Wicked Ever After Presents: Lauren Landavazo

This week I’m bringing you a guest episode from the one and only Stephanie Moram who is the host of podcast and YouTube channel Wicked Ever After! Please give her a listen and a follow. Find all social media links below as well as her sources for the episode! 

Obsession is a word that we often use to describe something we really, really like. By definition, obsession is an idea or thought that continually preoccupies or intrudes on a person's mind. This is where someone's obsession went too far and resulted in the murder of the beautiful Lauren Landavazo.

All Wicked Ever After Links https://linktr.ee/stephaniemoram THANK YOU FOR THE RATINGS AND REVIEWS ON YOUTUBE AND MY PODCAST! Subscribe to Wicked Ever After Podcast HERE https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/wicked-ever-after/id1587412592 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thisisstephaniemoram/ TikTok http://www.tiktok.com/@thisisstephaniemoram For All Business Inquiries [e-mail] This Podcast is executive-produced by Alecia Harris (http://saltandsandcreative.com/link-buttons) Research Provided by Stephanie Moram Writers: Alecia Harris and Stephanie Moram Sources 911 calls from Law and Crime recording of trial https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoW1SIeAWaWa5MHJpdi-gqMnJcFK2TN3s https://youtu.be/9I_L24Gb2Zc?si=Dt-aL7Gy1s6kMsnC https://www.timesrecordnews.com/story/life/announcements/obituaries/2016/09/06/lauren-landavazo/92634364/ https://www.timesrecordnews.com/story/news/crime/2018/09/13/victim-takes-stand-recount-day-pain-horror-kody-lott-trail/1292224002/ https://www.timesrecordnews.com/story/news/crime/2018/09/14/medical-examiner-testifies-autopsy-photos-kody-lott-murder-trial/1304737002/ https://www.timesrecordnews.com/story/news/crime/2016/09/05/kody-austin-lott-lott-had-standoff-with-baylor-co-law-enforcement-in-2015/92634226/ https://https://www.newschannel6now.com/story/38633757/landavazo-family-files-civil-suit-against-kody-lott-parents/
https://www.newschannel6now.com/story/33018366/kody-lott-his-ex-girlfriend-says-he-was-abusive/
https://www.texomashomepage.com/news/father-of-alleged-shooter-in-fridays-deadly-incident-speaks-out/
https://www.theriderchronicle.com/feature/2018/09/25/too-young-too-soon-justice-for-lauren-landavazo/

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Primetime Crime. I'm your host, Kylie. Let's talk
right now on true crime, and then together we are
going to work on warming up some cold cases.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Let's go.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
My name is Hope Whutin and last year I lost
my two children to philicide, which is the murdering of
one's child or children. A battle of custody and mental
illness that led to my estranged husband taking our kids'
lives before taking his own, A silent epidemic that has

(00:38):
continued to take more lives each year, yet the term
philicide is not widely known. Join me here on Voices
against Philicide as I share my story and the stories
of other parents who have lived through the unthinkable. We
speak the names of our children, and we break the

(00:59):
silence this system depends on. Because silence kills. Their lives mattered,
their voices were stolen, but ours won't be. Together, we
speak the truth, we honor their lives, and we fight
for change. Please subscribe to Voices against Philcide wherever you

(01:21):
get your podcasts to join me as I navigate grief,
talk with other parents, and continue to raise awareness and
support to make changes our systems so desperately needs for
other families and especially our children. From me hope hutin

(01:42):
thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:44):
Until next time, remember be kind and always abound in hope.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
Hey guys, welcome to this week's episode of Primetime Crime.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
It's Kylie.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
We are doing something a little different this week because
I very much decided that I am taking a week
off from putting more on my plate. It has been
a wild week, No need to get into it, trust me,
it has been a wild week. I think there was
a full moon and the full moon was full mooning

(02:47):
for sure. So this week I am bringing you a
story from my friend Stephanie, who is the host of
Wicked ever After, also a true crime podcast, and she
also has a YouTube channel. We please check her out,
follow her, support her. She is going to be telling
us the story of Lauren Londvazo and Michayla Smith today,

(03:09):
in a story that I was not familiar with. And
I think that's the reason I really like doing these
guest appearances, because you get a chance to hear somebody
else's podcast and get a little bit of a take
on their storytelling, and you get to hear of all
new cases. So I really like being able to do
these guest episodes and share a little bit of some

(03:32):
of the podcasts that I enjoy listening to and that
I consume as a true crime podcaster myself. So we
are going to go ahead and get into Stephanie's episode.
I'm not really going to do a right now and
true crime this week. Anything that we need to catch
up on, we will catch up on next week's episode,
which I, by the way, have ready to go. So

(03:53):
I'm taking the weekend off. I'm unplugging from all things,
and I'm going to give myself a little mental health
break and it is so much needed.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Let me tell you.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
So let's go ahead and get into Wicked ever After
with Stephanie Moram.

