22:14):
and the people buried under thehouse.
This was how, on February 8,2005, they were stopped in a
rental car headed west just pastSt.
Louis, Missouri.
They had made it barely fourhours before getting caught.
After her initial admissions atthe traffic stop, she and Junior
(22:35):
soon found themselves inseparate interview rooms at the
sheriff's office.
Her tactic was to blameeverything on her brother.
So she told the investigatorseverything she knew, while
minimizing her part.
She was just along for the ride.
She loved her brother, but shefeared him.
Junior held out for a while,denying all the investigators
(22:58):
assertions about the murders.
Eventually, under the weight ofjust the known evidence, his
denial defense collapsed.
Junior took what he saw as thehonorable route, as if that was
possible, admitting what hadhappened and agreeing with his
sister that he was solelyresponsible and she had nothing
(23:18):
to do with any of it.
Once the dam broke, he wentthrough the planning and
execution of every phase of thecrime.
He gave details of killing hismother and grandparents,
including what they did beforeand after each.
Junior sold the whole thing as away for them to start a new life
with money.
(23:39):
After moving to Vegas, heexplained, Once I felt like
things were wrapped up, and Igot pretty much all the credit
cards I could, had all the ATMcards, that was when I was ready
to just get on out of the area.
Back in Indianapolis, the policewere talking to witnesses and
(23:59):
relatives about the situation.
Early on, one of Leander'sbrothers provided the motive for
the crime, confirming that hisnephew was an addict.
He said Junior was angry enoughthat he had threatened to kill
the Bradleys, but no one in thefamily took him seriously.
The neighbors at both theNoblesville apartment building
(24:20):
and the Linwood house recognizedboth siblings.
The residents on Bradley Street,knew there was a problem and had
discussed it amongst themselves.
In recent days, they had notseen Leander or Betty since just
after the new Year yet there wasa lot of activity in and around
the house.
One neighbor, Doug Davis, sawJunior taking a jackhammer
(24:42):
inside the sister, following theshovels in five gallon buckets.
Another neighbor, MerlinAndrews, when asked if he had
noted anything suspicious, said,The whole neighborhood did.
We all thought we should callhim just in case.
And nobody did.
When the interviews in St.
Louis were complete, theIndianapolis police got warrants
(25:04):
for the The search would beginthe next day.
Investigators were confidentthat this was the real deal, so
they recruited a University ofIndianapolis anthropologist to
assist.
It didn't take long to breakthrough the concrete crust and
the odor that greeted themserved as confirmation.
What followed was a painstakingcycle of photographing,
(25:27):
removing, and examining thehuman remains piled in the pit
below.
The process, conducted in hazmatsuits, was unpleasant, but
necessary for two reasons.
The status of the remainsprovided important cooperative
evidence siblings had alreadyconfessed to.
(25:47):
And the dismembered bodies hadto be identified and sorted for
final processing.
When it was done, the bodies ofSharon Allen, 54, Betty Bradley,
75, and Leander Bradley, 91,were positively identified.
The siblings waived extraditionand were shipped home.
(26:09):
The Indianapolis prosecutor CarlBrizzi, charged them with three
counts of murder and a host oflesser counts related to
conspiracy, financial crimes,and robbery.
Brizzi also announced that hewould seek the death penalty for
Junior, justifying the decisionwith these statutory
aggravators.
He had just been released fromprison and was on parole.
(26:31):
There were multiple victims.
The deaths involved a robberyand mutilation of the corpses.
The siblings may have thoughtthat the sister would avoid
charges, but they were wrong.
The confessions clarified thatshe was a willing participant.
She may not have physically donethe killings, but she was
present, functioned as alookout, and assisted in the
(26:52):
aftermath.
She was, however, spared thedeath sentence because of her
age and a lack of prior criminalhistory.
After months of legal wrangling,the attorneys came to an
agreement that would avoid atrial.
The prosecutors were concernedthat the facts were so heinous
that the defendants would garnersympathy from a jury with claims
(27:14):
of mental illness.
The deal was that the deathpenalty would be removed.
Junior would plead guilty tothree counts of murder.
The judge sentenced him to lifewithout parole plus 130 years.
They now house him at thePendleton Correctional Center in
(27:35):
Madison, Indiana.
