Episode 296

On March 20, 2017, Tahirih Lua D’Angelo was found brutally murdered in her Riverview, Florida home. Investigators quickly realized this was a personal attack when they discovered she had been killed on her 39th birthday. Suspicion only deepened when a bloodied aluminum baseball bat with the word "Rampage" imprinted on the side, was located by the front door…

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is
not intended for all audiences.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Listener, discretion is advised.

Speaker 3 (00:12):
No one.

Speaker 4 (00:12):
In your release from all the hard things I had
to do and how pointlessly hard I made my life?

Speaker 5 (00:19):
Do you feel a release?

Speaker 4 (00:21):
No, I feel like I made the one mistake they
can't forget me.

Speaker 6 (00:27):
For Welcome to the premier source of murder in your household,
Sword and Scale. This is season twelve, episode to ninety something.

Speaker 5 (00:38):
Of You Know the Things.

Speaker 6 (00:42):
Same What shapes of person in America? The answer is

(01:23):
probably door dash and Chick fil A, judging by our
healthcare costs. But I'm talking psychologically here. We've often talked
about nature versus nurture. Is a person's brain predisposition since
birth due to inherited traits, or is it slowly formed
by experiences? Over time, We've come to learn that, like

(01:45):
so many other things in life, the answer is not
black and white. It's nuanced psychological disorders aside, and by
the way, we all have them. The fact of the
matter is that you are in the drive, and until
you relinquish control and let the crazy take over, which

(02:06):
by the way, is a choice, you are responsible for
your actions. Despite what's happened to you in the past,
and despite what society tells you. These days, we are
the only ones behind the wheel of our own destiny.
Those are just the facts. The sooner we figure out

(02:27):
that no one is coming to save us, the better.
And while some strive to do their best to steer
through life responsibly, others can be careless, holding little to
no value for human existence, including their own. It's Thursday,

(03:08):
March twentieth, twenty seventeen, at the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office
in Tampa, Florida. The fluorescent light flickers in the stark
interrogation room, casting shadows three empty chairs awkwardly positioned inside
the eight x ten space. At ten twenty four pm,
eighteen year old Joshua Carmona is seen on surveillance casually

(03:31):
entering the room. Joshua is still in his street clothes
and isn't handcuffed, a surprising detail considering the purpose of
his visit with investigators.

Speaker 7 (03:43):
Just so you know, man, this room is audio and
video recording, Just so you know, I'm going to turn
this on just the backup, and the reason why we
do that this is so I can't put any words
in your mouth.

Speaker 5 (03:52):
Okay.

Speaker 6 (03:54):
Joshua looks up to notice the CCTV camera pointed directly
at him, but is unbothered, well aware that everything he
says can and will be used against him. By now,
the two detectives have scooted their chairs just inches from his.
They're positioned in a perfect triangle, and for the first

(04:14):
time ever, Joshua is given the undivided attention he's always wanted.
While sitting at an uncomfortably close distance, authorities read him
his Miranda rights. Then they moved to establish the suspects
level of competency before diving into the interview.

Speaker 5 (04:32):
What was high level education?

Speaker 8 (04:33):
Completed?

Speaker 5 (04:34):
High school? High school? Okay? What how'd you doing Jefferson? Jefferson, okay,
how would your grades? Three point fives? It's pretty good.
I heard he went to was Fidam University. It's pretty
good school. It was very school. Yeah. Did you like
it up there in New York? I'd find yeah. I
wouldn't say I like it now.

Speaker 7 (04:53):
I'm originally from New yorkan they so you know, I'm
kind of familiar with the area of New York.

Speaker 5 (04:57):
Scream. I just did a lot of bad things.

Speaker 6 (05:00):
The female detective on Joshua's left is holding a red folder.
In it are prime scene photos, witness statements, and evidence.
Flocks Her partner then leans in as he continues to
gauge where Joshua's head is at this very moment.

Speaker 5 (05:16):
Do you take any medications rating? No, sir?

Speaker 9 (05:19):
No?

Speaker 5 (05:19):
Okay? Do you take get drugs? Yes? What weed? That's
not so bad? I made it.

Speaker 4 (05:27):
I mean it, it was pretty bad.

Speaker 5 (05:30):
It was pretty bad. Like the paranoia. Are you do vice?
I think so? Do you think so? I think swows
so much? Okay, when was the last time you did that? Today? Today?
Was on me? Four or five? Four or five? How
you feeling right now? I'm still coming down, still coming down.
Do you know where? Do you know where you are

(05:51):
right now? I'm yeah, I know all right. I mean
the text office in the shriff's office. Okay.

Speaker 6 (05:58):
Investigators are in a tricky spot after Joshua tells them
he's currently high on spice, a synthetic compound known to
cause delusions and even mania. Still, he agrees to continue
with the interview. With his shoulders stiff and eyes on
the floor, Joshua swallows a mouth full of spit and

(06:18):
prepares to reveal details of a crime so vile that
even the two season detectives in front of them will shudder.
Teria Lua di Angelo, more affectionately known as Tera, was

(06:41):
born in Tampa, Florida, on March twentieth, nineteen seventy eight.
Her best friend, Renee Roberts, remembers the time they met
almost like it was yesterday.

Speaker 1 (06:50):
I met her in high school andrew were in Jrotc together.
I think I was fifteen when she was fourteen. I
was older. So I graduated first and then she graduated
like the following year, and that's how I met her
and we became friends that way.

Speaker 6 (07:06):
After high school, the two friends lost touch but reconnected
a few years later. When Tarah became pregnant with her
first born, Joshua. Tarah asked Renee if she would be
the boy's godmother, and she couldn't have been more thrilled.

Speaker 1 (07:19):
She had asked me to be his godmother before she
even gave birth to him. And then once you know,
she got word that she was going to have him,
you know, I went to the hospital. You know, I
went up there and I was in the delivery room
whenever he was born. That was my godson, you know,
and I loved him to death. I got pictures of
me with her and Joshua when he was like two

(07:41):
years old, you know, so I have a lot of pictures.

Speaker 6 (07:44):
So Unfortunately, Tara struggled as a young mother. She was
only twenty years old at the time. And to make
matters worst, Joshua's father wasn't in the picture from the start. Luckily,
Sarah had some good people in her life, her friend
Renee being one of them.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
He was a good baby. He was a good baby,
you know, he didn't cry much. I watched him during
the day for her to work, you know, because at
the time I wasn't working because my cousin was taking
good care of me, I didn't have to work, so
you know, I just took care of Joshua. I cheated
him as if he was my own child, you know.

Speaker 6 (08:17):
Despite the help from friends and family, Tarah ultimately made
the difficult decision to award custody of Joshua to his
uncle when he was five years old, shortly after he
entered elementary school. Joshua's uncle had troubles of his own
and relinquished his responsibilities to the boy's grandmother, with whom

(08:37):
he became very close. While Tara's exact issues are unknown,
she ended up moving out west to get her life together.
According to Joshua, aside from the occasional visit to his
grandmother's during the holidays, he rarely saw his mother growing up.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
Oh I think about now as well as a kid,
and she would visit for letaors and then she was
a leave and I just remember me crying myself to
sleep because that was really sad.

Speaker 6 (09:09):
Despite his biological parents not being around, Joshua flip flops
during his interview, admitting that things actually weren't that bad
for him as a kid.

