The Cheat Sheet: Robberies and Romantic Rivalries

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[00:02:45] Content warning. This episode includes discussion of murder.

[00:02:49] Today on the murder sheet, we're going to be covering some new cases. One is from Texas.

[00:02:55] Another is from California. One from North Carolina, as well as one that is basically

[00:03:03] in Colorado, but also touches upon some Indiana issues. So we're going to be taking you around

[00:03:08] the country as usual in this episode of the cheat sheet. And oh, can't forget New York,

[00:03:15] because that's where I'm from. And that's the one I left off. But here we go. We're going to

[00:03:20] get into it on the cheat sheet today. My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist.

[00:03:25] And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney. And this is the murder sheet.

[00:03:29] We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting,

[00:03:33] interviews and deep dives into murder cases. We're the murder sheet.

[00:03:38] And this is the cheat sheet, robberies and romantic rivals.

[00:04:27] Let's start down in Houston, Texas, with another gas station murder.

[00:04:33] You really have been finding a lot of gas station murders in Houston, Texas, specifically recently.

[00:04:38] It seems odd, and especially because a lot of these gas station murders are murders that

[00:04:46] were not meant to be murders. They were like accidents or misunderstandings. We did the one

[00:04:52] a few weeks ago where a person was faking a robbery at a Houston gas station so he could

[00:05:00] help somebody else stay in the country. Yeah, immigration fraud.

[00:05:03] A bizarre scheme. Well, I think that tells you people have guns and probably these people

[00:05:09] should not because they're not being responsible about them. And then bad things are happening at

[00:05:13] gas stations in Houston specifically. Yeah. And I find it fascinating,

[00:05:18] the number of these murders that just don't need to happen.

[00:05:20] Let's just be clear, though. We're not doing like a smiley face murders on.

[00:05:25] These are not connected. This is this is just a trend we're noticing. This is not it's not even

[00:05:29] a trend. We're not mathematicians. We can't say if it's a trend or not, but it's just something

[00:05:33] that peculiar we found. We're not saying these are linked. I feel in true crime. There is a

[00:05:38] disease that goes around that encourages people to link stuff that are unlikely to be actually linked.

[00:05:44] And I just want to say you scared me to death because all of a sudden your face went white.

[00:05:48] You started waving your arms. I didn't know if you were I just I just imagined like if I were

[00:05:52] listening, I'd be like, wait, are these are these gas station murders connected? And I just wanted

[00:05:57] to put the kibosh on that. I'm always worried we're going to say the wrong thing and then

[00:06:02] people are going to be like, I just imagine some unfortunate listener in the basement with like a

[00:06:08] big murder board with all of it's all linked to the yarn, the classic detective looking over

[00:06:13] everything. That's not what we're saying. We're just and somehow serial would have to be involved

[00:06:16] serial there. They're eating a bowl of Cocoa Puffs. They're just going nuts.

[00:06:21] So the source for this particular one is ABC 13 dot com. It's a gas station murder, as we say,

[00:06:29] already said that from Houston, Texas. In this in this case, the person charged with the murder

[00:06:37] is a man named Richard Taplin. He is at a gas station and it. He's with apparently his sister.

[00:06:49] OK, sister is a person named Sarah Taplin, and there is some sort of an argument that breaks

[00:06:57] out between Sarah and another female who I believe has not been publicly identified. It's not even

[00:07:06] clear if Sarah and this woman even knew each other. So as a result of this argument, Richard

[00:07:16] Taplin takes a firearm from somebody nearby who I guess just happens to have one, and he points it

[00:07:25] at this woman who is arguing with his sister and he starts firing. He starts firing his weapon at her.

[00:07:34] She runs away. She runs, I guess, across the street. Richard keeps on firing and it's somehow

[00:07:44] in the course of all of this, I imagine there's some chaos. Other people may be running around.

[00:07:51] He actually ends up hitting and killing a person and the person he hits and kills is his own sister.

[00:07:57] Oh, that's awful. Geez.

[00:07:59] And this is the person he was, I imagine in his mind, he was trying to protect because

[00:08:06] she was getting into a fight with somebody. And so things just spiraled out of control.