A few months later, Carrie wassentenced to 38 years.
The prosecutors asked for 100,but the judge cited her low IQ,
passive demeanor, and herbrother's influence as
mitigators.
She is serving her time inRockville Correctional Facility
in Park County, Indiana.
(27:57):
Leander Bradley, born in 1913,was an army veteran and a
retired electrical foreman.
His wife of 57 years, Betty, wasa homemaker.
The couple had two children,Sharon and a son, Ronald.
Leander, Betty, and Sharon wereburied together at Forest Lawn
(28:18):
Memory Gardens in Indianapolison February 19th, 2005.
(28:43):
Switching to the discussionportion, let's start with why
was this traffic stop sosuspicious?
Mark (28:53):
Police officers across the country will make thousands of
traffic stops every day.
Some of them will be targetedfor a particular reason, like
drunk driving, speeding, redlight running.
Some will be driving concernsjust observed by officers that
are driving, say, between twolocations When I was working as
a patrol officer in the city, Imainly pulled people over for
things I saw them doing, or whatsomebody called them in for,
(29:16):
like DUI or reckless or,suspicious activity.
It's important to understandthat most of these traffic stops
will turn out to be mundane.
Maybe they ended a ticket, maybethey ended nothing.
For suspicious circumstances,you go out and there's nothing
suspicious at all.
You find out what the reasonthey're there is and you go on.
There's not even a warningthere.
A few of them will end in arrestfor a crime and some will be a
(29:39):
major crime.
I myself have been involved intraffic stops, for murders, for
armed robbery, burglaries,basically every violent crime.
But despite the crazy videos onthe internet, most stops are
unremarkable.
Marcy (29:53):
But officers know and are trained that any traffic stop
can be the
Mark (29:57):
big one.
Yeah, officers are trained tolook for, during the traffic
stops, for what is abnormal.
And in this case, it'ssuspicious to start with that
the guy didn't pull overimmediately.
So that's your first clue thatsomething's up here.
Now, people can be nervous andnot want to pull over and you
have these delayed driving, takea minute, and maybe you get the
(30:18):
idea that, this guy's like kindof slowing down and maybe going
faster at times and it heightensyour awareness when they do pull
over and you contact them,they're really nervous and don't
know what, what to do for sure.
And that kind of stuff isnormal, but what you're trained
as a police officer to do islook for is this normal, or is
it not?
(30:39):
And the next thing that wouldhave gotten my attention on the
stop, especially in a situationwhere they're saying they're
going to drive across thecountry here's an older guy and
a young girl, no ID, she lookedyoung.
Like I said, they're on a longdistance trip.
My concern, having worked whereI worked, is was this girl a
runaway?
Was she abducted?
(30:59):
Do her parents know where she'sat?
What's going on with her?
And so those two things wouldlend me to believe I gotta dig
deeper to find out what's reallygoing on here.
They're moving to Vegas.
There's no job.
This is a rental car.
All these unusual things.
Why is your sister coming withyou?
You don't have a job there.
You didn't have a job fromIndianapolis.
(31:20):
What's up with this?
Then the next thing is what doyou got in the car?
I can see you got a bunch ofstuff in the car.
Do you mind if I search to seewhat's in there?
And, keep in mind this deputy Iprobably would not have done
that unless there was a realreason to, like looking for
drugs or something.
But keep in mind, this deputy isworking traffic duty on a major
interstate.
Those guys, in addition tomonitoring for safety and
(31:43):
keeping the chaos on theinterstate to a dull roar, are
trained to interdict in drugtrafficking.
and in human trafficking.
So what he found was concerningand he needed to dig further.
Marcy (31:57):
Do you have a traffic stop that went way beyond what
you expected from the
Mark (32:01):
beginning?
Yeah, oh yeah.
Sometimes things fall into yourlap.
When you happen to be in theright place at the right time
with the right information.
There were times I can thinkabout I bumped into armed
robbers that I recognized, basedon a locate description given
from another part of town Andthen there's the times that you
figure out what's going onunexpectedly at the time.
(32:23):
I remember I stopped out on avehicle, we just had a
snowstorm, and a vehicle wentinto the snowbank, which is
pretty benign and not uncommon.
And I go up and I'm alone on, ona major roadway and it's,
getting later at night.