Speaker 4 (09:20):
I had a great childhood. I was a great kid.
I was trying to make an excuse, and I like,
I was broken, Okay, I screwed something. I made theirst okay.

Speaker 6 (09:34):
But not long before he started dabbling in illicit drugs,
Joshua felt his grandmother was the only adult figure in
his life that he could count on. Unfortunately, all that
changed in two thousand and nine, when Joshua claimed things
started to fall apart when he was in sixth grade.
His mother returned to the East Coast, which was around

(09:56):
the same time that Joshua's grandmother passed away. After that,
he had no choice but to move back in with
his mother, who had already established her own life with
her new boyfriend, whom she eventually married. Trying to make
up for lost time, Tara worked long hours to afford
toys and video games for Joshua. She took him on

(10:17):
road trips to Cooperstown to visit the Baseball Hall of Fame,
and bought tickets for them to see his favorite team,
the Yankees, whenever they played the Rays at Tropicana Field.
Despite these gestures, friends and relatives noticed Joshua struggling with
his new family dynamic, now living with his once estranged
mother and the new man in her life.

Speaker 1 (10:41):
I used to say, Joshua, you know, I'm your godmother,
and he would just ignore me and go in the
other room, you know that. I'm like, well, would he
ignore me? But you know when I asked her, She's like,
you know, he don't really like talking to people. He
really didn't like talking to people, so he would just
never say nothing mite to me. He was not a
people first.

Speaker 6 (11:00):
Then, with each passing day, Joshua started to feel more
like an outsider. Tensions only grew when a stepsister was
born A few years later, as all the attention was
now directed towards her. After that, Joshua rarely spoke with
his parents unless he wanted something.

Speaker 1 (11:19):
I know, if he got older, you know, she'd call
me because she was upset, you know, with them, you know,
like he did something. You know, maybe he you know,
because he would always ask her for money and stuff,
and you know, there just comes a point, you know,
where you can't give your last dollar every time, you know,
and so she would do everything she could for him,

(11:41):
you know, but it's almost like if she couldn't do something,
or she couldn't buy him the best of this or
the best of that, then you know, he would get
he would get kind of angry, you know.

Speaker 6 (11:51):
When he was a teenager, Joshua did start to show
some signs of progress. He attended Jefferson High School in Tampa,
excelled academically, and became a talented athlete, playing for his
varsity baseball team. His mother, Tara, was often seen in
the stands cheering him on. For the first time, it
seemed like Joshua had found purpose in life. Baseball provided

(12:14):
him with a sense of confidence and self worth. Now
with a goal to work toward His mother also noticed
improvements in his attitude. He spoke regularly about his dreams
of playing professional baseball one day. As a result of
a respectable GPA and accomplishments on the field, Joshua even
earned himself a most Likely to Succeed superlative in his

(12:37):
high school yearbook. Things were looking up.

Speaker 8 (12:40):
He wasn't kind of to himself. He was everyone here
who was really really smart. He was very outgoing senior year.
He went to a lot of party year.

Speaker 6 (12:49):
During his senior year, he even took the stage at
the school's talent show to express appreciation for his mother.
Of all people, Yeah, it.

Speaker 8 (12:57):
Wasn't anything bad. It wasn't him saying how he's working
so hard you know for her, like just through everything.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
Nice.

Speaker 8 (13:05):
It was a really movie speech.

Speaker 1 (13:07):
Was like that that factor Like it wasn't got everyone
crying all the girls like it was.

Speaker 8 (13:12):
A really nice see too, that.

Speaker 3 (13:13):
Mom was in the crowd.

Speaker 6 (13:14):
She got up well. Things seemed to be going well
for him as he approached graduation. Joshua apparently didn't mean
a word he said during that speech. Frustrations about his
home life had silently gotten worse as he internalized an
overwhelming sense of rejection. At his senior prom, Joshua's date

(13:35):
and class valedictorian showed up to the dance alone. According
to friends, Joshua was back at his hotel room, passed
out drunk after pregaming a little too hard. He showed
up to the dance hammered. Long after it ended. After
high school, he was back to feeling bad for himself.

(13:58):
He slowly started to withdraw from his fan again, but
also the majority of his friends. Those who knew him
describe Joshua as distant during this time, someone who carried
a strong sense of bitterness everywhere he went. As a result,
the emotionally inept teenager started smoking marijuana regularly, using weed

(14:20):
as his main escape. Sound familiar.

Speaker 4 (14:24):
We didn't talk at all, and when I turned to drugs,
we we started talking about nothing.

Speaker 5 (14:32):
Never never see each other.

Speaker 6 (14:34):
Another positive shift came a short time later, when Joshua
was accepted to Fordham University, a promising school in New
York City's most bustling borough of Manhattan. To his benefit,
this was a great accomplishment. After all, Fordham University isn't
just some run of the mill community college. It's a
private institution that came with a pretty heft de tuition

(14:57):
cost around sixty grand a year, not to mention, the
Fordham University Rams had a pretty decent baseball team as
part of the NCAA's Division I program. From his mother's perspective,
college was sure to be an exciting turning point in
Joshua's life, a change for the better. But boy was

(15:18):
she wrong. This is sword and scale, after all. You
didn't forget that, right, you see. Almost as soon as
he enthusiastically tossed his bat and glove on the bunk
of his freshman dorms, Joshua's weed smoking started soaring to
great heights no pun intended, to put it bluntly, Also,

(15:41):
no pun intended. Joshua just loved getting high. I mean,
who doesn't. Getting high is awesome, It rocks. But if
you're a kid and you start doing it every day,
well that's going to be bad. You see, Joshua loved
getting high more than he loved hitting home runs. It
wasn't long after entering college that Joshua expanded his horizons

(16:05):
and his deteriorating mind by experimenting with substances much stronger
than good old fashioned Mary Jane. I mean, they call
it a gateway drug for a reason. Rather than focusing
on his grades and dreams of one day making it
to the big leagues, he spent most of his time
partying booze, MDMA, cocaine, spice, you name it. If it

(16:31):
was available, then Joshua was all in. By his own admission,
the drug spice in particular made him extremely paranoid, which
was just one of the many factors that contributed to
his poor attendance record from there on out. To make
a long story short, Joshua blew it. He flunked out
of school. He packed up his bat and glove, and

(16:52):
was forced to hop on a plane back to the
one place he hated the most, his mother's house down
in Tampa. Unfortunately for his mom and stepdad, it wasn't
long after he returned that Joshua started acting up again.
As a result, his mother kicked him out for a
period after tiring of his constant clouds of weed smoke

(17:13):
filling up her home. For several weeks, Joshua couch hopped
between the apartments of friends, the few he had left.

Speaker 5 (17:23):
That is.

Speaker 6 (17:25):
It was during this time that Joshua managed to make
his way back north to Pennsylvania. According to court documents,
that's when he allegedly assaulted a woman before stealing her
car and driving to a remote overpass. It didn't take
long for police to track down the stolen vehicle. When
they arrived on scene, officers found a despondent Joshua behind

(17:47):
the wheel. When police asked what he was doing dangerously
parked on the side of a bridge, he told them
he planned to take his own life that day by
jumping to the freeway below. Fortunately for Joshua and perhaps
no one else, the cops stopped them just in time.

Speaker 4 (18:06):
I tried to end my life because I still couldn't
get over that me as a kid, and I was
still blaming and.

Speaker 5 (18:13):
Hating the world.

