Cheat Sheet: Messages and Mayhem

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_00] I'm Anya, and today we're going to do a cheat sheet where we go all around the country talking about different crimes. Content warning, this episode contains discussion of murder and violence. So my cases are in Maryland and North Dakota. Kevin, where are you taking us?

[00:00:17] [SPEAKER_01] Kevin Greenlee, Colorado and California.

[00:00:19] [SPEAKER_00] Okay, I guess not the worst trip we've done. Maryland kind of throws it off a bit.

[00:00:24] [SPEAKER_01] Kevin Feeney, Colorado and California. We've done a lot worse. Before we get started, I think it's worth mentioning that in the last week after we did last week's episode, we had been besieged with emails and calls from listeners, family, friends, I think concerned clergymen who were saying, gosh, you didn't mention anything about premium content last week on your show. You didn't say anything all about it. Is that over? Are you not doing it anymore? And no, we're still doing premium content.

[00:00:54] [SPEAKER_01] Kevin Feeney, Colorado and California. So why don't you tell the people about that? Because we didn't do it last week.

[00:00:58] [SPEAKER_00] We didn't announce it last week, but we did do the episode.

[00:01:01] [SPEAKER_01] Kevin Feeney, Colorado and California. Yeah. What do we do for the premium people?

[00:01:04] [SPEAKER_00] So for the premium folks who subscribe to the Murder Sheet on Patreon, which for $5 a month and up, you can get the same benefits and then same exact benefits for Apple Premium for $5 a month. You subscribe. It supports the show, makes this possible for us to do this work.

[00:01:22] [SPEAKER_00] And then you also get to have our twice a month live streams. So if you're on Patreon, you can join those. If you're on Apple and you're a little bit more like, I don't want to be a part of it, but I want to like see what you guys were saying, which I totally get. That would probably be me. Kevin Feeney, Colorado and California.

[00:01:38] [SPEAKER_00] Then that is also, you get those. You get extra premium content. So once a week we do an episode that's just for the premium folks. And then in addition to that, you get a lot of episodes early and you get all episodes ad free. So I think it's a cool set of perks.

[00:01:56] [SPEAKER_01] I don't know. For something like that, I'd expect to pay what, $10,000. Is that what the cost is?

[00:02:02] [SPEAKER_00] I already said the cost. What is that? $5 a month.

[00:02:05] [SPEAKER_01] Wow. That's quite a bargain.

[00:02:06] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah.

[00:02:07] [SPEAKER_01] And so even if we don't talk about it on the show each week. It's still going on. Still going on. We're still doing it. So you should still strongly consider it.

[00:02:17] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. It might be something you enjoy. And we appreciate all of our patrons because they make it possible for us to do this work.

[00:02:23] [SPEAKER_01] I just wanted to, at the top of the show, assuage the concerns of the clergy, the friends, the family, the listeners.

[00:02:31] [SPEAKER_00] Causing a big ruckus.

[00:02:33] [SPEAKER_01] So we forgot to mention it last week, but we mentioned it now.

[00:02:36] [SPEAKER_00] Yes.

[00:02:36] [SPEAKER_01] So I think now we can go on with the program.

[00:02:39] [SPEAKER_00] Let's do it. My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist.

[00:02:43] [SPEAKER_01] And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney.

[00:02:45] [SPEAKER_00] And this is The Murder Sheet.

[00:02:47] [SPEAKER_01] We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews, and deep dives into murder cases. We're The Murder Sheet.

[00:02:55] [SPEAKER_00] And this is The Cheat Sheet. Messages and Mayhem.

[00:03:44] [SPEAKER_01] Ladies and gentlemen, now presenting a couple of cases. You know her. You love her. Anya Kane.

[00:03:51] [SPEAKER_00] Good lord.

[00:03:52] [SPEAKER_01] Being a little bit formal. Don't you think you deserve that level of respect?

[00:03:55] [SPEAKER_00] I appreciate it. I really do appreciate that. So my source for this one is NBC, specifically Dateline. And it was recommended to us by a wonderful listener. So thank you to that listener. This listener, I think, knows the kind of cases that haunt me because I read this one and was like, oh my gosh. This is horrifying. This is one of those ones where you're just like, it's so frustrating. And it's like, you just want to know why.

[00:04:21] [SPEAKER_00] Even though we know it's a fool's game to wonder why when you're dealing with a bunch of people who are just frankly evil. People who commit crimes for no reasons. I mean, like, listen. If someone kills somebody during a robbery, that's horrible. And that person's selfish and made a horrible decision. And that is evil. But, like, there's an explanation. They wanted money or they wanted an object that they were going to sell to buy drugs or to whatever.

