September 10, 2023 • 33 mins
Resilient: Turning Tragedy into Purpose - Live at TCPF
Hi True Advocates. I am back with one of my live sessions at the True Crime and Paranormal Podcast Festival in Austin, TX. I discuss a bit about Jacob but more on how I turned that tragedy into purpose.
If you want to support Angels' Voices Silenced No More and help families in NM fighting for justice go to: https://givebutter.com/S75TsV
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-consequences-true-crime--4347262/support.
Hi True Advocates. I am back with one of my live sessions at the True Crime and Paranormal Podcast Festival in Austin, TX. I discuss a bit about Jacob but more on how I turned that tragedy into purpose.
If you want to support Angels' Voices Silenced No More and help families in NM fighting for justice go to: https://givebutter.com/S75TsV
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-consequences-true-crime--4347262/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hat True Advocates back with another episode. This one's a little bit different,
though. It's going to be arecording of my conversation at the True Crime
and Paranormal Podcast Festival. Listen.If you don't get a chance to make
it to Austin next year, it'sgoing to be in Denver and you are
not going to want to miss it. You get to hear firsthand from family
(00:22):
advocates, meet your favorite creators,and just have a good time in general.
So I highly encourage you to attendagain. This conversation is one talk
that I gave about turning my tragedyinto purpose. It's called Resilient. I
speak from the heart here. Iam not scripted at all, but it
(00:43):
was something that I felt was reallyan important message to share, so I
hope that you get something out ofit. Also, you're going to hear
about a nonprofit that I recently startedcalled Angel's Voices Silenced No More in this
episode. There's more information in theshow notes below, but essentially, Angels
Voices Silence No More is a nonprofitthat raises and grants funds to families who
(01:06):
are fighting for justice. And I'msuper excited about this because it's going to
change what it means to fight forjustice in New Mexico. New Mexico is
already a very poor state. Thereare a lot of challenges with navigating the
justice system. So we're going totry to help families in New Mexico by
offering them money for funeral expenses,for therapy. We want to pay for
(01:30):
things like billboards, flyer printing.We want to pay for private investigators,
or attorney fees or court fees,anything that might help a family in New
Mexico who is fighting for justice.So if you want to get involved,
you can email us at info atAngels Voices and m dot org and you
(01:52):
can find the links for all theways to donate in the show notes below.
Thank you so much for listening,and thank you for or your desire
to advocate for justice for families inNew Mexico. If you don't know me,
(02:46):
I'm Eric carter Landin. I'm thehost end producer of True Consequences podcast.
I'm the co host of Crime Linesand Consequences and the co ghost of
dost Bukennials, which is my funshow. If you are into paranormal,
I was a believer in paranormal butas I've started doing the show and started
(03:07):
researching any paranormal phenomenon, I've becomemore of a skeptic. Now I recommend
you check that out if you likeSilly Times. I did not prepare an
actual script today. I'm just goingto talk from the heart because I feel
like that's going to be the bestway for me to deliver this message,
because I think that this is somethingthat is so personal to me and something
(03:29):
that is coming from my heart.Anyway, I know some people in here
may know me and my story.Is there anybody who doesn't know my story?
Okay, you don't know which reallyknow? Again, so for those
of you who have heard the story, I'm sorry. I'm going to go
through it a little bit here,but before I do, I want to
start with kind of the theme ofwhy I wanted to have this talk.
(03:51):
So when I was about eleven,after I had lived through the most horrible
experience of my life, my grandmotherpulled me aside one day and she said,
Eric, you have a choice.You can decide to let what happened
to you consume you. You canlet it overcome you. You can become
(04:15):
the very thing that you despise.Or you can make or you can make
another choice. You can choose togo a different way, And it was
I wasn't really aware of how profoundthat was at the time because I was
so young, But that interaction thatI had with my grandmother set me on
(04:39):
a path which has led me here. So I'm gonna go a little bit
back and talk about what happened.I'm not going to go into full detail.
If you want the full story,you can listen to season two of
my podcasts. You can also listento a bunch of other podcasts that have
covered Jacob's story. This is mybaby brother, Jacob. He died in
nineteen eighty seven. He was murderedby my mom's boyfriend. It was child
(05:02):
abuse. He was nine months old, and a lot of other things happened.
This man was a narcissist. Hewas extremely abusive. He was physically,
sexually, and emotionally abusive to me. He was physically and emotionally abusive
to my mother, and he wasalso friends with the police. They played
(05:28):
basketball every weekend. In nineteen eightysix nineteen eighty seven, there really wasn't
a lot of information available about domesticviolence, about child abuse. There was
stranger danger. They talked about thata lot, but nobody was talking about
the fact that the majority of abusethat happens is from somebody. You know.
(05:49):
My mom was very young. Jacobwas having some injuries, and the
doctors really didn't raise any flags.There was one point where Jacob had a
skull fracture and I was blamed forit. My stepdad told everybody that I
(06:10):
was jealous of Jacob and that Ikicked him in the head so hard that
his skull fractured. I was six. I probably waited maybe forty pounds if
I was lucky, So I justdon't see how that's likely. But because
there were no red flags raised bythe doctors, there was a Child Protective
(06:32):
Services investigation, but when they cameto our house, my stepdad chased the
woman away and that was the endof it. So I was sent to
live with my dad in California.And my mom didn't think that I was
responsible for what happened to Jacob,but she wanted to get me out of
the situation. At the same time, she stopped allowing and I'm not naming
(06:58):
him. You may have noticed thatalready. I'm not naming him because in
New Mexico. There are things thatcould set the clock in motion for speedy
trial, and naming him in thepublic could be seen as potentially problematic and
could lead to a problem with thetrial. My mom's really started reducing the
amount of time that he was allowedto be alone with Jacob almost to non
(07:18):
existent, but the injuries anytime thathe was with Jacob continued to happen.