There aren't many people aroundand there's three guys in this
car and they're out trying todig it out.
(32:44):
And, I talked to them, they'recool, but they look really
nervous that I'm there.
You get this sense.
Within a range what's normal.
These guys seem really nervous.
Usually people are joking aroundwhen the cops show up and
they're, they did somethingstupid like driving in a
snowbank.
I check the driver's license andas I'm walking by the car I
notice there's a whole bunch oflike the officer on the stop, on
(33:05):
the case we're talking about,there's a whole bunch of
personal property in the back.
And what really got my attentionis, there's a VCR and a short
coaxial cable.
And it looks like the coaxialcable has been pulled out at the
wall.
So you have a frayed cablethere.
And it's just sticking up nextto the rear window where I can
see it, like it's displayingitself to me.
(33:27):
So I go, okay this is odd.
And maybe it's, maybe there's noproblem.
I call for backup.
And we pull them out from theirdigging, put them in the cars,
and we start to talk to them.
And the guy I get basicallysays, yeah, we just broke into a
place and stole all that shit inthe backseat.
Completely unexpected, butbecause of observations, we're
(33:47):
able to crack that case.
In fact, the guy that that ownedthe place that they broke into
was like out at a movie.
And we went back and tried tocontact him, contacted some of
his neighbors.
We knew he'd been broken intoeven before he knew he'd been
broken into.
So that's an example how youjust bump into things and based
on your observations you canbreak open a bigger case than
(34:08):
you ever thought.
I stopped out on a car in a snowbank and turned into a set of
burglary arrests.
Marcy (34:13):
Why on earth does a guy who just killed three people
give consent to search his car?
Mark (34:18):
Two reasons.
A lot of guys, or bad guys,underestimate officers.
Maybe they've had lots ofcontact with officers, the
officers are casual and justdidn't dig into stuff, and maybe
they've gotten away with stuffin the past.
There's this underestimation ofa cop's level of interest and
the cop's level of attention todetail.
They want to get through thatcontact and they also think that
(34:40):
denying consent to search inthat situation will be a big red
flag.
Like it's a flag that you'vedone something wrong.
So oftentimes people giveconsent because they just want
to get past this moment andthink you won't notice anything.
It's important to notice, toknow in this situation that an
officer's ability to search islimited by state and federal
law.
People don't really know wherethat line is.
(35:01):
In some states you can prettymuch search anywhere in the car
if you're looking for weapons orhave some bit of probable cause.
And that's not so much the casewhere I worked.
Marcy (35:13):
Alaska had really strong privacy protections that limited
certain justifications forvehicle searches that would be
totally fine in other states.
Can you talk a little bit about
Mark (35:24):
that?
Yeah, that's right.
It's a side, but when I was intraining and when I was a
sergeant, we watched for theseprocedural issues when training
people, especially with officersfrom other states.
I remember one time as asergeant, I went out on an
officer who had stopped avehicle and was searching a car.
It's common when you go up andsay, hey, what's going on here?
The officer gave me the rundownand it turned out he had an
(35:46):
inappropriate justification forthat traffic stop.
And I'm like, holy cow, wait aminute, tell me the whole
situation.
So it turned out he had aseparate, there was a reason for
him to make the search inaddition to the justification
that he had.
So we were able to the secondlegal justification for the
search salvage that case Lessonslearned, but yeah, in general
(36:09):
Alaska had pretty rigid privacyprotections on stuff like
traffic stops, more rigid than alot of other states.
Marcy (36:20):
What that officer was searching for would have been
fine in the state that he camefrom, but in this, in Alaska, it
wasn't fine, but he had asecondary reason.
That was legitimate.
Yeah,
Mark (36:30):
That's right.
Yes.
So there was legitimate reasonin addition to what the officer
at first conducted the searchfor.
We didn't make anything up byany means, but if that had been
the case and he hadn't had ajustification in another, if the
justification from the otherstate wouldn't hold up in
Alaska, I would have said stop,right?
And we would have either weprobably would have taken any
(36:51):
contraband and applied for awarrant if that were the case
and maybe gotten turned down ortaken some action basically to
correct that, that mistake.
Marcy (37:01):
But the suspect in this murder case, he let that deputy
search and it seemed like thatcould have been an inflection
point where the stop could havegone many different ways.
