September 3, 2025 • 43 mins
👔 By day, a charming neighbor everyone trusted. By night, a methodical predator who turned suburban homes into torture chambers. 🏠 Jason Scott's reign of terror proves the deadliest monsters wear the friendliest smiles. 🔍 Never-before-heard confession tapes reveal his "selection process" and why he filmed his crimes. 🌍 International investigators study his "normal guy" methodology, linking to similar cases worldwide. 💀 Exclusive: His ex-girlfriend reveals the moment she discovered his kill room. ⚠️ Warning: Contains disturbing surveillance footage and victim testimonies. 😱
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Prince George's County, n I'm a one center.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
What is your emergency?
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Grandma's been shut, mother has been shut that.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
I was imagining how she had felt in that predicament.
It's just heartbreaking to be a sixteen year old girl.
A manster like that comes in and takes your life
from you.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Jason Scott was an extraordinarily dangerous criminal who masqueraded as
an ordinary person.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
He's saying to you, criminal justice system, I am smarter
than you.
Speaker 5 (00:56):
If you feel like somebody is watching you, they are.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
I'm successful at doing it.
Speaker 6 (01:02):
Why stop.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
It?
Speaker 5 (01:04):
Don't cross your mind? And sick people like that exist.
Speaker 7 (01:11):
My life was perfect before before everything happened.
Speaker 8 (02:00):
For Marlboro, a suburb twenty miles east of Washington, d C.
Is home to the Lofton family, Dad Kirk, mom Karen,
two sons, Kirk Junior and Keon, and daughter Carissa.
Speaker 9 (02:19):
My daughter was a very inspiring, very beautiful, a gift.
She was a gift. She went through some struggles she
had and open heart surgery because she had something going
on with a valve in her heart and everything, and
she bounced right back like it was nothing, and she
was very strong.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
I am key On Lofton. Karen Lofton was my mother.
Carrissa was my younger sister. My mother was a really
caring person. She was in the nursing field as long
as I can remember. I remember as being in a
little child and going with her to work with her,
(03:06):
and just all the love that she would get from
her coworkers.
Speaker 9 (03:12):
She was probably one of the best nurses of her time.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Chrissa's personality at that around that age was typical teenage girl.
She was still trying to figure herself out, pleasant kind person.
You can see her modeling after the characteristics and values
and things that my mother instilled in all of us,
and you can just see the trajectory of the type
(03:44):
of woman that she was going to become.
Speaker 8 (03:49):
In two thousand and eight, Kirk moves away after his
marriage to Karen breaks down, moved to Georgia.
Speaker 9 (03:55):
In two thousand and eight, I was remarried, still a
rain to come take with my daughter as matter of fact,
that she was supposed to move down here and go
to college.
Speaker 6 (04:10):
Prince George's County nine on one center, what is your emergency.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Grandma's been shot, may my mother has been shut I'm
believing through.
Speaker 9 (04:18):
That will you slow down?
Speaker 6 (04:20):
What's he addressed?
Speaker 10 (04:22):
As you know, if we need any kind of testament
to Carrissa's courage.
Speaker 6 (04:33):
This is a.
Speaker 10 (04:33):
Young teenager, a sixteen year old, who has been involved
in a home invasion, which is one of the most
terrifying things anybody can imagine. She's been shot and she
has the kind of strength of mind to call nine
one one while she's bleeding and to report to them
(04:54):
that she has been shot, her mom has been shot,
and she tells the operator, you know, I'm bleeding to death,
please hurry. Unfortunately, the phone is hung up and by
the time they get there, it's two way.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
So the night of the wear anything when everything happened,
I was at my girlfriend's house. My mother in law
now told me that two women have been found killed
on our street, and she told me to call and
check my mother and sister. So I called and nobody answered.
(05:38):
So I kept calling. I kept calling, and nobody answered.
So I just I just got up and left and started,
you know, got in my car and was driving. It
had to be about two three o'clock in the morning,
got there to the house, probably about a ten minute drive.
Police kind of had like the street blocked off whatever
and I got out. I was trying to set trying
(06:01):
to see who it was, and police officer or a
detective asked who I was, and I was told of
my name and he said, okay, we got the son
right here. And I just broke down him because I
knew it came of realization that okay, if it was
to him.
Speaker 9 (06:18):
I was in the room sleep and my son, my
oldest son, Kirk Jr. He called me at probably you know,
three in the morning, four in the morning, something like that.
He was crying and I said, what's wrong? He said,
have you talked the key on yet? Mine? Carissa got killed.
(06:43):
The first thing that I thought was they got into
a car accident or something like that, but then he
said they were shy. I immediately got off home with
him and I called my other son, my younger son,
and he told me that they somebody came into our
house and out of the family house in Kibos of them.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
It's just just heartbreaking to be a sixteen year old
girl and be in the comfort of your own babe
and a monster like that comes in and takes your
life from you. I was imagining how she had to
(07:30):
felt in that in that predicament, somebody storming in, you know, shooting,
shooting you and you have to, you know, call it
nine one one, trying to get somebody to say you
is you know it is?
Speaker 5 (07:42):
It's heartbreaking.
Speaker 8 (07:47):
With no signs of forced entry, the police suspect the
murders have been committed by someone with access to the
lofton's home.
Speaker 10 (07:58):
They kind of step back and go, Okay, what do
we do. We start from the innermost circle and we
work our way out. Most often, sadly, those are the perpetrators.
One of the first persons to come on the radar
is Chris's older brother Kean.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Honestly, I didn't know why I was in a police car.
I had no idea. It was everything was an immediate
shot right there from there. I remember being in the
interrogation room.
Speaker 9 (08:33):
Does your mom set you along for the house?
Speaker 5 (08:36):
Okay?
Speaker 6 (08:36):
All the time?
Speaker 7 (08:37):
Okay every time?
Speaker 9 (08:38):
Would you have heard your mom and sister?
Speaker 11 (08:40):
Now you have heard your mom and.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
And I remember them letting me come out to like
one of the one of their desks and letting me
hear like a snippet of the nine one one called rand.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
I've been shut shut that.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Anybody who's getting to accused of anything that they haven't done.
They're gonna be upset when I'm in that interrogation room
and I'm hearing them accusing me, and I'm just trying
to process, like did this really happen? Like did my
mother's just to really just get murdered? Are you guys
(09:20):
really accusing me of doing this? Everything just felt like
a like a nightmare or a dream, Like just felt
really surreal. I knew a thousand percent it wasn't me.
Speaker 9 (09:38):
So they didn't know what to think. They didn't know
anything about who this person was. I got no finger frens,
there was no forced intrigue, and all of.
Speaker 6 (09:47):
A sudden, here it is.
Speaker 10 (09:49):
The forty eight hours has passed, which of course is
often the critical period for getting that first lead, and
they're sitting there kind of going, we have no idea, and.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
If you're going down the wrong road with that, you've
allowed the individual to perhaps clean up the case, to
perhaps even be further away from the case. So it's
very important those first initial hours of any case that
you hope the investigators are on the right path.
Speaker 8 (10:14):
Kirk and Keon begin to develop their own theories about
what happened.
Speaker 9 (10:21):
I know how safe that Karen was. And Karen would
not let anyone in that house at two thirty six
in the morning without she would have the alarm on.