Speaker 6 (18:14):
Due to concerns for his mental health, Joshua was never
charged for the assault or theft. Instead, authorities notified as mother,
at which time she welcomed him back into her home
and arranged for him to meet with a therapist.

Speaker 4 (18:29):
I was talking to a therapist, but I was kind
of holding back from him too, Okay, I knew.

Speaker 5 (18:36):
I knew all the time I came back.

Speaker 4 (18:39):
I came back from Pennsylvania December, and they made me
start talking about and I knew that whole time that
I didn't want to go back and face what I did.
I just wanted to quit hip him up, but I
didn't tell him that.

Speaker 5 (18:55):
Yeah, I was.

Speaker 6 (18:56):
Holding it, although Joshua couldn't see it. His mother did
the best she could to navigate the situation, all while
trying to support the family from her job as a
pharmacy tech and a Walmart in Tampa.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
With her job too, you know, her job. When they
needed her to go work at another's door, she would
to work at another store, you know, over time, no questions.
You know, she would always work it. She would never
let anybody down. You know, if she knew you needed something,
she was there.

Speaker 6 (19:28):
Despite her hard work, Joshua couldn't get past his feelings
of resentment towards his mother, and the self loathing teen
only harbored more and more negativity. As time went on,
the college dropout and ex athlete started blaming everyone but
himself for his missteps in life. Pouting alone in his

(19:48):
childhood bedroom, feeling sorry for himself, you know, like a loser.
Joshua fell back into his old bad habits because they
were easy, easier than real life. He attempted to find
and resolve these problems in his life through resin hits
and swigs of hard alcohol. Meanwhile, Joshua's family felt just

(20:12):
as hopeless. He refused to open up to anyone, including
his therapist, and his loved ones were at a loss. Then,
in February of twenty seventeen, Joshua hit rock bottom when
he was pulled over for drunk driving in Georgia. He
was ultimately arrested and charged with a DUI, which can

(20:33):
be a real wake up call, believe you me. In
his mind, this was the last straw. For the next
several weeks, he struggled to maintain the appearance of a
man holding it together. He started to let the mask
slip a bit. In reality, he was quietly unraveling, and

(20:54):
his hatred towards the world would soon manifest into several
downward swings of pure violence.

Speaker 4 (21:03):
The thing that don't come out of this was just
a release from what I did to my life. Besides
all the problems like the legal issues. Sure, I made
myself really shit for no reason until I wanted to
release from all the hard things I had to do

(21:24):
and how pointlessly hard I made my life.

Speaker 5 (21:27):
Do you feel a release. No, I feel like I
tried to do it was a good attention from my hand.

Speaker 4 (21:40):
I threw everything away and it doesn't make a damn
bit of sense. I tried to end something that had
nothing to do with me. I made the one mistake
they can't or get me.

Speaker 6 (21:51):
Before, at just eighteen years old, Joshua Carmona was already

(22:27):
at odds with the universe. A promising student with a
passion for baseball, he once had a potentially bright future,
but beneath the surface of his accomplishments, he was discontent
with life. He was convinced it had dealt him a
lousy hand, and he just couldn't let it go. On

(22:47):
the afternoon of March twentieth, twenty seventeen, following a disturbing
nine to one one call, Hillsborough County Deputies arrived at
a townhouse on Hawthorne Place Drive in Riverview, Florida. Upon
during the residents authorities grimaced at a scene so gruesome
that some excuse themselves to go vomit outside. They tried

(23:09):
to get a cop to vomit, but not impossible. While
crime scene techts work to secure the home and gather evidence.
A spokesperson for the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Department held a
press conference at the scene.

Speaker 10 (23:23):
Unfortunately, to find a female inside the residents who's deceased.
We're currently in the process of making next to kin notification.
Once we complete that, we release the victim's identity. We're
also in the process of conducting a search warn and
getting it signed by a judge for the residents here.
We're currently interviewing neighbors family members to try to identify

(23:45):
a cause for this crime. At this point, it's still
very early and we're conducting a number of investigations.

Speaker 8 (23:51):
At this time.

Speaker 10 (23:52):
We don't feel that the neighbors in this area are
in any danger and that was not random, but again,
we're still working through the early phases of investigation. Right now,
we're going to limit it to upper body trauma, so
we're going to have to wait for the emmy to
get inside to make an exact purbleach.

Speaker 6 (24:08):
As neighbors flooded the sidewalks of this once unassuming street,
they started to come up with theories of their own.
One resident who lived across the street spoke with reporters
about her encounter with the victim's family member moments after
she made the gut runching discovery.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
He was very nervous and he kind of collapsed on
the ground.

Speaker 6 (24:29):
The only information the public had been made aware of
was that a woman was dead and that her killer
was still at large. The victim's vehicle was missing from
the home, and whoever committed the crime was believed to
have fled in a white twenty sixteen Nissan Sentra.

Speaker 5 (24:46):
I think that's crazy.

Speaker 8 (24:47):
I never really expected to hear something like that in
the Saborhood.

Speaker 6 (24:50):
After interviewing various witnesses, several reported hearing shouting earlier that morning,
but for whatever reason, no one called police. According to
one witness, they'd seen a young male exiting the home
a short time later, but they couldn't provide a physical description.
Hours after night fell over, Tampa, Florida deputies eventually located

(25:13):
the victim's Nissan Sentra traveling along Interstate two seventy five
at around nine thirty pm. When they pulled the car over,
they found eighteen year old Joshua Carmona behind the wheel.
He was calm, cooperative and promptly taken into custody. As

(25:33):
the patrol car made its way to the station, Joshua
leaned forward while handcuffed in the back seat. In an
emotionless tone. He told officers that if they treated him nicely,
he'd tell them everything they needed to know.

Speaker 10 (25:49):
You know, this is extremely tragic. A mother was killed
on her birthday, and now we have a three year
old that's going to be motherless. While he was in
the car, he spontaneously did state that he killed his mother.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
I was getting ready for work that night. It was
like around ten o five. At ten o'clock, news came on,
but my phone rang and it was one of our
mutual friends and she said, Renee, have you talked to
Tara today? I said, yes, I talked to her this morning.
I said, I kept waiting for her to call me back,
because you know, she said she would call me when
she was done and we couldn't meet up. But since
she never called me, I just stayed home. Why And

(26:22):
she said, somebody with her name in Riverview was killed today.
I was like what I said, No way, there's not
another you know, to hear D'Angelo, I'm sure you know
it can't be her. It can't be her. So I
called her sister and she answered the phone, yes, Renee,

(26:44):
it's true, Sarah's gone. And I'm like, well, wha, what
what did you to say? She's like, Renee, She's gone.
I'm like, no, she's not. Let me talk to her.
You know, she get Renee. She's gone. I'm like, there's
no way to her has gone, Like I just taught
her this morning. There's no no, there's absolutely no way
that she's gone.

Speaker 6 (27:01):
After eighteen year old Joshua Carmona was escorted into a
Hillsborough County interrogation room, he told investigators that on the
morning of March twentieth, twenty seventeen, he woke up and
chose violence today.

Speaker 5 (27:16):
It will come, and I decided I've been thinking about this,
like for a while.

Speaker 8 (27:24):
When you say thinking about this, what do you mean by.

Speaker 5 (27:26):
That, Oh, that's a good question. I've been thinking about
harming my parents.