Mark (37:22):
Yeah, the thing is, once the officer dug into these
questions and started diggingthere was no going back.
He had to know the answer tothese questions.
He had to know who the, we hadto verify who the girl was.
And actually in my experience,the difference between a great
officer and a mediocre one is,asking the question in the first
place.
In this traffic stop, had thatdeputy been a slug, he could
(37:44):
have taken the story at facevalue.
Either, okay, you're driving toofast I don't want to, I don't
really want to know who the girlis, I don't want to know what's
going on with you, I just wantto issue the citation and away
you go.
And but that's not whathappened.
A good officer is going to askthose questions and try and
detect the deeper crimes if theyexist.
And sometimes they don't, orsometimes you don't detect them
and you know that there'ssomething suspicious, but the
(38:06):
guy goes on his way and that'sjust the way it goes.
Marcy (38:10):
But at some point asking those questions could be
dangerous because somethingcould set that driver off and
then suddenly the officer is inreal
Mark (38:16):
trouble.
Yeah, you bet.
And that's something you worryabout working as a police
officer.
The idea that you can stumbleinto something that, and you
have no awareness of what that,that person's situation is, what
they may have just done, whattheir mental state is.
Especially with drug addicts.
They can perceive you as beingthe guy or the, they can
(38:36):
perceive you as being the thingthat's going to keep them from
their next high.
And some people are desperateenough to kill over that.
And because of that, you becomehyper aware of people's
reactions to your presence,particularly when you're in
uniform.
Because to be attacked as apolice officer be perceived as a
threat, you don't have to beaware of that, of how that
(38:58):
person's feeling.
You just have to have youruniform on.
The deputy that made thistraffic stop did a great job and
things could have easily gonesideways.
I don't, you can't work as apolice officer long before
things go sideways.
The situation I talked to youabout the, I mentioned the
vehicle that went into the snowberm.
Had that not been a horriblysnowy day, these guys had just
(39:20):
burglarized the house and stoleall this property.
They probably would have split,they probably would have run.
But it's difficult to run indeep snow, honestly.
So that's why we're able toround them up and arrest them.
On the other hand, they couldhave attacked me.
And I have been in in somepretty serious situations,
fights on traffic stops before.
Marcy (39:40):
So more on the searches.
The Indianapolis officer triedto open a window to get into the
house.
Let's talk about the dangers ofbreaking into that Bradley home
to conduct a welfare check.
How are they able to do that?
Or are they?
Mark (39:54):
In this situation, there's an articulable reason for it to
fear for the Bradleys.
Welfare.
There's blood in the car.
The grandchildren say they'redead, but they're not listed as
dead.
Their cars are in the driveway,so it appears like somebody's
living in the Bradley house.
It wouldn't be my first choiceon this, because, if this is as
bad as you think it could beyou're endangering a search
(40:15):
warrant.
But my fear on going into thiswould be somebody...
In their, some, especiallysomebody who's old, this guy's
91, waking up as I'm breakinginto the window and shooting me
as I'm coming in as a burglar,unfortunately.
Other than that there's not alot of concern with what
happened with them going in.
And the idea is if you can go inand locate them, cool.
You can, they may object to youcoming in, but we're gonna try
(40:36):
and explain why we did it.
And while we have and we havesome questions, and by the way,
are your grandchildren tellingthe truth kind of thing?
But then again, if you go in andsee something, you back out and
you get a warrant like they didfor a more detailed search.
Marcy (40:54):
Is that common to go back and get a warrant after some
evidence has been found?
Mark (40:59):
Yes, it's common.
It's not optimum.
It's not, you want to get asearch warrant before any
searching has been done.
You might end up having a courtchallenge as in this case, I'll
talk to you about court, thecourt challenge in a minute, but
The exigency was, it was thereason they went in, make sure
that everybody's okay.
And the, and it turns outthere's lack of standing for an
objection, but I'll talk to thathere in a minute.
(41:20):
And after the warrant, yoursubsequent fines are fine.
It's protected.
And in my experience, you can'tgo wrong with going back and
getting a warrant to cover yoursubsequent fines.
Marcy (41:31):
Is this something that you've ever done?
Mark (41:33):
What, breaking in or getting a subsequent warrant?