Speaker 5 (04:10):
Obsession is a word that we often use to describe
something we really really love. By definition, obsession is an
idea or thought that continuously preoccupies a person's mind. Our
little obsessions over a new song, a late night snack,
or even that new friend we met can be harmless
for most people. They're just something we love so much

(04:32):
that we gain great pleasure when indulging in it. But
sometimes obsessions aren't simple or innocent. Sometimes those intrusive thoughts
slowly poison one's mind until the only ending is simply death.
I'm Stephanie Moram and this is wicked ever after. Since

(04:52):
this also goes on YouTube, there's a lot of words
I cannot say, such as sexual assault, sexual ab use, rape,
So in those moments you might hear me on the
podcast say sa. So I just wanted to give a
heads up that as you're listening, you might hear something
a little bit different. And that's only because I want

(05:14):
to be able to post this on YouTube. Please consider
clicking the thumbs up button on this episode to help
get this story out. Also, please subscribe to my YouTube
channel or podcast. It really helps the algorithm when you like,
subscribe and share. If you want to see my face
and all my reactions, be sure to head over.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
To YouTube to watch this episode.

Speaker 5 (05:38):
And lastly, I have invisi line, so if I mispronounce
a word, I am apologizing in advance. Our story today
takes us to Wichita Falls, Texas, known as a gateway
to Texas. This charming town sits on the border with Oklahoma,
about two hours northwest of the Dallas and Fort Worth area.

(06:00):
Visitors come for the thriving art scene, historic architecture, and
gorgeous parks. This is where we find the Landvanzo family.
Verne and Bianca had three children, two boys, Jordan and Tim,
and on October fourteenth, two thousand and two, they welcomed
their beautiful daughter, Lauren into the family. Many parents described

(06:20):
their children as angels, but for those who knew and
loved Lauren, that was the perfect description. She was kind, happy, goofy,
always smiling, and looked at the world around her through
a lens of constant positivity. Bianca, Lauren's mom, described her friendliness.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
She talked to.

Speaker 5 (06:39):
Everyone and knew so many people. She was always amazed
about how many people she actually knew. She was a
social butterfly. Her dad described her as one of the
most popular girls in school, not because she was in
the popular crowd, but because of who she was. One
of her dad's favorite stories was when there was a
new kid in school and he was nervous about lunch

(07:01):
because he had no friends and nowhere to sit. He
remembered sitting down alone, and Lauren came right over and
invited him to sit with her and her friends. She
seemed insistent on making sure no one ever felt alone, unhappy,
or unwanted. Lauren was Bianca's mini me. The only real
difference between them was Lauren's height. She grew to be

(07:23):
taller than her mom, a fact her mom remembered fondly
saying how great it was to finally not have the
same shoe size, since Lauren would always steal her shoes
when she was younger. Lauren loved to make her parents laugh.
She hid in her room late in the day before
her dad got home from work, and when he came
through the door, she would run from her room in
some sort of crazy costume or pajama with a face

(07:47):
full of wild makeup and devilish hair. It was a
daily greeting that always had everyone rolling in laughter. As
she got older, Lauren spent a lot of time nurturing
and helping others. She stayed up late at night in
her room helping and counseling her friends. She spent much
of her time just making sure everyone was okay. One

(08:07):
of those friends was Mikayla Smith, daughter of Shamika and
Rodney Smith. She was born just a couple of months
after Lauren, on December twentieth, two thousand and two. She
liked to read, listen to music, and hang with her friends.
She too, was always smiling, and she was described as
bright but soft spoken. She was funny and a happy child,

(08:28):
a daddy's girl who always put others first. So it's
no surprise that she and Lauren became fast friends around
grade three. They loved each other's company and were often
seen in school talking and laughing together. Often they walked
home together down an alley from school. And this isn't
one of those dark, creepy alleys you're probably picturing that

(08:49):
you see in horror movies. This was a well lit,
bright alleyway that was often used as a main walkway
to get from point A to point B, and a
lot of students use. In twenty sixteen, both girls were
thirteen and attended McNeil Junior High as eight graders. September
second of that year was just a regular day. The

(09:10):
girls had only been in school a couple of weeks
and Mikayla had met another friend to begin.