[00:04:46] [SPEAKER_00] You know, like, even when there's an obvious sexual component to a crime, it's disgusting. It's selfish. It's enraging. It makes me want to yell and fight people. But, like, that's an explanation. The person wanted sexual gratification and valued that over the life of their victim. Like, there's an explanation. This is one that doesn't have any of that. Let's talk about it. So, October 17th, 1989. And you should read this NBC article that I'm including in the show notes.

[00:05:16] [SPEAKER_00] It goes into way more depth and has a lot of quotes and is very intriguing and interesting. Well done, NBC. October 17th, 1989. We're going to Aberdeen, Maryland, where an elderly gentleman named Rudolph First died. And that was the day his family held a wake for him. He was an immigrant to this country. He emigrated from Germany. And he was married to a woman, Anne First, his wife, who was from what was then called Czechoslovakia.

[00:05:46] [SPEAKER_00] They were immigrants. They came here. And they had a family. So, Anne had a daughter from a previous husband. And she got divorced. She met Rudolph. And they had also a daughter, Helen. Helen was an artist. She married a gentleman with the last name of Larkin. They met in New York City as art students. And, you know, she then had a family of her own. So, in October of 1989, Rudolph has died. Anne, at that point, is 83.

[00:06:15] [SPEAKER_00] And Helen is 56. So, elderly mother, middle-aged daughter. The family's gathering in Aberdeen to go to this wake and then go to the funeral. Helen, at that point, had been living in Connecticut but drove down and was going to be staying with Anne, her mother. And, you know, going to be going to the funeral the next day.

[00:06:37] [SPEAKER_00] So, the next day, the plan was the rest of the family that's gathered there, they're going to swing by Anne's house to pick up her and Helen so they can all go to the funeral together. They get there. The car's in the driveway. They knock on the door. No one answers. That's kind of weird because we're going to a funeral. Like, you think they would expect that. So, one of them goes around to the back, finds out, finds something really bad. They find that the sliding glass door has been smashed.

[00:07:07] [SPEAKER_00] Police later find that it was smashed with a brick taken from a neighbor's flower bed. And one of them goes inside and finds Helen and Anne both dead, murdered in Anne's bedroom. Investigators who respond to the scene find some interesting indications here. They find that both women are in their nightgowns indicating that this attack occurred after they were settled down to go to bed, at least.

[00:07:34] [SPEAKER_00] And they find that Anne was on the floor next to the bed. Helen was in the corner sitting in a chair. Both of them had been struck in the head multiple times with what police believe was a cylindrical object, possibly a crowbar. But they don't know. They never found it. And ever since then, there's been no suspects. They asked the family. You know, they interviewed the family. Who could have done this? They had no idea.

[00:08:04] [SPEAKER_00] They looked at the neighbors where the brick was taken from, but they were just normal neighbors. They think the person just came by and took something that was handy and that they had nothing to do with it. There's no evidence of a robbery. There's no evidence of a robbery. There's no 911 calls from that night. They do have a bit of a timeline. The neighbors told them that they got the sense that Helen got there around 11 p.m. Maybe they heard something. I don't know. 11.30. They thought they heard glass breaking and maybe a woman screaming.

[00:08:33] [SPEAKER_00] But again, nobody called the police. But police believe that 11.25, 11.30, shortly after Helen arrived, the murder happened, likely. No wallets missing. No purses missing. Helen's luggage is all there. Nothing looked like it had been rummaged through. So it's not even like somebody looking for something. The house is not ransacked. Just these two women are clubbed about the head in the bedroom. And that's it. There's no DNA.

[00:09:03] [SPEAKER_00] They've been trying desperately to find DNA on anything. But given it wasn't a sexual assault and given a knife wasn't used, like when a knife is used, maybe the guy cuts himself. Maybe he bleeds a little bit. It's a chance. But if they can't find the murder weapon, they can't find like it. It doesn't lend itself to a lot of DNA. What do you think, Kevin?

[00:09:23] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, I agree. It just doesn't lend itself to the sort of DNA that you would want.

[00:09:29] [SPEAKER_00] They've looked at serial killers. They looked at Tommy Lynn Sells. Do you know anything about him?

[00:09:34] [SPEAKER_01] The name rings a bell. Can you remember me for you?

[00:09:37] [SPEAKER_00] Well, he's a serial killer, but he also confesses to a lot of crimes that he likely did not do. And they looked at him for this one. And they don't really have any indication that he would have been in this part of Maryland. And they don't think there's a lot there. There was a serial killer named Vernon Lee Clark who went after an elderly woman in Baltimore in the 1980s. But they're saying there's not a lot tying him to not only the scene, but Hartford County, where Aberdeen is in general. The Hartford County Sheriff's Office is looking into this.