They said the alarm was just engaged.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
She took that really seriously. You know, when I would
leave out to make sure the back doors locked things,
lest so to make sure the window was locked. She
was always a stickler for those things. But I'm pretty
sure I thought that, Okay, somebody forced her to put
the alarm in. It's no other explanation.
Speaker 8 (10:53):
At the time of the Lofton's murders, a burglar is
successfully evading capture. In the neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Jason Scott came across his very mild mannered He held
a part time job with a packaged delivery service. It
wasn't dute as being dangerous by his friends and family,
So he was somebody who masqueraded as an ordinary person.
Speaker 10 (11:20):
Jason Scott was somebody who seemed to have a lot
of potential. He was somebody who had a college degree.
He was somebody who worked at UPS. So he was
somebody who, at least on the surface, seemed to be
somebody who really had his act together.
Speaker 8 (11:36):
Twenty seven year old Jason Scott has two master's degrees
and until recently was unknown to authorities.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
He had started committing robberies in his at least as
a teenager and perhaps early twenties, and had graduated from
committing robberies of unoccupied houses to home invasion robberies and
violent crime.
Speaker 6 (12:01):
So at the same time that.
Speaker 10 (12:05):
Jason Scott was living this kind of law abiding life
on the surface, this is somebody who, in the privacy
of his own home, seemed to be absolutely obsessed with crime,
with forensics, with understanding how to get away with crime.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
One of the notable things about mister Scott is the
clothing and tools that he used during his criminal activities.
Speaker 5 (12:33):
So he dressed like a criminal.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
He would dress all in black, he wore black gloves,
he carried a black backpack, so he dressed like a thief.
Speaker 10 (12:45):
Jason Scott spent hours of his life thinking about crime,
learning about crime, learning about forensic techniques. Almost considered himself
like a doctor Jekyl and mister Hyde. I would imagine
to some extent he feels kind of this sense of impunity,
like or the sense that I'm untouchable, nobody's going to
(13:07):
catch me. Another thing that stands out about Jason Scott
is he was an incredibly diverse criminal. So not only
was he interested in burglary in home invasions, he was
interested in peeping. He was interested in cruising the neighborhood
(13:33):
and taking pictures of people in the privacy their own
homes who had no idea what he was doing. It's
not uncommon for that to progress to breaking it to
a home, to some kind of sexual offense.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
So this progression is a natural part that we as
criminologists are concerned about. With any crime that someone does,
does it then have an opportunity to develop to make
that person a criminal, a criminal that is looking for
a career. I'm doing it, I'm successful at doing it.
Speaker 6 (14:05):
Why stop?
Speaker 8 (14:17):
The murders of mother and daughter, Karen and Carissa Loften
have shocked this respectable Washington suburb. There's a space of
burglaries too, but the police are yet to track down
the perpetrators. Two months later, another murderer is called in.
Speaker 7 (14:42):
My name is Courtney Hicks, my mother is Delora Stewitt,
and my sister is Ebony.
Speaker 5 (14:49):
Do it.
Speaker 7 (14:52):
My life was perfect before before everything happened. My mom
was the kindest person.
Speaker 5 (15:07):
That I ever met.
Speaker 7 (15:09):
She was always there for me, even still after everything
that's happened to me in my life, because of how
my mom taught me to believe in myself. My sister
was someone I could always depend on. I could always
count on this as well. It's my mom.
Speaker 5 (15:24):
I missed him so much.
Speaker 7 (15:25):
So when I got home, I like, I don't remember
if I had to disable our alarm or not, but
I just go in the house and I see my
(15:46):
sister's jacket on the back of the chair. Everything just
looked normal. It just looked like they just weren't there.
My mom's car was in the driveway. Everything looked normal.
It just they just weren't there. I go upstairs and
I go on my sister's room. It was no bleach
spot on my sister's floor, So that kind of like
(16:09):
struck me, like, Okay, maybe Ebony did come home.
Speaker 5 (16:11):
She probably dropped some bleach or something there.
Speaker 7 (16:13):
When I got into my bedroom, I just like sat
down on my bed. That's when I got the feeling
that you need to get out of this house. I
run out of the house. I get in her car,
and I goes to my boyfriend at the times house
and when I got to him, I'm just calling my
mom and this is like now probably going on.
Speaker 5 (16:34):
It was late and still no response.
Speaker 8 (16:43):
The following day, Courtney hears that her mother and sister
have been murdered. Their bodies are found in a stolen
car that was then set on fire at a different address.
Police identify Dolores and Ebony through dental records.
Speaker 7 (17:03):
Then they came to our house. I want to say,
was it later on that day? I believe they came
to our house and that's when they did tell us
about the deadly workers matcha my mom and my sister.
They were in the Bernie Carr when I was fifteen
(17:24):
my dad died, So I honestly didn't think that. I never,
in my life stop anybody like my mom and my
sister would be murdered or anything like that. This never
any I don't think anybody would think somebody they loved
would be murdered. My family was everything to me, my mom,
my dad, and my sister. I didn't have a worry
(17:45):
in the world.
Speaker 10 (17:52):
Certainly in the murders of Dolores and Ebony Dewet. This
is somebody who engages in incredibly risky behavior. He steals
a car, and the person that he steals the car
from actually witnesses this.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
What's the nature of your emergency. I just left my
house maybe an hour ago, and to comeback my car
is missing out of the car board. That's my car. Okay,
it just got past me.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
Wow.
Speaker 10 (18:26):
So this is somebody in the middle of the day,
steals a car, drives it to a house, puts two
people in there who are no longer alive, and burns
this car in a relatively short amount of time.
Speaker 6 (18:42):
Wait, how riskier can you be?
Speaker 4 (18:46):
It's a horrific, horrific crime scene of a burned body.
Dental records are needed to identify the individuals to know
whom they are. This does by time by moving them
to another place, by putting them in a car that
has nothing to do with them, and then burning the
(19:07):
bodies allows for additional time for the.
Speaker 11 (19:10):
Individual to get away.
Speaker 7 (19:22):
I used to feel like people will be watching us
outside of our house.
Speaker 5 (19:26):
My mom will always feel like people will be watching this.
Speaker 7 (19:32):
If you feel like somebody is watching you, they are,
And if you really have that oversens and urge, I
feel like somebody watching me, I feel like somebody watching me.
They are it don't cross your mind, and sick people
like that exist.
Speaker 10 (19:49):
I think most of the time, when people have a
sense of being watched, they probably are. And I think
it's very very important to trust your guid and investigate.
Speaker 6 (20:01):
Call the police whatever you think it's going to make
you feel safe.
Speaker 5 (20:05):
Too.
Speaker 10 (20:05):
Many of us in the past have had these gut feelings,
had these kind of spidy senses, or the hair on
the back of our neck stands up and we talk
ourselves out of it, when really it's our body's way
of telling us that something is wrong, even though we
don't consciously know it.
Speaker 8 (20:27):
There have been two mother daughter murders less than two
miles apart, in just eight weeks. Like Karen Lofton, Delores
DeWitt was a nurse and at home alone with her
teenage daughter.
Speaker 10 (20:42):
In many respects, there are a lot of similarities between
the murders of Karen and Carissa Lofton and Dolores and Ebony.
Speaker 6 (20:52):
And you know the.
Speaker 10 (20:53):
Similarity of the course, they're both nurses, they're both single parents,
they have teenage daughters. Yet there are some significant differences.
