Episode 259

When Jessica Lynn Reale was 13-years-old, she was timid and untrusting. In early October of 1997, she mustered the courage to approach her 8th grade math teacher, a woman she’d only known for a number of weeks, to tell her a huge secret she had been keeping. Jessica told her teacher that she couldn’t go back home because someone had poured bleach all over her. This situation warranted a CPS report, but the involvement of the FBI or Sacramento County Law Enforcement was unexpected.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Sword and Scale contains adult themes andviolence, and is not intended for all
audiences. Listener discretion is advised.Romary. You say what you did,
but you don't know why you didwhat you did, and you can't you

(00:20):
don't accept any responsibility for what youdid. Welcome the season eleven, episode
two hundred and fifty nine of Swordand Scale. A show that reveals that
the worst monsters are real. Sohere's the thing. I can't talk about

(00:57):
the uh because otherwise you guys gocrazy and start making up rumors online about
where to find it out in thewild. I'm talking about the app,
of course, which we're working on, and I don't know what to say
about it because we're in this weirdperiod of time where we put out these
episodes a week ahead of time onPlus, and then they come out to

(01:19):
everybody else a week later, sothe information changes after a week. I
don't know what to say to youright now, other than I don't know.
Just sit tight, I guess,and the app will be here eventually.
By the way. In the meantime, we have a store we're working
on with all kinds of brand newmerchant stuff. It's partially functional, right

(01:42):
now. But there's that, Soif you want to support us, head
on over to store dot swordansguil dotcom and take a look. There's no

(02:30):
denying it. Teachers hold an immensepower and influence in shaping the lives of
their students. If your kid isanything but homeschooled, they spend a good
chunk of their week with their educators. A good teacher creates an environment where
open communication and trust are fostered,allowing students to confide in them about their

(02:53):
experiences, fears, or concerns.This is necessary because, as we know,
teachers are mandated reporters. Because ofthe vast amount of time spent with
their students in a routine based environment, teachers are likely to notice if something

(03:14):
seems off or if a child isshowing signs of abuse. They become the
ears and eyes tuned in to thewell being of their students beyond just the
academic performance, and when they suspectsomething isn't right, they are mandated to

(03:34):
take action and report it, ensuringthat these children get the help and protection
they deserve. Ultimately, once ateacher turns a case into child protective services,
it's up to that agency to dealwith it, and the teacher who
reported it doesn't get any updates onthe case. The story we're about to

(03:57):
tell you is indeed about a teacheropening up a CPS case, but this
case went a little differently than mostothers. I have taught mathematics for thirty

(04:34):
three years. I just recently retiredduring the pandemic. This is Tammy Cooper.
She spent her long career teaching mathto wait for it, middle schoolers.
Can you imagine what a pain inthe ass that is? And this
woman did it for thirty three years. Back on the first of October nineteen

(04:56):
ninety seven, Tammy woke up earlyin the morning and got for another day
of turning adolescent chaos into calculated brillianceat Joseph Kerr Middle School in Elk Grove,
California. I had been teaching middleschool at Joseph Kerr Middle School for
ten years when Jessa came to me. The day she came to me,

(05:18):
and so I was an experienced teacher, but it was shocking what she had
to tell me. Interestingly enough,this is one of those rare cases where
we have nearly every single important perspectivedirectly from the source. This girl Tammy
is talking about Jessa or Jessica isnow in her late thirties. Her name

(05:40):
is Jessica Rail and at the time, she was just starting eighth grade and
Tammy Cooper's math class was Jessica's finalclass of the day. Because it was
all very early in the school year, Tammy didn't have more than an acquaintance
level relationship with her students in theclassroom. She was just starting to get

(06:01):
to know them. It was sixthperiod and this is the end of September,
so I'd only known her for,you know, maybe six weeks.
As the kids began slowly filtering intothe room, Timmy noticed Jessica timidly walking
toward her. She came up tome right before class started and said,
I can't go home. I needto find my granny. And I said

(06:26):
what, I was confused. Shegoes, I can't go home. I
can't go home. I got tofind my granny. And then she said
they poured bleach on me. Andin my mind, I'm going, what
the hell's happened here? And Iliterally said, sit down, we'll finish
class and then we'll we'll address it. I didn't I didn't even have the

(06:49):
and I was a very experienced teacher, but I still didn't have the wherewithal
at that moment because she showed methe bleach stains on her arms, and
it just it. It took methat fifty minutes of class to just kind
of take a deep breath. Bleach. This poor girl had just told her
brand new math teacher that someone hadpoured bleach on her hair. It was

(07:14):
clear the longer Tammy looked at Jessica, her hair was changing colors. It
was crispy and fried. Her clotheshad bleach stains all over them, and
she smelled strongly of the chemical.She was absent a lot in just that
short period of time, and itprobably is closer to five weeks. Baby,

(07:34):
but she had a bee in theclass. She always did her makeup
work. And the ironic thing isI knew she had a friend who had
ran away, and it came out, you know, on her email at
the middle school. And so Icame up to her and said, Hey,
do you know anything about who?I can't remember the girl's name,

(07:56):
and she said no. At thatmoment, I would never have million years
even crossed my mind that she wasin trouble herself. It was just at
that moment, the way she toldme, and the burns on her arms,
it just was it just hit me. Upon further investigation, the damage

(08:20):
was even more shocking than anyone realized. Jessica's clothes had disguised the chemical burns
on her skin. Throughout the day, I just remember feeling dirty and wanting
to brush my teeth but couldn't gointo the house. And my hair was
like I couldn't see it, butit was felt like straw. It was

(08:43):
just changing texture as the hours wenton, and I was in a lot
of pain from the leech burns.And then I got dressed, got my
backpack and rode the I think oflike three miles to the Junior High and
went to school my first because Iwas supposed to be gym and I was
like, I can't change to gymclothes and they'll see all these burns.

(09:05):
So I went and I told themthat I fell and bleached, but I
think they thought I said I felloff the like the bleachers and let I
hurt myself and I couldn't do gymclass, and then they let me get
out of it, and then Iwent through most of my classes just I
knew I smelt, but I don'tknow if other people noticed it. And

(09:26):
then I saw my face in thebathroom and my hair was like changing colors
of the day was going on,and at lunchtime I told my only friend
that I had at school what hadhappened, and she was trying to convince
me to tell someone, but Iat that point I wasn't one hundred percent
convinced. But right before my lastperiod class, I was like, this

(09:48):
is it either now or never,Like I either tell someone and see if
maybe someone will actually help me andbelieve me, or I'd go home and
face whatever's going to happen. Wewaited till the end of the period and
then I had taken her up tothe counseling office. And I just recently
saw her counselor like a week agoand updated him. So this was twenty

(10:11):
five years later, and he hadin fact checked on her earlier in the
days a some student had reported thathe or she got something was wrong.
So the counselor did check with herand she said nothing. She doesn't remember
that, but he did just recallback to me. So we sat down,
sheriff was called. I took herinto the bathroom and took pictures.