[00:10:06] [SPEAKER_00] It sounds like they got a really dedicated detective named Patrick Ross on this. If you have information about this case, he can be contacted at 443-409-3555. Call him. I think I just find this so perplexing. What do you think, Kevin? When you see something like this, I'm asking you to speculate. And I recognize that. And we don't like to speculate too much.

[00:10:35] [SPEAKER_00] But, like, why would somebody do this? What's the motive here as far as what I've just described to you? I really want to know what you think because I'm so baffled here.

[00:10:44] [SPEAKER_01] There's no discernible motive that I can see. Sometimes life is just random and crazy. It's entirely possible that it's a crazy person or a serial killer. It's also possible that maybe there is a motive for it that we just don't know and we can't see and that we wouldn't be able to see until such a time as an arrest is made or someone is convicted. You see cases like this all the time.

[00:11:13] [SPEAKER_01] I was just looking at a couple of them that I was considering to include in this week's cheat sheet. Like, there was a case where a guy was driving somewhere and he's, like, meeting his family or friends somewhere. And along the way, they find that his car is stopped. The keys are still in the car. The car is running. And he is deceased outside of his car. What happened? What's the motive?

[00:11:37] [SPEAKER_00] Was he murdered?

[00:11:38] [SPEAKER_01] He was murdered. He was dead.

[00:11:40] [SPEAKER_00] Well, I mean, you can die of an accident. How was he murdered?

[00:11:43] [SPEAKER_01] He was, I believe he was shot.

[00:11:45] [SPEAKER_00] Oh, man.

[00:11:46] [SPEAKER_01] So.

[00:11:47] [SPEAKER_00] Road rage?

[00:11:48] [SPEAKER_01] Who knows? So a lot of these cases, it's just hard to understand what the reason is when we have so.

[00:11:55] [SPEAKER_00] Well, I'll give you a scenario because, I mean, like, what I wanted, like, was a scenario. My scenario is some psycho broke in and did this randomly, like, just a really messed up, freaky person. Which, again, I think that sort of thing is the rarer type of thing. Like, usually it would be more like a sexual predator or something. But this is just somebody who wanted to inflict destruction and pain and picked on some older ladies.

[00:12:20] [SPEAKER_00] And I would want to know, did any of the neighbors have any younger male relatives who were off? Who read as off to other people? Like, people want to be polite. They don't want to judge other people. But sometimes, especially with young men, if somebody's off, that might be a pretty big, I mean, I would say, like, you should listen to your instincts instead of trying to be polite. Right. Honestly, you don't have to be mean to people because they know it just be different.

[00:12:49] [SPEAKER_00] Right. But like, at the same time, you don't necessarily, like, need to guilt yourself into letting your guard down with somebody who's giving you a really bad vibe. But yeah, I'd want to know, like, did any of the neighbors have because they're saying this is kind of like an off the beaten path neighborhood. It's not like where like a passing serial killer would go. I'd want to know, did anyone in the neighborhood have a nephew, a grandson, a son who was not right?

[00:13:16] [SPEAKER_00] And came across as not right to other people because that would be who I'd be looking at in this situation. If they don't have any like enemies, if there's no family drama, it sounds like it just seems like this was just a normal situation for everybody. And certainly after all this time investigating, they haven't uncovered anything about the family of like dark secrets where, OK, we need to get rid of them for the inheritance.

[00:13:39] [SPEAKER_00] It doesn't really sound like that to me. It sounds like also if it was a family member, why would they need to smash their way in? They would just, hey, we're here to talk to you about something. You know, I mean, it I think probably like a stranger to them, but somebody who had some kind of link in the community. That would be my guess. But I don't know. I really wish them the best of luck with this because this is horrible. It's a horrible crime. It's horrible. These folks still don't have answers. I mean, they still have family living and they don't know what happened.

[00:14:08] [SPEAKER_00] And it's really horrible that there's a limit to the evidence just by the nature of the crime. It stinks. So hopefully, I mean, I don't know if you know anyone from Aberdeen, maybe try to send this to them. Send them this NBC article. Maybe try to get people talking. Does anyone remember anybody who just gave them the creeps? Might be nothing. But I don't know. They don't have a lot to go on.

[00:14:35] [SPEAKER_00] So I don't know. Maybe maybe if there's someone that stood out in a negative way, that might be something that would be helpful for them to know about. We love looking good and saving money. So we love our wonderful sponsor, Quince. The clothes they make are comfortable, affordable, and they don't go out of style. They're those wardrobe staples you'll reach for again and again. We certainly do.

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[00:17:50] [SPEAKER_00] So the other case I did was for North Dakota. Another listener asked us, very sweet listener, thank you for listening to us, both of these lovely listeners. And my source was KTIV as well as two obituaries. And this is so heartbreaking. I was reading these obituaries and trying not to tear up, honestly, because what happened here was so unnecessary and horrible.