Weird things happened. Jacob's personality changed. He used to be very excited to
do crazy things. One of hisfavorite things to do was to sit in
his baby swing and when the swingwould go forward, he would grab the
(07:41):
legs and as it went backwards,he would throw the entire swing backwards.
And the first time it happened,my whole family freaked out. We're like,
oh my god, are you okay? What's going on? So we
actually had to start putting the babyswing against the wall. But Jacob's behavior
change. One day, my grandmotherpicks Jacob up and puts him over her
(08:01):
head, which is something that heused to love, and he starts screaming
and crying and grabbing her hair andhe's shaking and he's freaking out, and
my grandmother asked, my mom,is something happening. Why is Jacob acting
like this? So my mom confrontsher boyfriend and she says, are you
(08:22):
hurting Jacob? What are you doing? And he says, no, I'm
not doing anything, and he grabsJacob and he picks him up, and
Jacob is trying to jump out ofhis arms into my mom's arms and he's
crying frantically, and so my momsays, don't ever play with Jacob like
that again. On April nine,nineteen eighty seven, my mom's working,
(08:45):
my grandmother has Jacob. Jacob's beensick because he's still recovering from the skull
fracture. He had an allergy tothe medication that they had put him on,
and he also had an ear infection, so he was fussy. My
grandmother wanted to go to church,so she called my mom and says,
what do I do with Jacob?He's really fussy. I don't want to
bring him the church because I don'twant him to disturb everybody. My mom
(09:09):
says, I guess you can takehim to my boyfriend. I'll be off
in an hour. In less thanan hour, Jacob was being rushed in
an ambulance to the hospital with ahematoma, re injured skull, fracture,
a broken rib, as well assigns of abuse on his body. The
(09:31):
injuries were so severe that in mysmall town he wasn't able to be treated,
so he was airlifted to Albuquerque,which is seventy five miles away,
and he was rushed into emergency surgery. My mom and my grandparents and my
mom's boyfriend took the long way theydrove, and when they got to Albuquerque,
Jacob was already in surgery. Hisinjuries were so severe that the doctor
(09:54):
had to sign off on the surgerywithout my mom's permission, and in the
late hours of April tenth, Jacobpassed away. He didn't survive a surgery.
I'm giving you all of this becauseit goes back to what my grandma
told me. So I go throughthis, my family goes through this horrible
(10:15):
loss of Jacob, and also allof the abuse that I endured and the
abuse that my mom endured, andI got into a dark place I didn't
want to live anymore, and mygrandma pulled me aside and told me that,
And I'm so grateful for that,because in my mind, I was
thinking about giving up in that verymoment on everything eleven years old. That
(10:43):
moment change the trajectory of my life, and I decided that was going to
end with me, never again inmy family. Well, something like this
happened as long as I'm around,But I also found that I wanted to
(11:03):
do more. And as I grewup in New Mexico, I started to
see cases coming through the court system. Cases you may be familiar with Victoria
Martin's Omario Varella, Baby Brianna.So many child abused cases in New Mexico.
(11:24):
Baby Brihanna, I think was onlytwo or three months old when she
was abused and eventually succumbed to herinjuries. Her mom is free right now.
She was involved, And as I'mwatching these cases go through the New
Mexico court system, I kept sayingto myself, somebody needs to say something,
(11:48):
somebody needs to do something, becauseNew Mexico has always failed at protecting
children Jacob nineteen eighty seven. Forme, that's where it starts, but
I'm sure it started way before that. It just starts there for me because
that's my earliest memory. But asI grew up, it didn't stop,
(12:09):
and it's still not stopping. Acouple of years ago, James Dunkley Cruz,
six years old, obvious signs ofabuse reported to child protective Services,
murdered by his stepfather. New Mexicohas a policy of reuniting at any cost.
Family reunification is the most important thing, not child safety, not protecting
(12:35):
a kid from being abused. Thegoal is to reunite that kid with his
family, no matter what. Sojust think about that for a second,
and the implications that has for somebody, for a kid who is told if
something is happening to you, tellan adult, tell somebody. They tell
(12:56):
somebody, and nothing happens. Asthis continues, and I'm having this thought
in my head, somebody used tosay something. Somebody needs to do something.
I finally decided that I would saysomething, that I would do something.
And again I leaned on that advicefrom my grandmother. You have a
choice. You can let this consumeyou. You can become the very thing
(13:18):
that you fear the most, oryou can make a different choice, go
it different way. So I pouredall of that anxiety, all of that
energy, all of that sadness,all of that pain into trying to help
and I created true consequences with theexpress goal of helping families like my family,
(13:39):
who felt alone, felt ignored,trying to convince a district attorney to
press charges against the only person inthe room when Jacob was injured, and
being told no because your mom isjust vindictive, because she's trying to make
problems for her poor husband, whois an upstanding member of the community,
(14:03):
whose friends were the cops, whoworks for the county, and my family
and I start feeling like, maybewe're making too much of this. Why
is nobody else angry? Why doesnobody else care? And I never wanted
another family to feel like that AyMexico again. So I opened my show
(14:26):
up to talk to family members,to give them a platform to tell their
story, to give them the opportunityto share it in their words without being
edited for context. I will takeout the awkward pauses. I do take
out the ums and the stumbles,But for the most part, it's their
(14:46):
message. It's their story to tell, it's not my story to tell.
I have the platform, I'm fortunateenough that people actually listen, and so
I turn that tragedy into momentum,into purpose, into helping people in my
community. And it hasn't been easy. It's been a it's been a difficult
(15:09):
journey. But I'm so happy tosay my son never has to worry if
he's going to be murdered in hissleep, never has to worry if his
mom my ex now is ever goingto be killed while he's sleeping. He
(15:33):
gets to grow up in a housefull of love and peace. And that's
the best gift that I can giveto him. The cycle stops right here.