(10:35):
I mean her bra was burned thatyou could see the burn marks of where
the bleach had burned, a broadto her back and all it was just
all of her hair. It wasyeah, it was really really shocking.
Then we came back, we didfinished all the CPS report, and the
sheriff came and then next place shewas going was to the hospital. And

(11:03):
right down, as a teacher,that was the moment that was a pendant
for me in the sense of Idecided to go to the hospital with her.
And that's not what teachers do.Teachers are supposed to report it to
CPS and then step back and allowthe system to do it's you know,
what it's supposed to do. Andfor whatever even my voice is coming shook,

(11:26):
for whatever reason, I decided differently, and I told her I would
be there, and I assured herI would be there. So at first
it was unclear to Tammy what exactlyhad happened. To Jessica, the confusion
quickly dissipated. She shared more ofthe horrifying details with her teacher. According

(11:48):
to Jessica, who lived with herbiological mother and stepfather and a nice looking
single family home in Elk Grove.It was her stepfather who had poured bleach
all over her the night before.This was not an accidental thing. This
was very malicious and very intentional.Not only that, but it later became

(12:11):
clear that Jessica had actually been sleepingin a shed in the backyard when this
occurred. Though it appeared relatively normalfrom the outside, there was something evil
happening behind closed doors. No.I was probably the third or fourth time
I was made to sleep out inthe shed. Eighth grade had started and

(12:33):
I was already at school, andI was made woken up in the middle
of night, told to go outthere because I couldn't be in the house.
So I went out there, andI was sleeping on the lawn chair,
and in the middle of the night, Larry comes out, opens the
door and pours a bottle bleach allover me, screaming about hey, you
like that, don't you? DemonAnd then they left me there covered in

(12:56):
bleach for I don't know how long, and eventually they came in and sprayed
me off with the ice cold hoves, and then I got up, changed
and went to school. I waslucky that it did have multiple windows because
we used to have the animals inthere, so it did have like a

(13:16):
cross breeze, and it was earlySeptember, so it wasn't terribly hot.
Jessica's mother, Barbara carrasco raised andbred French bulldogs at one point, keeping
up to ten dogs created in theshed at a time. It smelled like
old wet dog because there were stilldog kennels in there, and like old

(13:37):
dog food, and it just smelleddirty because it was a storage shed now,
But it wasn't terribly hot or uncomfortable. It might be worth noting here
that though Jessica says now that theshed wasn't particularly hot or uncomfortable, her
threshold for discomfort is likely a lotdifferent than those of us who had even

(14:01):
somewhat of a normal upbringing. Forexample, though she was sleeping out in
the shed, you might assume herparents would allow her to come inside and
use the restroom during the night,or at least before going to school.
Right, Oh, there was abucket, if I've got one bucket and
the shed that I was to useto go to the bathroom. We are

(14:24):
trained every year to recognize what welook for, and I'm trying to think
if I did follow a report beforeher I filed several after I honestly can't
remember, and if I did,it was nothing of this violent nature.
But we got to the hospital,she had to strip and shower and do

(14:45):
a rape test. And I knewimmediately when just by her body movements,
that she had been molested. Andshe has denied that to me forever until
just this last year, and Iknew it was just not the kind of

(15:07):
movement that a thirteen year old girlwould do when they're being tested for rape,
like, oh, okay, nobig deal. And I expected her
to be nervous or kind of youknow, like, what's happening. I
don't understand, because she probably hadnever been to a doctor before, and

(15:28):
she didn't. She was just like, okay, whatever. And I asked
her, you know now, whyshe didn't tell me? She said,
there was so much going on,it's just one more thing I didn't want
to deal with. Jessica hadn't beenmolested by this current stepfather, forty nine
year old Larry Carrasco, but shehad been abused by her mother's former husband,

(15:52):
Charles, who is also the fatherof the rest of Jessica's siblings.
It had been seven years since Jessica, her mother and grandmother bounced around different
states before settling down for a whilein a motel across from the Santa Cruz
Beach Boardwalk in California. Charles ownedthe motel and Jessica's grandmother worked there.

(16:18):
She and Jessica stayed in the attacheddepartment that was reserved for the motel manager,
which had become her grandmother's job.Well, we always kind of always
lived together. I was born inNew Jersey. I know, we did
maybe a year in Florida when Iwas little, but she was there too,
and then we drove cross country endedup in California in multiple different places.

(16:42):
But I've always been with my grandmotherand my mother. But my mom
would always leave to when I waslittle, I to calm her adventures because
I didn't know what she was doing, but usually involved a new man.
When we moved to Santa Cruz,it was a always been me and my
grandmother anyway, so it wasn't anybig change for me to be just kind

(17:03):
of left with my grandmother. Thingswere relatively normal for me. My grandmother
made a good life for us.I went to school, had friends,
socialize all of those things, andmy mother would come around whenever she felt
like it or wanted something from mygrandmother. And eventually she had my brother,

(17:25):
Chad, and then dropped him offto live with us. He was
probably two months old when she droppedhim off for a permanent stay. I
mean she came back once in awhile. I mean not often, but
she did come back from time totime every city they lived in. Jessica's
grandmother lamented Barbara's erratic and negligent behavior. I mean, honestly, at that

(17:52):
age, I didn't really know anythingdifferent because my grandmother basically raised me.
And I used to call my grandmothermom because my mother was so sporadically in
my life that her not being aroundwasn't any different. I did have moments
where when she would come around andI would try to get her attention,
I would feel bad because she wouldalways say, don't hang on me,

(18:14):
don't touch me, like just goaway, And I'm thinking, why are
you even here, Like if you'renot coming to see us, why are
you even here? But she wasnever really a mother, so didn't really
make a difference. Soon, Jessica, her grandmother and her new brother Chad,
who was dressed in a tiny babytuxedo, attended Barbara's wedding to Charles.

(18:41):
Charles, by the way, wasalready married with three kids when Barbara
got pregnant. When I first methim, I mean, I thought it
was weird because she was Asian andthey had different cultural things. Like he
scared me because he ate fish eyes, and he told me he was going
to make me eat them if Ididn't quit sucking my thumb. Like the
most this vivid memory I've ever had. I'm like, I barely even know

(19:03):
this man, and he's like brandingthis whole fish at me with eyeballs,
and I'm like it was just Iwasn't used to the cultural differences. But
we didn't really spend much time togetherbefore they got married, or even after
they got married. It wasn't untilhe basically lost everything and they all decided
to move to Nevada that I actuallylived with him and spent any minute of

(19:25):
time with him. She saw dollarsigns because he owned the hotel, he
had other homes, and you knowit was in Mountain View, which is
very like a fluid area in California. So my mother saw dollar signs.
So but the only problem is mybrother Chad was proof of his affair,
so he lost everything. But shedidn't realize he was going to lose everything

(19:48):
in the divorce. By the timeChad was about to turn one, Barbara
dropped off another of her and Charles'sbabies. This time it was a the
little girl named Alexia, born onSeptember twenty third, nineteen ninety one.
Yeah. After Alexia was born,within a few months, she was dropped

(20:10):
off to live with my brother andI well, my grandmother was now raising
three children and running a motel.Early the next year, everyone including Barbara
and her new husband, moved toStagecoach, Nevada. The six of them,
three adults and three children, livedin a double wide trailer if that
surprises you. That summer, Barbaragave birth to her third baby by Charles,