[00:08:11] That's just tragic. It's like you, God, I mean, my heart goes out to people involved

[00:08:17] in that situation. That's a really horrific outcome for anything. But it shows you,

[00:08:25] unfortunately, when you have some kind of situation that's spiraling out of control,

[00:08:32] adding a gun to that in some instances, maybe that saves the day. Maybe you're able to defend

[00:08:37] somebody who's innocent or defuse the situation, but oftentimes it might just make things worse.

[00:08:43] Yes. And we keep on finding these cases where people kill someone and it's like they didn't

[00:08:52] wake up that morning intending to kill someone. Arguably, even at the time they were firing the

[00:08:58] gun, they didn't intend to kill someone. And this man certainly, I imagine, did not intend to kill

[00:09:04] his sister. This whole thing started out as some sort of misguided attempt, I imagine, to protect

[00:09:10] her. And I think it's a matter too of like, I think those cases where people didn't set out

[00:09:16] to kill anybody haunt me in a way because it's like people's lives just get ruined by whatever's

[00:09:23] going on, whatever chaos happens. And then they make a bad choice, they make the wrong choice,

[00:09:27] they make a choice that just leads to an accident and it all is destroyed. I think it's easier

[00:09:33] almost when you are dealing with somebody, a killer who's going out to do something bad,

[00:09:38] because you could just say, well, this is a... You could put them in the bad person category.

[00:09:42] And when it becomes more complex than that, it's hard.

[00:09:45] Someone like a Ted Bundy, the famous cliched name, he intends to kill people. He is an evil person.

[00:09:53] I know nothing about the man in this case other than what I've just shared with you all,

[00:09:58] but quite possibly he's just a decent guy. He got upset at something going on with his sister

[00:10:04] and things got out of hand. And certainly in our lives, there are times we get upset about things

[00:10:10] and maybe it's a good thing you and I don't have guns.

[00:10:12] 05.50 Yeah, I tend to agree. I think it's not something that's always going to be a good...

[00:10:21] Oftentimes it can just make a situation more tragic.

[00:10:25] 06.01 Do you want to do one of the cases you found?

[00:10:27] 06.02 Yeah, I would. Let's talk about a very tragic situation that happened recently in

[00:10:31] North Carolina, specifically the Charlotte area. So a group of law enforcement officers,

[00:10:38] specifically people with the U.S. Marshals Task Force, as well as the Charlotte-Mecklenburg

[00:10:43] Police Department went to serve a warrant on Monday at 1.30 and it was for a man named Terry

[00:10:52] Clark Hughes Jr., who was 39, and he was wanted for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon

[00:11:00] to counts of fleeing to a loot as well. So this is somebody who the law deems should not have a gun

[00:11:06] and there's a warrant associated with that. So these law enforcement officers are going there to

[00:11:12] deal with it. As they approached the house, Hughes came out and shot several officers with a high

[00:11:20] powered rifle hitting them and then officers responded by shooting Hughes dead on the front

[00:11:26] yard. And then what happens next is a little bit unclear. Initial reports say that a second shooter

[00:11:35] in the house also opened up, hitting some of the officers who came in to help the first group of

[00:11:42] officers that have been hit. I don't know what, you know, I'm sure there'll be an investigation,

[00:11:47] obviously. I don't know what's going to be borne out. It's my understanding that there's not another

[00:11:53] charge that's been handed down at this point, although we should say we're recording this now

[00:11:57] and it may be published later. So possible we'll need to do some updates coming in the times coming.

[00:12:03] But basically the upshot of this is that there was a three hour standoff, 17 year old and a woman,

[00:12:10] a grown woman, were inside this house and eventually taken out and questioned after the

[00:12:14] house was breached. In total, eight officers were shot, four with the U.S. Marshals Task Force,

[00:12:21] four with the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department, and four officers died. So this

[00:12:26] is a large group of law enforcement officers dying in this incident. One was a man named

[00:12:36] Joshua Eyer. He died in the hospital later on. He was a Charlotte Mecklenburg police officer.

[00:12:44] Two members of this task force were both employed by the state's Department of Adult Correction,

[00:12:51] and that was Alden Elliott and Sam Palach. And then the last was a U.S. Marshal Service agent

[00:13:00] named Thomas Weeks Jr. So this is a pretty serious and disturbing instance of multiple

[00:13:09] law enforcement officers getting gunned down while doing their jobs. It's obviously incredibly

[00:13:12] tragic. My sources for that were the Associated Press, USA Today, and Fox 35 Orlando.