I've done both.
Yeah, for example I was in anarea of town called Spenard, and
there was a call that there wasa little kid outside of a house
that was locked out of hishouse.
And I go there and the kid is, Idon't know, maybe he's six or
eight, and it's getting dark.
(41:54):
I'm a night shifter, so it'slater.
And I talked to the kid, andthere's no neighbors that know
what's going on, and he doesn'tknow how to contact any
relatives or anything, and thedoor is locked up and it's dark
inside the house.
And what I notice is there is awindow up high that that's a
jar.
I get up there and I break inthrough the window and go in and
(42:16):
it turns out the mother has hada medical issue and is actually
near death.
I get there and call the medicsand we get her her taking care
of and we take care of the kidand stuff.
But that's a good example of howsometimes you just gotta go in
and check things out, and itturned out the woman was inside,
Marcy (42:33):
I dispatched you
Mark (42:33):
to that call.
Yeah.
When I think about had I, that'sone of the, if I just did okay
let's put this kid somewhere andI'm not breaking into this
house.
Had I not done that woman wouldhave died.
I think about that.
Marcy (42:44):
And following up with a search warrant, have you done
that?
Mark (42:47):
Yeah, there, there are a lot of exigent circumstances,
entries that police make thatrequire follow up with a search
warrant.
There's, like I had a guy whobeat the crap out of a woman in
an apartment building and we,when we arrived, you could hear
her inside.
And when we knocked on the door,everything got quiet.
Now, it sounded pretty bad whenI was outside, so I got extra
(43:09):
units there, S.
A.
P., give me units, code, and webooted the door and went inside,
and it's funny because we go inthere, and the guy had beaten
his girlfriend so bad she hadblood all over the floor, and he
threatened to kill her if shesaid anything when we were
outside the door, and he hadpoured Paint all over the
ground, and it was white paint.
And the white paint was designedto cover up all the blood she
(43:32):
had spilled on the ground.
So here I am in my, dark blueand black uniform.
The guy meets us after I bootthe door in, the guy meets us at
the door and we're fighting andmy uniform is covered with white
paint.
We're both covered with whitepaint.
And fun was had by all.
Now, so now we get her, shedoesn't live there, we hook him
up, and now somebody's got to godowntown to get a warrant so we
(43:54):
can process this scene, right?
So we have all theseobservations from inside based
on the exigency of thesituation, the emergency
situation.
But we can't just go in andsearch the place now, we have to
get a warrant so that we canprocess it.
That's a great example, a verycommon example.
of how we would go in, make someobservations based on the
emergency, and then we have togo back and get a warrant so
(44:17):
they can process and get all theevidence that will ensure a
conviction for him.
Marcy (44:21):
As a side note, you are extremely famous for your
expertise in kicking doors
Mark (44:26):
in.
Yeah, I'm not a small guy, andthere was a while there where I
came probably in my time ofpatrol about 65 doors.
I was young, it's a fun thing, afun kind of stat to keep.
But I like going to places wherepeople needed me and going in
the door first was one of thosethings, right?
Back up your people around you.
Marcy (44:48):
One of the interesting things about this case is it
crossed jurisdictionalboundaries.
It seems like the request fromSt.
Louis could have gone reallybadly if they didn't receive it
and act on it with the energythat they gave it.
Mark (45:06):
Yeah this case was handled very well and how you'd want it
to be handled.
Like I mentioned, it could havebeen handled by not asking
questions in Indianapolis, thoseIndy cops could have gone,
knocked on the door and walkedaway and this would not have
wrapped up like it was.
the person to person contact,that Indianapolis officer I
wonder what this is about.
It's unusually a call from, onestate over.
(45:28):
And I found this to be true inmany aspects of my career.
And not only with otherjurisdiction I, once I learned
this, I used it.
I would send a case over to theprosecutor's office And if you
just send the paper over, that'seasy to ignore, right?
So I started going over andselling my cases if I had them
ready, to prosecutors that Iknew.
(45:49):
And that's a way to get theminvested, right?
You sell it, they buy in,they're on board, and they're
gonna use their authority to, tohelp you and you're gonna help
them work together.
And that's what happened whenthe Indy cop called the deputy.
One said, this is what I got.