(20:37):
this one a boy named Michael.She knew his name was Michael because
the guy who was adopting him isnamed Michael, so they knew while she
was pregnant that they weren't keeping him. I don't know if their relationship was
already starting to fall apart or whatwas happening at that point. I know
Charles became weird and more distant becausehis oldest daughter was killed in the car

(21:00):
accident, so it kind of justchanged him and he just locked himself in
his office most of the time.So I just think it was a downward
spiral after the move and after herdeath, another baby just wasn't going to
be feasible. Just a few weeksafter he was born, once the doctor
cleared him to fly, Barbara sentMichael off to live with this old friend

(21:25):
of hers who lived in Pennsylvania.Eventually, Barbara also sent little Chad to
live with the same man. Sothis timeline tells us that at one point
Jessica had three siblings. By thetime the incident with the bleach happened,
Jessica was the only child living inthe home with her mother and her second

(21:48):
stepfather, Larry. So where werethe other children? Where Michael and Chad
really with a man in Pennsylvania?And where was Alexia. In early September

(22:30):
nineteen ninety seven, thirteen year oldJessica Rail confided in her math teacher that
she was being abused at home,lifting her shirt to reveal horrible chemical burns
on her skin. Jessica's teacher,Tammy Cooper, stuck by her through her
hospital evaluations and all of the CPSpaperwork. Tammy and Jessica both knew she

(22:55):
wouldn't be returning home to her mother, Barbara and her stepfather, Larry Carrasco.
She'd been shuffled right into the system. By this point, Jessica's mother
and stepfather had forced her grandmother outof the home, leaving Jessica with no
protection from their atrocities. Jessica's grandmotherwasn't in a position the court saw appropriate

(23:22):
enough to place Jessica in her care, so she instead went to live in
Sacramento Children's Receiving Home. Sounds likea much better option, I guess when
I walked in, for I didn'trealize even whatever Receiving Home was, But
when I walked in, it almostlooked like a doctor's office in the front.

(23:44):
All the chairs lined up in afront desk where you can check in.
But it was quite a large facilitythat housed seventy children ages zero to
eighteen, boys on one side,girls in the other, and we were
separated by age groups. And thenit was just supposed to be temporary care
until they can either go home orfind foster placements. I think was after

(24:07):
the hospital, before the hospital,but we did go to the sheriff's office
and they called Barb called Barbarareil,who is Jessica's mother, and Jessica was
on the phone me and the sheriffcould hear, and she was saying,
why did you do that? Tryingto get her biological mother to admit to
what she had done. It becameobvious that she was not going to admit

(24:30):
anything, so the sheriff had Jessicastopped the conversation, and then the next
thing we did was go to thereceiving home. That was the last thing,
and I was told because I wasa family I would not be able
to see her for three days,but I promised her that I would see
her as soon as I could,and then her mother and stepfather were arrested

(24:53):
that night about two o'clock in themorning. The average stay in the receiving
home is less than thirty days becausea lot of people just get other family
members who can take them, ortheir parents just had some simple charges and
they get a parenting class or whateverand send them home. But most people
don't stay more than a month intotal. I ended up being there almost

(25:17):
a year. During Jessica's first monthat the receiving home, there was an
FBI agent in Sacramento who was juststarting to investigate this case, not because
of the child abuse, but becauseJessica's grandmother had called into the Sacramento County
Sheriff's Office worried about her grandchildren.We know that little Chad and Michael were

(25:38):
shipped off to live with a manin Pennsylvania, and this was confirmed by
the authorities. Alexia, however,was reportedly living with her father, Charles,
in Chicago. The FBI agent whohelped Sacramento County with this case is
Jeffrey Rinnick, and we talked tohim the way Alexia started. And the

(26:03):
guy in the in fact, Ijust saw him the other day. His
name is Steve Hill, and hewas a missing person detective for the Sacramento
County Sheriff's Department. I got acall from Steve and at the time I
got the call, the what Iwas told by Steve Hill was that they
had received a call from a womanin Pennsylvania, and the woman in Pennsylvania

(26:26):
claimed to be a grandmother of alittle girl down around Elk Grove. She
was calling the Sacramento County Sheriff's Departmentbecause she couldn't reach anyone and she was
worried about her granddaughter, and that'swhat they started with. And then when
they got that they called me.All we knew was that we had this

(26:48):
little girl that was on accounted for. And all I knew was, even
though the FBI had no business init, I was going to go with
Steve. I mean, he wasone of my best friends, and I
know the guys I worked with whocared about those guys. So if it
was an issue or a concern forbackup, we would be there for each
other. So that's how I startedjust being back up for Steve Hill.

(27:10):
Jeff has had a long, successfulcareer in the FBI. Before getting involved
in cases of missing children, Jeffwas actually the agent who pulled a murder
confession from Carrie Stainer, a Yosemitekiller. If you know or remember that
case. Carrie was the older brotherof Steven Stainer, a teen who was

(27:33):
kidnapped back in nineteen seventy two andheld captive for seven years. Eventually,
Stephen escaped, bringing with him anotherlittle boy who had also been kidnapped by
the same man. Stephen went onpress tours and was a veritable celebrity after
his escape, but was tragically killedriding his motor bike home from work in

(27:56):
nineteen eighty nine when a car hithim and drove away, leaving him to
die of his head injuries. Tenyears later, in nineteen ninety nine,
Steven's older brother, Carrie, beganmurdering women near Yosemite National Park. It's
a fascinating story that the brother ofa kidnapped teen would turn into a murderer,

(28:18):
but here we are. He murderedfour women between February and July,
but authorities quickly caught on and hewas arrested on July twenty fourth of that
same year. Jeff went through allthe training at Quantico many many decades ago.
His training on interrogation consisted of atwo hour class. Most of Jeff's

(28:44):
tactics, though, seemed to cometo him naturally, even mirroring the read
technique in some ways. You know, it's funny because you know, you
read about these other techniques, andthey teach you how to feign like you
care, you know, how toact, so they believe I don't act.
I mean, I mean it's ifI'm interviewing you, and I tell

(29:06):
you I'm going to do something foryou, I'm going to do it.
In Stayner's case, you know,I promised him that his family had no
idea what was coming, and thatI needed to go down there and tell
him, And that was one ofthe things that he was considering before he
started confessing. Now, everybody thinkskillers to be monsters and mean people,

(29:30):
But before I retired, I helpedwith a interview of a young boy about
nineteen. He had drowned, deliberatelydrowned a fifteen year old boy for somebody.
He wanted to talk to me,and I was leaving. I had
promised that I wouldn't do any moreinterview shouse, but they came and got

(29:53):
me, said he was asking forme, So I went back in.
So I went in and I tookhis confession. But here's the thing,
like when I do my interviews,like I want to know about this person,
what's his story? So like inthis guy's case, I said,
you know, if you could haveanything in the world, what would you