[00:18:15] [SPEAKER_00] So October 2nd, 2026, pretty recently, two men, police say, were allegedly doing street racing in Mandan in North Dakota. And what this listener who's from the area said was, like, this is a close-knit community. Like, people know each other. It's like, they're tight, you know. And it sounds like a really nice community.

[00:18:44] [SPEAKER_00] So these street racers were allegedly reaching speeds of, like, 90 miles an hour on the local roads, which is just insane, obviously. They ended up, they're going westbound down Main Avenue West. This is a Friday. There's been crash analysis done. There's been surveillance footage. They're well over the speed limit. They're trying to use the median to get around other people, other drivers.

[00:19:12] [SPEAKER_00] Their names are, they're both 19, Cameron Schessler and Sydney Seidel. Well, Schessler is driving an Infiniti, and there was a Chevy Equinox turning onto Center Street. He's going, the Infiniti's going, like, 88 miles an hour, and it slams into the Chevy Equinox. And as a result of that crash, he kills 16-year-old Taylor Fisher and her boyfriend, 17-year-old Benjamin.

[00:19:42] [SPEAKER_00] They were the two passengers. There was a 15-year-old driving who survived this crash. And Schessler was seriously injured. His vehicle ended up in a car dealership parking lot as a result of this crash. And Seidel and his passenger stopped to assist him. Here's a detail that should really, when I read it, I was just incensed. Seidel had a four-month-old passenger in the backseat, a four-month-old baby,

[00:20:11] [SPEAKER_00] while he was street racing his pal, who then slammed into two innocent kids and killed him. So, yeah. Now, there's been some court reporting done by KTIV, where they talked about, the prosecutor said both of these drivers have had high-speed citations in Bismarck, North Dakota. Schessler was driving 25 miles over the speed limit. This was less than a month before this crash.

[00:20:39] [SPEAKER_00] Seidel was pulled over for driving 35 miles an hour over the speed limit. This is the day before the crash. The amount of red flags around these guys, I personally feel sometimes that in the United States of America, this is a neutral assessment. In many places outside of big cities, we're very car-dependent. Would you say, Kevin?

[00:21:05] [SPEAKER_01] Definitely.

[00:21:06] [SPEAKER_00] Where we live, we're very car-dependent. Like, we can't easily walk to a lot of things. We need our car to go there. And maybe because of that, maybe because of other cultural things, I don't know, I sometimes feel like there's almost this, like, oh, you killed someone with your car? That's not as bad as, like, shooting them. And I kind of get that from the sense of, like, shooting somebody is, like, so violent and, like, you're purposely doing something and whatever. But, like, when you're operating a car,

[00:21:35] [SPEAKER_00] it's like a big murder machine if you want it to be. Like, you could easily kill people with it. And when you're street racing for no reason, I mean, there's no reason to do that.

[00:21:47] [SPEAKER_01] There's no reason.

[00:21:47] [SPEAKER_00] You have a baby. You could kill people. And they did. And I hope, I, like, you know, speeding, no one needs to be speeding 35 miles over the speed limit. I mean, we all make mistakes. We all speed, or at least I do. I've certainly sped. But, like, it just seems like these guys were taking time bombs with something like this. Just reckless and just antisocial. This is antisocial. Mugging someone is antisocial.

[00:22:16] [SPEAKER_00] This is also antisocial. Like, this should be in the same category. Like, you are taking, you're okay with killing other people if you're doing stuff like this. And, like, that is how it should be seen. So right now, so, Schessler's now facing two counts of manslaughter, two counts of reckless endangerment, and two counts of aggravated reckless driving. And now these are children. These are teenagers. They're minors.

[00:22:43] [SPEAKER_00] So, the manslaughter would have a mandatory minimum requirement that he'd have to serve 85% of his sentence and register as an offender against children. So, he's facing a $100,000 bond. Seidel, his defense team is saying, well, he has full-time job and local ties and then also turned himself in. But he's, so he got a lesser bond of $20,000.

[00:23:11] [SPEAKER_00] He's facing reckless endangerment, child neglect, and reckless driving charges. And they are not allowed to contact the victim's families or the 15-year-old survivor. So, yeah. And any else suicidal cannot be in touch with his infant child, who I guess was the four-month-old in the back seat while he was racing around, allegedly. I mean, listen, innocent until proven guilty. Maybe, maybe we got, maybe the police got it wrong and they weren't really racing

[00:23:41] [SPEAKER_00] and this is all just some tragic accident and it wasn't their fault. But like, if they were racing around together, then that is so, just horrifying. So, Taylor and Ben, the two victims here, again, I mentioned they were dating their boyfriend-girlfriend. And, you know, I know this, my understanding from our listeners that there's some talk about setting up some kind of memorial or scholarship in their names to basically memorialize them.