Speaker 2 (09:15):
Her walk from school to home.

Speaker 5 (09:17):
As she was walking, she spotted Lauren called out to her,
and the two continued the rest of the way by
each other side. Around three oh five pm, the girls
entered the alleyway that they had used hundreds of times before.
They were chatting about how they didn't have any classes
together this year, when Lauren started walking ahead of the
group and veered off towards her boyfriend's house. When a

(09:40):
black car pulled up near Lauren, with the driver's side
facing the girls in the alley. The cars came to
a stop, so the girls naturally halted. Before anyone could
stop and process, the man in the car started firing
a gun. Mikayla watched as Laurene immediately fell to the
ground and within seconds felt the sheering pin in her

(10:00):
own chest. At that point, Michaela remembered running away. Her
final memory of Lauren was seeing her lying on the cement,
lifeless in her attempts to escape the gunfire. Michaela looked
down at her chest and noticed all the blood coming
from it.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
She was shot as well.

Speaker 5 (10:17):
Later, Michaela told her mother that after she realized she
too had been shot in the chest, she was screaming
to the other friends to get out of the way,
and she started to run back to Lauren. The gunfire ceased,
the car drove away, and chaos started. This shooting took
place in front of several kids and in a very
public area, so people ascended onto the scene very quickly.

(10:40):
One witness reported rushing to the scene and found Louren
not moving, still clutching her binder in her arms. She
asked Lauren if she was okay, but already knew she
would receive no response because Lauren was already dead. As
she was dialing nine one one for help, she noticed
a wounded Michaela trying to get to her friend, bleeding
and distraught.

Speaker 6 (11:00):
And then it's been albius. I'm gonna amulate to fifty
one three kings. There is a young lady who lay
on the ground bled. She does not appear to be climbing.
He have any where one in her bed? I courted
her unsmots fired at.

Speaker 7 (11:16):
Her, Okay, go ahead, and said, first, can you tell
where she's leaning from?

Speaker 6 (11:22):
T to get ahead? However, I can't really sell hap.
Is she breading right now?

Speaker 5 (11:34):
Okay?

Speaker 6 (11:35):
You off her? You don't long enjoying some girl? She's
all away in the ground. Okay, do you know how
long she's been lying there?

Speaker 5 (11:44):
Now?

Speaker 6 (11:44):
No?

Speaker 7 (11:51):
Can you touch her and not tell me she's pulled
to the touch where if she's worn?

Speaker 6 (11:55):
And fifty corners you warm? We want to be like Stubby.

Speaker 5 (12:17):
Another witness, Jamie Lopez, an RNA, approached and saw Lorne
lying in the alley as well. Her eyes were open,
but they were void of life. Jamie initially thought Lauren
had been hit by a car because she noticed broken fingers.
She tempted to deminister aid, so she turned Lauren over
from her stomach to her back. That was when she
noticed one of the bullet holes around her heart. She

(12:39):
felt for a pulse, but there was none, and was
unsure about doing CPR because of the gunshot wound. It's
around this time Jamie noticed Mikayla running down the alley
yelling she had been shot. Blood was all over the
front of her shirt and she was clearly scared. Being
a nurse, Jamie had some gauze and dressing in her
car and ran to get them for Mikayla. She put

(13:00):
gauze and bandage where she could and got the help
of another witness to put pressure on Mikayla's other injuries,
hoping to prevent her from bleeding out. In the chaos
of the moment, Jamie noticed that many people had gathered
and were staring at Lauren's body, so she grabbed a
blanket from her car and covered up Lauren as best
she could to prevent people from staring. Parents had gathered quickly,

(13:23):
and the screaming and shouting got louder and louder. I
can only imagine what that was like. Everyone was confused
and was just trying to make contact with their kid
by phone or in person. No one wanted the body
that was under that blanket to be their child. Back
at Laurence's house, it was three thirty PM and Bianca
was waiting for her daughter to arrive home from school.

(13:43):
One of Bianca's friends pulled up in a truck, asking
if Lauren had returned home from school yet, to which
Bianca replied, quote know why end quote. Her friend replied,
quote kids are down, Kids are down.

Speaker 2 (13:55):
End quote.