(30:14):
want? And you know, youcan see him going through and going through
and he looks at me, hesays, you know, if I could
have anything in the world, Iwould want someone to love me and someone
to love Now, this is comingfrom a kid who just killed the fifteen
year old kid. So you know, it doesn't fit, It doesn't make
sense. How do you explain it? And I think that's one of the

(30:37):
things that wears out investigators and detectivesbecause you know, there's just some things
that are not going to make sense. And when you see him, you
conjunction with crime scenes that are beyondthe ability to tolerate. You know,
it just it does what it does. There's a lot of fusion around the

(31:00):
FBI's protocols, specifically when it comesto cases of missing children. In the
nineteen nineties, the director was LouisFree, and Louis Free determined that he
was going to enable the FBI's resourcesand people to be utilized if a child

(31:23):
is harmed or goes missing or whatever, and so he took away for some
reason. Everybody always says, oh, you got to wait twenty four hours
for the FBI. That is no, you don't wait at all. And
I think a lot of what determineshow the FBI is going to answer is
going to be the person that you'redealing with, for instance, in our

(31:45):
office, because I was you know, the coordinator. If we got cases
in that, you know, Ididn't care who worked them. And what
started happening was that we start alreadyseeing what would start out as a runaway
would end up as an abduction ora false imprisonment because the child had changed

(32:07):
their mind and wanted to come homeand then the adult wouldn't let them come
home. When you talk about thedifference between you know, local cases and
FBI is just an example. TheFBI doesn't go you know, we don't
do that. Not it's not thatit's below us or anything, but we
are required by law to address withthe law tells us to address, and

(32:27):
those things are going to be federalcrimes or any other thing that is legislating.
So that's why, you know,normally we wouldn't get calls like this,
but because of the relationship we had, we did. So when they
got the call, basically I therewas me, I think one or two

(32:47):
other agents from the office. Wewent with their squad, the child abduction
squad, and then or they callthem to their Childhood Reduction Bureau and then
we were down there with them,just covering them and what we found.
We were unprepared for maybe two weeksinto me being into the receiving home late
September early October, because they hadverified that Alexia was not with her father

(33:13):
in Chicago. He said he hadn'tseen her or talked to her in months,
so they were coming to me totry to figure it out. And
he was one of the FBI agents, Jeff. He was very mean,
like he made me feel like totalcrap. We'll get to that in just
a little bit. You might bethinking, why would this guy try to

(33:35):
scare or guilt a child who wasa victim herself. As we were conducting
investigation looking for the little girl,we saw there were pictures in the house
with her face cut out of them, So that was not a good feeling.
And then as the day went on, we learned that the victims all

(34:00):
sister. Her name is Jessica.It's our Jessica had reported to a teacher
that day at school that her stepfatherhad poured a leach on her while she
was sleeping in a shed in thebackyard, and because of that, they
had removed her from the house andwere holding her at the child's receiving home.

(34:27):
We realized on the first day,based on learning and talking with the
detectives, the sheriff detectives, thatsomething really catastrophic had happened here. And
so at that point it's the dayunfolded. We realized that we had no

(34:50):
evidence that Alexia ever existed, andso we would stop in nothing, you
know, to look for her,to find her. So from that point
on, it became a situation wherethe Sheriff's department was bringing up the resources,
bringing up their people, and wewere helping them. If interviews need

(35:14):
to be done, that kind ofthing, we would do it. As
we know. When it came tointerviews, Jeff was the man for the
job. This is really hard forme because I'm not proud of it,
but I will tell you what happened. We spent a day looking for Alexia.
I was with my partner, whowas a new agent, and we
were heading back to our office andI decided the children's Receiving Home was right

(35:38):
across the street from our office.So I went into the Children's Receiving Home
and we asked the administrators that wecould see Jessica. So they put us
in a room with Jessica. Glassdoor, glass and they left us there.
Jessica's opening remarks were out of profanity. As a law enforcement person,

(36:02):
one of the hardest things in lifeis to try and convince a person that
is afraid of you that you're thereto help them. It's really it's not
only hard, but it becomes emotionallyjust really taxing. And in this case,
she refused to tell us anything.She would, you know, throw

(36:23):
profanity at us, like it wasyou know, he told me like things
like, who do you think shewas calling for when they were abusing her?
You were her only person to help. We know, you know what
happened to her, like it wassome harsh tactics. And he remembers her
differently than I do. But Idon't remember telling him what happened. I

(36:45):
remember walking out of that meeting.This is how Jeff remembers that interview.
I don't know, something clicked insideof me. I wasn't gonna I believed
she was the only one who couldtell to where that child was, and
I wasn't going to leave there.Yeah. According to the FBI agent when

(37:06):
I spoke to him not too longago, a few months ago, they
found not a single solitary DNA strand, not a hair, not a fingerprint,
no toys, nothing to indicate thata child lived in that house.
They every picture she was in,her face was cut out of it.

(37:28):
I started back from the beginning withJessica, and I started taking every memory
she had and establishing from her whichof the memories had Alexia. And and
so she had to do nothing butthink about Alexia. And she's smart.
She knew I was getting a littlewe were getting upset. She said something

(37:52):
that indicates she was there. Iheard her say something like that, and
I just uried, nonchalantly got upand locked the door to the room,
and I went back to Jessica andI started having her described for us her
favorite times with Alexia, which invariablywould turn out to be the two of

(38:15):
them cuddling in watching TV. Weknew about Alexia, but the only person
who could tell us is you.And she was screaming and yelling. They
were trying to get in the room. I wouldn't let him in, and
so they were very very angry.But the end result was that Jessica described

(38:42):
everything that had occurred. It startedwhen she was very very little, even
when we were still living with Charlesand stagecoach Nevda. I remember coming out
and she's the Alexia is in aheight chair, probably eight nine months old,
and uh, barb was just takinga lighter to the bottom of her
feet. Walked out, saw herdoing it, and the baby's obviously crying,

(39:06):
and my mother had a look.And if she gave you that look,
you didn't say anything back. SoI just turned around walked out.
Another memory Jessica can recall from herchildhood really puts Barbara into perspective. My
mother would love to tell me thatI was ugly and fat and worthless and
that I would never amount to anything. I'd be pregnant in high school.