It's not going to continue. Iknow that probably somebody hurt my stepdad.
It doesn't excuse his behavior, butI'm sure that somebody hurt him.
(16:00):
And again he had that choice.It consumed him. He became what he
was. My son never has tomake that choice, and that's a huge
blessing. And as I continue tohelp families through the show, I've also
started to explore other opportunities to makea bigger impact. Last week, I
(16:23):
just received a letter from the IRSthat my new nonprofit, Angels Voices Silence
No More, has been approved asa nonprofit And so the vision and the
mission really are to raise money sothat we can grant too family members in
New Mexico who are fighting for justice, and those funds are going to go
towards paying for funeral expenses, payingfor therapy, paying for a private investigator,
(16:49):
DNA testing, advertising on social mediabillboards, whatever they need in their
fight for justice. That's what we'regoing to be doing. And so the
reason I'm telling you all of this, I don't want you to feel bad
for me or anything like that.But if you've ever had any kind of
(17:10):
tragedy in your life and sometimes itfeels impossible, just remember the words that
my grandmother told me. You havea choice. You can let it consume
you, you can let it destroyyou if you want, or you can
go a different way. It's upto you. That was way shorter than
(17:34):
it was supposed to be. Thisis what happens all the time when I
don't write a script. But Iwanted it to be heartfelt and I wanted
it to be genuine, And soI'm happy to answer any questions that you
may have or have any further discussion. Absolutely. Okay. So there's a
lot of things here that I haveto unpack, and I actually have learned
(17:56):
some things recently that nobody else knows. So you guys are going to hear
this before anybody else, although Whitneyand Melissa already know, Charlie knows,
Kristen knows. Yeah, Okay forthe longest, you probably don't know yet.
It wasn't something I put in thegroup text. We'll just say that
it was something we talked about inAlbuquerque. I always suspected that there was
(18:22):
a cover up. I couldn't proveit. I knew that he was friends
with the police. I knew thatthey played basketball every weekend. I knew
that he worked for the county andhe had keys to every county building,
including the DA's office. I alwayshad this gut feeling, but I could
never prove it, so I neversaid it because I don't like claiming things
(18:45):
without having proof to back it up. So recently I started working with a
retired detective out of New Mexico whojust so happens to know all of the
police that were initially investigating the case, and she's reinvestigating it for me.
I did get the case reopened bythe attorney General, but they're not moving
on it. I brought her in. Her goal is to go in there,
(19:07):
put a whole case file together,and then turn it over to the
Attorney General. And hopefully that willinspire them to press charges. But in
this investigation that she's doing, shefound out through one of the investigators that
the case was covered up. Heflat out told her. There was a
moment where the state police were tryingto investigate this person, and the sheriff
(19:33):
of Socorro County in New Mexico tookthe suspect in his vehicle and drove around
for hours and hours so that nobodywould find him. There is a confession
that is mentioned in the police reportthat we have no record of. There
is no recording, there is noreport, it doesn't exist, according to
(19:56):
the police department. I don't knowwhere it went. They I don't know
where it went. All we haveis a little note in the case file
that says the suspect no longer needsa polygraph because he confessed. That's it.
I don't know what he said.I don't know if he was intimidated
into giving a confession. I don'tknow anything. I just know that allegedly
(20:21):
he confessed. That's one of thegoals of this detective. She's trying to
see if she can find something.I don't have a lot of hope because
it's been thirty six years. Ihave hope that we can get this case
across the finish line, but Idon't have hope that we're going to find
this confession, if that makes sense. Yes, No, is this gentleman
(20:44):
Jacob's father. No, I didn'tgo through all of that because and I
probably should have, because then wewould have been on time here. But
no, So my parents. Letme just back up a little bit.
So, this guy and my dadwe're best friends. And for context,
this person was not a stranger.My whole family knew this person. My
(21:10):
mom not only went to school withhim, but went to church with him.
His aunt is my godmother. Hissister married my mom's brother. Our
families are very connected. And fromthe outside, he seems like a great
guy. He's happy, he's outgoing, he's generous, he's friendly, he
(21:32):
makes good jokes. Everybody loves it. But when you get him behind closed
doors, he becomes a completely differentperson, to the point where I couldn't
even look at him without being accusedof giving him dirty looks as a seven
year old, and then my momwould inevitably defend me, and then he
would beat her up for it.They were best friends. My parents were
(21:55):
going through a hard time. Mydad was a Pentecostal evangelist, and he
basically would abandon us for weeks andweeks at a time. There'd be no
money in the house. My momhad two young kids, she couldn't work,
and so there were times where wedidn't know when we were going to
eat. Then my dad had anemotional Then my dad had an emotional affair
with a woman, and that wasthe last straw for my mom. The
(22:15):
best friend, knowing all of this, because he's talking to my dad,
swoops in to save the day andstarts showering us with love and gifts and
attention and affection and all the stuffthat we were starved for from my dad.
And he's a good guy. We'veknown him our whole lives. He's
(22:38):
part of the family. Made sense. So he manipulated his way into the
situation, taking an advantage of mymom when she was at her most vulnerable,
and praying on that vulnerability in orderto get what he wanted. He
was extremely jealous of Jacob, hesaid, I was, and I probably
was a little jealous of Jacob asa kid what it happens, but he
(23:00):
was extremely jealous any attention my momgave Jacob usually resulted in her getting screamed
at. He would play his radioreally loud when Jacob was asleep. My
mom would turn it down and hewould start screaming at her. There was
just a lot of There were alot of signs, but again there wasn't
a lot of knowledge at the time, not Jacob's dad. Long answer,
(23:22):
short question. Sorry, yeah,yeah, yeah, that's a good question.
He's still alive. I hope he'ssuffering. Yeah, he's still alive.