Speaker 5 (13:56):
Lauren's dad, Verne, was inside and saw Bianca run out
the door and down the street. Not knowing what was
going on, he hopped into.

Speaker 2 (14:03):
His truck and started to follow.

Speaker 5 (14:05):
Soon Bianca came upon hordes of people, sirens, and crime
scene tape. Desperate to find her daughter and make sure
she was okay. Beyanca searched the area and hoped to
find Lauren somewhere in the crowd, but it didn't take
long for Bianca to make it to the front of
the crowd, look down and see her daughter's lifeless body

(14:25):
lying on the cement. In the film Murder at First Sight,
Bianca said, I knew she was gone. I can't explain it.
I just knew she was gone.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
I know I was screaming, just.

Speaker 5 (14:35):
Really loud and horrible screams, but I know I was
calling her to come back. I felt like she was
going to the light and I was trying to get
her to come back. I was saying, don't go, please
come back.

Speaker 2 (14:45):
End quote.

Speaker 5 (14:46):
Burne recalled feeling a state of shock after seeing his daughter.
Lauren was put in the ambulance and he joined her inside.
On the way to the hospital, paramedics reported they had
a heartbeat, but it was an artificial heartbeat that is
very common after some when is passed. Sadly, after arriving
at the hospital, Lauren was officially pronounced dead. Autopsy results
showed that Lauren was shot with a semi automatic AR

(15:09):
fifteen style rifle from three feet away. She was struck
twice in the head, with multiple shots to both hands,
her chest, liver, spinal column, shoulders, and other areas. She
also had abrasions on her face, which may have occurred
when she fell on the pavement. A single bullet mangled
her hand, entering and exiting through her ring finger and
grazing her pointer finger. She experienced three fatal shots, one

(15:33):
to her liver and another tour left lung. The third
and final shot was to the back of Lauren's head
that hit her brainstem. A gruesome, senseless ending to such
a beautiful life. As for Michayla, she was undergoing life
saving surgery for the three bullet wounds in her chest,
three holes she still carries around to this day. The

(15:54):
investigation began immediately after all this had been a very
public shooting, with a lot of witnesses present. However, despite
the public nature of the crime, the police had no leads.
The entire crime made no sense, and the police as
well as the community, were baffled by what had happened
in that alleyway. Investigators went to Lauren's home and tried

(16:17):
to find some answers. They took her phone and computer
and hoped perhaps her texts or online activity might lead
them to the murderer, but after extensive searching, they came
up empty handed, finding absolutely nothing suspicious or harmful on
her phone or computer. Interviewing the witnesses was difficult, considering

(16:39):
most of them were twelve and thirteen years old who
had just experienced a serious traumatic event. Many of them
didn't have a ton of new information the police could use,
but Michaela was able to provide a piece of the
puzzle that was about to give investigators their first glimpse
of hope. Because of the proximity of Mikayla to the truck,

(17:00):
she happened to get a view of the driver, saying
that she had literally quote locked eyes with a killer
end quote. She was able to describe him as having
shaggy brown hair, white skin, and she also mentioned that
he was younger. The police had finally something to go
on and release this debscription, as well as the description
of the truck to the public. Unfortunately, most of the

(17:22):
men in the area matched that description, which made it
super difficult to nail down a viable suspect. Investigators decided
to make a very unusual decision and contact a sketch
artist to meet with Mikaela and see if they could
get a picture of the suspect drawn up. This was
hardly ever done in Wichita follows because crimes like these
normally didn't happen, and because this decision came with a

(17:44):
lot of risk considering the eyewitness was a miner and
could have easily been confused about what they saw due
to the trauma. Not long after the sketch of the
suspect was released, a woman by the name of Joanna
Perez Ramirez and her fiance were on their way to
the May Shift memorial that people in the community had
made forlorn. When they arrived near the memorial, they stayed

(18:06):
in their truck and noticed a gold suv slowed down
near the memorial. The driver was a young, white male
and he had a ball cap on, but the hair
outside of the cap was kind of curly and shaggy.
Joanna instantly thought that the driver kind of matched to
the description of the suspect, and so she and her
fiance decided to.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
Follow the gold suv.

Speaker 5 (18:30):
Super brave for them to do that, I would have
just called nine one to one. At that point, the
driver turned right into an apartment complex and parked his suv.
Joanna noticed that the driver got out of the suv
and looked very nervous. She saw him go around the
backside of the suv to the passenger door, opened it
and the man grabbed an item and tucked it under
his arm.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
That item was long.