(39:28):
I mean, it was just Inever got any racial slurs, but you
know I was called a bitch anda cunt anything. I mean. She
took all my awards that I savedin, all my cards for like birthdays,
and she burned them all in thefireplace, just because they meant something
to me. Barbara and Charles obviouslydidn't work out long term as a couple,

(39:49):
so they split and Barbara quickly wenton the hunt for another man,
as Barbara's often do. We movedagain. We were in the city in
California, and I was in sixthgrade going to school. Chad finally started
kindergarten, and she was off allthe time, supposedly working or looking for

(40:12):
work. And she came home onetime and she's just like, I met
a man and we got married andwe're all moving into his house in Elk
Grove. And my grandmother tried toconvince her to let us finish out the
school year so we didn't have tochange midyear, but she was hearing nothing
about it. She's like, they'remy kids, I'm taking them. So
we ended up moving while I wasin my sixth grade year. Whenever she

(40:37):
could show us off to some boyfriendor at some event, she would,
but when it came to actual parentingor being there for when we needed her,
she wanted nothing to do with it. By this point, only one
of Jessica's younger brothers had been sentto live with the man in Pennsylvania,
so it would be Jessica, Alexia, Chad, and their mother, Barbara

(41:00):
and Grandma making the move. They'dbe moving into a home in Elk Grove,
California, owned by a forty nineyear old man named Larry Carrasco.
Yeah, I don't even know howhe met her, if it was like
at a bar or just down thestreet. She never gave us any information.
She just says she married him andhere we are. So I thought

(41:22):
he was just completely normal, everydayguy, one of the most well put
together guys I've ever seen my momdate. I thought, well, maybe
this will be good, Like,maybe we'll stay here for a while,
and you know, Mom will beall right, and we'll get to be
a family. These hopes didn't lastlong. Barbara never enrolled Chad in kindergarten

(41:45):
and sent him to live in Pennsylvaniathat same summer. Just a reminder,
because these names can get confusing.Michael was the name of Jessica's little brother
and also the name of the mantheir mother's sent the boys to live with.
When Barbara was pregnant with Michael,she knew she would be sending him

(42:06):
off for this unofficial adoption, soshe named the baby after the man who
would be taking custody of him.How thoughtful, I guess. Chad was
shipped off a little bit later andwas slightly less planned. After he's sent

(42:27):
to live with Michael, things gotweird. My grandmother was noticing more and
more of the I guess, theaddictive behaviors and the odd punishments and the
meanness towards Alexia, and she wasspeaking out about it more and threatening to
call the authorities to get us takenaway. So Barbara and Larry decided to

(42:51):
kick my grandmother out, and oncemy grandmother no longer lived there, I
missed a lot of school taking careof Alexia because Barbara went come out of
her room from time to time.She would tell me to stay home just
because she didn't want to deal withthat Chinese bitch is what she would call
Alexia a lot of the times.But then other times she's like, you
have to go to school because ifnot, the cops are going to come

(43:14):
after me for you missing too manydays. It was hit or miss with
her, But some days I wouldstay home if Alexia was feeling emotionally like
unstable, I guess you could say, because there would be some times where
she would be like, I justdon't want to be here alone. She's
always told me when I came homefrom school that they don't feed her.
Nobody comes out of the bedroom,and then they don't feed her while I'm

(43:34):
gone, So it made me notwant to go to school because I didn't
know what was happening to her whenshe was gone. When I was gone.
Just like Chad, Alexia approached fiveyears old and was never enrolled in
kindergarten. She was pretty smart.I mean I think she would have been
a highly intelligent little girl. Imean I will never know because she didn't
even get to go to school tosee if she could read or anything like

(43:57):
that. But when you grow upin the household like I do, you
did, you grow up quicker.So she was well beyond her years with
her verbal and emotional development. Thingswere getting weird, not only because Barbara's
own addiction to methamphetamine was getting worse, but because she had gotten Larry on
meth as well. He once hada stable job before a workplace injury,

(44:23):
but was unemployed by February of nineteenninety seven and had begun skulking back into
the bedroom with Barbara on a dailybasis. At one point, Larry before
his accent, he agreed that sheneeded to get help and he kicked her
out. With both my grandmother andhim decided to kick her out, and

(44:45):
within like a few hours, shewent back at the door just crying and
begging to come back, swearing thatshe was going to do better and go
to rehab and all of this,and they both let her back in,
and no rehab ever happened. Soonthey were making paranoid accusations, claiming the
girls were possessed. Every day helda new scary encounter with Barbara or Larry.

(45:13):
And this was all just the beginning. Thirteen year old Jessica Rail sat

(45:44):
in an interrogation room in late nineteenninety seven, rehashing every single detail of
what happened to her little sister,five year old Alexia. There was not
a crumb of evidence that Alexia evenexisted in the Carrasco home, but she
had lived there with Jessica, hiddenwithin the confines of the deceivingly normal looking

(46:07):
outer walls. As she began todivulge more of her story, police officers
and FBI agents couldn't believe what theywere hearing, especially because they didn't have
any evidence that could corroborate that Jessica'sstory was even true. This would soon
change very shortly before the worst partof Jessica's story, she told detectives about

(46:31):
her mother and Larry's drug use andincreased paranoia, something that eventually led to
the couple accusing both Jessica and littleAlexia of being possessed by demons. It's
important to note, though, thatBarbara's behavior can't be mitigated by her drug
use. It would be easy toblame everything on drugs, of course it

(46:54):
would, but Barbara's personality was poisonedfrom the very beginning. Math just you
know, had a little uh anda little spice to the mix, a
little chaser on your cocktail if youdon't mind the uh comparison. My grandmother

(47:15):
raised her with her father, andI know she was very spoiled. My
grandmother had my uncle and then shehad like eight miscarriages over like thirteen years
before she got pregnant with my mother. So she spoiled the hell out of
my mother. She had everything underthe sun, Like I don't think she

(47:35):
ever worked for anything in her life, high or not high. My mother
was. It was always what shewanted, how she wanted it, and
if only if it benefited her.Fearing for her little sister's safety, Jessica
began missing more and more school sothat she could stay home and keep an

(47:55):
eye on her. So she stayedhome as often as she could. There
were, of course, still dayswhen Jessica had to be away at school
all day long, anxious the entireday knowing that Alexia was without her protection.
I think that was one of thesaddest things I've ever witnessed is I
came home from school and she wasin her room and she was playing,

(48:19):
and the door was slightly open,and I see her just playing with the
stuffed dogs and I'm like, well, where's your baby dolls? And She's
like, they're under the bed,and I'm like why, she goes well,
because babies are babies are bad andthey need to be locked up.
And I just was like, then, why are we playing with the puppies?
She was because everybody loves puppies,And I was just like, the

(48:43):
most heartrenching, saddest thing I thinkI've ever witnessed. And I was like
twelve at the time, and that'swhat the first thing I thought was,
Well, if she's playing this withher dolls, something has to be happening
while I'm at school. All Ireally got out of her is the fact
that they left her alone and theynever fed her, and she was always
hungry. Once summer started, Igot to witness a lot of what they

(49:07):
were doing, and it was alot of locking her in a closet cutting
all her hair off one time becausemy mother didn't want to deal with it.
And that was an emotionally hard thingto watch because I hear her crying
and I go find them in theirmaster bedroom closet and she's got Alexia taped
like duct taped to a four posterchair while she's just cutting all her hair

(49:30):
off, and I'm under like,I don't didn't understand why would we need
to do that? And Barbara's excusewas she didn't want to take care of
her hair, and then I,with my smart mouth, said well you
don't, I do like leave italone, like I'll take care of it.
It didn't work out. She's stillcut basically all of her hair off.

