The Cheat Sheet: Drops and Duplicities

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[00:01:48] Warning, this episode contains discussion of sexual abuse and murder, including the murder

[00:01:55] of children.

[00:01:56] Today on the Murder Sheet we'll be talking about four different cases that we've never

[00:02:01] spoken about before.

[00:02:03] Two occurred in Great Lakes states, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.

[00:02:09] And they have some bizarre similarities actually.

[00:02:14] And then the other two occurred out west in California and Texas.

[00:02:18] So we'll be discussing all of these various cases and telling you about them and what

[00:02:24] we found out.

[00:02:25] My name is Anya Kane.

[00:02:27] I'm a journalist.

[00:02:28] And I'm Kevin Greenlee.

[00:02:29] I'm an attorney.

[00:02:31] And this is the Murder Sheet.

[00:02:32] We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews, and deep dives into

[00:02:37] murder cases.

[00:02:39] We're the Murder Sheet.

[00:02:41] And this is the Cheat Sheet.

[00:03:14] Where do you want to begin?

[00:03:33] Let's begin in Minnesota.

[00:03:35] Now my sources for this story are going to be an excellent story by Paul Walsh for the

[00:03:41] Star Tribune in Minneapolis.

[00:03:43] We're going to link to it in the show notes.

[00:03:46] It's rich on details that we're not going to get into, has interviews with the victim's

[00:03:51] family member, surviving family member, in this case her brother.

[00:03:55] And I also relied upon reporting from the 1970s by both the Estherville Daily News

[00:04:02] and the Des Moines Register.

[00:04:04] And I accessed those on newspapers.com.

[00:04:07] This centers on the murder of Joanne Bonchas.

[00:04:12] She was only 21, but she ran her own beauty salon in Sherburn, Minnesota, lived with her

[00:04:20] parents Boncha J Bonchas and Wilma Bonchas.

[00:04:26] And I mean, I just when I was reading about her, I just thought it was remarkable that

[00:04:29] she was so young and running her own business.

[00:04:32] It sounds like she's a very successful beautician and hairstylist and was very in

[00:04:36] demand.

[00:04:37] So it makes sense.

[00:04:38] But I mean, obviously a very talented young woman.

[00:04:41] But unfortunately in 1975, her story and her life came to a tragic end.

[00:04:47] After a night spent out with friends at the American Legion in Trimount, Minnesota, she

[00:04:53] vanished.

[00:04:54] So she left there around 12 30 AM on Thursday, October 2nd, 1975.

[00:05:02] And her car was subsequently found six miles north of Sherburn along Minnesota Highway

[00:05:08] 4.

[00:05:09] Now the car revealed some pretty disturbing elements.

[00:05:13] Her personal items were still in the car.

[00:05:16] The window on the driver's side was rolled down, pocketbook, coat, keys present and her

[00:05:22] shoes were also off and discarded on the ground outside of her car.

[00:05:28] Tire tracks showed that another vehicle had pulled in front of her.

[00:05:33] Unfortunately the following day, October 3rd, 1975, her family, her friends, they're

[00:05:38] all searching desperately for her.

[00:05:39] But a farmer near a ditch looks into the ditch and sees her partially clothed body.

[00:05:46] She had been shot in the head with a 12 gauge shotgun.

[00:05:51] And that she was found about three and a quarter mile southwest of Trimount.

[00:05:58] So pretty quickly, there were no substantial leads.

[00:06:02] I mean, the Estherville Daily News by October 8th, 1975, just a few days later reports

[00:06:08] that police didn't really have any leads, although they did note that four or five Fairmont

[00:06:12] beauticians had been getting creepy calls from a man around that time.

[00:06:18] And then later October, there's one piece about how residents of her hometown Sherburn

[00:06:23] were basically raising money for a reward.

[00:06:27] So the reason we're talking about this is because it's come up that there was

[00:06:30] a DNA sample collected from the crime scene, from the evidence there.

[00:06:36] Not sure what it is.

[00:06:37] Not sure exactly how good the DNA is or anything like that.

[00:06:41] But Martin County Sheriff, Sheriff Mark Hart, announced that it was going to be sent to

[00:06:47] the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which is a Minnesota state institution.

[00:06:53] And they're going to analyze it.

[00:06:55] And apparently so far according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, people, many other people

[00:07:04] have been ruled out of this DNA.

[00:07:05] So they're hoping that this is the killer.