[00:24:11] [SPEAKER_00] And I think that's a wonderful idea. But, yeah. The accident occurred on October 2nd. Ben died on October 5th. So, it was the result of those injuries, which is horrifying. So, he like really fought for his life and tried to hang on, it sounds like. But, unfortunately, it was too great of an impact. His, you know, his services took place. I know there was, he was at the St. Joseph Catholic Church in Menden. And, I think there was also some kind of joint

[00:24:41] [SPEAKER_00] thing between the two of them. You know, like, their obituaries just made me cry because it's like, you know, I don't know, first of all, like, they seem so young to me. Like, he was born in 2009. I'm like, what? There's teenagers who were born in 2009? Like, when I was in ninth grade? That seems totally impossible. But, he sounds like a really great kid. He loved to be outside. He loved playing hockey. He loved his family. He was very much a guy who was making everybody laugh. And, his family felt that Taylor was his soulmate

[00:25:10] [SPEAKER_00] and they really meshed well together. They loved to go to McDonald's and drink shakes and listen to music and just drive around the country. And, you know, he loved his dog. Like, he just sounds like a great kid. They said, I'm going to read this quote from the obituary. We truly believe Ben was an angel put here on Earth by God to help people. Unfortunately, all his tasks on Earth must be complete. So, God called him home to be with him. That just breaks my heart. I feel so.

[00:25:37] [SPEAKER_01] It's very sad. It's very sad.

[00:25:38] [SPEAKER_00] It's awful. I mean, this just shouldn't have happened. And, you know, he has parents, his parents, he has a brother, he has a sister, his grandparents. He had a very large extended family who loved him. And, they thanked the physicians at Sanford ICU and the nurses and all the folks who tried to help him and, yeah. they have a Benjamin Mock memorial fund that they set up and I'll try to link to that.

[00:26:08] [SPEAKER_00] And then, Taylor Rebecca Fisher, she was 16, also from Mandan, and she died on October 2nd, the day of the crash. It talked about how she was very creative from an early age, like, loved playing with Legos and, like, building stuff and figuring stuff out. she was a tennis player, she was on the honor roll, she was in a lot of advanced classes, very smart, very talented, she was a dancer on the Just for Kicks dance team. They won in 2026, first place,

[00:26:37] [SPEAKER_00] at the Together We Dance competition. She was very playful and she could be kind of silly or a bit mischievous and a very fierce friend, you know, very much loved her family, loved hanging out with them, doing various things with them, and she also had parents and a brother and sister and nephews who loved her, grandparents, just, yeah. She, they had a joint mass of Christian burial for both of them on Monday,

[00:27:07] [SPEAKER_00] October 12th. So, I, from what this listener says, this community is absolutely reeling over this. It makes me so sad for their families that they don't get to see them anymore because possibly if it's proven in court, other people made a really bad, selfish decision to use the streets for entertainment instead of being responsible drivers. Like, sometimes accidents do happen

[00:27:36] [SPEAKER_00] and nobody's to blame, but street racing has no place in any sort of, like, civilized, like, society. And it, if you want to do something, I'm sure there's, like, courses or tracks somewhere where you can mess around. I don't know. Like, go on a roller coaster. Why do people need to do that? I mean, that's just not fair to anybody else on the street. Any of us could die like this because some other idiot makes a bad call.

[00:28:05] [SPEAKER_00] And that's what's so scary. And it just sounds like it just took away two really brilliant kids and my heart goes out to them, their families, and the 15-year-old who survived. So, yeah, that's what's happening in North Dakota. It's horrible.

[00:28:18] [SPEAKER_01] It's terrible. It's terrible. Well, I'm happy to say that in the two cases I'm covering this week, no one dies. So, first one is out of California. My source for this is FoxLA.com. So, apparently in two 15-year-old girls who were students at Corona High School decided it would be

[00:28:47] [SPEAKER_01] a good idea to do a mass shooting and they made their plans for this mass shooting at least partially through online messages they exchanged. These messages detailed plot and included things like lists of who they want to kill, ideas for how weapons they should use, things of that nature. it is thought that revenge

[00:29:16] [SPEAKER_01] of some sort may have been a motive behind this. This plot was discovered because the social media platform Meta, which I always still think of as Facebook, flagged some communications between the two girls and sent that information to the FBI who then sent it to the police department. They did their own investigation, learned more things, and these

[00:29:46] [SPEAKER_01] two girls were arrested at their homes and now facing charges of conspiracy to commit murder. So, thank God, first of all, that this was stopped before it happened, but one detail that kind of jumped out at me is the fact that Meta flagged these messages and then sent them to law enforcement. I think I was well

[00:30:16] [SPEAKER_01] aware that in the course of an investigation, if people in law enforcement have reason to believe that certain messages exist, they will often file legal paperwork in order to get those messages from Meta or from other platforms. I'm not sure I'd heard of Meta doing their own screening and just sharing those messages with law enforcement on their own. Had you heard of anything like that, Anya?