Speaker 6 (21:02):
So police know.
Speaker 10 (21:03):
That Karen and Carissa are murdered in their home, that
they are shot to death, and this is very, very
different from Ebony and Dolores, who are removed from their
home before they are eventually found in a burned out car.
It would be really nice if Sarah killers always did
(21:25):
everything exactly the same, because it would be much easier
to catch them, And so it's important to kind of
step back sometimes and kind of go Okay, Yes, there
are some surface differences here, including the way these people
were murdered, but we can't rule out the possibility, given
these other similarities, that there's some connection between the two.
Speaker 8 (21:48):
At the time of the Loften and de Whit murders,
police are already investigating the death of forty six year
old mother of three, Vilma Butler in June two thousand
and eight. She is shot dead and found in her
burning home, around fifteen miles from the Dewitts and Lofton's,
(22:13):
but police still do not believe they're dealing with a
serial killer.
Speaker 4 (22:17):
Serial Killers usually are not this meticulous in their acts,
you know. We usually see that there's opportunity as the
main factor. There is that of a special type of
person he or she is interested in committing these acts with.
But to see intelligence put together to see elements of
information put together. This is a different ballgame, this is
(22:41):
a different realm.
Speaker 7 (22:45):
It's unfortunate that he was able to get away with
it for so long.
Speaker 5 (22:53):
And then he ended up game court.
Speaker 8 (23:09):
There have been five murders in this respectable suburb since
June two thousand and eight. Police don't believe they're dealing
with a serial killer and are yet to identify a suspect.
But separately from the murders, authorities are getting closer to
catching local burglar Jason Scott.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
The crimes that mister Scott committed were clustered around his
own neighborhood in Prince George's County, Maryland, which is a
suburb just east of Washington, d C. In May of
two thousand and nine, Jason Scott and his accomplished Marcus
Hunter travel up to Woodbine, Maryland to commit this robbery
of the gun shop. They stole thirty nine firearms, including
(23:58):
automatic weapons, machine gun silencers, and a large volume of ammunition.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
Someone who moves to being involved in gun deals has
a lot of spheres of activity going on. You usually
don't expect that in someone who's involved in criminal activity.
One becomes good at one part of criminal activity, but
does not drift, as we say in criminology, to perhaps
having a life of regular conformity and then going to
(24:27):
be an innovator of criminal activity. This is what makes
this case so special. He's confident in what he does.
Speaker 10 (24:39):
After doing this, he decides to make some money by
selling some of these illegal weapons. And yet I think
his boldness really does propel him to take these ridiculous risks.
And he's selling illegal weapons in the parking lot. I mean,
(25:02):
it seems like that's something that is not a criminals
of the a criminal mastermind.
Speaker 6 (25:07):
Would do you work there?
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Jason Scott had let it be known among some of
his criminal compatriots that he had guns to sell, and
an undercover ATF agent arranged to meet Jason Scott in
a parking lot and purchase four weapons from him.
Speaker 9 (25:25):
We have the big protomab whoever you call, would they
going to be a to A?
Speaker 7 (25:29):
I mean anyone?
Speaker 9 (25:30):
I know why you doing another?
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Agents then were able to verify that four of those
weapons were the weapons that had been stolen on May
twenty sixth from the gun shop. Well, this was a
moment that exposed Jason Scott to the subsequent search warrant.
During the course of executing that search warrant, the agents
recovered sixteen firearms that had been stolen from that gun
(25:56):
shop in Woodbine back in May of two thousand. They
also obtained from Jason Scott's bedroom many of the burglary
tools that he had used to commit the crime, the
clothing that he wore, the black clothing, the ski mask,
and the backpack containing his burglary tools, which included things
like bolt cutters and screwdrivers and fry bar and also
(26:20):
included a police scanner.
Speaker 10 (26:24):
There is almost a black comedy here, if things weren't
so horrific. That this is somebody who is intelligent, he's
graduated from college, he's a personal person, and yet he
almost lives in this fantasy world.
Speaker 6 (26:39):
It seems like.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
One of the items of evidence that we recovered from
Jason Scott's home was a video recording that he had
made of this teenage victim when he was recording the
victim while she was naked during one of his home
invasion robberies, and at one point mister Scott himself crossed
in front of the camera. There actually was an image
(27:06):
captured of mister Scott in his full regalia that he
would wear to commit his crimes, and when the authorities
found those recordings and photographs and the burglary tools, they
realized they were dealing with a master criminal, not simply
somebody who had committed a robbery at a gun shop,
but somebody who posed a continuing threat of violence.
Speaker 11 (27:28):
In the community.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
The agents were working with local police who knew about
the spree of home invasion robberies in addition to the
murders that have been committed in the area, and so
once they found this evidence, they immediately settled on Jason
Scott as a likely suspect in a whole spree of crimes.
Speaker 10 (27:47):
I think when you think about this kind of sexual
aspect of sexual assault that is so consistent with somebody
who has a history of peeping and voyeurism, then progressive.
Speaker 6 (28:00):
Those people who peep don't.
Speaker 10 (28:02):
Progress to worse things, but people who do progress to
worse things often have a history of peeping and voyeurism.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
I think Jason Scott enjoyed the sense of power and
control that he exercised when he committed these home invasion robberies,
where he kept people under control, he kept people at
gunpoint in a couple of instances he detained people in
their homes while his partner, Marcus Hunter took their ATM
cards and went to withdraw cash. And I think Jason
(28:37):
Scott enjoyed that sense of power that he obtained while
he was detaining innocent victims.
Speaker 10 (28:46):
There was one home invasion that he carried out where
the victims were, of course terrified. They had no idea,
They felt completely helpless.
Speaker 6 (28:58):
The victim later on said, you.
Speaker 10 (29:00):
Know, when you have absolutely no control over situation, you
don't know what to do. And she said, I started praying,
and you know, Jason Scott said, shut up. I think
that affirmed to him that I am powerful, I am
(29:21):
a criminal mastermind.
Speaker 6 (29:22):
I am in charge of these situations.
Speaker 10 (29:24):
And I do think that was very important to him,
and for whatever reason, he really did embrace this criminal identity.
Speaker 8 (29:33):
Jason Scott is now a suspect in the five murder investigations,
but police don't have enough evidence to charge him. But
the evidence from the firearms offenses, of home invasions and
sexual assault makes police believe he's linked to a vast
array of crimes. Rather than charge him for just the
(29:55):
crimes they have evidence for Scott is taken into custody
and offered a profer interview.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
In a interview, the government promises a defendant that things
that he says in the interview won't be used against
him directly in court, and so the profit is an
opportunity for the defendant to come in with the promise
of immunity and revealed to the government the criminal activity
in which he participated.
Speaker 10 (30:21):
They're thinking, this is somebody who's going to help us
catch other almost arms dealers or people who you know
who are selling illegal guns, and so Jason takes advantage
of this.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
During the interview with federal authorities, mister Scott admitted that
he had committed approximately twenty eight burglaries and nine home
invasion robberies.
Speaker 6 (30:50):
Law enforcement is absolutely stunned my this.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
He's saying to you, criminal justice system, I am smarter
than you, that I was able to be successful with
these crimes. I am good at what I do, and
I'm better than you. At this time, the jig is up.