[00:07:08] And I mean, what's sad is that her entire family other than her brother James has passed

[00:07:14] away.

[00:07:15] So I do hope that this can provide closure to him or at least maybe some semblance of

[00:07:21] answers to him and her friends who remain in the community.

[00:07:25] And just if you happen to have information on what happened to her and what happened

[00:07:31] to Joanne in this case, the Sheriff's Office can be reached at 507-238-3167 and the BCA

[00:07:40] can be reached at 877-996-6222.

[00:07:46] It's really a fascinating time for us all to be alive because with all of the scientific

[00:07:53] advances we are seeing with DNA, it is making it possible to go back and look at these

[00:08:00] old crimes where the perpetrators believe they have gotten away with it.

[00:08:06] And now we can look at it and we can get answers.

[00:08:10] And so if you're someone who committed a violent crime decades ago, don't think you're safe.

[00:08:17] Yeah.

[00:08:18] Have fun sleeping.

[00:08:19] I mean, you should probably have not a good sleep anyway because you did something

[00:08:22] horrible.

[00:08:23] But I mean, certainly I think most of these people are motivated more about their

[00:08:26] own self-interest rather than any sort of guilt.

[00:08:30] And in a lot of cases, by the time the DNA is tested decades later, as you mentioned,

[00:08:37] family members may be deceased.

[00:08:39] In some cases even the suspects are deceased but their names do come out.

[00:08:47] And so we see stories like this in our Google News feed literally every day.

[00:08:55] I got a chill reading about Joanne's case because you know what it reminded me of?

[00:09:00] Donald Forester.

[00:09:01] So Donald Forester was a suspect in the Burger Chef murders.

[00:09:05] He was convicted rapist who was convicted sentenced to 95 years and died in prison.

[00:09:11] And for many reasons, in my opinion, he is not a good Burger Chef suspect at all.

[00:09:17] And if you want more information on that, you can listen to our You Never Can Forget

[00:09:20] series which is about the Burger Chef murders.

[00:09:23] But I do believe that this man was a violent and dare I say evil person.

[00:09:30] And he once abducted a young woman.

[00:09:33] The reason he was in prison for the rest of his life at a certain point is

[00:09:37] because he abducted a young woman.

[00:09:39] He, he and his cousin Dale Dawson stalked her out of a castle to Denny's

[00:09:45] and then followed her in their car.

[00:09:47] She realized they were following her.

[00:09:49] She didn't want to lead them back to her house where she lived and or, you know,

[00:09:54] where she lived, I believe with her sister and brother-in-law.

[00:09:57] And so she tried to evade them.

[00:09:59] But ultimately she kind of pulled over to try to let them go by and they got

[00:10:05] in front of her, pulled alongside her and abducted her from the scene there.

[00:10:10] So just the detail about the car getting in front of her and the fact

[00:10:14] that the window in her in Joanne's car was slightly down like she was talking to

[00:10:19] somebody just gives the impression that maybe some sort of similar abduction

[00:10:24] happened, unfortunately.

[00:10:25] And in the case of Forester's victim is a very smart young woman.

[00:10:30] She was unfortunately raped by Forester while Dawson drove the car.

[00:10:35] And she felt that they were going to take her into a cornfield and murder her.

[00:10:39] So she was able to squeeze out.

[00:10:43] It was like a two door car.

[00:10:44] She was able to squeeze past the seat and jump out of the car while it was moving.

[00:10:50] And she survived the incident and probably saved her own life as well as

[00:10:55] lives of other victims that Dawson and Forester would have gone after subsequently.

[00:11:01] So unfortunately, Joanne's story, she did not survive.

[00:11:04] But it just made me think about that.

[00:11:09] And my next case is another.

[00:11:13] You know, so this is one is in Wisconsin, but it also concerns a beautician

[00:11:18] and a salon owner who was found dead on October 3rd.

[00:11:21] So just to kind of odd parallel there.

[00:11:25] This concerns the murder of Lynn Hernan, a 61 year old woman.

[00:11:31] So she was found dead on October 3rd, 2018.

[00:11:36] And she was like a beloved person.

[00:11:38] She was known to love old movies like The Wizard of Oz.

[00:11:41] She had a passion for helping stray animals.

[00:11:44] And she was originally from Madison, Wisconsin.

[00:11:47] But she was found in her Pawaki condominium.