The other said, yeah, this issuspicious.
And now they're both on thehook.
Marcy (46:09):
So what's been your experience with multi
jurisdictional cases?
Mark (46:13):
What I just said holds true.
Good cops are similar whereveryou go.
You tell the story and you getthe feel for the other guy.
And if you get the sense of themthinking that asshole isn't
going to get away with that.
You're, it's going to turn outfine.
I have been disappointed.
But for the most part, I've hadgreat experience working with
state troopers and the smallerPDs in my state as well as out
(46:34):
of state jurisdictions.
I can think of a homicide casethat I helped work as far away
as Florida.
Most of that, the out of statestuff was in the drug realm.
Also conversely, if I got an outof jurisdiction request, I
always make contact with thewith the requesting officer for
two reasons.
Number one is safety.
By having that conversation, youmight find out how dangerous the
(46:55):
people are, involved are, whatthe concerns are and you also
might, you put yourself on thehook because you think about,
you feel like, ah, that guy'snot getting away with that
living here now.
The second thing is, areprofessional reputations on the
line?
And I wanted to do everythingthat was possible.
I don't want anybody walkingaway saying, that, that police
department sucks.
And just and that's possiblewith just one contact, right?
(47:16):
How often do you call thatdepartment over there?
And when you call them theysuck.
I didn't want that to happen onmy watch,
Marcy (47:23):
yeah, the good extremes and the bad extremes always
stick with you longer.
So talk about Junior'ssociopathy and anger.
How could he so easily just killhis mother and grandparents?
Mark (47:36):
Yeah.
Actually, I've known a lot ofpeople that I thought, Yeah,
this could happen to them.
This could be them.
The thing is, he didn't see thatthe problem was his fault,
right?
His, it's what his grandparentsdid by betraying him, cutting
off his money.
I had a professor tell me, andthis stuck with me because it's
so true.
These people think differentlythan you and I.
(47:58):
They don't worry how they look.
They don't feel bad abouthurting someone or ripping
somebody off.
They look at the world in termsof, and this is a quote, so
what's mine is mine, and what'syours is mine, if I can get it.
And as far as Kenneth'srelationship with his mother she
betrayed him also.
She sent him away with his dadto Florida and it didn't go
(48:21):
well.
Then she refused to kill herparents, so Kenneth couldn't get
their money.
I think it as sad as it is.
I think that stabbing herthrough the face is a pretty
good indicator of how angry hewas at her, but notice he
stabbed her through the faceonly through a pillow.
So it's not like he looked herin the eyes.
He did that.
He was a coward.
He tried to smother and then hejammed the knife into her head,
(48:43):
which is pretty cowardly.
As she's laying in bed, tryingto sleep.
So with Carrie I think there'ssome indication she was
impressionable, not too bright.
She grew up under her mother'sthumb.
there's some mention that sheresented that that control the
mother had on Carrie.
They lived in crappy conditions,which Carrie blamed on her.
(49:04):
And Kenneth stepped in, tookmom's authority away by
murdering her.
He promised to be a betterleader, promised her a new life,
and she just went with it.
Marcy (49:17):
This crime itself is actually pretty dumb.
Three people are gonna vanish,but there's lots of people
living in the area, relativesand neighbors.
Like eventually somebody's gonnafigure out something's wrong and
start asking questions and thepolice are gonna get involved.
One of the first patrol officersnoticed immediately there was
new concrete in the basementslab.
(49:39):
And Junior had threatened tokill the grandparents loud
enough that other relatives knewabout those threats.
So he sold this as some bigcomplicated plan.
You'd think that if he reallyhad planned all these details
out, especially if the planningwas commensurate with the
brutality of the crime, but inthe end it just seems almost
(50:00):
unbelievably stupid.
In a plan
Mark (50:04):
yeah, it's just dumb.
It really reminds me of some ofthe crimes I saw that were
committed by drug addicts.
My, there was one time my team'sworking a project in the high
drug area.
There's a stabbing murdercommitted in the center of the
area we were watching.
It turned out the guy who did itwas out of prison on an ankle
monitor.
Duh they, okay, who did it?
(50:24):
We think it might be this guy.
Isn't he an ankle monitor athome?
No, we can track his anklemonitor.