(49:51):
She said lots of nasty things toher while she was cutting her hair
off. The demons and the vampiretalk started probably right after my grandmother was
out, but it wasn't on aregular basis. I finished my seventh grade
year and then during that summer moreand more talk of the demons and the
vampires. Apparently Lexia and I weredemons. And Barbara thought she was God

(50:15):
at one point, and she waspregnant Jesus, and she told me that
I had to die because I wassucking the electricity out of her baby.
It was just random, out ofnowhere things. And I never said I
was I never said I wasn't.I didn't go against her. I just

(50:35):
let her talk. On two differentoccasions, someone probably Jessica's grandmother, called
CPS or the Sheriff's department to goout to the Carrasco home and check on
the girls. Of course, Barbaraand Larry had prepared the girls for events
like this, and they behaved accordingly. It was in the summer, like

(50:58):
the very beginning of summer. Rightafter my grandmother was kicked out. The
cops came and I told them everythingwas fine, but I wasn't gonna say
things were horrible or anything was goingon, because Barbara and Larry were standing
right next to me, and thecops weren't even coming in the house,
they just stood in the doorway.So I just went with it. Everything's

(51:19):
fine, I'm good, We're allgood. And then the more talks of
demons and vampires and Barbara putting likecameras in the ceiling to watch me,
because apparently I was trying to sneakout or kill her or whatever she thought
I was doing. We had mybedroom windows was bolted shut. There's really

(51:40):
no escaping that house. She tookthe phone out away, so I couldn't
call anybody, and it was summertime, so it's not like I had a
reason to leave the house. Andthen all of a sudden, she and
Larry sit us down and tell usthat they figured out how to get rid
of the demons and the vampires,and that we would need to drink these
leash milk three times a day foreight days to rid us of our demons.

(52:04):
Three bleach milkshakes per day for eightdays meant that each girl would have
to consume twenty four total milkshakes,which were often mixed with garlic and other
spices. Jessica was a middle schooler, but Alexia was a tiny, little
five year old. Jessica knew therewas no way Alexia would be able to

(52:28):
survive all twenty four of those shakes. It was very an intimidating process because
Larry and Barbara both sat at thetable with us and like stared us down,
and we weren't allowed to leave unlesswe drank it. But initially I
had refused, and Larry punched mein the face and gave me two black
eyes because I refused to come outof my bedroom to go drink this concoction.

(52:52):
After he did that, I realizedI had no choice in that if
I didn't, I was probably gonnaend up beaten. So I started drinking
them. But it was chalky,and it burned, and you wanted to
throw up, and it was justa horrible experience. And Alexia had to

(53:15):
drink the same amount as mean andobviously would have major effects on someone being
so little as opposed to me wasa little bit heavier as a teenager and
a little forty pound year big kiddrinking the same amount. It burned my

(53:35):
throat and burned my stomach, butit didn't like last long for some reason,
and it didn't like make me nauseousor anything. After like the third
day, it was horrible tasting,but I was able to just get them
down. The first couple times wehad those shakes, I was able to
sneak Alexia and I off into thebathroom and throw up. I had to

(53:58):
basically put my fingers down her throatbecause she didn't understand the concept to make
her throw up, But Larry andBarbara caught us doing that, and then
after that we were always kept separatedand weren't allowed to go back to our
wounds until they determined it to besafe, or they would just put us
directly in our rooms and lock usin there, so we had no way

(54:21):
of throwing up unless we wanted topuke in our beds. Well, I
think we barely made halfway through thesecond day, and we were separated the
rest of the time. For mostof the time, honestly, I didn't
get to see or know. Imean I would hear her like crying and
whimpering, so I knew she wasstill alive. But a lot of times,

(54:44):
unless both of them were there,we weren't allowed to be together.
As if the bleach milkshakes weren't badenough, Barbara and Larry began doing the
unthinkable. They did bring us outtogether sometimes to additional fun torture when she

(55:04):
put bleach in our ears and oureyes on a daily basis, we got
to do that together, but otherthan that, she was normally a pretty
much locked in the master bedroom closetI mean, I just remember every time
Barbara did it to her, shejust screamed, like uncontrollably screamed. Yeah,
it was horrible, But I honestlyI blocked a lot of stuff out.

(55:27):
I didn't allow myself to think orfeel about a lot of things because
I just I felt just so defeatedbecause there was nothing I could do anyway.
No matter what option I thought of, none of them ended well.
So if I thought of escaping,like how do I get Alexia out?
Because I can't leave without her,I can't get to the phone. And

(55:49):
eventually just became too much and Ikind of honestly gave up. It was
nearing the end of the eight days, and Barbara had even more in store
for the girls, Jessica in particular. At this time, Barbara and Larry
still had their ten French bulldogs backin the dog shed, and Barbara loved
those dogs more than her own children, even so she killed them all.

(56:16):
They probably had two days left,maybe three days left of the bleach shakes,
and Barbara made me come outside andwatch, well help her. I
guess it didn't help, but shemade me bring the dogs out one by
one and she drowned each one ofthem in a bucket of bleach water in
the backyard midle of summer, andnobody. Nobody knew a thing, nobody

(56:37):
heard a thing, No neighbors called. And it's not like we lived far
from other neighbors. It was residential. They were right there. You could
have looked over your fence and seeniorneighbor. She loved those dogs in one
them, She loved us, andthey were her income. So I don't
understand why she just drowned all ofher income. That was more of the

(56:58):
reason, Like she just wanted toshow me that she could do this,
And if she could do it tothese dogs that I know she loved more
than us, it would be easierfor her to do it to us too,
Just as Jessica feared, Alexia didn'tmake it through the full eight days
of bleach shakes. Each time Jessicasaw her, on the occasions they were
both dragged from isolation for torture sessions, Alexia looked more pale and sickly.

(57:25):
Her skin had a grayish cast,and the sparkle had left the little girl's
eyes. It was day seven andAlexia had failed to drink her milkshake.
She was, after all, nearlycatatonic by this point. Barbara dragged Alexia
out of the kitchen by her hairand locked her in the master bedroom closet.

(57:51):
When lunchtime rolled around and it wastime for another round of milkshakes,
Alexia was absent on the table WhenI walked down the hallway to come out
to have my you know, twentyethshake. Alexia was completely naked in the

(58:12):
bathtub and there was a enema bagin the bathtub with her. She was
making small sounds, but she wasn'treally moving. I wanted to go in,
but Larry pushed me and told meto go sit down and have my
shake. So I'm sitting with Larryat the table having my shake. Barbara

(58:34):
goes into the bathroom. I don'tknow what she was doing to Alexia while
she was in the bathroom, butthen she brings Alexia out of the bathtub,
lays her naked on the floor,and realizes that she's not breathing.
She swear she you know, she'salready died. So she leans over her
and gives her like one half assedattempt at CPR, like one breath,

(59:00):
no compressions, no nothing, andthen just smiles and realizes she's dead,
and I'm freaking out, like askingare you sure, because isn't there a
way to save her? Like howdo you know? You're not a doctor.
But nobody did any further attempts tosave her or make sure she was

(59:24):
actually really past. So that wasit. Ex Yeah, was gone,
and Barbara and Larry seemed relieved.Barbara had killed her own little girl and
ten of her own dogs. Whatwould stop her from killing Jessica too?

(59:45):
My mother was always looking for away to keep me locked up. She
told me that there was bad menout there, that they would take me
and do worse things to me.She told me that the cops were on
her side and they would just bringme right back. She also told me
that nobody would believe me, becausewho's going to believe that this is happening.