Speaker 6 (27:31):
Joshua's stepdad had already left the room to drop his
three year old daughter off at of daycare. As for
his mother, she had plans of her own. It was
her thirty ninth birthday. Just before ten am, Joshua's mother
told him she'd be back soon after a hare and
nail appointment she'd scheduled as a gift to herself. Shortly

(27:52):
after she left the home, Tara received a call from
her best friend, Renee.

Speaker 1 (27:58):
I called her that morning, like a ten something in
the morning. I called to tell her happy birthday and
see what she was doing for the day because I
wanted to spend some time with her for her birthday,
because we always did that together on our birthdays. After
what she was doing, and she told me she was
going to the mall, and you know, she worked hard,

(28:18):
so she deserved to go get her nails done and stuff.

Speaker 6 (28:21):
Back at the townhouse, Joshua stewed in anger. He paced
around while solidifying the next step of his evil plan.
At one point, he ventured into the kitchen, grabbed all
the small knives from the butcher block, and started hurling
them at the wall, snapping several of the blades and
the process. The only knife that remained was the largest,

(28:44):
a butcher knife, which Joshua brought with him back to
the living room and set aside for later. During that time,
he sent a text to his mother asking her to
return home with syrup. That's right, syrup. It's unclear why.
I mean, it's a really weird request, right, It's not

(29:06):
like bread or milk or butter or something like it's syrup. Regardless,
the mirror suggestion of enjoying delicious, fluffy, tasty pancakes in
conjunction with what Joshua planned to do next is quite disturbing,
to say the least, certainly not something that you would
consider rudy, two D, fresh and fruity. While his mother

(29:29):
sat down in the salon chair across town, she responded
to her son's text, agreeing to pick up the syrup
that said the text message directly above it suggests what
Joshua's home life was really like. The exchange later recovered
by investigators from his mother's phone occurred three days before
Joshua's arrest and reads as follows.

Speaker 7 (29:52):
Our pharmacist and district manager just said they can cover
me while I go with you to court next month.

Speaker 8 (29:57):
I'll work on booking our flights this weekend.

Speaker 6 (30:00):
Responded with the word okay to his mother's text, which
was about helping him fight his dui case in the
coming weeks.

Speaker 8 (30:08):
I know that there has been some recent history.

Speaker 11 (30:12):
You've gotten in some trouble of north that kind of thing,
the thing, the thing in Georgia, right, has she been supportive.

Speaker 8 (30:18):
Through this, has she okay? And she's tried to help
you kind of like overcome it.

Speaker 5 (30:24):
And well, they they gave me everything. They gave me home.

Speaker 11 (30:29):
And Okay, when you say they gave you everything you needed,
what do you mean by that?

Speaker 5 (30:34):
You said, trying to get me said.

Speaker 8 (30:37):
So, she's really been trying to help you.

Speaker 5 (30:39):
She's done everything, Okay.

Speaker 6 (30:42):
Despite recognizing the unconditional love his family had for him, Joshua,
being the piece of shit autistic zoomer that he is,
told investigators he had two options that morning, faced the
legal consequences of his DUI or kill his parents. Guess
which one he chose.

Speaker 4 (31:01):
What was going to happen was, I had to go
to my monthly parole for Georgia and go get an
appointment with my doctor this week. And so I was
deciding between quitting and doing this or doing everything I
have to do.

Speaker 12 (31:20):
Okay, and getting ready to go through obervation.

Speaker 5 (31:26):
In April and talk to my therapist.

Speaker 11 (31:29):
Okay, So you feel like you're deciding between I tried.

Speaker 5 (31:33):
To make it a choice between those two.

Speaker 8 (31:36):
So those who felt like a kind of your two choices, like.

Speaker 4 (31:38):
I made it in my mind. I was like, today
we're going to decide because I was pinning.

Speaker 5 (31:45):
Them against each other.

Speaker 6 (31:46):
Mm hmm, right makes sense, doesn't it. Regardless of how
Joshua came to this rationalization, his mind was made up
not long after his mother left the house. You remember
his baseball bat, the same bat he dreamt of hitting
home runs at college with but became a complete failure

(32:08):
before he had a chance. Enraged at the thought of
what his life could have been, Joshua grabbed the aluminum
bat and took one hard swing at the staircase banister,
snapping the wooden railing in the process. He then did
the same thing to one of the kitchen chairs.

Speaker 5 (32:28):
That broken chair.

Speaker 4 (32:29):
And I was hitting the staircase with the bat and
just using the bat.

Speaker 5 (32:36):
I was talking about, okay, and.

Speaker 8 (32:38):
You're kind of demonstrating like this or are you right handed?

Speaker 5 (32:41):
Okay?

Speaker 8 (32:42):
So you were holding the bat this way, with the
way you're showing off.

Speaker 6 (32:44):
Okay, after throwing a hissy fit, That's what it was,
a hissy fit. Joshua ruminated in his thoughts for the
next two hours, lost in his loser hood. I wonder
what subreddits he browsed while he was doing that. At
one point during his police interview, detectives asked Joshua if
he was under the influence of drugs or alcohol that morning.

(33:07):
After he said he wasn't. Authorities asked if he'd ever
suffered from auditory hallucinations. Here's what he had to say
about that.

Speaker 8 (33:15):
I want to ask you kind of a weird question.

Speaker 11 (33:18):
Do you do you ever hear voices that you feel
like you're hearing that other people around you don't?

Speaker 5 (33:24):
Here? Yes, you do.

Speaker 8 (33:25):
Have you ever talked to your therapist or anybody about that?

Speaker 13 (33:28):
He he knows that he thinks it's from the weed,
Like he said, when I started doing it, that's one
I would be seen.

Speaker 5 (33:40):
I don't want to hear other.

Speaker 8 (33:42):
People don't when you do when you smoke weed?

Speaker 5 (33:44):
Okay?

Speaker 8 (33:45):
Is it only when you smoke weed though, when you're high?

Speaker 4 (33:48):
I wouldn't even when I'm high, like I am. I
have seen things in public that I knew I shouldn't believe.

Speaker 5 (34:00):
But that makes me think there's a lot of things
I've seen that I wasn't sure about. What do you
mean by that? Like, sometimes.

Speaker 14 (34:10):
I'm hallucinating and I hear the brain you say something
or people say something that they shouldn't be able to know,
and so I know when I'm on the drug, I hallucinate,
but I don't know about.

Speaker 11 (34:25):
Well, so how do you know that you're hallucinating, because
at least someone that doesn't even realize they're hallucinating, right,
So how are you aware of the fact that you're hallucify?

Speaker 5 (34:35):
Because there was like a small view that I can
burn Like, So have you ever like like when this
is happening, have you ever said, hey, do you get
that to somebody? Like all the time?

Speaker 4 (34:45):
And I've seen like water on my fence. I see
it and I touch it and it's dry. That's what
I would notice. One I drinking sometimes.

Speaker 11 (34:54):
Okay, so when you're drinking, do you see that when
you're smoking marijuana?

Speaker 8 (34:58):
How about when you're smoking spice?

Speaker 7 (35:00):
I don't do you know the difference between marijuana spices.

Speaker 5 (35:04):
I don't know. That's why I was smoking it up.

Speaker 11 (35:08):
Okay, See, you're not sure if it's marijuana or a
spicy you're smoking.

Speaker 5 (35:12):
Did you do you usually try to like smell it tested?

Speaker 7 (35:15):
My dad like to say, because marijuana has a distinct
odor to it and spice has.