And for me, what does justicelook like? It's a really hard
question. I think the main thingfor me and my mom as we want
(23:45):
our day in court. Jacob deservesthat. But more than that, I
don't want him to be able tohurt anybody else ever. Again, and
he's had thirty six years to dojust that. I want him locked up,
not out of vindication, not ofanything else other than I don't want
(24:07):
him to hurt anybody else. That'sit. Yeah, that's a really good
question. Yeah, unbelievably, thereis no record. Again, just to
reiterate, he was friends with allthe police. It was shocking to hear
that because I did expect that therewould be some sort of record or at
(24:29):
least something. Yes, he hassince remarried. They did have kids.
She also had kids prior to themgetting together. I don't know a lot
about what happened in that relationship orwhat's happening in that relationship, because I
obviously don't want to be connected tothis person at all. He's been blocked
on social media, so he can'tsee me. I didn't block him from
(24:52):
the podcast because I hope he seesthat. But yeah, he doesn't have
anything on record, but I don'tthink that means he didn't do anything either.
Bob. Yeah, yeah, thisis where people get really mad at
my mom. And I understand thatperspective because I think people like to think
(25:18):
that in that situation they wouldn't dowhat my mom did. But you really
don't know that, because when you'rein that type of relationship, the goal
of that person, once they've hookedyou with the love and the affection and
the love bombing and all of that, is to break you down as small
as you can be, and toisolate you from everybody who supports you so
(25:38):
that you have nowhere to go.So I just want to put that out
there. If you've never looked intowhat domestic violence looks like. I highly
encourage you to, especially if you'rehaving that feeling of I can't believe this
happened when I tell you what happened. So just keep that in mind,
please. So after Jacob died,John, I'm just gonna call him.
John tell my mom that he wantsto talk to her. And the only
(26:03):
place that he wants to talk toher is at Jacob's grave. This is
a week after we buried him.My mom thankfully did not go, but
he kept telling her, I'm goingto tell you what really happened. I'm
going to tell you what really happened. So then eventually he was given a
polygraph. And this gets a littlebit confusing, but there were two agencies
(26:27):
investigating the case. The New MexicoState Police because when Jacob died, he
died in Albuquerque, not in Socorrowhere the abuse happened. And then the
Socorro County Sheriff as well as theSoCoRo Police. We're investigating it locally.
So while the police report says heconfessed and there's no need for a polygraph,
(26:48):
that was from the city. Thestate, however, decided that there
was a need for a polygraph,and so they gave him one and he
told my mom, I'm going toprove to you that I didn't do this
on purpose. I want you tocome with me to this polygraph exam so
I can show you that I'm innocent. And we went to Santa Fe.
It's about two hours from where welived. We had to wait outside.
(27:12):
He went inside. It took along time. I think it took four
hours. Could have just felt likethat because I was a little bit It
felt like forever. And then hewalked out, happy as can be,
and my mom said, how didit go? And he said, I
passed. It went great. Soin that moment we all were like,
(27:33):
he obviously is telling the truth.Obviously it was an accident, because if
it wasn't, if he failed thispolygraph, not knowing the law, not
knowing things like that and when Iwas that age, but surely they would
have arrested him and charged him.So we believed him. Then he did
this thing where he said, oh, by the way, I signed you
(27:56):
and Eric up for my health insuranceat work, and I said you're my
wife, and so you have tomarry me or I'm going to prison.
And so my mom married him again. If you're having that thought, please
educate yourself on domestic violence and whathappens with psychology of it. And that's
when he became extremely violent towards herand extremely abusive towards me once she was
(28:18):
locked in the marriage. And thenat that point, when she's almost been
murdered herself, she realizes that thisis not the same person she thought he
was. And at first she didn'tthink he was capable of killing Jacob.
He had two kids, they seemedperfectly healthy, she knew her whole life.
(28:45):
But after that she did now believethat he was fully capable of killing
Jacob intentionally, so she divorced himafter a number of things happened, But
the crux of it was when mycousin was being targeted by him and he
was grooming her for sexual abuse.She was thirteen, and my mom found
(29:06):
out about it because my cousin thankfullyhas a loud mouth and doesn't care and
told everybody. She was like,oh, yeah, no, I'm not
telling anybody. Great, hey,grandma, you know, she saved us,
She got us out of that situation. Because I think my mom,
not knowing what was happening to mebecause I didn't tell her because he told
me if I said anything, hewould kill both of us and nobody would
ever find us. So I didn't, but my cousin did and that gave
(29:30):
my mom the inspiration and the motivationand the fire that she needed to get
out of that situation. And that'swhen she went to the DA and said,
please, you need to press chargesagainst this man. And that's when
they said, you're just the scornedwoman. Get out of here. Nineteen
ninety one. Any other questions.Also, if you have mean things to
(29:52):
say about my mom, please don'tsay them to me because I'm very protective
of her. What's that? Oh, keep it to yourself if you feel
that way, for my sake.Any other questions. No, I want
to thank you for listening. Iknow this is not an easy conversation to
have, but I appreciate the factthat you're here because these conversations need to
(30:15):
happen. It is so important justfor the sake of an experiment. Before
we wrap up, could I askyou all to close your eyes, okay,
and you don't have to look around. I'm going to do this and
then I'll tell you what happens.So raise your hand. If you've ever
experienced some sort of domestic violence,raise your hand. If you know somebody
(30:40):
who has, and keep your handsup ninety you can put your hands down
the room, raise their hand.Almost everybody has been touched or closely touched
by this, but we don't talkabout it. It is way more common
than we think. And the onlyway that this can get better is if
(31:02):
we talk about it. Talk toour kids, tell them what the signs
are, tell them what to lookout for, and then tell them you're
there for them. No matter what, we have to talk about this.
We have to face this as asociety. This is a huge systemic problem
across the board. It doesn't matterif you're rich, if you're poor,
if you're gay, if you're straight, none of that matters. Almost everybody
(31:26):
at this conference has been touched bythis. We can't ignore it away.