[00:11:53] And this is all in Waukesha County in Wisconsin.

[00:11:57] And her body had crust medication on it.

[00:12:02] And police see this.

[00:12:04] They arrive because they are called by a woman named Jesse Kershawski.

[00:12:10] Kershawski is the caregiver for Hernan and a friend of hers, you know,

[00:12:16] the families or friends.

[00:12:18] And Kershawski immediately puts out there that Hernan may have committed suicide.

[00:12:25] And police kind of feel like there's something weird about this crime scene,

[00:12:28] like it looks staged.

[00:12:31] And so the coroner does an autopsy and finds tetrahydzoline.

[00:12:38] And that's an ingredient in vising eyedrops.

[00:12:42] So they find that in this woman's system.

[00:12:45] And they confront Kershawski about both the poison and the stage scene.

[00:12:51] And she claims Hernan wanted to die.

[00:12:55] And she kind of confesses to giving Hernan a water bottle that she'd filled

[00:13:02] with six bottles of vising.

[00:13:04] So again, eyedrops, vising, they have ingredients that make your eyes look less red.

[00:13:09] But that also when ingested can can very much, you know, kill somebody.

[00:13:13] But also it comes up on autopsy.

[00:13:17] You know, I mean, we're going to talk about some other cases where this happened,

[00:13:20] but it's not like a it's not like an untraceable thing.

[00:13:24] So I mean, people are using it, but not not very, not very effectively when it comes

[00:13:30] to getting away with murder.

[00:13:32] So Jesse Kershawski is this 39 year old woman.

[00:13:35] She was recently convicted of poison last year.

[00:13:39] She was convicted of poisoning her friend to death and she was sentenced

[00:13:42] to life in prison.

[00:13:45] And prosecutors argued that she had also stolen $200,000 from Hernan.

[00:13:52] And she's told lots of different stories and continues to maintain her innocence.

[00:13:55] But frankly, a lot of guilty people do that.

[00:13:58] So I don't know, it sounds like a pretty open shut case.

[00:14:01] I just wanted to know because I was so struck like people are killing each other

[00:14:05] with eyedrops. The answer is yes.

[00:14:08] So the Herald of Rock Hill, South Carolina in 2020 ran a report on a case

[00:14:14] of Stephen Clinton.

[00:14:16] This is a man also poisoned with vising eyedrops.

[00:14:19] His wife, a nurse named Lana Sue Clayton, claimed to have put vising in his drink.

[00:14:24] She said she only wanted to knock him out because he was abusive.

[00:14:27] Prosecutors say the abuse thing was a lie to gain sympathy and that

[00:14:32] she just wanted to kill him.

[00:14:34] And in another case, a former paramedic named Joshua Hunsucker in

[00:14:40] Gaston County, North Carolina, he apparently may have been inspired

[00:14:44] by the Lana Sue case.

[00:14:46] He apparently may have been inspired by the Lana Sue case in 2018.

[00:14:50] He allegedly poisoned his wife, Stacey Robinson Hunsucker, with vising

[00:14:57] drops in her drink.

[00:14:59] And he was careful.

[00:15:01] He, you know, according to prosecutors, this was, you know, he maintains

[00:15:05] his innocence, but prosecutors say he he tried to cover things up

[00:15:10] by denying her an autopsy by having her remains cremated.

[00:15:15] This fell apart when turned out she was an organ donor and the

[00:15:20] donation center had her blood sample, which tested positive for eyedrop

[00:15:24] chemicals.

[00:15:25] And so that case is still ongoing.

[00:15:28] And then in another case, this was an attempted murder in Rowan County,

[00:15:31] North Carolina.

[00:15:33] This is a man, a woman named Jamie Cruz.

[00:15:39] Her fiance sees her put eyedrops into his Coca-Cola.

[00:15:44] So he grabs their baby, locks them both in the bathroom and calls 911.

[00:15:49] And Jamie Cruz said confessed and said she was inspired by the comedy

[00:15:54] film, A Wedding Crashers.

[00:15:56] And she basically wanted to, you know, get him out of the picture

[00:15:58] and so she could move out and get custody of their daughter.

[00:16:02] And then one more, a woman named Vicki Jo Mills in McConnellsburg,

[00:16:06] Pennsylvania, she dropped vising eyedrops into Thurman Nesbitz drinking

[00:16:11] water.

[00:16:13] Um, you know, since 2009 up until she was caught.