Speaker 5 (35:20):
A distinct odor to it. I just don't know. You
don't know, Okay, And if you don't know if that's
either way of what I have is in what car?

Speaker 6 (35:28):
The man made chemical known as K two, is designed
to mimic the effects of THHC, but is much stronger. Regardless,
there's a reason this stuff has since been outlawed in
virtually all fifty states. As for Joshua, it may have
worked as a truth serum of sorts during his interrogation.

(35:50):
Luckily for investigators, he was kind of an open book.

Speaker 3 (35:54):
When she came home, I sniped up on her and
I used a bad what did you What did you
do with the bat?

Speaker 5 (36:04):
I didn't what she saw.

Speaker 6 (36:07):
When his mother finally returned home around noon, Joshua greeted
her in the doorway and directed her attention to the
staircase banister he destroyed with the baseball bat.

Speaker 12 (36:19):
I should I have told her to go look at
something I was staying in the kitchen. I just told
her look over there, and she came behind her When
she came around the cabin to look at it, because
I told her.

Speaker 6 (36:33):
With her back turned to him. Joshua picks up the bat,
holds it over his head, and swings it.

Speaker 5 (36:42):
She's hit her. Would you have her in the head?
She felled out.

Speaker 6 (36:48):
Following the initial blow to the back of his mother's head,
she stumbled into the kitchen table.

Speaker 5 (36:54):
She fell on the table.

Speaker 11 (36:56):
Okay, And do you remember that happening and breaking the
table or something?

Speaker 5 (37:00):
She just went against it and the table because of that.

Speaker 8 (37:05):
Okay? Are we in the living room or the kitchen
or something else?

Speaker 5 (37:08):
This is the kitchen. It opens up into the living room,
the dining.

Speaker 15 (37:12):
Area, and so the table you're talking about is in
the room, the dining area.

Speaker 5 (37:17):
Okay.

Speaker 6 (37:18):
While Tara was still conscious, she threw her hands up
in self defense. Lying helplessly on her back on the
kitchen floor, she begged her son to stop, but Joshua
showed no remorse, no emotion, and continued to bludgeon his

(37:38):
mother's skull. Why are kids like this nowadays? Violent? Entitled automatons?

Speaker 7 (37:49):
And when she's on the ground, what are you doing?
How do you doing? Just over your head? Did you
how many times you think.

Speaker 12 (37:56):
You here while she was on the ground, Probably five
or six at least at least it's going to be
more than ten, No, so less.

Speaker 5 (38:04):
Than ten, between five and ten, yeah, okay.

Speaker 12 (38:08):
But she wasn't and so I just kept hitting her
until she until she stopped, okay, Peter, so she could
agreethe because her face willed up, and so it was
just mumbled, it's creamy.

Speaker 5 (38:27):
And I was just trying to hit her until that stopped.

Speaker 6 (38:30):
As a result of severe blood force trauma, his mother
murmured and groaned on the floor, but that didn't stop
Joshua from there. He continued with the assault, eerily, offering
his mother the following comforting words and the process.

Speaker 5 (38:48):
Did you say anything during it? What did you say
that to? Didn't be? Okay? Okay?

Speaker 12 (38:56):
She was trying to push it be up and told her,
I said, just stop stop fighting, just let go.

Speaker 8 (39:08):
Was she fighting? What do you mean let go? Was
she holding on to you throat?

Speaker 15 (39:13):
So she's fighting and she was trying to get away
from me.

Speaker 5 (39:18):
Was she on the ground at this point?

Speaker 12 (39:20):
And then told her I said just let go, as
she wouldn't, and so I got up and just as.

Speaker 5 (39:28):
Fast I hit her dead in that face she was
on the ground. I see these little like almost like
a little nick marks. But what are these from? That's
just blood plates? Okay.

Speaker 6 (39:41):
Once she finally stopped moving, Joshua walked the short distance
to his mother's bedroom, and retrieved a bed sheet and
comfort her before returning to the kitchen.

Speaker 5 (39:51):
I rolled her onto sheets and just tracked it, and
then I moved the body in the bedroom.

Speaker 6 (39:59):
According to Joshua, he wasn't sure if his mother was
still alive, but to be sure, he produced the large
knife he'd set aside earlier that day.

Speaker 8 (40:09):
So what kind of knife it was?

Speaker 5 (40:10):
It? It was just it was the racknes you.

Speaker 8 (40:16):
Have, like a block or something on the counter. Which
one was? It was okay?

Speaker 6 (40:23):
With a butcher knife in hand, Joshua re entered the
bathroom and started defiling his mother's body even further.

Speaker 4 (40:31):
It was right after her to just let out blood, okay,
in case because I wouldn't wake up.

Speaker 15 (40:39):
Let me understand that you said to let out blood
so she wouldn't wake up.

Speaker 8 (40:43):
Is that right?

Speaker 5 (40:43):
Because she was just locked out.

Speaker 8 (40:45):
Okay from the back. She was just knocked out. So
you don't think she.

Speaker 5 (40:48):
Was dead at that point? I wasn't sure, okay, you
trying to put her on our misery?

Speaker 8 (40:56):
Yeah, So where did you use the knife to.

Speaker 5 (40:58):
Let the blood out? On the back?

Speaker 8 (41:00):
Okay? Can you kind of show me where on her neck?
Right in the back? Okay?

Speaker 7 (41:06):
Did you come around to the front. How did you
do it?

Speaker 5 (41:11):
Wait out there right now so I can't. I'm sorry,
it's just foggy.

Speaker 6 (41:21):
Later, though his memory is foggy, Joshua pressed his knees
into his mother's spine before slitting the back of her throat.
Pools of blood quickly formed beneath the toilet and a
nearby trash can. But what he fails to mention during
this interview is how he grabbed his mother's hair, lifted

(41:43):
her face off the bathroom tile, and proceeded to slit
her throat again, this time dragging the blade so deep
across the front of her neck that the two wounds
nearly intersected, decapitating her. Putting her out of her misery
is a gross mischaracterization of what happened here, as Tara

(42:06):
di'angelo's head was nearly completely severed. Once the victim's son
was finally satisfied, Joshua proceeded to clean up the mess.
He made the only way he knew how lazily.

Speaker 5 (42:21):
And then I turned on the van and just closed it.

Speaker 4 (42:24):
And then I started pouring on baking soda on the
rug and trying to clean all the blood.

Speaker 11 (42:30):
Is this something that you had excuse me like looking
at you before to try to figure out how to
get the blood cleaned up?

Speaker 8 (42:37):
Or what made you think the grab baking soda?

Speaker 5 (42:39):
It was under the counter okay. I think they use
it for spills on carpet. Okay.

Speaker 4 (42:45):
And I just saw him there and I was going
to clean it to make it look better later.

Speaker 8 (42:51):
Okay, you don't what you're describing.

Speaker 15 (42:54):
There's probably gonna be a lot of blood involved, right,
but I don't see really any on you are the
clothes that you're wearing when this all happened today?

Speaker 5 (43:05):
Okay?

Speaker 8 (43:05):
And where'd you put the clothes in your bedroom? Where
is your bedroom out in the house upstairs?

Speaker 5 (43:11):
Okay?

Speaker 8 (43:12):
So when you up the stairs.

Speaker 11 (43:13):
Upstairs on the left, the room on the left like
the first room?

Speaker 8 (43:17):
Or is there more than one?