Thank you. Okay, you justheard me at the True Crime and Paranormal
(32:23):
Podcast Festival in Austin talking about resiliencyand how I've turned my tragedy into purpose.
I hope that was inspiring for you, and no matter what you have
going on in your life, Ihope that you're able to find some purpose
in this moment, and I hopethat you find some peace. All right.
(32:45):
Thanks for listening, Stay safe,New Mexico who
Hat True Advocates back with another episode. This one's a little bit different,
though. It's going to be arecording of my conversation at the True Crime
and Paranormal Podcast Festival. Listen.If you don't get a chance to make
it to Austin next year, it'sgoing to be in Denver and you are
not going to want to miss it. You get to hear firsthand from family
(00:22):
advocates, meet your favorite creators,and just have a good time in general.
So I highly encourage you to attendagain. This conversation is one talk
that I gave about turning my tragedyinto purpose. It's called Resilient. I
speak from the heart here. Iam not scripted at all, but it
(00:43):
was something that I felt was reallyan important message to share, so I
hope that you get something out ofit. Also, you're going to hear
about a nonprofit that I recently startedcalled Angel's Voices Silenced No More in this
episode. There's more information in theshow notes below, but essentially, Angels
Voices Silence No More is a nonprofitthat raises and grants funds to families who
(01:06):
are fighting for justice. And I'msuper excited about this because it's going to
change what it means to fight forjustice in New Mexico. New Mexico is
already a very poor state. Thereare a lot of challenges with navigating the
justice system. So we're going totry to help families in New Mexico by
offering them money for funeral expenses,for therapy. We want to pay for
(01:30):
things like billboards, flyer printing.We want to pay for private investigators,
or attorney fees or court fees,anything that might help a family in New
Mexico who is fighting for justice.So if you want to get involved,
you can email us at info atAngels Voices and m dot org and you
(01:52):
can find the links for all theways to donate in the show notes below.
Thank you so much for listening,and thank you for or your desire
to advocate for justice for families inNew Mexico. If you don't know me,
(02:46):
I'm Eric carter Landin. I'm thehost end producer of True Consequences podcast.
I'm the co host of Crime Linesand Consequences and the co ghost of
dost Bukennials, which is my funshow. If you are into paranormal,
I was a believer in paranormal butas I've started doing the show and started
(03:07):
researching any paranormal phenomenon, I've becomemore of a skeptic. Now I recommend
you check that out if you likeSilly Times. I did not prepare an
actual script today. I'm just goingto talk from the heart because I feel
like that's going to be the bestway for me to deliver this message,
because I think that this is somethingthat is so personal to me and something
(03:29):
that is coming from my heart.Anyway, I know some people in here
may know me and my story.Is there anybody who doesn't know my story?
Okay, you don't know which reallyknow? Again, so for those
of you who have heard the story, I'm sorry. I'm going to go
through it a little bit here,but before I do, I want to
start with kind of the theme ofwhy I wanted to have this talk.
(03:51):
So when I was about eleven,after I had lived through the most horrible
experience of my life, my grandmotherpulled me aside one day and she said,
Eric, you have a choice.You can decide to let what happened
to you consume you. You canlet it overcome you. You can become
(04:15):
the very thing that you despise.Or you can make or you can make
another choice. You can choose togo a different way, And it was
I wasn't really aware of how profoundthat was at the time because I was
so young, But that interaction thatI had with my grandmother set me on
(04:39):
a path which has led me here. So I'm gonna go a little bit
back and talk about what happened.I'm not going to go into full detail.
If you want the full story,you can listen to season two of
my podcasts. You can also listento a bunch of other podcasts that have
covered Jacob's story. This is mybaby brother, Jacob. He died in
nineteen eighty seven. He was murderedby my mom's boyfriend. It was child
(05:02):
abuse. He was nine months old, and a lot of other things happened.
This man was a narcissist. Hewas extremely abusive. He was physically,
sexually, and emotionally abusive to me. He was physically and emotionally abusive
to my mother, and he wasalso friends with the police. They played
(05:28):
basketball every weekend. In nineteen eightysix nineteen eighty seven, there really wasn't
a lot of information available about domesticviolence, about child abuse. There was
stranger danger. They talked about thata lot, but nobody was talking about
the fact that the majority of abusethat happens is from somebody. You know.
(05:49):
My mom was very young. Jacobwas having some injuries, and the
doctors really didn't raise any flags.There was one point where Jacob had a
skull fracture and I was blamed forit. My stepdad told everybody that I
(06:10):
was jealous of Jacob and that Ikicked him in the head so hard that
his skull fractured. I was six. I probably waited maybe forty pounds if
I was lucky, So I justdon't see how that's likely. But because
there were no red flags raised bythe doctors, there was a Child Protective
(06:32):
Services investigation, but when they cameto our house, my stepdad chased the
woman away and that was the endof it. So I was sent to
live with my dad in California.And my mom didn't think that I was
responsible for what happened to Jacob,but she wanted to get me out of
the situation. At the same time, she stopped allowing and I'm not naming
(06:58):
him. You may have noticed thatalready. I'm not naming him because in
New Mexico. There are things thatcould set the clock in motion for speedy
trial, and naming him in thepublic could be seen as potentially problematic and
could lead to a problem with thetrial. My mom's really started reducing the
amount of time that he was allowedto be alone with Jacob almost to non
(07:18):
existent, but the injuries anytime thathe was with Jacob continued to happen.
Weird things happened. Jacob's personality changed. He used to be very excited to
do crazy things. One of hisfavorite things to do was to sit in
his baby swing and when the swingwould go forward, he would grab the
(07:41):
legs and as it went backwards,he would throw the entire swing backwards.