[00:16:18] And then in 2012, the witch had taught Eagle ran an article about

[00:16:23] she basically confessed to it and said that she wanted more attention

[00:16:25] from him.

[00:16:26] So I guess poisoning him was the way to go.

[00:16:29] He did not die.

[00:16:31] I mean, isn't this wild?

[00:16:33] I had no idea that murder by eyedrop was a thing.

[00:16:38] It sounds like something out of a later season, Colombo episode.

[00:16:42] It, but it's like people think they're a Colombo villain where

[00:16:45] they're thinking, well, but they forget that the Colombo villain

[00:16:48] also always gets caught.

[00:16:50] Like people are trying to do this, thinking that this is an

[00:16:53] untraceable way to like pretend like your loved one died of a

[00:16:57] fall or a heart attack.

[00:16:59] And the autopsy, the coroners are able to see this.

[00:17:04] Yeah, if there's a cremation because the organ donor situation.

[00:17:10] And also when you're like demanding that there'd be no autopsy

[00:17:14] and that someone be cremated immediately, that's a bit of a red flag.

[00:17:17] What's more fun than living out your own cozy mystery?

[00:17:20] You know, Kevin and I love to explore real life mysteries.

[00:17:24] Well, sometimes it's a nice break to get immersed in a

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[00:19:18] I mean, I don't know.

[00:19:20] I'm fascinated by this, but I.

[00:19:25] I did learn about another.

[00:19:26] Those are kind of the personal murders, but this is a little bit interesting in

[00:19:31] the 80s and the early 80s in Colorado and California.

[00:19:36] There were a number of poisoned eye drops sold at supermarkets

[00:19:40] and stores in in Glendale, Hollywood, Grand Junction.

[00:19:46] So.

[00:19:48] People were dropping these eye drops, these vizien eye drops and other brands of

[00:19:52] eye drops into their eyes and the bottles had sulfuric acid in them

[00:19:57] and like chlorine and different acids.

[00:19:59] So there was a lot of coverage of that.

[00:20:01] The FBI got involved.

[00:20:02] Some felt that this might be a copycat from the Tylenol murders,

[00:20:06] although they didn't think the cases were directly linked.

[00:20:09] But from what I saw, I didn't see about I didn't see any sort of adjudication

[00:20:13] around this.

[00:20:14] So there might have been some sort of serial eye drop poison or running

[00:20:18] around in the early 80s.

[00:20:19] Nobody died, but it sounds like some people had some damage to their eyes,

[00:20:26] which is horrifying.

[00:20:27] Yeah, that's horrifying.

[00:20:28] I had never heard of that before.

[00:20:29] I certainly knew that after the Tylenol case where cyanide was put

[00:20:35] in some Tylenol capsules back in the early 80s, after that,

[00:20:39] I'm aware there was a bit of a wave of product hampering.

[00:20:43] Yeah, this this seems to be in that category, unclear if the Colorado

[00:20:47] and California cases are linked.

[00:20:49] And there was also a Virginia case, a woman from rest in Virginia named

[00:20:53] Deborah Hill was accused of tampering her own vising eye drops,

[00:20:58] I guess, in order to get attention.

[00:21:01] It's a strange world out there.

[00:21:03] There are a lot of very disturbed people out there.

[00:21:07] And I, you know, I maybe maybe we have a more negative

[00:21:11] view of the world because we work in true crime, but it's most people

[00:21:16] are pretty normal.

[00:21:17] But I think the people who are not can really ruin things for the

[00:21:21] rest of us.

[00:21:23] And also you can think the people around you or the people

[00:21:27] down the block from you are normal people.

[00:21:30] And that's not always the case, which brings me to when the

[00:21:34] cases I wanted to discuss.

[00:21:36] This is a very, very sad and upsetting case out of California.

[00:21:43] And the sources I used for it were Fox L.

[00:21:45] La and ABC seven dot com.

[00:21:51] And one thing that strikes me about this case on you is that

[00:21:56] it feels to me that at every single step along the way,

[00:22:03] the absolute worst decision was made.

[00:22:06] And at every step along the way, the decision was made that

[00:22:10] made things as much made things as bad as possible.

[00:22:15] And then another decision is made, which somehow makes it even worse.

[00:22:20] And it's just like a series of dominoes falling.

[00:22:26] And it ends up in an awful, awful place.