Speaker 5 (18:52):
And wrapped in a blanket, and they believed the end
of a rifle was sticking out of it. He was
then seen walking towards the apartment complex, all the while
looking around as if making sure no one saw him.
Joanna and her fiance watched him go into his apartment
and then waited to see what he would do next.
Eventually he came out empty handed, and that's when they

(19:13):
called nine to one one and well.

Speaker 7 (19:16):
What was your emergency? We were driving might have an
accident that happened at Trinidad and Timson, and we pulled
into a certain rows and it goes to the salting
apartments and there's a kid that just drive up.

Speaker 6 (19:30):
In a Saho with shaggy hair and hat and he
got kid.

Speaker 7 (19:34):
Looked like a rifle and he had it wrapped in
clothes and ranked and he was trying to get it
off in a hurry. He just wanted to the apartment
to get trip. The driver his tall, skinny white boy
with shaggy shoulder leafs hair and he had a hat
on when he lasted, and he took him a while
to get out of the back seat. He came to
get in there and get something else, and it was

(19:56):
a long stuff and wrapped up and blinked and clothed. Okay,
and you said it was a rightful or you just
thought it might have been a ridicule. Is the way
he was holding it and looked like it was because.

Speaker 6 (20:06):
He was trying to hurry up.

Speaker 7 (20:07):
And it was kind of like he was a decisions
And you guys, sit you.

Speaker 6 (20:11):
A park that Trent Tayler.

Speaker 7 (20:13):
Yeah, we're facing the apartment interest.

Speaker 6 (20:18):
Okay, will walters and out that way, checked the area
and they'll come talk to you as well.

Speaker 7 (20:22):
Okay, okay, thank you.

Speaker 5 (20:26):
During the nine to one to one call, dispatchers asked
Johanna to write down the license plate. A few seconds later,
the man drove to the backside of the apartment and
Joanna lost visual of him. Dispatch had contacted Officer John Gordon,
who was finishing his lunch near the scene, and as
he pulled into the apartment complex, the man in the
suv pulled out. The officer then turned around in an

(20:49):
attempt to catch up with the suv. After following him
for a little bit, Officer Gordon pulled over the man
for a traffic violation in the parking lot of a
shopping center. He ran his plates and found the driver
to be Cody Lot. The officer approached the driver's side
and saw Cody clinging to the steering wheel. He asked
Cody where he was going to, which he replied that

(21:11):
he was going to his mom's apartment to feed the
dogs since she was out of town. The officer explained
to Cody that they had received a call about a
suspicious person and a truck and that his truck matched
the description. He then asked Cody for consent to search
the suv, to which he consented, but unbeknownst to the

(21:31):
police department, Cody had already cleaned out the suv, so
not much was found. But what they did find was
a backpack which they searched and it contained brass knuckles,
which at that time in the state of Texas were
considered a prohibited weapon. That's all they needed to arrest
him and bring him in for questioning. How fucking lucky. Wow,

(21:53):
that's insane. They also found a shellcasing from a twenty
two caliber on the floorboard of passenger seat. Later, police
matched it to the shells found at the crime scene,
and the rifle they removed from Cody's mom and stepdad's
home was a perfect match. Police took Cody downtown to
begin the interview process. He didn't have to give a statement,

(22:15):
but he did agree to talk to detectives. For the
first forty five minutes of the four hour interview, Cody
denied any involvement in Lauren's death. When asked if he
did it, he said, quote I did not end quote.
In the interrogation video, Cody's body language showed defensiveness and
that he had something to hide. In my opinion, detectives

(22:37):
are highly trained in interrogation techniques and body language, and
they knew they needed to build some rapport with Cody
so he would confess. Their theory did pay off, because
after forty five minutes, they finally had their confession. Quote yes,
I did it. End quote. When asked what happened, Cody
said he pulled up and smiled at Laurene. Quote Lauren

(23:00):
looked at me like I was joking, or she kind
of looked at me like, oh please, you know, she
kind of just like turned her head like with the
kind of smirk on her face, right, and that's when
I decided end quote, he continued.

Speaker 2 (23:15):
Quote.