And the first time it happened,my whole family freaked out. We're like,
oh my god, are you okay? What's going on? So we
actually had to start putting the babyswing against the wall. But Jacob's behavior
change. One day, my grandmotherpicks Jacob up and puts him over her
(08:01):
head, which is something that heused to love, and he starts screaming
and crying and grabbing her hair andhe's shaking and he's freaking out, and
my grandmother asked, my mom,is something happening. Why is Jacob acting
like this? So my mom confrontsher boyfriend and she says, are you
(08:22):
hurting Jacob? What are you doing? And he says, no, I'm
not doing anything, and he grabsJacob and he picks him up, and
Jacob is trying to jump out ofhis arms into my mom's arms and he's
crying frantically, and so my momsays, don't ever play with Jacob like
that again. On April nine,nineteen eighty seven, my mom's working,
(08:45):
my grandmother has Jacob. Jacob's beensick because he's still recovering from the skull
fracture. He had an allergy tothe medication that they had put him on,
and he also had an ear infection, so he was fussy. My
grandmother wanted to go to church,so she called my mom and says,
what do I do with Jacob?He's really fussy. I don't want to
bring him the church because I don'twant him to disturb everybody. My mom
(09:09):
says, I guess you can takehim to my boyfriend. I'll be off
in an hour. In less thanan hour, Jacob was being rushed in
an ambulance to the hospital with ahematoma, re injured skull, fracture,
a broken rib, as well assigns of abuse on his body. The
(09:31):
injuries were so severe that in mysmall town he wasn't able to be treated,
so he was airlifted to Albuquerque,which is seventy five miles away,
and he was rushed into emergency surgery. My mom and my grandparents and my
mom's boyfriend took the long way theydrove, and when they got to Albuquerque,
Jacob was already in surgery. Hisinjuries were so severe that the doctor
(09:54):
had to sign off on the surgerywithout my mom's permission, and in the
late hours of April tenth, Jacobpassed away. He didn't survive a surgery.
I'm giving you all of this becauseit goes back to what my grandma
told me. So I go throughthis, my family goes through this horrible
(10:15):
loss of Jacob, and also allof the abuse that I endured and the
abuse that my mom endured, andI got into a dark place I didn't
want to live anymore, and mygrandma pulled me aside and told me that,
And I'm so grateful for that,because in my mind, I was
thinking about giving up in that verymoment on everything eleven years old. That
(10:43):
moment change the trajectory of my life, and I decided that was going to
end with me, never again inmy family. Well, something like this
happened as long as I'm around,But I also found that I wanted to
(11:03):
do more. And as I grewup in New Mexico, I started to
see cases coming through the court system. Cases you may be familiar with Victoria
Martin's Omario Varella, Baby Brianna.So many child abused cases in New Mexico.
(11:24):
Baby Brihanna, I think was onlytwo or three months old when she
was abused and eventually succumbed to herinjuries. Her mom is free right now.
She was involved, And as I'mwatching these cases go through the New
Mexico court system, I kept sayingto myself, somebody needs to say something,
(11:48):
somebody needs to do something, becauseNew Mexico has always failed at protecting
children Jacob nineteen eighty seven. Forme, that's where it starts, but
I'm sure it started way before that. It just starts there for me because
that's my earliest memory. But asI grew up, it didn't stop,
(12:09):
and it's still not stopping. Acouple of years ago, James Dunkley Cruz,
six years old, obvious signs ofabuse reported to child protective Services,
murdered by his stepfather. New Mexicohas a policy of reuniting at any cost.
Family reunification is the most important thing, not child safety, not protecting
(12:35):
a kid from being abused. Thegoal is to reunite that kid with his
family, no matter what. Sojust think about that for a second,
and the implications that has for somebody, for a kid who is told if
something is happening to you, tellan adult, tell somebody. They tell
(12:56):
somebody, and nothing happens. Asthis continues, and I'm having this thought
in my head, somebody used tosay something. Somebody needs to do something.
I finally decided that I would saysomething, that I would do something.
And again I leaned on that advicefrom my grandmother. You have a
choice. You can let this consumeyou. You can become the very thing
(13:18):
that you fear the most, oryou can make a different choice, go
it different way. So I pouredall of that anxiety, all of that
energy, all of that sadness,all of that pain into trying to help
and I created true consequences with theexpress goal of helping families like my family,
(13:39):
who felt alone, felt ignored,trying to convince a district attorney to
press charges against the only person inthe room when Jacob was injured, and
being told no because your mom isjust vindictive, because she's trying to make
problems for her poor husband, whois an upstanding member of the community,
(14:03):
whose friends were the cops, whoworks for the county, and my family
and I start feeling like, maybewe're making too much of this. Why
is nobody else angry? Why doesnobody else care? And I never wanted
another family to feel like that AyMexico again. So I opened my show
(14:26):
up to talk to family members,to give them a platform to tell their
story, to give them the opportunityto share it in their words without being
edited for context. I will takeout the awkward pauses. I do take
out the ums and the stumbles,But for the most part, it's their
(14:46):
message. It's their story to tell, it's not my story to tell.
I have the platform, I'm fortunateenough that people actually listen, and so
I turn that tragedy into momentum,into purpose, into helping people in my
community. And it hasn't been easy. It's been a it's been a difficult
(15:09):
journey. But I'm so happy tosay my son never has to worry if
he's going to be murdered in hissleep, never has to worry if his
mom my ex now is ever goingto be killed while he's sleeping. He
(15:33):
gets to grow up in a housefull of love and peace. And that's
the best gift that I can giveto him. The cycle stops right here.
It's not going to continue. Iknow that probably somebody hurt my stepdad.
It doesn't excuse his behavior, butI'm sure that somebody hurt him.