[00:22:30] So I'm talking about the case of a woman named Daniel Johnson,

[00:22:37] who lived in California with a man named Jaylin Cheney.

[00:22:45] Also living with them was Daniel's daughter, nine year old

[00:22:50] from a previous relationship.

[00:22:52] And there was also an infant and it is unclear from the

[00:22:58] press reports that I've seen if that infant was Jaylin's child

[00:23:04] or if that was also from another relationship.

[00:23:09] So what happened begins with neighbors here fighting

[00:23:16] coming from the apartment complex where this couple lives.

[00:23:21] And then at some point, the fighting stops and

[00:23:28] Daniel leaves and she takes with her the nine year old and the infant.

[00:23:35] And at some point subsequent to that around like 3 30, 3 40 in the morning,

[00:23:41] a neighbor sees that the door to Jaylin and Daniel's

[00:23:48] residence is left open.

[00:23:51] And there is blood.

[00:23:52] There is blood clearly, clearly visible.

[00:23:57] Neighbors call police.

[00:23:58] There's a bit of an investigation.

[00:24:00] One of the neighbors is told to go in and he sees a body

[00:24:04] and he confirms that the body is a male and it is someone who is deceased

[00:24:11] and it is Jaylin Cheney.

[00:24:14] So that obviously is the first bad decision because killing someone

[00:24:21] is almost never an answer to any problem.

[00:24:25] It's instead a start of much worse problems.

[00:24:29] And then fleeing with the door open and taking two children with you

[00:24:34] is you try to evade the law.

[00:24:38] That is an awful, awful choice.

[00:24:43] So she is evading the law.

[00:24:45] She's driving down these roads and at some point it's not clear

[00:24:51] if she slows down or what.

[00:24:54] But she forces the nine year old and the infant out of the car

[00:25:00] and it's not clear if she trying to protect them or just trying to get rid of them.

[00:25:05] Who knows? Who knows what's in this woman's mind at this point.

[00:25:10] But the nine year old has the infant in her arms

[00:25:14] is there their forced out of the car.

[00:25:17] And as she at some point during this episode,

[00:25:22] she drops the infant and the infant ends up being struck by a vehicle

[00:25:30] and is killed. And so this is something.

[00:25:34] This is no one can rationally say that this is the fault of that nine year old girl

[00:25:38] for losing her grip on her sibling.

[00:25:41] But this is something this child is going to have to live with

[00:25:46] for the rest of her life.

[00:25:48] This is just horrible.

[00:25:50] It is horrible.

[00:25:52] And then Danielle keeps on on her mad drive

[00:25:58] and she ends up running into a tree at a high rate of speed

[00:26:04] and is killed.

[00:26:06] And so police are calling it at least this moment a suicide.

[00:26:12] So it's just a terrible story, a bad situation gets worse and worse.

[00:26:17] A man is killed.

[00:26:21] A woman is killed.

[00:26:23] An infant is killed.

[00:26:26] A nine year old is now alone in this world

[00:26:30] with some terrible memories that will haunt her for the rest of her life.

[00:26:35] It's a horrible story.

[00:26:37] I really hope that this nine year old has extended family

[00:26:41] or support and that she's.

[00:26:44] Helped to process what happened.

[00:26:47] I mean, what I mean.

[00:26:48] That's an unimaginable tragedy.

[00:26:52] It's a horror and even the neighbors who have to have discovered this awful scene.

[00:26:59] So I it's hard to know where to begin.

[00:27:03] But if you're aware,

[00:27:06] I don't know if this is a domestic violence situation.

[00:27:08] I don't know what led to this death, this killing.

[00:27:12] But.

[00:27:14] We're all in this together.

[00:27:15] And if you happen to be aware of any domestic violence situation going on,

[00:27:20] or if you're in a domestic violence situation yourself,

[00:27:25] get help.

[00:27:26] And I'm not.

[00:27:27] I don't know if this was a domestic violence situation or something.

[00:27:31] It may not have been.

[00:27:31] It may not have been.

[00:27:33] But well, and if it was, it's unclear

[00:27:38] if Jalen was the perpetrator of the violence or if he was a victim.

[00:27:43] Yes.

[00:27:45] My mind goes back to the tragic case of Phil Hartman,

[00:27:49] who was murdered by his wife and some reports indicated he was killed

[00:27:54] while he was trying to protect their kids.

[00:27:57] Was that the.

[00:27:59] Comedian that was a comic actor, Phil Hartman.