He actually took a city bus to ablock away and he's on the city
bus video a block away fromwhere he committed this knifey
murder.
It was a drug related thing.
This guy just didn't care.
It wasn't a big plan.
He was just angry and dopeaddled brain.
This is real fiend behavior.
(50:45):
They have no concern for outcomeor consequence.
And I see that in this case.
These suspects are going to becaught in St.
Louis or in Vegas.
It was just a matter of time.
It's almost a gift to a homicidedetective.
The dots are not difficult toconnect.
This guy's out on parole.
You can't just leave the area.
They're going to come lookingfor you.
(51:05):
And like I said, they're goingto connect those dots.
And there was a mountain ofevidence to condemn them back in
Indianapolis, no matter how farthey got.
Marcy (51:18):
There's definitely a domestic violence aspect to this
whole case, which is really sad.
Mark (51:24):
Yeah, from the victim side it is, it's extremely sad and
you see this with especiallyparents and siblings who have a
drug fiend in their lives andhere, obviously the mom and the
Bradleys loved him.
The mother allowed him to staywith them despite, even after
he's shooting his mouth offabout wanting to kill people and
(51:45):
stuff despite his obviousproblems the grandparents are
supportive until it's obviouslytime for tough love I don't
think anyone wanted to believethat this guy was capable of
what he did and, so nobodywanted to contact the police
because getting him in moretrouble was the last thing he
needed, and the families I knowthat have people like that in,
(52:07):
in them are just treading watertrying to get by, doing what
they have to do to protectthemselves hoping that person
gets better, hoping that persongrows out of it, hoping that
person gets effective help withthe problem.
I think just in this case thatthey underestimated how bad it
was and it went deeper than justsimple addiction.
(52:27):
There is a depravity, it's,serious depravity here that is
way beyond the norm.
Marcy (52:37):
So there was no trial in this case, so we don't need to
talk about that.
The sentence seemed right forhim, but people have criticized
the term that Kerry got as toolenient.
Mark (52:48):
Yeah, the prosecutors asked for 100 years and she was
given just under 40 with otherkind of stipulations that really
keep a 40 year term solid.
So her first eligibility forparole, and hopefully she
doesn't get it, is in 2024,which is just, right around the
corner.
And that just doesn't seem likethere's enough time.
There are lots of peripherallyinvolved accomplices to multiple
(53:09):
murder, like robberies thatinvolve multiple murders, who
would love to exchange sentenceswith her.
It's easy to be involved in amultiple murder homicide as an
accomplice that wasn't directlyinvolved and get life in prison
also.
But she didn't get that.
And like I said, that, thatwould, that's the envy of a lot
of the people that do.
Do
Marcy (53:29):
either of them have the right to appeal?
Mark (53:32):
Yeah, they had a right to appeal and there was an appeal
and it was denied.
In, in fact, bring up theappeal, even in that Kenneth had
no shame.
His appeal was actually based onthe idea that he had a privacy
interest in his grandparentshome.
So the initial search and allthe evidence should be
suppressed.
It.
It's not surprising the judgecompletely slapped him down,
(53:54):
basically saying that a criminalcan't claim a right to privacy
while committing a home invasionrobbery and murder.
Marcy (54:01):
Geez.
You said that this case reallycaught your attention in terms
of how senseless and sad it was.
The grandparents were targetedbecause they stopped giving him
money.
And the money they did havesaved really wasn't all that
much.
He kept talking about this newlife, but they weren't rich.
There was no way they were goingto get away with any of this for
(54:24):
200, 000.
Mark (54:26):
Which he spent 60, 000 of like in the first four days in
the casinos, which is crazy.
Yeah, all of those things andthe brutality of it stabbing mom
in the head, smothering grandma,crushing grandpa's skull just
outrageously deplorable.
I've done a lot of these cases,and this is one of the more
horrible detail wise, especiallybecause of the family aspect of
(54:48):
it.
It's hard to think about,military vet, retired a couple
who've been together for almost60 years and to end up the way
they did is tough to thinkabout.
Marcy (55:06):
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Also, if you email us ascreenshot of your review or
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(55:29):
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Remember, email us atcrimeravenpodcast@gmail.com.
Thank you for listening.
If you haven't already, pleasesubscribe to Crime Raven, so you
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(55:53):
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