(16:00):
And again he had that choice.It consumed him. He became what he
was. My son never has tomake that choice, and that's a huge
blessing. And as I continue tohelp families through the show, I've also
started to explore other opportunities to makea bigger impact. Last week, I
(16:23):
just received a letter from the IRSthat my new nonprofit, Angels Voices Silence
No More, has been approved asa nonprofit And so the vision and the
mission really are to raise money sothat we can grant too family members in
New Mexico who are fighting for justice, and those funds are going to go
towards paying for funeral expenses, payingfor therapy, paying for a private investigator,
(16:49):
DNA testing, advertising on social mediabillboards, whatever they need in their
fight for justice. That's what we'regoing to be doing. And so the
reason I'm telling you all of this, I don't want you to feel bad
for me or anything like that.But if you've ever had any kind of
(17:10):
tragedy in your life and sometimes itfeels impossible, just remember the words that
my grandmother told me. You havea choice. You can let it consume
you, you can let it destroyyou if you want, or you can
go a different way. It's upto you. That was way shorter than
(17:34):
it was supposed to be. Thisis what happens all the time when I
don't write a script. But Iwanted it to be heartfelt and I wanted
it to be genuine, And soI'm happy to answer any questions that you
may have or have any further discussion. Absolutely. Okay. So there's a
lot of things here that I haveto unpack, and I actually have learned
(17:56):
some things recently that nobody else knows. So you guys are going to hear
this before anybody else, although Whitneyand Melissa already know, Charlie knows,
Kristen knows. Yeah, Okay forthe longest, you probably don't know yet.
It wasn't something I put in thegroup text. We'll just say that
it was something we talked about inAlbuquerque. I always suspected that there was
(18:22):
a cover up. I couldn't proveit. I knew that he was friends
with the police. I knew thatthey played basketball every weekend. I knew
that he worked for the county andhe had keys to every county building,
including the DA's office. I alwayshad this gut feeling, but I could
never prove it, so I neversaid it because I don't like claiming things
(18:45):
without having proof to back it up. So recently I started working with a
retired detective out of New Mexico whojust so happens to know all of the
police that were initially investigating the case, and she's reinvestigating it for me.
I did get the case reopened bythe attorney General, but they're not moving
on it. I brought her in. Her goal is to go in there,
(19:07):
put a whole case file together,and then turn it over to the
Attorney General. And hopefully that willinspire them to press charges. But in
this investigation that she's doing, shefound out through one of the investigators that
the case was covered up. Heflat out told her. There was a
moment where the state police were tryingto investigate this person, and the sheriff
(19:33):
of Socorro County in New Mexico tookthe suspect in his vehicle and drove around
for hours and hours so that nobodywould find him. There is a confession
that is mentioned in the police reportthat we have no record of. There
is no recording, there is noreport, it doesn't exist, according to
(19:56):
the police department. I don't knowwhere it went. They I don't know
where it went. All we haveis a little note in the case file
that says the suspect no longer needsa polygraph because he confessed. That's it.
I don't know what he said.I don't know if he was intimidated
into giving a confession. I don'tknow anything. I just know that allegedly
(20:21):
he confessed. That's one of thegoals of this detective. She's trying to
see if she can find something.I don't have a lot of hope because
it's been thirty six years. Ihave hope that we can get this case
across the finish line, but Idon't have hope that we're going to find
this confession, if that makes sense. Yes, No, is this gentleman
(20:44):
Jacob's father. No, I didn'tgo through all of that because and I
probably should have, because then wewould have been on time here. But
no, So my parents. Letme just back up a little bit.
So, this guy and my dadwe're best friends. And for context,
this person was not a stranger.My whole family knew this person. My
(21:10):
mom not only went to school withhim, but went to church with him.
His aunt is my godmother. Hissister married my mom's brother. Our
families are very connected. And fromthe outside, he seems like a great
guy. He's happy, he's outgoing, he's generous, he's friendly, he
(21:32):
makes good jokes. Everybody loves it. But when you get him behind closed
doors, he becomes a completely differentperson, to the point where I couldn't
even look at him without being accusedof giving him dirty looks as a seven
year old, and then my momwould inevitably defend me, and then he
would beat her up for it.They were best friends. My parents were
(21:55):
going through a hard time. Mydad was a Pentecostal evangelist, and he
basically would abandon us for weeks andweeks at a time. There'd be no
money in the house. My momhad two young kids, she couldn't work,
and so there were times where wedidn't know when we were going to
eat. Then my dad had anemotional Then my dad had an emotional affair
with a woman, and that wasthe last straw for my mom. The
(22:15):
best friend, knowing all of this, because he's talking to my dad,
swoops in to save the day andstarts showering us with love and gifts and
attention and affection and all the stuffthat we were starved for from my dad.
And he's a good guy. We'veknown him our whole lives. He's
(22:38):
part of the family. Made sense. So he manipulated his way into the
situation, taking an advantage of mymom when she was at her most vulnerable,
and praying on that vulnerability in orderto get what he wanted. He
was extremely jealous of Jacob, hesaid, I was, and I probably
was a little jealous of Jacob asa kid what it happens, but he
(23:00):
was extremely jealous any attention my momgave Jacob usually resulted in her getting screamed
at. He would play his radioreally loud when Jacob was asleep. My
mom would turn it down and hewould start screaming at her. There was
just a lot of There were alot of signs, but again there wasn't
a lot of knowledge at the time, not Jacob's dad. Long answer,
(23:22):
short question. Sorry, yeah,yeah, yeah, that's a good question.
He's still alive. I hope he'ssuffering. Yeah, he's still alive.
And for me, what does justicelook like? It's a really hard
question. I think the main thingfor me and my mom as we want
(23:45):
our day in court. Jacob deservesthat. But more than that, I
don't want him to be able tohurt anybody else ever. Again, and
he's had thirty six years to dojust that. I want him locked up,
not out of vindication, not ofanything else other than I don't want
(24:07):
him to hurt anybody else. That'sit. Yeah, that's a really good
question. Yeah, unbelievably, thereis no record. Again, just to
reiterate, he was friends with allthe police. It was shocking to hear
that because I did expect that therewould be some sort of record or at
(24:29):
least something. Yes, he hassince remarried. They did have kids.