[00:28:03] He was on Saturday Night Live.

[00:28:04] He was also on the terrific sitcom news radio.

[00:28:07] That's really tragic.

[00:28:08] And just if you are dealing with domestic violence or anyone you know

[00:28:12] is dealing with domestic violence, the National Domestic Violence Hotline

[00:28:16] in the United States is 800-799-7233.

[00:28:22] And never bring your kids with you as you're trying to evade the law.

[00:28:30] She put these kids in harm's way.

[00:28:33] She put them in harm's way when she decided to kill a man.

[00:28:37] And then she puts them in harm's way again

[00:28:40] when she puts them in the car with her when she is trying to evade capture.

[00:28:46] It was a reckless, horrible choice.

[00:28:49] And when you're a parent, your children should be the most important thing

[00:28:53] in the world to you.

[00:28:55] They should not be someone that you push out of a moving car

[00:29:00] when having them with you becomes inconvenient.

[00:29:03] Although as I say, perhaps she was trying to do that to help them.

[00:29:06] I don't know.

[00:29:06] Yeah, get them out of the car before she crashed it.

[00:29:08] But either way, if the goal is safety, then having eggs in a moving vehicle

[00:29:14] in the middle of the road, you know, is not it's tragedy.

[00:29:21] It's a terrible choice.

[00:29:23] And I really, really hope that nine year old gets the help she needs.

[00:29:28] Is my understanding is that she was

[00:29:33] the daughter of a man, Danielle, was married to and was in the process

[00:29:37] of divorcing. So I hope there's some sort of family there that can help her

[00:29:42] in this awful time.

[00:29:44] But basically everyone she was living with last week, other than herself

[00:29:48] is now dead and dead because of choices made by her mother.

[00:29:55] So it is a terrible, terrible story.

[00:30:00] And with that said, let's move down to a case in Texas.

[00:30:08] My source for this was a story I saw on Fox 26 Houston.

[00:30:14] And one thing about this that occurs to me is when people make laws

[00:30:19] and pass policies, there's all sorts of unintended consequences.

[00:30:27] So immigration law is very complicated.

[00:30:32] Yeah, and I think it's not a very controversial or political statement

[00:30:35] to say that the system seems broken in many ways.

[00:30:38] Yes. So one thing you don't want people to be able to victimize immigrants

[00:30:45] who are then deported and then the people who victimize them can't face

[00:30:50] any repercussions because the witnesses are out of the country.

[00:30:53] That doesn't seem to be a good result.

[00:30:55] And so there is an exemption in the law.

[00:31:00] This says that if an immigrant is the victim of certain types

[00:31:04] of violent crimes, they're allowed to stay in the country at least

[00:31:08] a little bit longer so they can participate in the legal process

[00:31:12] to ensure that the perpetrators are punished.

[00:31:17] But there's an unintended consequence of that is that then people

[00:31:22] are always looking for ways to stay in the country longer.

[00:31:27] So well, maybe let's fake a violent crime and make me a victim of it.

[00:31:33] So I can stay in the country longer.

[00:31:36] And so that's what happened in Houston earlier this year.

[00:31:43] A man named Rashad Scott agreed to fake a robbery where he was

[00:31:53] terrorizing a couple of people who are immigrants to this country.

[00:31:59] And he cooked up the scheme with a man named William X Winfrey.

[00:32:04] So this fake robbery occurs in a public place at a gas station.

[00:32:13] And what happens is that it is witnessed by a bystander named

[00:32:20] Jesus Varga and this bystander not realizing this is a hoax

[00:32:27] and wanting to help the people who seem to be victimized.

[00:32:30] He ends up shooting and killing Rashad Scott.

[00:32:36] And so that is also complicated because Mr.

[00:32:39] Varga has a record and shouldn't even be carrying a gun.

[00:32:46] So it is a crazy situation where people were pulling a hoax

[00:32:53] to stay in the country.

[00:32:55] And it sets off this series of dominoes where a man who made

[00:33:01] a bad decision ends up getting killed.

[00:33:05] And at this moment, they are trying to decide whether or not

[00:33:09] to press charges against Varga.

[00:33:13] But Mr. Scott's accomplice in this scheme, William X Winfrey

[00:33:18] has been charged with murder.

[00:33:20] I just want to say the fact that a 22 year old young man is dead.

[00:33:25] Mr. Scott in this case is an absolute tragedy and just a dismal outcome.