Speaker 5 (23:15):
I fired at her first, and then her friend was
like right beside her. When I pulled up, I did
aim at Lauren, but nod at her head. I thought
the gun would jam on me, but I was just
pulling that trigger as fast as I could. It sounded
like pow, pow pow. End quote gross. As the interview continued,

(23:36):
detectives were told that Lauren and MICHAELA didn't know who
twenty year old Cody Lot was, but he knew who
Lauren was because he had been watching her for the
past year. He said it wasn't a senseless killing, and
rather that he had talked to the devil.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
Before murdering Lauren.

Speaker 5 (23:52):
He wanted the murderer to be reported as an assassination,
calculated assassination. Of that, Cody confessed he went to a
field he was familiar with and hid the weapon in
a place he knew he'd be able to find it later.
He then went to Archer City, which is about a
twenty minute drive from Wichita, Falls, met up with a

(24:14):
girl he knew, and together they went to her house
to do drugs. It wasn't until that following Sunday that
he went back and retrieved the weapon to take back
home to a stepdad's gunlocker at the apartment because he
didn't want his stepdad to know that the gun was missing.
Right during the interview, investigators noticed that his entire confession

(24:36):
was all about him. He was selfish and showed no
remorse for his actions. He was almost animated and how
he presented the facts of the murder almost like he
was proud of what he did and excited.

Speaker 2 (24:49):
To tell a story.

Speaker 5 (24:51):
After the interview was over, the police chief scheduled a
press conference and announced to the public, quote, we've arrested
a suspect and his name is Cody lot Enote. So
who was Cody and how did Lorne come into this
stranger's crosshairs. Cody was born on January seventh, nineteen ninety six,

(25:12):
to Christy Rowland and David Lott. His parents divorced when
he was around four or five years old, and that
is when the problem started to arise surrounding Cody. According
to his dad, he started to exhibit aggressive behavior and
violent outbursts, as well as extremely antisocial behavior.

Speaker 2 (25:29):
And became very reclusive.

Speaker 5 (25:32):
As he got older, his behavior continued to worsen, and
he turned to illicit drugs at the age of thirteen.
In twenty ten, at the age of fourteen, he started
dating a girl from his high school named Haley Clayton.
They dated for about two years, and during that time,
Haley said that Cody was very violent with her. She
described an instance where he wrapped a seatbelt around her

(25:53):
throat and tried to strangle her. Another time, he pushed
her down the stairs, and a time after that he
busted her head on the dash of his car. He
sounds like a fucking stellar guy. Early in twenty twelve,
Haley moved to Colorado to live with her mother, and
Cody decided to move with her, but within a month
of arriving there, the violence picked up again, even being

(26:17):
violent towards Haley in front of her family. Haley's mom
Boughtoim a one way ticket back to Texas and he
and Haley broke up. However, it didn't end as seamlessly
as everyone at Hope. Haley stayed in Colorado for a
full year after the breakup, scared because Cody had continued
to threaten her In twenty thirteen, she moved back to

(26:40):
Texas to start a new relationship. She ended up having
a baby with this person, and Cody's harassment continued. He
started to threaten her, her boyfriend, and their child. He
threatened to create a scenario where he would cause a car.

Speaker 2 (26:55):
Accident, kill them, and torture them.

Speaker 5 (26:58):
Every few months, Haley and her family received harassing texts
or calls from Cody. She blocked him from her phone
and on social media, but he somehow always was able
to find a way to contact her. In these messages,
he said he wanted to kidnap her and her baby
and torture them both in front of her boyfriend.

Speaker 2 (27:17):
That's fucked up.

Speaker 5 (27:18):
Hailey lived in constant fear for her and her family's life,
always looking over her shoulder, unsure of what to expect. Ironically,
the last threatening message Haley ever received was at ten
twenty two.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
In the morning on the day that Lorne was gotten down.

Speaker 5 (27:34):
Cody's troubles continued after his breakup with Hailey. He had
a hard time holding down a job, and when he
was working at Sonic or Chipotle, it wasn't for very long.

Speaker 2 (27:44):
He was still a loner or.

Speaker 5 (27:45):
Doing drugs and was highly dysfunctional. In twenty fourteen, he
was convicted for possession of drugs and theft. He received
a three year probated.

Speaker 2 (27:53):
Sentence as punishment.

Speaker 5 (27:55):
At nineteen, a year before the murder, Cody was evolved
in a police stand off hostile situation. He was at
his grandmother's home with a gun and was threatening to
shoot people. When the police arrived, Cody dealt with the
negotiator on the scene, who's able to talk Cody out
of the house peacefully without any shots being fired. A
criminal trespass warning was issued, but no charges were filed

(28:18):
against him, which seems really odd.