She also had kids prior to themgetting together. I don't know a lot
about what happened in that relationship orwhat's happening in that relationship, because I
obviously don't want to be connected tothis person at all. He's been blocked
on social media, so he can'tsee me. I didn't block him from
(24:52):
the podcast because I hope he seesthat. But yeah, he doesn't have
anything on record, but I don'tthink that means he didn't do anything either.
Bob. Yeah, yeah, thisis where people get really mad at
my mom. And I understand thatperspective because I think people like to think
(25:18):
that in that situation they wouldn't dowhat my mom did. But you really
don't know that, because when you'rein that type of relationship, the goal
of that person, once they've hookedyou with the love and the affection and
the love bombing and all of that, is to break you down as small
as you can be, and toisolate you from everybody who supports you so
(25:38):
that you have nowhere to go.So I just want to put that out
there. If you've never looked intowhat domestic violence looks like. I highly
encourage you to, especially if you'rehaving that feeling of I can't believe this
happened when I tell you what happened. So just keep that in mind,
please. So after Jacob died,John, I'm just gonna call him.
John tell my mom that he wantsto talk to her. And the only
(26:03):
place that he wants to talk toher is at Jacob's grave. This is
a week after we buried him.My mom thankfully did not go, but
he kept telling her, I'm goingto tell you what really happened. I'm
going to tell you what really happened. So then eventually he was given a
polygraph. And this gets a littlebit confusing, but there were two agencies
(26:27):
investigating the case. The New MexicoState Police because when Jacob died, he
died in Albuquerque, not in Socorrowhere the abuse happened. And then the
Socorro County Sheriff as well as theSoCoRo Police. We're investigating it locally.
So while the police report says heconfessed and there's no need for a polygraph,
(26:48):
that was from the city. Thestate, however, decided that there
was a need for a polygraph,and so they gave him one and he
told my mom, I'm going toprove to you that I didn't do this
on purpose. I want you tocome with me to this polygraph exam so
I can show you that I'm innocent. And we went to Santa Fe.
It's about two hours from where welived. We had to wait outside.
(27:12):
He went inside. It took along time. I think it took four
hours. Could have just felt likethat because I was a little bit It
felt like forever. And then hewalked out, happy as can be,
and my mom said, how didit go? And he said, I
passed. It went great. Soin that moment we all were like,
(27:33):
he obviously is telling the truth.Obviously it was an accident, because if
it wasn't, if he failed thispolygraph, not knowing the law, not
knowing things like that and when Iwas that age, but surely they would
have arrested him and charged him.So we believed him. Then he did
this thing where he said, oh, by the way, I signed you
(27:56):
and Eric up for my health insuranceat work, and I said you're my
wife, and so you have tomarry me or I'm going to prison.
And so my mom married him again. If you're having that thought, please
educate yourself on domestic violence and whathappens with psychology of it. And that's
when he became extremely violent towards herand extremely abusive towards me once she was
(28:18):
locked in the marriage. And thenat that point, when she's almost been
murdered herself, she realizes that thisis not the same person she thought he
was. And at first she didn'tthink he was capable of killing Jacob.
He had two kids, they seemedperfectly healthy, she knew her whole life.
(28:45):
But after that she did now believethat he was fully capable of killing
Jacob intentionally, so she divorced himafter a number of things happened, But
the crux of it was when mycousin was being targeted by him and he
was grooming her for sexual abuse.She was thirteen, and my mom found
(29:06):
out about it because my cousin thankfullyhas a loud mouth and doesn't care and
told everybody. She was like,oh, yeah, no, I'm not
telling anybody. Great, hey,grandma, you know, she saved us,
She got us out of that situation. Because I think my mom,
not knowing what was happening to mebecause I didn't tell her because he told
me if I said anything, hewould kill both of us and nobody would
ever find us. So I didn't, but my cousin did and that gave
(29:30):
my mom the inspiration and the motivationand the fire that she needed to get
out of that situation. And that'swhen she went to the DA and said,
please, you need to press chargesagainst this man. And that's when
they said, you're just the scornedwoman. Get out of here. Nineteen
ninety one. Any other questions.Also, if you have mean things to
(29:52):
say about my mom, please don'tsay them to me because I'm very protective
of her. What's that? Oh, keep it to yourself if you feel
that way, for my sake.Any other questions. No, I want
to thank you for listening. Iknow this is not an easy conversation to
have, but I appreciate the factthat you're here because these conversations need to
(30:15):
happen. It is so important justfor the sake of an experiment. Before
we wrap up, could I askyou all to close your eyes, okay,
and you don't have to look around. I'm going to do this and
then I'll tell you what happens.So raise your hand. If you've ever
experienced some sort of domestic violence,raise your hand. If you know somebody
(30:40):
who has, and keep your handsup ninety you can put your hands down
the room, raise their hand.Almost everybody has been touched or closely touched
by this, but we don't talkabout it. It is way more common
than we think. And the onlyway that this can get better is if
(31:02):
we talk about it. Talk toour kids, tell them what the signs
are, tell them what to lookout for, and then tell them you're
there for them. No matter what, we have to talk about this.
We have to face this as asociety. This is a huge systemic problem
across the board. It doesn't matterif you're rich, if you're poor,
if you're gay, if you're straight, none of that matters. Almost everybody
(31:26):
at this conference has been touched bythis. We can't ignore it away.
Thank you. Okay, you justheard me at the True Crime and Paranormal
(32:23):
Podcast Festival in Austin talking about resiliencyand how I've turned my tragedy into purpose.
I hope that was inspiring for you, and no matter what you have
going on in your life, Ihope that you're able to find some purpose
in this moment, and I hopethat you find some peace. All right.
(32:45):
Thanks for listening, Stay safe,New Mexico who
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