Speaker 5 (43:18):
There's only one? Okay?

Speaker 8 (43:20):
Where'd you put him in your room?

Speaker 6 (43:21):
In the closet after showering and changing out of his
bloody clothes, the clothes no doubt that his mother had
washed for him, the eighteen year old killer brought both
murder weapons over to the kitchen sink and.

Speaker 16 (43:35):
Then the knife. Where did you put the knife in
the sick in which stink right the right sink, kitchen,
the kitchen, sick in the kitchen? Did you clean the battle?
That's all when you're trying to clean up the house, I.

Speaker 5 (43:50):
Started to okay, so.

Speaker 8 (43:53):
I just put it in like put it in the
secret wrints at all? Okay.

Speaker 6 (43:58):
Joshua then play the bat by the front door with
plans to use it a second time.

Speaker 5 (44:04):
And then but then I slept it because I thought
I was going to get it again.

Speaker 8 (44:11):
Kind your stepdad.

Speaker 6 (44:12):
Besides, fortunately the killer stepdad was running behind schedule. In
fear that the police might show up, Joshua gathered his
mother's purse, cell phone, and keys before heading out the
door and jumping in her Nissan Sentra. From there, he
was en route to pick up his three year old

(44:33):
half sister from daycare. How responsible of him. On the way,
he texted his step grandfather from his mother's phone, posing
as the victim. He asked if he wouldn't mind watching
the three year old girl over the weekend. Joshua fabricated
a story when asked why, telling his grandfather that his
mother and stepdad were going away for a few days.

(44:55):
The grandfather instantly became suspicious. Even through text, he could tell, well,
this wasn't Tara on the other end, partially because his
grandfather had never babysat child before and it was unlike
Tara to make such an impromptu request. Minutes later, Joshua
arrived at the daycare and picked up his stepsister at

(45:17):
around one thirty pm. The two then drove back to
the crime scene, where Joshua packed his sister a bag
of clothes. Roughly sixteen miles away, Renee and her two
year old daughter were getting ready to surprise Tara for
her birthday, but just as they were about to leave,
something told her not to go.

Speaker 1 (45:36):
And I said, okay, but you know, I said, let's
go ahead and go bye bye. So we go to
the door and it's literally like something stop me and said, Renee,
don't go over there. Wait for her to call you.
Because it was a ways away. It probably would have
took me an hour at least to get there from
where I lived at the time. But I was going
to just surprise her, you know, with some flowers and

(45:58):
stuff at her house. But I didn't waited and I
never heard back from her.

Speaker 6 (46:02):
Meanwhile, back in Riverview, Florida, Joshua texted his best friend
and told him to meet at a nearby park. When
they arrived, Joshua's sister ran to a nearby swing set
while she played blissfully unaware that her brother had just
killed their mother in cold blood. Joshua and his buddy
proceeded to toss around to baseball. While he tried to

(46:23):
play it off like everything was fine, Joshua's friend noticed
that he seemed a little off almost right away. During
their game of catch, Joshua took multiple breaks and nervously
looked at his phone. According to his statements to police,
Joshua was monitoring the ring camera footage back at his
mother's residence. That is until he saw his grandfather's car

(46:47):
pull into the driveway.

Speaker 5 (46:49):
And I knew he came to my house because I
could see it on my phone.

Speaker 8 (46:53):
Oh you a cameras like you can put.

Speaker 5 (46:55):
Up on the half.

Speaker 4 (46:56):
Yeah, a security on that. And at that point was
why is that?

Speaker 5 (47:01):
Because there was still some along the carpet.

Speaker 6 (47:05):
It wasn't long after Joshua's grandfather entered the home and
stumbled upon the grisly scene in the bathroom.

Speaker 5 (47:13):
I had backed the comforter.

Speaker 8 (47:16):
I saw Terria buying on the on the ground I
saw a lot of blood.

Speaker 6 (47:23):
At the sight of his loved one's mutilated body. The
victim's father immediately notified police, walked outside, and fell to
his knees on the front lawn. Meanwhile, back at the park,
Joshua frantically stuffed his phone back into his pocket and
told his buddy that he had to leave, but not
before asking him to watch his sister for a few days.

(47:46):
By now, his friend was about as confused as one
could be. He could see the panic in Joshua's face,
but he didn't understand why. When the friend asked why
he needed him to watch the three year old girl,
Joshua came right out with it and admitted to murdering
his mother just hours earlier.

Speaker 5 (48:07):
That's a long one.

Speaker 4 (48:07):
I couldn't tell him anything, and he was like stoppling
like he was.

Speaker 5 (48:14):
He was kind of joking with me, and I started
joking with him.

Speaker 4 (48:19):
Yeah, I said that I was like, I killed someone,
and I exact words that you said, I killed somebody. Yeah, okay,
like I was trying to that was really bad. I
was trying to tell the joke. I told the worst I.

Speaker 3 (48:37):
Fucked up joke.

Speaker 6 (48:39):
Now there's something you don't hear every day. One minute
you're practicing your fastball with a friend at the park,
and the next he tells you he just killed his
mother with a baseball bat and butcher knife. I mean,
how do you even respond to that? I'm pretty sure
it's not an Emily Post's Book of etiquette. Naturally, his

(48:59):
friend was at a loss for words, but before he
even had a chance to reply, Joshua told him that
he was going on the run and planned to kill himself, which,
to be fair, may have been the most practical idea
this young man has had in his whole fucking life,
although he didn't provide much detail regarding how he was
going to commit suicide. Joshua quickly said goodbye to his

(49:23):
sister and friend before hopping back into his dead mother's
car and peeling out of the parking lot. From there,
he got on the highway before pulling off a nearby
exit and into a seven to eleven. At around four
pm the evening of the murder, he attempted to make
three separate withdrawals from an ATM inside using his mother's

(49:44):
debit cards. All of the transactions, of course, were declined,
but on the fourth and final attempt, Joshua got lucky.

Speaker 8 (49:54):
And then what was thrust to the plan for the day.

Speaker 5 (49:57):
It was to give cash. I could take a card.
So how are you going to get cash with her cards?
Do you know? Been numbers and a lot of stuff?
Or I figured one? You figured one out? Okay?

Speaker 8 (50:11):
How'd you do that? Her pin numbers on her phone?
Does she have like a pint of sweite access or anything.

Speaker 5 (50:19):
On her phone? Okay.

Speaker 6 (50:21):
Joshua then texted his drug dealer and drove the short
distance to his house, where he picked up a bag
of weed. Because that's the priority here, make no mistake.

Speaker 5 (50:32):
He said.

Speaker 11 (50:32):
You woke up, you hadn't been drinking or doing drugs
this morning. You don't until after you kill your mom.

Speaker 8 (50:37):
You call your dealer to get some weed or spice
or something.

Speaker 5 (50:41):
Is that right?

Speaker 11 (50:42):
What were you going to get from him or her?
I got, but you wouldn't got But which is marijuana?

Speaker 5 (50:47):
Okay?

Speaker 8 (50:49):
But this is after the fact, So you haven't done drugs.

Speaker 11 (50:52):
Alcohol, You haven't taken any medications prescriptions in like the
last three or four days.

Speaker 6 (50:57):
He also smoked a little spice with this dealer. But
remember Joshua doesn't know the difference between spice and marijuana.
After getting baked out of his mind, the killer made
his way to the same mall where his mother had
gotten her hair and nails done just hours before. While
parked outside of Sears Rest in Peace Sears, he looked

(51:19):
at his phone again, this time noticing the cops were
already at his house as he watched the live feed
from the ring camera app on his phone.