[00:13:21] And it's just very sad. My heart's go out to their families and their colleagues.

[00:13:26] People get up in the morning, you kiss them goodbye, they go to work, they don't come home.

[00:13:31] Yeah, it's really and it's really just it's just tragic.

[00:13:36] Yeah. It's a it's a horrifying situation.

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[00:16:28] your cases? Speaking of horrifying situations, I got this from the New York Daily News,

[00:16:34] and this is a case from Yerdnik of the Woods. It's actually from an area called West Babylon.

[00:16:41] Are you familiar with that? Yeah, yeah, I am. Where is West Babylon? West Babylon is in Suffolk

[00:16:48] County, New York, I believe. Yeah. Have you been there? I mean, I don't know if I've been there.

[00:16:54] I don't think I've, I mean, I may have driven through there. I don't know if I've spent any

[00:16:59] time there. But I always like the name, kind of a fun name, right? Babylon. It's like a historical

[00:17:05] name. It's kind of, it sounds kind of intense. But I mean, I've spent some time out in Suffolk

[00:17:10] County in Long Island. So I'm just kind of, some of those names you just see when you're driving by,

[00:17:16] even if you're not spending a lot of time specifically there. To me, it's a name that

[00:17:21] suggests like decadence. It does suggest decadence. I don't, I'm sure there's some very nice people

[00:17:26] there, and they're not decadent at all. They're just... Well, I mean, just historically, when you

[00:17:30] use that name in other contexts. There's an entertaining book that I cannot recommend,

[00:17:37] because it is largely fictitious. But it's a book called Hollywood Babylon. And it's like a

[00:17:43] collection of just awful sordid gossip about Hollywood. Very entertaining reading, very little

[00:17:50] of it is true. So that's the sort of thing that comes to my mind when I think about Babylon.

[00:17:56] Well, if you've ever been in New York City, or if you've ever been to the beaches,

[00:18:00] if you've been to Jones Beach Island on Long Island and Fire Island, I think the overall town

[00:18:07] of Babylon incorporates some of those areas. But West Babylon...

[00:18:12] Let me ask you this. Have I been to Jones Beach?

[00:18:14] No.

[00:18:15] Because we lived in New York for a while.

[00:18:17] We did.

[00:18:18] You took me to a beach once.

[00:18:18] I did take you to a beach. I don't believe it was Jones Beach. I actually don't remember what

[00:18:22] beach it was. I just remember it was kind of hard to get to.

[00:18:29] Yeah, let's not get into that. We don't need to relive that.

[00:18:32] And I don't want to talk about, oh, we had such a bad experience when this experience is a lot

[00:18:36] worse. This is a case involving dismembered body parts...

[00:18:42] That's horrifying.

[00:18:43] ...that were left spread throughout a park in a wooded area in West Babylon and elsewhere.

[00:18:53] The people charged with committing this crime are Jeffrey Mackey and Alexis Nieves.

[00:18:59] They pled not guilty, but these victims, according to authorities, were acquaintances

[00:19:09] of Mackey and Nieves. And Mackey is accused of stabbing both the victims repeatedly.

[00:19:19] And then Nieves helped dismember them in a bathroom.

[00:19:27] And the DA, Raymond Tierney, said,

[00:19:29] I don't think there was a whole lot of thought before the dismembering.

[00:19:33] And he called that whole business not smart, which is one of many adjectives you could apply

[00:19:40] to killing someone and then dismembering their bodies.

[00:19:44] Fair.

[00:19:46] It's a horrifying crime. And it's not entirely clear what the motive could have been.

[00:19:54] They all basically, my understanding is, they live together. And Nieves and Mackey,

[00:20:03] I believe that there's two victims in the case.

[00:20:06] And there was also some political stuff going on here.