[00:30:45] [SPEAKER_00] Not really. I mean, the closest thing has been, I think sometimes they're able to identify specific images of child sexual abuse materials or CSAM and then they can almost preemptively tell when a certain image is being shared and then they can flag that. So that's the closest thing I've heard.

[00:31:05] [SPEAKER_01] But that's something I would be interested in more information on. How closely is Facebook or other platforms examining messages we send to one another? What criteria do they use in deciding which, if any, of these messages are then shared with law enforcement? That's something I would be very interested in learning more about it. I think

[00:31:35] [SPEAKER_01] the whole way that the tech companies use our private information is something that is not really fully understood or appreciated. Certainly, I think we're all aware that they use some things in our messages, I think, in order to target advertisements towards us. They certainly target algorithms

[00:32:04] [SPEAKER_01] towards us. I'd be more interested in learning more about this because, obviously, I'm happy these 15 year old girls were stopped before they were able to carry out this plot, but I am just curious about how they use our private information. What do you think, Anya?

[00:32:25] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, I mean, I'm glad that's kind of the most important thing to me is that they stopped it. I would like to know more of that in general, outside of the story. You and I have talked about that feeling like sometimes Facebook's spying on you or Google's spying on you. It's very uncomfortable and I feel like as a non-tech person, I don't really understand what the limits are and what is being, you know, I assume as someone who's kind of cynical, I guess, at this

[00:32:55] [SPEAKER_00] point, like that everything's being monitored and tracked a little bit. But at the same time, like in this case, like this is this or like a terrorist plot or like something like that or someone's going to murder somebody. I would want it to be like if there's different, I would just also want to know like are there like phrases or things that are happening that are ticking things off? But I guess if they share that, they might be kind of less useful, honestly. So I don't know. I don't trust these tech companies anyway.

[00:33:26] [SPEAKER_00] But in this case, I'm glad, you know, you're going to spy on people, I guess, like definitely stop mass shootings.

[00:33:33] [SPEAKER_01] I just want more information about what criteria they use. Are they just searching for certain words? How is this done?

[00:33:43] [SPEAKER_00] Did they say what the revenge was about?

[00:33:46] [SPEAKER_01] This has just happened very recently. So reporting is still ongoing. I'll quote from this article, quote, while revenge is considered a primary motive, officials have not confirmed whether the suspects experienced specific personal grievances, school incidents, or active bullying prior to the investigation.

[00:34:09] [SPEAKER_00] This whole narrative about like, oh, the bullied kids are the ones who become the school shooters needs to die a sudden and abrupt death. It's based on myths from Columbine. It's nonsense.

[00:34:21] [SPEAKER_01] It also says here, quote, it's unconfirmed whether meta flagged the activity through automated message monitoring or via user reports. I would be less concerned about the privacy elements if it was through user reports. If, in other words, these 15-year-old girls were posting these messages and sharing these messages not just between each other, but to other people who saw it and became concerned. That's less

[00:34:50] [SPEAKER_01] of an issue for me than if Facebook or Meta is just trawling through all of our messages looking for certain things or terms.

[00:35:02] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. Yeah, fair.

[00:35:04] [SPEAKER_01] But, the best news, of course, is that it was stopped and that no lives were lost. it's amazing to me that there's teenagers out there who think even for a moment this is a good idea. A lot of them are in a cult.

[00:35:25] [SPEAKER_00] A lot of them are in a straight-up cult where they worship past school shooters and that's why the media's role in this has been so disappointing and disastrous. When you're talking about suicide, you usually try not in the media. It's a social contagion. You don't want to like describing graphic detail how people kill themselves because then it might inspire others to do the same. And school shootings are the exact same thing. You're basically giving really disturbed, messed up people a template to get a lot of attention

[00:35:55] [SPEAKER_00] at the end of their lives. And that's why it's important when you can to not name people, not read manifestos. We don't need to know whatever stupid justification these losers have. Ignore them. That's how you cover a mass shooting at this point. But I still think there's way too much play by play.

[00:36:24] [SPEAKER_00] I get it. I want to know. I'm morbid and weird and I want to know about what happened. But at the same time, it glorifies them. We can talk about guns, we can talk about mental health, but I think the glorification of this is a big reason why they have a

[00:37:09] [SPEAKER_00] whole conversation. Especially I think it really started with Columbine getting the coverage that it did and the myths that arose around it.

[00:37:18] [SPEAKER_01] So I want to move on to a case out of the great state of Colorado. Isn't that the Mile High State?