Speaker 2 (28:20):
To me anyways.

Speaker 5 (28:22):
However, he did stay in a mental health facility in
Houston shortly after this incident, from June twenty fifteen to
August twenty fifteen. It's unclear if it was mandatory or
if he volunteered to go to this hospital, but it's
there that he was diagnosed with schizo. Effective disorder a
combination of schizophrenia and effective disorder. Schizophrenia is a state

(28:47):
of psychosis where people typically hear voices or have paranoid delusions.
An effective disorder is related to mood. Therefore, people who
suffer from schizo effective disorder are either quite depressed or
the quite manic, where they can be over excited. After
Cody received a diagnosis and his hospital stay, he was

(29:08):
discharged and went back to his drug use. He refused
to take his medications that.

Speaker 2 (29:13):
Had been prescribed to him.

Speaker 5 (29:14):
Instead, he experimented with heroin, meth, MDMA, and GHB. During
this time, I believe he was living with his mother
and stepfather in their apartment near.

Speaker 2 (29:25):
The McNeil Middle High School.

Speaker 5 (29:27):
This was where Lauren and MICHAELA attended classes. He spent
a lot of time looking out the window, and this
is when he first noticed the twelve year old Lauren.
For an entire year, he watched Lorne walk home from
school with her friends and oftentimes with her boyfriend. These
afternoons perched by the window soon turned into an obsession

(29:49):
with a young girl he had never met. But why
the obsession and why the murder? According to Cody, he
was angry he didn't have a girlfriend and that he
he had never had much luck with girls. He reported
he had a problem with females for a very long
time and stated that his actions towards Lauren were like
letting off a hatred for all females that he had

(30:13):
let build up.

Speaker 2 (30:14):
He said that she was beautiful.

Speaker 5 (30:16):
And that he was jealous and angry of what she
had with her boyfriend. Her boyfriend enraged him, and he
set out to kill her to prove that he was
a man and her boyfriend was a child. He became
infatuated with Lauren. He wanted to assert his manhood. He
told police the act wasn't spontaneous and that a lot

(30:36):
of planning went into her murder, to degree he had
done it for the thrill of it and made no
real effort to conceal what he had done. Cody revealed
that he believed that Lauren was an angel and that
she couldn't die, therefore, shooting her was just him merely
sending her to another dimension. He believed there was this

(30:58):
cosmic battle bed between God and evil and that he
was working for the devil and that the devil had made.

Speaker 2 (31:05):
Him shoot her.

Speaker 5 (31:06):
He went on to say, quote, I knew this girl
was going to end up getting r aped here in
a couple of years, and there's all kinds of evil
going on, So in my mind, I saved her from
the evil of the world, who was also a sacrifice
to the devil, because I've been talking to the devil
lot and he's the one that told me to do

(31:27):
end quote. Cody claimed he sacrificed himself for the betterment
of the world, but sacrificed Lauren to God so he
could have a mansion and all the drugs he wanted.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
As a reward.

Speaker 5 (31:40):
Over that year of looking at Lorne every day from
the window, she had become Cody's possession, and in his
mind he owned her.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
She was his to do as he pleased.

Speaker 5 (31:52):
To a rational person, Cody's reasons seemed contradictory. Still, to
someone with his level of mental illness, it seemed the
weird web of devil sacrifices and God's reward made so
much logical sense, so he acted upon them without immediate remorse. Initially,
Cody was deemed incompetent to stand trial. However, after six

(32:16):
months of mandated mental health treatment, the judge allowed the
case to proceed. Cody had initially hoped to plead not
guilty by reason of insanity, and from the outside looking in,
it seemed like he just might get his wish. But
during his mental health treatment, psychiatrist doctor Brian Falls, who
did his initial evaluation, held up the diagnosis of schizo

(32:39):
effective disorder. He said that Cody had prominent delusions and
visual and auditory hallucinations. These created beliefs in Cody that
others don't necessarily hold. Doctor Falls also saw prominent disordered thought,
which manifested in Cody rambling a lot and going off

(33:00):
on tangents, so during their conversations often it made their
conversations very.

Speaker 2 (33:05):
Difficult to follow.

Speaker 5 (33:06):
He also noted a small degree of depression. On top
of everything else, Cody reported hearing voices outside of his
head at times. The day before the murder. The voices said, quote,
enjoy murder, It'll be worth it.