[00:20:11] We often hear in true crime, we hear cases where someone is not charged as quickly as we might like

[00:20:19] or this or that might happen. And we're inclined to maybe complain, but maybe we complain on

[00:20:25] message boards or Facebook and not much really comes of it. But in this case, somebody who

[00:20:31] complained was actually the governor of New York, Kathy Hochul. Because earlier, before the charges

[00:20:40] were filed against these two, they were actually placed into custody and charged with hindering

[00:20:52] prosecution. And then they were let go. And the governor, Governor Hochul said, quote,

[00:20:58] the DA should have done a more thorough investigation, brought murder charges or

[00:21:01] conspiracy charges to commit murder. And she wanted those charges to happen before the couple

[00:21:07] would let go. And the DA wasn't really happy with that criticism. He indicated the governor was

[00:21:16] either deceitful or completely clueless about how the justice system works.

[00:21:22] So why did the governor put her hand on the scale here? Do we know? Do we have a guess? Why?

[00:21:32] I'm sure just somebody asked her about it, and she wanted to say whatever was the popular thing

[00:21:36] to say. And also, in fairness, if you or I aren't super familiar with the details of a case and

[00:21:44] something happens that we don't understand, we might express frustration about it.

[00:21:48] Yeah, we might riff. That's interesting.

[00:21:51] Maybe as a governor, though, you shouldn't be commenting on ongoing criminal cases.

[00:21:56] I wouldn't think that's a good idea. I would think that that's a bad idea.

[00:22:01] Wasn't there some situation? Am I making this up? And if so, I apologize.

[00:22:05] Are you going to say something about Manson and Nixon?

[00:22:06] Yes. Manson and Nixon.

[00:22:08] Isn't this romantic?

[00:22:10] We think the same.

[00:22:13] Because I was thinking that, too. Tell us the Richard and Nixon.

[00:22:17] What an odd couple that is. Richard Nixon and Charles Manson.

[00:22:20] They're going to team up. No, that would be bad. Yeah, no, I don't know the details exactly.

[00:22:25] The gist of it, as I recall, and as I start talking about it, I see you frantically going

[00:22:29] to the Google poll. So correct me if my memory is wrong, and this is just the big picture.

[00:22:36] Nixon, during the course of the trial of Charles Manson, he makes some sort of public comment that

[00:22:44] he believes Manson should be convicted. He said Manson was a crook. And yes,

[00:22:51] he basically, this almost caused a mistrial. Because then there was a banner headline,

[00:22:56] as I recall, quoting Nixon saying something awful about Manson. And so Manson at some point in the

[00:23:02] trial has this newspaper and he holds up the front page in sight of the jury.

[00:23:08] That's exactly what happened. The headline screamed,

[00:23:11] Manson guilty, Nixon declares. So he's holding this up in front of the jury.

[00:23:16] How impressive that we both remember this story.

[00:23:19] Isn't that funny? I was like, this reminds me of Richard Nixon.

[00:23:22] And you were thinking the same thing, apparently.

[00:23:25] Isn't it romantic?

[00:23:26] Isn't it romantic? But yeah, so I think when you have something like that, and listen, I mean,

[00:23:34] not that you have to hand it to Richard Nixon, but that was years and years ago. But you would

[00:23:38] think a modern day politician would remember that and be like, ooh, don't want to be in that

[00:23:45] situation. Don't even want to be near it. And I don't understand why she commented because

[00:23:50] it's a horrifying crime. It's horrific. It's disgusting. I could understand why it's

[00:23:54] provoking outrage. I could understand why for the families of the victims here or the people in

[00:24:02] the community that it's outrageous. It just seems a little bit early. Like I could see if they got

[00:24:06] acquitted or if like they permanently dropped charges and nothing else was going to happen.

[00:24:10] I could see weighing in, maybe you want to kind of get the tough on crime crowd going,

[00:24:15] but you or maybe you just feel passionately about it. I can understand that, but it just

[00:24:20] seems a little bit odd for her to be kind of getting into this, just given that there is

[00:24:25] a precedent for like high profile politicians probably should be discouraged from sounding

[00:24:30] off on true crime. Probably should not be asking, you know, Biden on the podcast anytime soon to,

[00:24:37] hey, what do you think about this ongoing thing? Because that's a way for things to get complicated

[00:24:43] pretty quickly. And let's be honest, it doesn't really matter what your politics are.

[00:24:51] In the long run, it doesn't matter what Nixon thought about Charles Manson.