Speaker 5 (51:29):
Okay, where is her phone now? I dun where Brandon
Brandon Mall? Whereabouts next? Sears? Inside? Outside, outside, outside, going on?
I know which one it was? Was in the grass
in the grass area, looked.

Speaker 8 (51:48):
Up by the building or over by the river outside.

Speaker 5 (51:51):
Of Sears okay, next to the cars.

Speaker 8 (51:54):
What kind of funks she have? You know what model
plus seven?

Speaker 1 (52:00):
Okay?

Speaker 8 (52:00):
And there's a white and in a white purple case.
Was that damaged when you got rid of it today?

Speaker 1 (52:05):
Okay?

Speaker 8 (52:05):
Do you know if it's damaged now? Though he threw
it out.

Speaker 7 (52:09):
So like dropped him down board and you just kind
of just awsom so not really that hard, okay.

Speaker 5 (52:16):
Did you open okay, like in rocks and so it
might still be there? Okay, Well we'll see. I mean,
you know, someone could have picked it up. We never
don't you know?

Speaker 1 (52:27):
Yeah?

Speaker 8 (52:27):
Is it like in one of the little islands in
the parking lot, or is it like in the bushes
against the building or something.

Speaker 6 (52:34):
According to Joshua, he hadn't quite planned out the next move.
And does that surprise you for a pothead? I mean,
thinking ahead isn't exactly one of the strong suits of
a marijuana smoker. I'm sure of where to go? He
decided to get back on the freeway and just start
driving aimlessly, because why not? Driving aimlessly is what he

(52:57):
had done throughout his entire life, So why stop now?

Speaker 4 (53:01):
I just started driving? Okay, where'd you go? I was
trapped between like I was just driving in circles. I
wasn't sure if I wanted to go north or into Miami,
because I was having this conflict in my.

Speaker 5 (53:21):
Head between.

Speaker 4 (53:25):
Going somewhere or like giving into the guilt and turning
myself in, and I was I decided I was gonna
turn myself in and just come.

Speaker 5 (53:38):
Back to Tampa. How far do you make it?

Speaker 4 (53:43):
I went to like, okallup, and I started going east
and then I came around.

Speaker 5 (53:48):
I just came back to Tampa. What was the I took?
I just wasn't sober, so I don't remember it.

Speaker 6 (53:56):
A short time later, deputy spotted the victor's Nissan driving
along Interstate two seventy five in Tampa. After pulling the
car over, Joshua was arrested without further incident. For the
tail end of his interrogation down at the Hillsborough County
Sheriff's Department, the detectives informed Joshua that they were going

(54:17):
to leave the room to make a phone call. Right
before they did, the suspect asked if they could relay
a message to his grandfather about his three year old sister.

Speaker 5 (54:26):
Is this something you want me to say him? Is
something you want to say to him? I'm so glad
she's okay. What do you mean by that?

Speaker 12 (54:35):
Because I was worried and now their family doesn't live
with that. What do you mean when with that like
her just being taken away because of me? Someone someone
lives in their house, someone they loved, took someone they loved.

Speaker 5 (54:54):
I was afraid they were an a that scar because
of me.

Speaker 8 (55:00):
Well, you know that is something they're living with now.

Speaker 7 (55:03):
Josh That's something that you may want to think about, Okay.
I don't know necessarily if you want me to relay
that musa.

Speaker 3 (55:10):
Just to them.

Speaker 6 (55:11):
Uh, yeah, you killed your mom, so I'm pretty sure
your sister is gonna have to live with that. Following
the nearly hour long interrogation, Joshua was placed back into
handcuffs and officially charged with first degree murder, breaking.

Speaker 17 (55:30):
News Right Now, and arrest in the murder of a
woman found dead on her thirty ninth birthday at a
Reverview home. Deputies put the cuffs on Joshua with Leon Carmona.
They claim he used a baseball bat and a knife
to kill his mother to hearing to Angelo.

Speaker 6 (56:16):
Joshua Carmona, an eighteen year old with a deranged perception
of what he viewed as a turbulent past, had long
struggled with feelings of isolation and resentment. His relationship with
his mother, once close and supportive, had deteriorated into tension
and estrangement. On March twentieth, twenty seventeen, that tension erupted

(56:40):
into extreme violence inside their Riverview, Florida home. When police
were called to the townhouse on Hawthorne Trace Lane. They
quickly located the body of thirty nine year old Terra
di'angelo she'd been beaten to death with a baseball bat,
and her throat had been slit with a butcher knife.
The victim's body was found in the bathroom, partially wrapped

(57:03):
in both a bed sheet and a comforter. Forensic investigators
determined that the attack started in the living room and
ended in the bathroom. Blood spatter on the carpet, walls,
and tile floor indicated a prolonged struggle. Defensive wounds on
Tara's arms showed that she briefly tried to fight back.

(57:25):
The most personal injuries were the two lacerations across both
the front and back of the victim's neck. The wound
directly beneath Tera di'angelo's chin was approximately four inches long
and so deep her uvula and larynx were exposed, severing
major arteries and veins. As a result, investigators quickly found

(57:49):
the murder weapon by the front door, a red aluminum
Eastern baseball bat with the word rampage ominously printed on
its side. Authorities also located the bloody knife, which was
found on the right side of the kitchen sink. There,
among a few dirty dishes was a large blade partially

(58:10):
covered by a blue tupperware lid and a black spatula.
Roughly nine hours after the murder, the suspect, Joshua Carmona,
was apprehended by deputies when his mother's car was spotted
traveling down a nearby interstate. Inside the vehicle, authorities located
the victim's pharmacy, walmart badge, a Rawlings baseball glove, and

(58:32):
the bottle of aunt Jemima's syrup. Joshua had asked his
mother to bring home roughly one hour before he ended
her life. Maybe he was just upset about the portrayal
of African Americans on syrup. Who knows what kids are
pissed off at these days, but it's probably something stupid.
Police also located paperwork in the Nissan's glovebox, a vehicle

(58:56):
that Tara had just proudly purchased three days before her
During questioning, Joshua offered a full confession, and before long,
local news trucks were outside his Riverview home, capturing every
second of this riveting content to serve up to viewers
at home in between local car dealership commercials.

Speaker 9 (59:19):
We are still learning a little bit about what exactly
happened inside this home, but forensics detectives have been here
all through the night, collecting evidence, interviewing witnesses, sorry, interviewing neighbors,
i should say, and family members as well online jail.

Speaker 18 (59:35):
Records describing the situation as domestic violence, and they're also
revealing a little bit of insight into how this may
have happened before. All we knew about to hear a
D'Angelo is that she suffered some kind of upper body trauma.
Possible murder weapon, according to jail records, a baseball bat
or a knife or possibly both. Again, that is a

(59:58):
big part of the investigation, happening all through the night,
and detective finally just wrapping things up early this morning.
It was a bit of a shock here for this
Riverview neighborhood, and certainly a traumatic, devastating situation for that family.
We saw a husband, we saw a daughter out here
yesterday afternoon, all truly heartbroken and a little insight detectives

(01:00:21):
all along telling us that they had reason to believe
that this was not a random attack, and they all
along suspected it may have been a family member.