So if it is up, let me just go ahead
and tell you and show you how much smarter I
was than you, how much intelligence and research goes into this.
Speaker 10 (31:18):
And of course Jason's sitting there smugg as can be,
thinking I've got immunity from all these things. Nothing I
said today can be used against me. He was a
little misguided, I think, in thinking.
Speaker 8 (31:34):
That police cannot charge Scott with the burglaries and home
invasions he's confessed to, but he can still be charged
for other crimes because of new evidence or if implicated
by an accomplice.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Once authorities realized that Jason Scott had been involved in
a crime spree in the area, they started to review
all crimes that had been committed in the area over
the past couple of years to identify which ones were
likely to have been committed by Jason Scott. Marcus Hunter
(32:15):
revealed that he was a friend of Jason Scott and
that he had participated with mister Scott in many of
the robberies and burglaries that mister Scott had committed in
the community. Marcus Hunter used the term spooky House to
refer to an abandoned property that he and Jason Scott
would go to after the crimes to split up the proceeds.
(32:38):
So on multiple occasions, Jason Scott and Marcus Hunter went
to the so called Spooky House with the proceeds of
the robbery and then divided the property among them. The
most compelling evidence I recovered from the Spooky House that
was used in the state case is that they found charred.
(33:02):
It's a fabric of hair at the Spooky House that
were connected to the murder because they matched evidence that
was found on the bodies when they were recovered from
the car that had been burned.
Speaker 8 (33:20):
This vital new piece of evidence links Scott to the
crime scene of Dolores and Ebony de Witt. Jason Scott
is charged with their murders while being investigated for the others.
Speaker 6 (33:34):
This is the beginning of the end for Jason Scott.
Speaker 8 (33:47):
It's one and a half years since Jason Scott was
charged with the murders of Dolores and Ebony de Witt.
As a case is building against him, He's first facing
trial for the crimes that investigators have evidence of.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
In the federal system, we prosecute defendants for the most
readily provable offenses, and so in this case, we identified
four home invasion robberies in which the proof was the
strongest and the witnesses were the most credible and compelling,
and we charged mister Scott with those four home invasion robberies,
(34:23):
in addition to the child pornography he had produced during
one of those robberies, and then the possession of the
stolen firearms that had been taken from that gun shop
in Woodbind The most important piece of evidence in the
case was the video recording that Jason Scott had made
of this teenage victim. Mister Scott at one point actually
(34:46):
crossed in front of the camera. So in this case,
the federal sentence for this series of primes eleven violations
in total, amounted to one hundred years in federal prison.
I know the family members of the murder victims were
(35:07):
present at the sentencing, and they were very relieved. They
were confident that mister Scott had been held accountable and
would no longer pose a threat to the community, regardless
of whether or not he ultimately was convicted on the
state charges for the murder.
Speaker 4 (35:22):
What we do see is someone who's become very good
at being a criminal, someone who's intelligent, someone who looks
at information that's publicly accessible, plus perhaps has a charm
that allows for many people not to feel threatened. We
hope that these elements don't come together and thank goodness
(35:43):
that person is no longer on the street causing these
heinous acts.
Speaker 8 (35:56):
Jason Scott is in jail, respect him of the murders
of Filma Butler, Dolores and Ebony DeWitt, and Karen and
Carissa Lofton, but they only have strong evidence linking him
to the de Witts murders. In order to prosecute him
for the provable crimes, police strike a deal using an
(36:18):
Alford plea.
Speaker 4 (36:19):
It's been around since about the nineteen seventies. Here you
have an environment in which one please to say, I'm
not saying I'm guilty of doing this act, but I
am going to go ahead and move the process in
order to perhaps receive a lesser sentence.
Speaker 8 (36:38):
As part of the Alford plea for the murders of
Dolores and Ebony DeWitt, Jason Scott now won't face trial
for the murders of Filma Butler or Karen and Carissa Lofton.
Speaker 9 (36:52):
We never had our day in court. He was going
to spend the rest of his life in jail anyway.
So I guess they assume wasman need to satisfy the family.
Speaker 7 (37:03):
Carissa often, I always speak her name, and I always
say she's such a strong girl because she comes home
only to find someone killing her mom, and then she
gets shot in the head from what the story tells,
to be able to pick her strip, to pick up
the phone to call down.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
On one ram, I've been shot, my mother has been shot.
I'm believing through that sweet slow that what's you address.
Speaker 7 (37:29):
It's just heartbreaking when you hear her. It's heartbreaking. It's
so heartbreaking because she didn't They didn't deserve it. None
nobody deserves it.
Speaker 9 (37:40):
They're still a very empty void in myself with my
family's hearts, because we don't know. We didn't get the
satisfaction that the the witch got of a trial and
a killer that admitted and was found guilty of their crime.
We didn't get that.
Speaker 7 (38:07):
I used to hate him for a while, but I
had to get over that.
Speaker 5 (38:15):
At first, I used to want him dead. I pray
to God that like why he's locked up.
Speaker 7 (38:21):
Every time he close his eyes, he sees him as
he left them. Now I just feel like, no, what
he got is the best thing for him.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
I don't even want to give him and he real
estate in my mental space, so he's where he needs
to be.
Speaker 10 (38:50):
I think that Jason Scott has all the hallmarks of
a serial killer in terms of so many different things,
his interest in forensics, the way he researched his crimes,
and most importantly, the way he carried out so many
different crimes and really exhibited no compassion, no empathy whatsoever
(39:12):
for his victims.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
This was probably the most memorable case that I personally
prosecuted in my thirty years with the United States Department
of Justice because of the scale of the harm that
Jason Scott had visited on the community, and obviously the
particular harm on the victims of the murders, the home invasion, robbery,
and the child abuse. You saved lives by taking somebody
(39:41):
like Jason Scott off the street.
Speaker 7 (39:50):
My parents, my mom, my dad, and myster City always
told us, if you believe in yourself, you could do anything.
Speaker 5 (39:55):
So with that, even do all the tragedy in.
Speaker 7 (39:58):
My life, I could pack myself on the back that
I just never gave up. And that's only because of them.
Life has never been the same, life will never be
the same. I'm just been trying to adjust to it.
Speaker 5 (40:13):
It's just Oh, I was shattered. I had nothing.
Speaker 7 (40:19):
Now I am pare it everybody hear this world to
my family and it's like I said, I haven't met anyone.
Speaker 5 (40:34):
They just measure up to how great they were.
Speaker 9 (40:42):
You know.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
I have three kids now with my wife, and my
mother or sister has met nine of them. So she
was robbed from having three beautiful grandchildren that she could
be interacting with.
Speaker 9 (41:01):
I still feel lost, like it's a loss. I've grown
a lot. I had to learn how to turn a
tragedy into something helpful, and that's the only way that
you can get through something like that. Jason Scott feel
like THEYD not responsible for two murders, they're responsible for
(41:21):
three because in my family because my son Kirk Junior
never recovered.
Speaker 5 (41:27):
He went through a very dark period.
Speaker 9 (41:32):
He was drinking, very depressed and everything for years. Six
months ago, well a little more six months in a
month after his birthday, exactly a month after his birthday.
Then he died. They found him in a hotel and
(41:53):
the cause of death is alcohol and poison him. You know,
he had died from alcohol. Jason Scott definitely played the
part in it. I used to call Charrissa my butterfly,
(42:14):
and she loved the color green. That year after she passed,
and it was an influx of green butterflies all through Georgia.