[00:33:30] I don't see how I mean, and it sounds like from your notes

[00:33:35] that Varga did sort of flee the scene afterwards and he's on probation.

[00:33:40] That being said, I don't know how you charged that man.

[00:33:44] I mean, he thought he was intervening in a possibly life

[00:33:47] or death situation for these people.

[00:33:49] He had no way of knowing that they were pulling off the incredibly

[00:33:52] stupid stunt of trying to fake a violent robbery in order to do immigration fraud.

[00:33:59] So I don't see how he's culpable for this.

[00:34:02] I'm sorry.

[00:34:02] Again, I don't think he did the right thing by leaving afterwards.

[00:34:06] But I mean, I human beings are not mind readers.

[00:34:12] You can't go into a situation like that and you see a, you know,

[00:34:15] a violent situation happening and sort of into it that, oh, this person must be.

[00:34:21] It's all in a wink, wink.

[00:34:22] You know, it's not real.

[00:34:24] So I don't feel like punishing him is in the is in service of justice.

[00:34:29] And again, it's an absolute tragedy that Mr. Scott is dead.

[00:34:33] And I'm sure his family members are devastated.

[00:34:35] But he made a decision to be involved in this.

[00:34:38] He did not deserve to die.

[00:34:40] But I don't understand how punishing Varga makes up for this.

[00:34:47] Yes, Scott wasn't intending to actually commit violence or actually harm people.

[00:34:52] It was basically a hoax, a prank.

[00:34:55] It was a hoax.

[00:34:55] It was more of a hoax than a prank.

[00:34:57] A prank is more of like for fun.

[00:34:58] This is more of like to.

[00:35:00] To deceive the government.

[00:35:01] To deceive. Yeah, exactly.

[00:35:02] But yeah, Varga had no way of knowing that.

[00:35:04] But then he shouldn't have been carrying the gun in the first place.

[00:35:07] So.

[00:35:09] Yeah, the family is upset.

[00:35:12] This man Winfrey is being charged because he cooked up the scheme.

[00:35:16] And apparently this isn't the first time they faked robberies in order

[00:35:20] to help people stay in the country longer.

[00:35:22] And I I.

[00:35:25] I would assume that this is I would assume that these people in Texas,

[00:35:31] Mr. Winfrey and Mr. Scott were not the first people in the entire

[00:35:36] country to spot this violent crime loophole and fake crimes.

[00:35:42] Well, it's it's a problem because when the system is so.

[00:35:47] burdensome and convoluted, frankly, that I mean that people can be

[00:35:51] incentivized to do something so stupid, then the system is is part of the

[00:35:57] problem. The system needs to be reformed.

[00:35:59] We need immigration reform in this country so that we're in you have

[00:36:02] unintended consequences because there's a good reason for that loophole.

[00:36:06] But then the loophole kind of creates a map of how to for people who want

[00:36:10] to stay in the country.

[00:36:12] Yeah, I mean, I think I think the I think the you know, the reasoning

[00:36:17] behind that that rule of they can stay if they've been a victim of something

[00:36:21] I think that should remain.

[00:36:22] I don't think removing that is is in the interest of anything either.

[00:36:27] But I just think, you know, when you have a system where it's like,

[00:36:30] OK, we need to game this in a way in order to make it work.

[00:36:34] Then, you know, some something's wrong and it's incentivizing.

[00:36:41] Just not not terribly good behavior in and of itself.

[00:36:47] I don't know that just I mean, it's very sad, but it's also just baffling.

[00:36:53] It's it's it's also a very upsetting case for me, just like the other one was

[00:36:58] because everybody in the case is flawed in some way, but none of them deserve to die.

[00:37:07] Or be dragged into this situation where like, I mean, even the people who are

[00:37:12] the fake robbery victims, I'm sure they were not expecting to see someone

[00:37:17] get shot to death in front of them that day.

[00:37:20] Again, like it's just the most tragic outcome to an already bad situation,

[00:37:26] unfortunately, Zach, include our cases for today.

[00:37:30] Yes. All right.

[00:37:31] Thanks for listening, everyone.

[00:37:33] Thanks so much for listening to the murder sheet.

[00:37:36] If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover,

[00:37:39] please email us at murdersheet at gmail.com.

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[00:38:21] And who you can find on the web at kevintg.com.

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[00:38:46] Thanks again for listening.

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