(01:00:07):
They would just think you're crazy andlock you up. She had a
lot of reasons, and I,you know, not really having much contact
with the outside world for quite along time. Name she was right,
so I didn't even attempt to tryto leave. Even praying to God,
as her grandmother had taught her,seemed like a futile effort. She had

(01:00:30):
tried it before, and God clearlyhadn't heard her or hadn't cared for a
little while I was in my room, because I guess they were discussing what
to do with her. But immediatelybefore they made the huge plan what to
do with her, they'd put herin a black trash brag and put her
in the freezer in our garage.I didn't believe in God, because how

(01:00:52):
could a god allow things like thisto happen to children? And then I
was also highly confused because Barbara saidshe was God and then pregnant with Jesus,
And while I knew that wasn't right, I also thought, well,
why did my mom lie? Likemoms aren't supposed to lie to you.
So it was very confusing trying tolike, you know what's not right,

(01:01:17):
but you want your mom to loveyou so much, and you want your
mom to take care of you,so you want to believe her, and
you go with what she says becauseit makes it easier. It was just
a mess. In the time beforethey finally disposed of Alexia's frozen body,
Barbara and Larry made a game outof sending Jessica to the garage to get

(01:01:38):
sodas for them, sometimes even requiringher to get meat and other things out
of the same freezer that held Alexia'scorpse. She was in the freezer probably
for about a week before they reallydecided what their process of elimination was going
to be and their backstorre. Iwas brought out of my room one day

(01:02:01):
and sat down and told that ifanybody asked what happened to Alexia, we're
just going to tell them that shelives in Chicago with her biological father.
And as they were telling me this, they're bringing me into the master bedroom,
into the closet, and the Alexia'sbody in the trash bag is on

(01:02:23):
the closet floor, and I'm forcedin the closet with Larry standing by and
sitting next to me with a gunpointed at me, telling me to repeat
the story over and over again whilethey work on dismembering her body. They
had a whole set up, thewhole All of the clothes were gone,

(01:02:43):
there was like no they had redonethe floor, so it was like linoleum
on the floor in the closet,and they had the trash bags and plastic
taped to the floor, and therewas a meat cleaver and axe and some
kind of saw and extra trash bagsall set up and ready to go.
And they at first Barbara couldn't doit, She couldn't start dismembering her,

(01:03:07):
so Larry gave her the gun.She kept the gun trained on me,
and Larry removed Alexia's head from herbody. And then after that point Barbara
was like, oh, I thinkI can do this, and she takes
over dismembering her thoroughly. I didn'tknow you could make a body look the

(01:03:28):
way she ended up looking, andjust handfuls of her in a trash bag
like at a time until there wasnothing left. They more or less made
it like she went through a meatgrinder. Though they had a huge mess
to clean up. Barbara and Larrywere on meth, so just imagine a

(01:03:51):
couple of meth heads cleaning up acrime scene. What I'm trying to say
is they left not a single strayhair to be found by lawn horsemen.
They got everything. I mean,they should start a business for cleaning homes.
Just immaculate, really. And theyalso had a plan for what to

(01:04:15):
do with the remainder of Alexia's bodyonce they were finished. In the closet.
They had placed all of her remainsin her trash bag. I was
allowed to go take a shower finally, which was well needed because I had
bits of body pieces that hew fromthe force of her chopping all over me.

(01:04:36):
So I was allowed to take ashower. After my shower, it
brought out into the family room andthey burned her body in the fireplace,
literally larry one handful out of time, and after throughout three or four hours,

(01:04:56):
they eventually burned the whole bag.Just a reminder, this all occurred
in the middle of July. Thesmoke from a burning body looks and smells
much different than any other kind ofsmoke. It's not like a burning pile
of leaves or a cozy fireplace.It's not even like a backyard barbecue cookout,

(01:05:25):
not even the pellet grill me.I like the trigger. It's easy
to keep your temperatures regulated. Andthere's all sorts of different flavors of pellets
to choose from. I like thehickory. A lot of people like apple,
but I like hickory. Smells prettygood. There's a nice, sharp

(01:05:45):
smoky taste on your meats. Anyway, this must be a part of California
that has a lot of cookouts,because nobody complained about the smell or the
fact that there was even a fireplaceon in California in the middle of July.
Despite these oddities, nobody bothered tocall police. Not even one anonymous

(01:06:06):
tip was left. I guess peoplein California are so used to seeing just
horrible, fucked up shit that theyjust don't even bother anymore. In any
case, in the middle of thenight, the three of them drove off
in Barbara's white Ford Bronco dump Alexia'sashes into the Sacramento River, along with

(01:06:28):
all the tools they used to dismemberher, and also the ice chest that
held her frozen body. And thenon the way back to the car,
they realized that they locked the keysin the car, so they had to
break the window to get in sowe could get home. This would be

(01:06:48):
the one detail in Jessica's story thatcorroborated evidence found by law enforcement. This
meant that police could believe what shewas saying, even though Alexia's body and
the rest of the physical evidence werelong gone. Jessica had told us that

(01:07:09):
Larry and Barbara had locked themselves outof the car at the Sacramento River and
that had to break the window toget in, and based on her description,
there was a ton of glass rightthere, so the lapse took the
glass and it turned out to befrom their car. Just a side note
and something that is totally on brandfor Barbara in case you missed it,

(01:07:31):
she drove a white Ford Bronco innineteen ninety seven, the same exact kind
of Ford Bronco that OJ Simpson wasfamous for driving. This was no accident.
I hated that car. She hadto buy one. When OJ Simpson

(01:07:51):
went up for trial and he hadthat white Bronco, she had to buy
one. And she loved driving itbecause it was around the same time as
the trial was going on, andeverybody would be like, go Oj,
as we're driving, and she justgot the biggest kick at it, being
like the center of attention over thestupid car. As we know now,

(01:08:12):
Barbara and OJ have a lot incommon, She too would soon become the
center of attention, not just becauseof the Ford Bronco, but because she
had murdered someone. First, lawenforcement had to make sure the case would
be prosecutable. The lack of physicalevidence would certainly make that a challenge Alexia's

(01:08:34):
case. I never was successfully ableto guess where we were going. Ever.
Mona Fjord was the detective in chargeof the case, and I think
she went back and got like fivesearch warrants. I mean, she just
was absolutely determined to go back there. And we brought a a crime scene

(01:09:00):
investigator who literally peeled the paint offthe walls, looking for a residue of
blood or anything that could have beenthere underneath it. We also sent the
fireplace from the house back to Quanticoand had that tested by the FED the
FBI lab, and that didn't giveup anything either. I knew that I

(01:09:26):
deliberately caused Jessica to experience an emotionalup people, and I knew it was
my fault. The choice I madethat day was was it more important to
leave Jessica alone or was it moreimportant to try and find out what happened

(01:09:48):
to Alexia. I chose Alexia,and I'm glad I did, and I
think Jessica is glad I did.But you know, when and Jessica's demeanor
and how she described things, therewas no question that she was telling the
truth. Both Larry and Barbara's convictionswould rest on Jessica's testimony and the broken

(01:10:13):
glass from the car window. Thetestimony was fine, but they also said
because I lied for so long,the jury would trying to make it seem
like I wasn't credible because I hadlied for so long. But once they
did serve Barbara and Larry with theirresta warrant for the murder, they both
started like basically telling the same story, just blaming it on each other.