The main thing that I had to remember is that
God didn't make mistakes, and that my story had to
(42:37):
help somebody else
Speaker 11 (43:11):
Make fi
Prince George's County, n I'm a one center.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
What is your emergency?
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Grandma's been shut, mother has been shut that.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
I was imagining how she had felt in that predicament.
It's just heartbreaking to be a sixteen year old girl.
A manster like that comes in and takes your life
from you.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Jason Scott was an extraordinarily dangerous criminal who masqueraded as
an ordinary person.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
He's saying to you, criminal justice system, I am smarter
than you.
Speaker 5 (00:56):
If you feel like somebody is watching you, they are.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
I'm successful at doing it.
Speaker 6 (01:02):
Why stop.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
It?
Speaker 5 (01:04):
Don't cross your mind? And sick people like that exist.
Speaker 7 (01:11):
My life was perfect before before everything happened.
Speaker 8 (02:00):
For Marlboro, a suburb twenty miles east of Washington, d C.
Is home to the Lofton family, Dad Kirk, mom Karen,
two sons, Kirk Junior and Keon, and daughter Carissa.
Speaker 9 (02:19):
My daughter was a very inspiring, very beautiful, a gift.
She was a gift. She went through some struggles she
had and open heart surgery because she had something going
on with a valve in her heart and everything, and
she bounced right back like it was nothing, and she
was very strong.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
I am key On Lofton. Karen Lofton was my mother.
Carrissa was my younger sister. My mother was a really
caring person. She was in the nursing field as long
as I can remember. I remember as being in a
little child and going with her to work with her,
(03:06):
and just all the love that she would get from
her coworkers.
Speaker 9 (03:12):
She was probably one of the best nurses of her time.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Chrissa's personality at that around that age was typical teenage girl.
She was still trying to figure herself out, pleasant kind person.
You can see her modeling after the characteristics and values
and things that my mother instilled in all of us,
and you can just see the trajectory of the type
(03:44):
of woman that she was going to become.
Speaker 8 (03:49):
In two thousand and eight, Kirk moves away after his
marriage to Karen breaks down, moved to Georgia.
Speaker 9 (03:55):
In two thousand and eight, I was remarried, still a
rain to come take with my daughter as matter of fact,
that she was supposed to move down here and go
to college.
Speaker 6 (04:10):
Prince George's County nine on one center, what is your emergency.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Grandma's been shot, may my mother has been shut I'm
believing through.
Speaker 9 (04:18):
That will you slow down?
Speaker 6 (04:20):
What's he addressed?
Speaker 10 (04:22):
As you know, if we need any kind of testament
to Carrissa's courage.
Speaker 6 (04:33):
This is a.
Speaker 10 (04:33):
Young teenager, a sixteen year old, who has been involved
in a home invasion, which is one of the most
terrifying things anybody can imagine. She's been shot and she
has the kind of strength of mind to call nine
one one while she's bleeding and to report to them
(04:54):
that she has been shot, her mom has been shot,
and she tells the operator, you know, I'm bleeding to death,
please hurry. Unfortunately, the phone is hung up and by
the time they get there, it's two way.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
So the night of the wear anything when everything happened,
I was at my girlfriend's house. My mother in law
now told me that two women have been found killed
on our street, and she told me to call and
check my mother and sister. So I called and nobody answered.
(05:38):
So I kept calling. I kept calling, and nobody answered.
So I just I just got up and left and started,
you know, got in my car and was driving. It
had to be about two three o'clock in the morning,
got there to the house, probably about a ten minute drive.
Police kind of had like the street blocked off whatever
and I got out. I was trying to set trying
(06:01):
to see who it was, and police officer or a
detective asked who I was, and I was told of
my name and he said, okay, we got the son
right here. And I just broke down him because I
knew it came of realization that okay, if it was
to him.
Speaker 9 (06:18):
I was in the room sleep and my son, my
oldest son, Kirk Jr. He called me at probably you know,
three in the morning, four in the morning, something like that.
He was crying and I said, what's wrong? He said,
have you talked the key on yet? Mine? Carissa got killed.
(06:43):
The first thing that I thought was they got into
a car accident or something like that, but then he
said they were shy. I immediately got off home with
him and I called my other son, my younger son,
and he told me that they somebody came into our
house and out of the family house in Kibos of them.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
It's just just heartbreaking to be a sixteen year old
girl and be in the comfort of your own babe
and a monster like that comes in and takes your
life from you. I was imagining how she had to
(07:30):
felt in that in that predicament, somebody storming in, you know, shooting,
shooting you and you have to, you know, call it
nine one one, trying to get somebody to say you
is you know it is?
Speaker 5 (07:42):
It's heartbreaking.
Speaker 8 (07:47):
With no signs of forced entry, the police suspect the
murders have been committed by someone with access to the
lofton's home.
Speaker 10 (07:58):
They kind of step back and go, Okay, what do
we do. We start from the innermost circle and we
work our way out. Most often, sadly, those are the perpetrators.
One of the first persons to come on the radar
is Chris's older brother Kean.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Honestly, I didn't know why I was in a police car.
I had no idea. It was everything was an immediate
shot right there from there. I remember being in the
interrogation room.
Speaker 9 (08:33):
Does your mom set you along for the house?
Speaker 5 (08:36):
Okay?
Speaker 6 (08:36):
All the time?
Speaker 7 (08:37):
Okay every time?
Speaker 9 (08:38):
Would you have heard your mom and sister?
Speaker 11 (08:40):
Now you have heard your mom and.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
And I remember them letting me come out to like
one of the one of their desks and letting me
hear like a snippet of the nine one one called rand.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
I've been shut shut that.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Anybody who's getting to accused of anything that they haven't done.
They're gonna be upset when I'm in that interrogation room
and I'm hearing them accusing me, and I'm just trying
to process, like did this really happen? Like did my
mother's just to really just get murdered? Are you guys
(09:20):
really accusing me of doing this? Everything just felt like
a like a nightmare or a dream, Like just felt
really surreal. I knew a thousand percent it wasn't me.
Speaker 9 (09:38):
So they didn't know what to think. They didn't know
anything about who this person was. I got no finger frens,
there was no forced intrigue, and all of.
Speaker 6 (09:47):
A sudden, here it is.
Speaker 10 (09:49):
The forty eight hours has passed, which of course is
often the critical period for getting that first lead, and
they're sitting there kind of going, we have no idea, and.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
If you're going down the wrong road with that, you've
allowed the individual to perhaps clean up the case, to
perhaps even be further away from the case. So it's
very important those first initial hours of any case that
you hope the investigators are on the right path.
Speaker 8 (10:14):
Kirk and Keon begin to develop their own theories about
what happened.
Speaker 9 (10:21):
I know how safe that Karen was. And Karen would
not let anyone in that house at two thirty six
in the morning without she would have the alarm on.
They said the alarm was just engaged.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
She took that really seriously. You know, when I would
leave out to make sure the back doors locked things,
lest so to make sure the window was locked. She
was always a stickler for those things. But I'm pretty
sure I thought that, Okay, somebody forced her to put
the alarm in. It's no other explanation.