Speaker 6 (01:00:31):
This morning, now facing a first degree murder charge, Joshua's
fate would soon be left in the hands of twelve jurors.
Ahead of the trial, he was offered sixty years in
prison in exchange for a guilty play, a deal he
turned down because why wouldn't you sixty years? I mean,
there's really no point in accepting that. Any idiot can

(01:00:52):
tell you that. So not sure why you would need
a degree to offer it. In January twenty twenty, nearly
three years after murdering his mother, Joshua finally saw his
day in court. Prosecutors argued that the attack was premeditated,
citing text messages and his damning statements to police. Joshua's

(01:01:13):
defense team pointed to his mental health struggles as if
they make him special, they don't. They don't. We all
have them. We all have them. But they argued that
his actions were the result of emotional instability. I guess
he got to blame something when your own actions are
just such shit, you know. During witness testimony, a friend

(01:01:38):
of the defendant told the court how Joshua gradually became
an outcast, how he'd stopped going on family trips and
spent most of his time alone leading up to the killing. Weird,
how drugs do that to you? I've witnessed it in
my own family.

Speaker 1 (01:01:54):
Firsthand, he was just acting with kind of strange days
leading up to it, he was just acting soon were
weird and like just staying off half all years.

Speaker 14 (01:02:02):
So.

Speaker 6 (01:02:03):
Joshua's best friend, who played baseball with him roughly one
hour before the murder, was a key witness during the trial.

Speaker 5 (01:02:11):
Well, he gave him a hug before he left, and
he said he killed his mother. Did he appear angry
to you?

Speaker 6 (01:02:16):
During cross examinations, the defense grilled Joshua's best friend again,
suggesting that the defendant murdered his mother not out of
premeditated malice, but because he was mentally unwell. Again, as
if that's an excuse.

Speaker 4 (01:02:32):
Do you, in fact recall on that day telling Detective
Florio that josh Carmona told you at the part that
he wanted to kill himself.

Speaker 7 (01:02:38):
Yes.

Speaker 6 (01:02:39):
Unfortunately for Joshua, his truth is not ours. His desire
to kill himself did not absolve him from murdering someone else,
let alone his own mother. Another text recovered from the
defendant's phone was presented by his lawyers in court. That message,

(01:03:01):
sent by Joshua to one of his friends, reads as follows,
she doesn't care about me all she cares about is them.
So let's talk about the act of a child. Killing
a parent is incredibly rare, accounting for only about two
percent of homicides in the US. You have to be
a real piece of shit to kill your own mother,

(01:03:25):
making Joshua Carmona somewhat of an anomaly. According to tons
of studies, the first three years of a child's life
are crucial for building a strong bond with parents. In fact,
they're crucial for development in general. That's usually when psychopaths
are formed by introducing trauma during that formative period of time.

(01:03:48):
Beyond that, the first eight years is key to developing
social skills and learning how to manage emotions effectively. During
his interrogation, Joshua claimed he would sometimes see and hear
things that weren't there, specifically when abusing drugs and alcohol.
Joshua also happened to be within the peak age range

(01:04:09):
for adult males prone to psychological conditions such as schizophrenia.
While there's a chance Joshua was prone to early onset
of some kind of mental illness, perhaps genetically, perhaps exacerbated
by weed and booze, there simply isn't enough evidence to
support this theory. In other words, in the years leading

(01:04:32):
up to the murder to the day he stood trial,
not one of the several medical professionals he met had
ever diagnosed Joshua with a mental illness. So what's the
fucking point If we have this science, so called science,
pseudo science really, that's supposed to tell us things about

(01:04:54):
the world around us, and then it can't accurately predict anything,
then what's the fucking point just naming terms? With that point,
the prosecution rested its case, as the jury wasn't buying
anything that the defense had to offer because there wasn't
much there. On January ninth, twenty twenty, Joshua Carmona was

(01:05:15):
convicted of first degree murder and ultimately sentenced to life
in prison without the possibility of parole. So there you
have it. Joshua Carmona was a young man with every
opportunity handed to him, who now sits in prison for life,
exactly where he belongs. This did not come as a

(01:05:38):
result of abuse, not as a result of mental illness,
and certainly not because he grew up in a bad
home with bad parents. You see, Joshua was merely a
product of his own entitlement, a fucking baby, a man
child who refused to take responsibility in life for his
lack of success. It's it's disturbing to see how many

(01:06:02):
young people are exactly like Joshua Carmona in twenty twenty five,
everything ahead of them, everything to look forward to, every
opportunity imaginable, yet desperately looking for problems to fuck up

(01:06:23):
their own life with and then blame others for. I mean,
we see more and more of this every single day.
And are we just seeing more of it because we
see more things because social media is so prevalent in
our lives?

Speaker 17 (01:06:39):
Now?

Speaker 6 (01:06:40):
Has this always been the case? Have Joshua carmonas existed
throughout history and we just haven't noticed. The reason why
Joshua's story is so intriguing is because we see it
all around us. We see the entitlement, we see the blame.
We see the young people with no purpose, no direction,

(01:07:03):
spending their days getting high and wondering why they can't
afford a home, blaming the adults in charge for it,
while sitting there doing nothing to improve their own future,
to change their own outcome. It's disturbing, it's sad, and
it is quite worrying to those of us who give

(01:07:25):
a shit.

Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
I don't consider him my God's son anymore. I do not.
People ask me, you know, have you forgiven him? You know,
have you forgiven him for what he did? You know?
Are you mad at him? I'm like, well, how can
I forgive someone who killed my best friend? You know,
it's not like you know, she was killed in a
tragic accident. You know, it's not like she know she

(01:07:49):
passed away in her sleep. You know it wasn't an
accidental death. You know this was on purpose. You know
he wanted her dead, and you know, and that's the
part that that hurts me the most. You know, it's like,
how could you want your own mother, who gave you
life to die? Why would you want to hurt her?
You know, I will never understand that. So when people

(01:08:09):
ask me, have asked me, have you forgiven him?

Speaker 11 (01:08:12):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:08:12):
I have not. I will never forgive him. How can
I forget someone who took away my best friend from me?
She was someone you know, that would give you the
shirt off her back if you needed it. Literally, she
would do anything for anybody. She would never do anything
to hurt anybody. And the fact you know of her
getting hurt just it really appused me because she didn't
deserve it. I think he was just ungrateful because he

(01:08:35):
wanted a new baseball bat, which she bought for him.
And in my mind, I've always thought, I wonder if
that's the baseball bat that he used, you know, is
that why he wanted that baseball bat because he intended
to use that specific one to hurt his mom? You know,
So those questions have crossed my mind and I probably
will never get the answers to that.

Speaker 6 (01:09:22):
It's probably a good time to call your mom, don't
you think. Maybe see how she's doing, see what she's
up to. It probably gets lonely, you know. All Right,
have a good one, Say out to your mom for me,
Stay safe, and we'll see you back here next week.

(01:09:43):
In the meantime, you can support us by buying some
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(01:10:05):
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(01:10:25):
also find us at Apple and subscribe there, but you
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the show we're making if you want to sword and
Scale television. These things are getting too long. I gotta stop,
I gotta I gotta just stop. I'm not a sales guy.
I should just stick to content and if you like it,

(01:10:48):
you like it. If you don't, you don't.

Speaker 5 (01:10:49):
That's it. Period.

Speaker 12 (01:10:52):
By thinking, thinking, thinking, think