[00:37:26] [SPEAKER_00] It is.

[00:37:28] [SPEAKER_01] The Mile High I don't know.

[00:37:29] [SPEAKER_00] I guess sounds like that sounds right. You're

[00:37:31] [SPEAKER_01] very agreeable. That's a new on you and I certainly applaud it. you mean it's

[00:37:35] [SPEAKER_00] not a new I'm a very

[00:37:41] [SPEAKER_01] common. It's interesting that you think so. So the source for this is CPR.org which I'm guessing stands for Colorado Public Radio. So we talk a lot about how prosecutors have to often weigh the difficult decision this person should be incarcerated because they're guilty of a crime. Their freedom should be taken away. It's interesting to me to look at circumstances

[00:38:11] [SPEAKER_01] where prosecutors weigh the opposite decision and conclude here's a person who's done enough time and despite what a sentence is they should be given a break. This is the story of a prosecutor named Steve Abram who back in 2013 prosecuted a man I apologize I couldn't find a pronunciation for his name so I'm guessing Tavon Williams

[00:38:39] [SPEAKER_01] when he was 19 years old he robbed a radio shack with a co-defendant and if that's not bad enough he robbed this radio shack at gunpoint and he held an employee of the radio shack hostage during a standoff so this is clearly a terrible crime

[00:39:09] [SPEAKER_01] sometimes we look at things and say oh thank god someone wasn't killed but just the fact that someone is not killed doesn't minimize the trauma that the survivors go through I imagine if I was held at gunpoint in a situation like that it would be incredibly traumatic and something I would have a hard time getting past so I don't know this employee's story or how they reacted to that but I

[00:39:39] [SPEAKER_01] think that is worth keeping front and center and so the prosecutor at the time Mr. Abram he took the position this is very serious not only that but Mr. Williams had an extensive juvenile criminal history these things are aggravating factors and so this young man was sentenced to 30 years in prison

[00:40:09] [SPEAKER_01] and it would not be eligible for parole until 2034 and Mr. made a comment or rather Mr. Abrams the prosecutor made a comment to Mr. Williams that maybe by the time you get out your inclination to commit violence your inclination to rob people will be out of your system and you won't be a threat to others so we

[00:40:39] [SPEAKER_01] hear many cases where people go to prison and are either unchanged or become worse sometimes we hear of cases where people get straightened out and that appears to be what happened here mr. Williams goes to prison and he is thinking about it and he's observing people and he's realizing he made

[00:41:09] [SPEAKER_01] some mistakes in his life quite obviously and he wants to change he starts reading lots of books he tries to develop new habits and so then in august of 2023 he just out of the blue sends a packet of material to mr. abram the man who prosecuted him this includes

[00:41:37] [SPEAKER_01] a quote from this article it contained quote 70 pages of certificates lists of accomplishments and other things Williams had done while incarcerated he included a 12 month re-entry plan and future plans for life if he got released he also included a letter to the prosecutor in which he wrote quote i'm not the same person who walked into that courtroom all those years ago i have worked and worked tirelessly to shed the vestiges of my

[00:42:07] [SPEAKER_01] past to dismantle the mindset that led me astray and to replace it or expecting anything from sending this material to the prosecutor he just wanted him to know and i imagine prosecutors and judges are well aware that people in the system who want early

[00:42:37] [SPEAKER_01] parole or to be released early they know what people want to hear so you have to be cynical about a lot of this you

[00:42:49] [SPEAKER_00] do

[00:42:49] [SPEAKER_01] but this packet of information took the prosecutor by surprise he says quote in all my time of doing this work which is approaching 25 years i've never been presented with something so incredibly remarkable by the time he'd reached out to me he had done so much work in his life so the prosecutor after getting all of this he wonders if maybe this guy should be released earlier than he is

[00:43:19] [SPEAKER_01] sentenced to so one thing he does is he reached out to the victim in the crime he reached out to a conviction review and he then reaches out to Mr. Williams and writes him and to make a long story short he concludes I want to give this guy a chance so he encourages Mr. Williams to get a lawyer and

[00:43:49] [SPEAKER_01] then they work out a way yet they had to jump through some hoops to make it happen but they jumped through the hoops and Mr. Tavon Williams ends up being released about five or six years earlier I guess he was released this year and he wasn't eligible until 2030 2034 so he's released early he's out now he's got a job he's trying to help other people he's self published a couple of

[00:44:18] [SPEAKER_01] children's books encouraging kids to learn about the bad side of life and how to deal with bad things and he's trying to work with youth with Denver's handgun intervention program and such and at least to this point it feels like all is going well when I was trying to figure out how to pronounce this gentleman's name I always go on YouTube and see if somebody else has that name