Speaker 8 (10:53):
At the time of the Lofton's murders, a burglar is
successfully evading capture. In the neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Jason Scott came across his very mild mannered He held
a part time job with a packaged delivery service. It
wasn't dute as being dangerous by his friends and family,
So he was somebody who masqueraded as an ordinary person.
Speaker 10 (11:20):
Jason Scott was somebody who seemed to have a lot
of potential. He was somebody who had a college degree.
He was somebody who worked at UPS. So he was
somebody who, at least on the surface, seemed to be
somebody who really had his act together.
Speaker 8 (11:36):
Twenty seven year old Jason Scott has two master's degrees
and until recently was unknown to authorities.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
He had started committing robberies in his at least as
a teenager and perhaps early twenties, and had graduated from
committing robberies of unoccupied houses to home invasion robberies and
violent crime.
Speaker 6 (12:01):
So at the same time that.
Speaker 10 (12:05):
Jason Scott was living this kind of law abiding life
on the surface, this is somebody who, in the privacy
of his own home, seemed to be absolutely obsessed with crime,
with forensics, with understanding how to get away with crime.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
One of the notable things about mister Scott is the
clothing and tools that he used during his criminal activities.
Speaker 5 (12:33):
So he dressed like a criminal.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
He would dress all in black, he wore black gloves,
he carried a black backpack, so he dressed like a thief.
Speaker 10 (12:45):
Jason Scott spent hours of his life thinking about crime,
learning about crime, learning about forensic techniques. Almost considered himself
like a doctor Jekyl and mister Hyde. I would imagine
to some extent he feels kind of this sense of impunity,
like or the sense that I'm untouchable, nobody's going to
(13:07):
catch me. Another thing that stands out about Jason Scott
is he was an incredibly diverse criminal. So not only
was he interested in burglary in home invasions, he was
interested in peeping. He was interested in cruising the neighborhood
(13:33):
and taking pictures of people in the privacy their own
homes who had no idea what he was doing. It's
not uncommon for that to progress to breaking it to
a home, to some kind of sexual offense.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
So this progression is a natural part that we as
criminologists are concerned about. With any crime that someone does,
does it then have an opportunity to develop to make
that person a criminal, a criminal that is looking for
a career. I'm doing it, I'm successful at doing it.
Speaker 6 (14:05):
Why stop?
Speaker 8 (14:17):
The murders of mother and daughter, Karen and Carissa Loften
have shocked this respectable Washington suburb. There's a space of
burglaries too, but the police are yet to track down
the perpetrators. Two months later, another murderer is called in.
Speaker 7 (14:42):
My name is Courtney Hicks, my mother is Delora Stewitt,
and my sister is Ebony.
Speaker 5 (14:49):
Do it.
Speaker 7 (14:52):
My life was perfect before before everything happened. My mom
was the kindest person.
Speaker 5 (15:07):
That I ever met.
Speaker 7 (15:09):
She was always there for me, even still after everything
that's happened to me in my life, because of how
my mom taught me to believe in myself. My sister
was someone I could always depend on. I could always
count on this as well. It's my mom.
Speaker 5 (15:24):
I missed him so much.
Speaker 7 (15:25):
So when I got home, I like, I don't remember
if I had to disable our alarm or not, but
I just go in the house and I see my
(15:46):
sister's jacket on the back of the chair. Everything just
looked normal. It just looked like they just weren't there.
My mom's car was in the driveway. Everything looked normal.
It just they just weren't there. I go upstairs and
I go on my sister's room. It was no bleach
spot on my sister's floor, So that kind of like
(16:09):
struck me, like, Okay, maybe Ebony did come home.
Speaker 5 (16:11):
She probably dropped some bleach or something there.
Speaker 7 (16:13):
When I got into my bedroom, I just like sat
down on my bed. That's when I got the feeling
that you need to get out of this house. I
run out of the house. I get in her car,
and I goes to my boyfriend at the times house
and when I got to him, I'm just calling my
mom and this is like now probably going on.
Speaker 5 (16:34):
It was late and still no response.
Speaker 8 (16:43):
The following day, Courtney hears that her mother and sister
have been murdered. Their bodies are found in a stolen
car that was then set on fire at a different address.
Police identify Dolores and Ebony through dental records.
Speaker 7 (17:03):
Then they came to our house. I want to say,
was it later on that day? I believe they came
to our house and that's when they did tell us
about the deadly workers matcha my mom and my sister.
They were in the Bernie Carr when I was fifteen
(17:24):
my dad died, So I honestly didn't think that. I never,
in my life stop anybody like my mom and my
sister would be murdered or anything like that. This never
any I don't think anybody would think somebody they loved
would be murdered. My family was everything to me, my mom,
my dad, and my sister. I didn't have a worry
(17:45):
in the world.
Speaker 10 (17:52):
Certainly in the murders of Dolores and Ebony Dewet. This
is somebody who engages in incredibly risky behavior. He steals
a car, and the person that he steals the car
from actually witnesses this.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
What's the nature of your emergency. I just left my
house maybe an hour ago, and to comeback my car
is missing out of the car board. That's my car. Okay,
it just got past me.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
Wow.
Speaker 10 (18:26):
So this is somebody in the middle of the day,
steals a car, drives it to a house, puts two
people in there who are no longer alive, and burns
this car in a relatively short amount of time.
Speaker 6 (18:42):
Wait, how riskier can you be?
Speaker 4 (18:46):
It's a horrific, horrific crime scene of a burned body.
Dental records are needed to identify the individuals to know
whom they are. This does by time by moving them
to another place, by putting them in a car that
has nothing to do with them, and then burning the
(19:07):
bodies allows for additional time for the.
Speaker 11 (19:10):
Individual to get away.
Speaker 7 (19:22):
I used to feel like people will be watching us
outside of our house.
Speaker 5 (19:26):
My mom will always feel like people will be watching this.
Speaker 7 (19:32):
If you feel like somebody is watching you, they are,
And if you really have that oversens and urge, I
feel like somebody watching me, I feel like somebody watching me.
They are it don't cross your mind, and sick people
like that exist.
Speaker 10 (19:49):
I think most of the time, when people have a
sense of being watched, they probably are. And I think
it's very very important to trust your guid and investigate.
Speaker 6 (20:01):
Call the police whatever you think it's going to make
you feel safe.
Speaker 5 (20:05):
Too.
Speaker 10 (20:05):
Many of us in the past have had these gut feelings,
had these kind of spidy senses, or the hair on
the back of our neck stands up and we talk
ourselves out of it, when really it's our body's way
of telling us that something is wrong, even though we
don't consciously know it.
Speaker 8 (20:27):
There have been two mother daughter murders less than two
miles apart, in just eight weeks. Like Karen Lofton, Delores
DeWitt was a nurse and at home alone with her
teenage daughter.
Speaker 10 (20:42):
In many respects, there are a lot of similarities between
the murders of Karen and Carissa Lofton and Dolores and Ebony.
Speaker 6 (20:52):
And you know the.
Speaker 10 (20:53):
Similarity of the course, they're both nurses, they're both single parents,
they have teenage daughters. Yet there are some significant differences.
Speaker 6 (21:02):
So police know.
Speaker 10 (21:03):
That Karen and Carissa are murdered in their home, that
they are shot to death, and this is very, very
different from Ebony and Dolores, who are removed from their
home before they are eventually found in a burned out car.