Speaker 2 (33:21):
End quote.

Speaker 5 (33:22):
He told doctor Follows of his fascination with occult satism
and the supernatural, repeating what he had told police about
thinking he would get some sort of satanic award if
he submitted. Despite this evaluation and clear mental illness, the
judge allowed the case to proceed because the definition of
insanity and Texas reads quote, A person has to be

(33:43):
suffering from a mental disease or defect, and then as
a result of that mental disease or defect, they have
to not have a knowledge of the wrongfulness of their
conduct at the time of the alleged defense end quote.
Spoken in the simplest terms, Cody would have had to
not know what he was doing at the time he
shot Lorn, but as we know, that wasn't the case.

(34:05):
Cody was able to recount in detail what happened, showing
his very careful and thought out plan to murder. When
he talked about shooting her in the head, he said, quote,
I knew that I killed her end quote, would show
that he knew what he was doing and the consequences
of those actions. In the end, Cody pleaded guilty to

(34:25):
the murder of Lorn and aggravated assault with a deadly
weapon for wounding Mikayla on September nineteenth, twenty eighteen, two
years after the slaying. The jury deliberated for only forty
minutes before landing down a guilty plea for the murder
of Lorn. For her death, he was sentenced to life
in prison, but will be eligible for parole after serving

(34:48):
thirty years. He was also found guilty for the shooting
of Mikayla and was sentenced to twenty years in prison.
On top of prison time, he was also ordered to
pay twenty thousand dollars in fines. In honor of Lauren's
life and Michayla's ongoing struggles, a statue of a black
horse was erected on the grounds of McNeil Middle School.

(35:08):
The monument featured positive messages such as love and live,
as well as purple and blue paup prints to honor
the girl's favorite colors. Unfortunately, on October first, twenty twenty,
vandals made off with the statue after forcibly removing it
from its foundation, But with the help of friends and neighbors,

(35:29):
Lauren and Michayla's families were able to commission a replacement statue.
On May twenty seventh, twenty twenty one, a second memorial
was placed in front of the school. Hopefully this one
will truly be forever. On June eleventh, twenty nineteen, Texas
passed Lauren's Law, which makes the deliberate slaying of a
child under the age of fifteen a capital offense. At

(35:52):
the time that Lauren was murdered, the law only applied
to children ten and under, making Cody ineligible for the
death penalty. Lauren's parents, who worked extremely hard to get
the law in the books hope that the stricter guardlines
will deter individuals from praying on the most vulnerable among us.
The law isn't retroactive and won't affect their particular case,

(36:14):
but they take comfort in knowing it might help and
save future families from experience such horrendous pain. As for Mikayla,
she has had many struggles after watching her friend get murdered.
For a long time, she had a hard time detaching
from her phone, constantly checking up on her friends and family,
worried she is going to lose one of them. Despite

(36:36):
her traumas, she is steadfast in her resolve to live
for her friend Lauren because quote, I know it could
have gone a very different way end quote. In these
gruesome cases, the victims and the perpetrator are often connected,
whether it's a family connection, a friend, a lover, or
a coworker. There are many times red flags or small

(36:57):
warning signs that we can piece together. But then on
much more tragic occasions, we have cases like this where
life is taken by complete stranger, making it difficult to
make sense of it all. Hody Lot was on nobody's radar.
Lauren had never met him. Her family had never met him.
They may have lived in the same town, but were

(37:18):
as much strangers as anyone can be. Yet he took
the long and vibrant life she had planned for herself
in one single second, ending her dreams and aspirations, and
forever shattering her family. I'm not sure how we can
actually make sense of these actions. I think we will
forever wonder why these horrible things happen, especially at random.

(37:40):
But I think this case can remind us of the
long spoken lesson that we are never guaranteed tomorrow. We
are never promised another minute in the day. So hug
your kids, your partner, and your friends, and live each
moment with the brightness and happiness that Lauren did. Let
me know your thoughts and opinions on the case and
the comments. Please hit the subscribe button on YouTube or

(38:03):
whatever podcast platform you're listening on.

Speaker 2 (38:06):
You can stay.

Speaker 5 (38:06):
Connected with me on Instagram and TikTok at This is
Stephanie Moram. You can also share your case suggestions with
me at my email address steff at Stephaniemoram dot com,
or you can simply send me a DM on Instagram.
Thank you so much for listening to Lauren and Michayla's story.
Until next time, Stay safe out there,