[00:44:48] [SPEAKER_01] and I found this guy has his own YouTube channel where he says inspirational things and is trying to help people so every once in a while it's good to have a nice story and hopefully this continues to work out for all involved what are your thoughts if Annie

[00:45:06] [SPEAKER_00] listen as I always am really skeptical about these stories right because people can be very manipulative to get what they want but when you describe the process that everybody went through in this what the what Mr. Williams kind of his growth him trying to share that growth with the prosecutor the prosecutor actually doing the due diligence to talk to different experts and not only that but most importantly the victim in this the hostage

[00:45:36] [SPEAKER_00] the person this man this clerk who was taken hostage and it was in fear for his life I also understand from reading up on the case you know one of the insights the clerk had was not only that he was absolutely okay with an early release for this gentleman but that he felt that Mr. Williams during the actual hostage taking and robbery had been more kind and compassionate to him in the scope of

[00:46:05] [SPEAKER_00] things than the co-defendant had who had been more aggressive towards the hostage I think there was even talk of Williams apologizing to the hostage like while this was going on so like it feels like everything was done very above board here like when I see something like we're letting this guy go because he's nice now and then I don't see anything about what the victim thinks about it my hackles go up but when I see the victim's okay with it they feel like there is some nuance here

[00:46:35] [SPEAKER_00] he was 19 when it happened he's worked on himself he's worked on acknowledging harm done that's exactly what we should want for every person who commits this kind of crime because I think the acknowledgement of harm done working on yourself thinking about your goals releasing yourself from whatever mindset got you into trouble in the first place God bless this man it seems like he's doing everything right and I wish him the best and I hope it works out for him and I hope that

[00:47:05] [SPEAKER_00] not only that but Mr. Williams is able to help other people who might be struggling in life as young people avoid similar mistakes if he's doing all that that's a real benefit to any community where there might be kids who are like I want

[00:47:49] [SPEAKER_00] to I know people can change you do have to look at yourself and be like what are you doing and it sounds like this guy did that so God bless

[00:48:20] [SPEAKER_00] can help us be cynical but not like bitter is like is someone acknowledging harm done and if you're acknowledging harm done that doesn't erase the harm it doesn't erase this guy's trauma from being taken hostage but it's a step to indicate that perhaps now you have more empathy and compassion and you're not going to do something similar and might have something really to contribute to society and when there's a case like this and no one died even though it was

[00:48:50] [SPEAKER_00] very serious and someone very much could have died I think the rehabilitation and reintroduction to the community should be the goal and this man from what we've read is a model for that

[00:49:06] [SPEAKER_01] I'll admit I'm cynical and often when I hear these instances where a person claims to be changed my mind goes back to something that I think is well before your time Anya the writer Norman Mailer I'm going to really oversimplify this but he becomes acquainted with a guy named Jack Abbott who's imprisoned

[00:49:36] [SPEAKER_01] for violent crimes and he thinks gosh this Abbott guy he writes really well and he even helps Abbott get a book published and the fact that the guy seems to write well seems to make him think well maybe he should be

[00:49:50] [SPEAKER_00] morally good

[00:49:51] [SPEAKER_01] so he supports this guy's bid to be paroled he he paroled and going to start his new life because he is a changed reformed man and then a few months later he kills somebody so I my mind goes to things like that but we can't let things like that blind us to possibilities of good

[00:50:12] [SPEAKER_00] I agree also Norman Mailer himself almost killed somebody so I mean he you know he stabbed his wife with a pen knife Adele Morales so yeah maybe someone like that was just attracted to other predators frankly

[00:50:29] [SPEAKER_01] but in this

[00:50:31] [SPEAKER_00] case it's like I mean in this case it's I think you have to we should want prison to be a place of rehabilitation it's not but like if someone can make it work for them in that way then that should be something to celebrate you know not blindly but certainly to encourage and support we can't just say throw people away forever now actually I do say that for some people for sexual predators throw them away forever we don't need them but for someone who's 19

[00:51:00] [SPEAKER_00] robbed a store it got out of control made a lot of bad decisions traumatized somebody all that's very serious needs to be taken seriously but that person if they rehabilitate can actually probably do a lot more good living their life a free person talking to others about those mistakes and helping them avoid them than they would in a cell

[00:51:22] [SPEAKER_01] so let's wrap up and wish everybody a happy weekend and then walk merrily off the stage hand in hand

[00:51:30] [SPEAKER_00] aww that's cute

[00:51:31] [SPEAKER_01] wrap it up

[00:51:33] [SPEAKER_00] thanks everybody bye bye

[00:51:34] [SPEAKER_01] thanks so much for listening to the murder sheet if you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover please email us at murdersheet at gmail dot com if you have actionable information about an unsolved crime please report it to the appropriate authorities if

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