It would be really nice if Sarah killers always did
(21:25):
everything exactly the same, because it would be much easier
to catch them, And so it's important to kind of
step back sometimes and kind of go Okay, Yes, there
are some surface differences here, including the way these people
were murdered, but we can't rule out the possibility, given
these other similarities, that there's some connection between the two.
Speaker 8 (21:48):
At the time of the Loften and de Whit murders,
police are already investigating the death of forty six year
old mother of three, Vilma Butler in June two thousand
and eight. She is shot dead and found in her
burning home, around fifteen miles from the Dewitts and Lofton's,
(22:13):
but police still do not believe they're dealing with a
serial killer.
Speaker 4 (22:17):
Serial Killers usually are not this meticulous in their acts,
you know. We usually see that there's opportunity as the
main factor. There is that of a special type of
person he or she is interested in committing these acts with.
But to see intelligence put together to see elements of
information put together. This is a different ballgame, this is
(22:41):
a different realm.
Speaker 7 (22:45):
It's unfortunate that he was able to get away with
it for so long.
Speaker 5 (22:53):
And then he ended up game court.
Speaker 8 (23:09):
There have been five murders in this respectable suburb since
June two thousand and eight. Police don't believe they're dealing
with a serial killer and are yet to identify a suspect.
But separately from the murders, authorities are getting closer to
catching local burglar Jason Scott.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
The crimes that mister Scott committed were clustered around his
own neighborhood in Prince George's County, Maryland, which is a
suburb just east of Washington, d C. In May of
two thousand and nine, Jason Scott and his accomplished Marcus
Hunter travel up to Woodbine, Maryland to commit this robbery
of the gun shop. They stole thirty nine firearms, including
(23:58):
automatic weapons, machine gun silencers, and a large volume of ammunition.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
Someone who moves to being involved in gun deals has
a lot of spheres of activity going on. You usually
don't expect that in someone who's involved in criminal activity.
One becomes good at one part of criminal activity, but
does not drift, as we say in criminology, to perhaps
having a life of regular conformity and then going to
(24:27):
be an innovator of criminal activity. This is what makes
this case so special. He's confident in what he does.
Speaker 10 (24:39):
After doing this, he decides to make some money by
selling some of these illegal weapons. And yet I think
his boldness really does propel him to take these ridiculous risks.
And he's selling illegal weapons in the parking lot. I mean,
(25:02):
it seems like that's something that is not a criminals
of the a criminal mastermind.
Speaker 6 (25:07):
Would do you work there?
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Jason Scott had let it be known among some of
his criminal compatriots that he had guns to sell, and
an undercover ATF agent arranged to meet Jason Scott in
a parking lot and purchase four weapons from him.
Speaker 9 (25:25):
We have the big protomab whoever you call, would they
going to be a to A?
Speaker 7 (25:29):
I mean anyone?
Speaker 9 (25:30):
I know why you doing another?
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Agents then were able to verify that four of those
weapons were the weapons that had been stolen on May
twenty sixth from the gun shop. Well, this was a
moment that exposed Jason Scott to the subsequent search warrant.
During the course of executing that search warrant, the agents
recovered sixteen firearms that had been stolen from that gun
(25:56):
shop in Woodbine back in May of two thousand. They
also obtained from Jason Scott's bedroom many of the burglary
tools that he had used to commit the crime, the
clothing that he wore, the black clothing, the ski mask,
and the backpack containing his burglary tools, which included things
like bolt cutters and screwdrivers and fry bar and also
(26:20):
included a police scanner.
Speaker 10 (26:24):
There is almost a black comedy here, if things weren't
so horrific. That this is somebody who is intelligent, he's
graduated from college, he's a personal person, and yet he
almost lives in this fantasy world.
Speaker 6 (26:39):
It seems like.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
One of the items of evidence that we recovered from
Jason Scott's home was a video recording that he had
made of this teenage victim when he was recording the
victim while she was naked during one of his home
invasion robberies, and at one point mister Scott himself crossed
in front of the camera. There actually was an image
(27:06):
captured of mister Scott in his full regalia that he
would wear to commit his crimes, and when the authorities
found those recordings and photographs and the burglary tools, they
realized they were dealing with a master criminal, not simply
somebody who had committed a robbery at a gun shop,
but somebody who posed a continuing threat of violence.
Speaker 11 (27:28):
In the community.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
The agents were working with local police who knew about
the spree of home invasion robberies in addition to the
murders that have been committed in the area, and so
once they found this evidence, they immediately settled on Jason
Scott as a likely suspect in a whole spree of crimes.
Speaker 10 (27:47):
I think when you think about this kind of sexual
aspect of sexual assault that is so consistent with somebody
who has a history of peeping and voyeurism, then progressive.
Speaker 6 (28:00):
Those people who peep don't.
Speaker 10 (28:02):
Progress to worse things, but people who do progress to
worse things often have a history of peeping and voyeurism.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
I think Jason Scott enjoyed the sense of power and
control that he exercised when he committed these home invasion robberies,
where he kept people under control, he kept people at
gunpoint in a couple of instances he detained people in
their homes while his partner, Marcus Hunter took their ATM
cards and went to withdraw cash. And I think Jason
(28:37):
Scott enjoyed that sense of power that he obtained while
he was detaining innocent victims.
Speaker 10 (28:46):
There was one home invasion that he carried out where
the victims were, of course terrified. They had no idea,
They felt completely helpless.
Speaker 6 (28:58):
The victim later on said, you.
Speaker 10 (29:00):
Know, when you have absolutely no control over situation, you
don't know what to do. And she said, I started praying,
and you know, Jason Scott said, shut up. I think
that affirmed to him that I am powerful, I am
(29:21):
a criminal mastermind.
Speaker 6 (29:22):
I am in charge of these situations.
Speaker 10 (29:24):
And I do think that was very important to him,
and for whatever reason, he really did embrace this criminal identity.
Speaker 8 (29:33):
Jason Scott is now a suspect in the five murder investigations,
but police don't have enough evidence to charge him. But
the evidence from the firearms offenses, of home invasions and
sexual assault makes police believe he's linked to a vast
array of crimes. Rather than charge him for just the
(29:55):
crimes they have evidence for Scott is taken into custody
and offered a profer interview.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
In a interview, the government promises a defendant that things
that he says in the interview won't be used against
him directly in court, and so the profit is an
opportunity for the defendant to come in with the promise
of immunity and revealed to the government the criminal activity
in which he participated.
Speaker 10 (30:21):
They're thinking, this is somebody who's going to help us
catch other almost arms dealers or people who you know
who are selling illegal guns, and so Jason takes advantage
of this.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
During the interview with federal authorities, mister Scott admitted that
he had committed approximately twenty eight burglaries and nine home
invasion robberies.
Speaker 6 (30:50):
Law enforcement is absolutely stunned my this.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
He's saying to you, criminal justice system, I am smarter
than you, that I was able to be successful with
these crimes. I am good at what I do, and
I'm better than you. At this time, the jig is up.
So if it is up, let me just go ahead
and tell you and show you how much smarter I
was than you, how much intelligence and research goes into this.
Speaker 10 (31:18):
And of course Jason's sitting there smugg as can be,
thinking I've got immunity from all these things. Nothing I
said today can be used against me. He was a
little misguided, I think, in thinking.