(01:10:36):
Both Barbara and Larry still pleaded notguilty, which meant both of them would
go to trial. Larry's trial wasfirst in February of two thousand and it
lasted three days. The jury foundhim guilty of second degree murder and ten
counts of child abuse and torture.A month later, he was sentenced to

(01:11:00):
forty years to life. Barbara's timelinewas a bit different. Her first plea
was a not guilty plea, butthen she changed it to not guilty by
reason of insanity. On the dayof jury selection for both of their cases,
Barbara changed her plea to guilty.In May. A judge found her

(01:11:25):
legally sane when she committed the murder, which meant she'd spend her sentence in
prison, not a mental institution.She finally did take a plea deal where
they dropped basically all of the torturecharges and she took her I believe it
was murder one and got sentenced tofifteen years to life. I was pissed

(01:11:47):
off because, yes, she Iguess technically admitted to killing my sister,
but she wasn't getting any time forwhat she did. The of a torture
that she did me or my sister. If you have an insane attention to
detail, and most of our listenersdo, Unfortunately, maybe you've done the

(01:12:09):
math. By now, It's beenwell over fifteen years since Barbara's conviction.
She's already been up for parole severaltimes. Jessica and I both thought,
because California of law right now isto let people out of jail, and
that's you know, the politics,and so we really are surprised that she

(01:12:30):
has been in there still twenty fiveyears and again was denied parole. We
have thought for a good the lasttwo or three hearings that she would be
released, and prepared for that tohappen. The thing what the reason that
they always give at the end ofwhen they make their decision, they come
in and still it takes twenty minutesor whatever. They come back in and

(01:12:55):
they say, no, Barbara,you say what you did, but you
don't know why you did what youdid, and you can't you don't accept
any responsibility for what you did.Aways been up I think four or five
times. The first one I wasn'taware of. I found out about her

(01:13:15):
being denied through a newspaper article becauseHammy saw it in the newspaper in California
and sent it to me, andthen I after that, I requested through
victim Services to be notified at whenevershe had a hearing, so I would
attend them via the phone, becauseI didn't have a local courthouse to actually
do it like via teleconference. Buther most recent one was last December,

(01:13:41):
December twenty two, and I didthat one via zoom from my house because
COVID allows us to do it thatway now. So I got to see
her and hear about all of herwonderful successes and how you know, she's
got her education, and she's foundreligion, and she's mentors all the new

(01:14:03):
lifers and she's just this wonderful humanbeing now and I get to tell my
peace and defunk everything she says.And she still has not taken full responsibility
for her part in my sister's death, and she still has no remorse whatsoever

(01:14:24):
for anything that happened and her Basically, the only truthful thing I got out
of her in the last hearing wasthat she never wanted us and never loved
any of us. Despite spending herentire adolescence in the foster care system,
Jessica now has three children of herown, a college degree, and her

(01:14:44):
own business, yet further proof thatyou do not have to be confined by
where you come from. There isa way out if you put in the
work days. Jessica strives to bea good mother by deliberately avoiding any resemblance

(01:15:05):
to her own mother, a commontactic by many who come from abusive homes.
When Jessica had her first child,a girl, she wanted to memorialize
Alexia, so she named her firstborn after her little sister. Jessica's math

(01:15:25):
teacher from all of those years ago, Tammy Cooper, still keeps in touch
with her and they visit each other'sfamilies regularly. I'm really glad I picked
miss Cooper Tammy to be the oneto tell out of all my teachers.
She made a promise to me thatthat day that she would stay with me
and she would always be there aslong as I wanted her in my life.

(01:15:46):
And I didn't believe her because nobodyever stuck around, But then she
did. She stayed to the hospitalvisit, she stayed while I was getting
registered in the receiving home. Shestarted visiting me afterwards, and she was
instrumental and getting my grandmother because shedidn't have a car, getting my grandmother
able to come see me, becauseshe would pick her up for me or

(01:16:09):
take me to my visits. Everythingshe said she was going to do,
she did, and she really didend up becoming like my best friend as
a teenager, Jessica. I nevergave Jessica any money. I never supported
her as a mother or father wouldand I gave her, you know,
money here and there for a birthdayor whatever, but never supported her as

(01:16:34):
my child. And so I hadher teacher and that's the role that we
agreed kind of without talking, andI followed her. I did several gofund
me pages when she was at areally bad time, like being kicked out
of her, her home that shewas renting, and we got her through

(01:16:57):
everything, but she never once dependedon me as her advocate to change her
life and make her life better.All that she ever, I think wanted
from me was what I could give, which was my love and respect and
that shared history. I'm the onlyperson who's known this. I'm the only

(01:17:19):
person that she has known since thishappened. There's nobody else, and so
you know, we have that connection, and I'm so just so proud of
her, just really really proud ofher. Jessica wrote a book that she

(01:17:40):
self published this year. She onlybegan therapy for her traumas in recent years
and went through something called memory regression. After every session, she began writing
journal entries recalling each and every detailof her horrible experiences. When she was
done, she figured she'd turn itinto a book. It's called I'm Not

(01:18:03):
Broken Surviving the House Demons, andyou can pick up your own copy if
you're interested, at Amazon. Thelink will appear in the show notes at
Swordinscale dot com. Jeffrey Rinnick alsohas a book detailing his most memorable cases
throughout his thirty plus year FBI career. It's called In the Name of Children,

(01:18:30):
an FBI agent's relentless pursuit of thenation's worst predators. If you found
this episode entertaining or interesting, you'lllove their books. Barbara and Larry Carrasco
try to erase the very existence offive year old Alexia, but she is

(01:18:51):
forever memorialized in Jessica's Oldest Daughter andJeffrey and Jessica's books, and in this
podcast episode you're listening to right now. Now all of you know Barbara's name
also, so if California ever doeslet her out, more of us can

(01:19:15):
be aware that she is and willforever be a child murderer. And look

(01:19:45):
at that, another one wrapped upevery week, just like clockwork. Isn't
that weird how they just keep coming. Head on over to sortinscale dot com
to support us and keep them comingif you want to, and uh,
until next time, stay safe.I guessed my name, and I want

(01:20:56):
to start off I apologizing. Iwas snipening more and scale greatness for many
years and I realized this is amazing. I need to be supporting this.
I'm ready for stupid Netflix, andit's nowhere near the amount of time and
information that I've gotten from anywhere elseto Sword Scale. So I started out

(01:21:17):
a ten dollars level. Stop tellingpeople about the ten dollars level or you
already at the five dollar level.Forget it. Pay more white by buck
bottom line work the show Sword andScale TV. Holy shit, like this
is amazing. I cannot wait.I screamed when you announced that. And
there's such a sweet full so excitedthat's whole price. Funny what happens when

(01:21:42):
we turn off RSS feeds? Huhn? Moment, another moment, another moment, a moment