Speaker 8 (31:34):
That police cannot charge Scott with the burglaries and home
invasions he's confessed to, but he can still be charged
for other crimes because of new evidence or if implicated
by an accomplice.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Once authorities realized that Jason Scott had been involved in
a crime spree in the area, they started to review
all crimes that had been committed in the area over
the past couple of years to identify which ones were
likely to have been committed by Jason Scott. Marcus Hunter
(32:15):
revealed that he was a friend of Jason Scott and
that he had participated with mister Scott in many of
the robberies and burglaries that mister Scott had committed in
the community. Marcus Hunter used the term spooky House to
refer to an abandoned property that he and Jason Scott
would go to after the crimes to split up the proceeds.
(32:38):
So on multiple occasions, Jason Scott and Marcus Hunter went
to the so called Spooky House with the proceeds of
the robbery and then divided the property among them. The
most compelling evidence I recovered from the Spooky House that
was used in the state case is that they found charred.
(33:02):
It's a fabric of hair at the Spooky House that
were connected to the murder because they matched evidence that
was found on the bodies when they were recovered from
the car that had been burned.
Speaker 8 (33:20):
This vital new piece of evidence links Scott to the
crime scene of Dolores and Ebony de Witt. Jason Scott
is charged with their murders while being investigated for the others.
Speaker 6 (33:34):
This is the beginning of the end for Jason Scott.
Speaker 8 (33:47):
It's one and a half years since Jason Scott was
charged with the murders of Dolores and Ebony de Witt.
As a case is building against him, He's first facing
trial for the crimes that investigators have evidence of.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
In the federal system, we prosecute defendants for the most
readily provable offenses, and so in this case, we identified
four home invasion robberies in which the proof was the
strongest and the witnesses were the most credible and compelling,
and we charged mister Scott with those four home invasion robberies,
(34:23):
in addition to the child pornography he had produced during
one of those robberies, and then the possession of the
stolen firearms that had been taken from that gun shop
in Woodbind The most important piece of evidence in the
case was the video recording that Jason Scott had made
of this teenage victim. Mister Scott at one point actually
(34:46):
crossed in front of the camera. So in this case,
the federal sentence for this series of primes eleven violations
in total, amounted to one hundred years in federal prison.
I know the family members of the murder victims were
(35:07):
present at the sentencing, and they were very relieved. They
were confident that mister Scott had been held accountable and
would no longer pose a threat to the community, regardless
of whether or not he ultimately was convicted on the
state charges for the murder.
Speaker 4 (35:22):
What we do see is someone who's become very good
at being a criminal, someone who's intelligent, someone who looks
at information that's publicly accessible, plus perhaps has a charm
that allows for many people not to feel threatened. We
hope that these elements don't come together and thank goodness
(35:43):
that person is no longer on the street causing these
heinous acts.
Speaker 8 (35:56):
Jason Scott is in jail, respect him of the murders
of Filma Butler, Dolores and Ebony DeWitt, and Karen and
Carissa Lofton, but they only have strong evidence linking him
to the de Witts murders. In order to prosecute him
for the provable crimes, police strike a deal using an
(36:18):
Alford plea.
Speaker 4 (36:19):
It's been around since about the nineteen seventies. Here you
have an environment in which one please to say, I'm
not saying I'm guilty of doing this act, but I
am going to go ahead and move the process in
order to perhaps receive a lesser sentence.
Speaker 8 (36:38):
As part of the Alford plea for the murders of
Dolores and Ebony DeWitt, Jason Scott now won't face trial
for the murders of Filma Butler or Karen and Carissa Lofton.
Speaker 9 (36:52):
We never had our day in court. He was going
to spend the rest of his life in jail anyway.
So I guess they assume wasman need to satisfy the family.
Speaker 7 (37:03):
Carissa often, I always speak her name, and I always
say she's such a strong girl because she comes home
only to find someone killing her mom, and then she
gets shot in the head from what the story tells,
to be able to pick her strip, to pick up
the phone to call down.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
On one ram, I've been shot, my mother has been shot.
I'm believing through that sweet slow that what's you address.
Speaker 7 (37:29):
It's just heartbreaking when you hear her. It's heartbreaking. It's
so heartbreaking because she didn't They didn't deserve it. None
nobody deserves it.
Speaker 9 (37:40):
They're still a very empty void in myself with my
family's hearts, because we don't know. We didn't get the
satisfaction that the the witch got of a trial and
a killer that admitted and was found guilty of their crime.
We didn't get that.
Speaker 7 (38:07):
I used to hate him for a while, but I
had to get over that.
Speaker 5 (38:15):
At first, I used to want him dead. I pray
to God that like why he's locked up.
Speaker 7 (38:21):
Every time he close his eyes, he sees him as
he left them. Now I just feel like, no, what
he got is the best thing for him.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
I don't even want to give him and he real
estate in my mental space, so he's where he needs
to be.
Speaker 10 (38:50):
I think that Jason Scott has all the hallmarks of
a serial killer in terms of so many different things,
his interest in forensics, the way he researched his crimes,
and most importantly, the way he carried out so many
different crimes and really exhibited no compassion, no empathy whatsoever
(39:12):
for his victims.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
This was probably the most memorable case that I personally
prosecuted in my thirty years with the United States Department
of Justice because of the scale of the harm that
Jason Scott had visited on the community, and obviously the
particular harm on the victims of the murders, the home invasion, robbery,
and the child abuse. You saved lives by taking somebody
(39:41):
like Jason Scott off the street.
Speaker 7 (39:50):
My parents, my mom, my dad, and myster City always
told us, if you believe in yourself, you could do anything.
Speaker 5 (39:55):
So with that, even do all the tragedy in.
Speaker 7 (39:58):
My life, I could pack myself on the back that
I just never gave up. And that's only because of them.
Life has never been the same, life will never be
the same. I'm just been trying to adjust to it.
Speaker 5 (40:13):
It's just Oh, I was shattered. I had nothing.
Speaker 7 (40:19):
Now I am pare it everybody hear this world to
my family and it's like I said, I haven't met anyone.
Speaker 5 (40:34):
They just measure up to how great they were.
Speaker 9 (40:42):
You know.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
I have three kids now with my wife, and my
mother or sister has met nine of them. So she
was robbed from having three beautiful grandchildren that she could
be interacting with.
Speaker 9 (41:01):
I still feel lost, like it's a loss. I've grown
a lot. I had to learn how to turn a
tragedy into something helpful, and that's the only way that
you can get through something like that. Jason Scott feel
like THEYD not responsible for two murders, they're responsible for
(41:21):
three because in my family because my son Kirk Junior
never recovered.
Speaker 5 (41:27):
He went through a very dark period.
Speaker 9 (41:32):
He was drinking, very depressed and everything for years. Six
months ago, well a little more six months in a
month after his birthday, exactly a month after his birthday.
Then he died. They found him in a hotel and
(41:53):
the cause of death is alcohol and poison him. You know,
he had died from alcohol. Jason Scott definitely played the
part in it. I used to call Charrissa my butterfly,
(42:14):
and she loved the color green. That year after she passed,
and it was an influx of green butterflies all through Georgia.
The main thing that I had to remember is that
God didn't make mistakes, and that my story had to
(42:37):
help somebody else
Speaker 11 (43:11):
Make fi
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