[00:24:55] What mattered is what the evidence and facts showed. And Nixon, I'm pretty sure that at this

[00:25:01] time he had a pretty important job that probably kept him busy. But I wasn't like reading up on

[00:25:05] like the reports. Yeah. So leave it up to the jury. I have a question. Would Nixon be a good

[00:25:11] true crime podcaster? Okay. You know what? I'm going to put you on the spot. What's the name

[00:25:19] of Richard Nixon's true crime podcast? No, don't do that. How dare you do that?

[00:25:25] What about like Nixed with Nixon? See, she did it folks.

[00:25:29] Cause like Nix, like you're like ending something, maybe somebody's life. I don't know.

[00:25:37] I think you'd probably make a lot of enemies. I'm sure he'd make a list of them.

[00:25:42] Yeah, exactly. He'd accidentally play bloopers where he's saying horrible things about everybody.

[00:25:52] So yeah, there you go. Didn't you tell me the other day, we were talking about Nixon the other

[00:25:57] day, not about Manson. Didn't you make the comment that you thought Nixon's Watergate

[00:26:02] tapes were like the original podcast? No, I did not say that. Oh my God. But yeah,

[00:26:08] he definitely had problems with audio. So maybe not.

[00:26:13] Then he'd be a great podcaster because don't we all?

[00:26:15] Don't we all? Haven't we all? No.

[00:26:17] And in case anybody is still listening,

[00:26:19] just talking about Nixon just drive people away in droves.

[00:26:22] We did a whole episode on the assassination of James Garfield. So I mean,

[00:26:26] people are used to us being weird nerds. I mean, I would hope at this point,

[00:26:31] if anyone's out there who's like, I thought these guys were cool, articulate and on point.

[00:26:37] I'm sorry, but I think those people don't exist anymore.

[00:26:42] We're talking to people who are familiar with us right now.

[00:26:45] We've talked a lot about the JFK assassination on that day, Nixon woke up in Dallas, Texas.

[00:26:51] Oh my God.

[00:26:52] Which is the site of the assassination. Now with that, let's move on to your next case.

[00:26:55] Let's do it. So my next case is one that has attracted actually considerable

[00:27:03] press over time, but it is still ongoing. And my sources for this were the Indianapolis Star,

[00:27:10] the Colorado Springs Gazette and Colorado Public Radio.

[00:27:14] So on 2020, in 2020 on Mother's Day, a woman living in Colorado named Suzanne Morphew went

[00:27:22] missing. She went missing on some sort of bicycle ride and she was not found for a very long time.

[00:27:31] Now, Suzanne and her husband Barry moved from the town of Alexandria, Indiana, which is up near

[00:27:37] Muncie to Colorado. So there's an Indiana connection. This has gotten considerable

[00:27:42] press here in Indiana. So we hear about it. And I think it's gotten some considerable national

[00:27:47] press too, because this woman mysteriously vanishes. What happened? Well, Colorado authorities

[00:27:53] felt that her husband, Barry Morphew killed her. He was arrested in 2021. He was charged with his

[00:27:59] wife's death, but there was a wrinkle. Her body was not found. And after a series of legal

[00:28:06] wranglings with the court, charges against him were dismissed in April 2022. My reading on some

[00:28:13] of that was that it was almost like they felt like they needed to get the body to get anything

[00:28:18] rolling in terms of a conviction. Yeah, that was my... I believe the prosecution did some things

[00:28:23] where the judge was like, you know, this ain't it. So to boil it down, the legal term, this ain't

[00:28:29] it, I'm sure was definitely... And it's important to remember if the prosecutors feel they don't

[00:28:33] have enough to prove their case, they have an obligation to drop the charges. Prosecutor,

[00:28:40] it's misconduct to do otherwise. And there is also a very cold and pragmatic reason to do that,

[00:28:47] because if you think you've charged someone and if you believe that person is guilty,

[00:28:51] you certainly don't want to try them before you get all the evidence, because if they get acquitted,

[00:28:56] you've lost your chance. You have one shot. You need to hold your fire until you think you're

[00:29:01] going to... I'm not super familiar with this case, so I'm not taking any position on whether or not

[00:29:05] Mr. Morphew is guilty of the crime. No, neither am I. I would need to look into this case pretty

[00:29:10] extensively in order to have a hard opinion. It seems like a lot of people do suspect Barry

[00:29:14] Morphew, including the prosecutors in this case. But I mean, if they didn't have enough evidence to

[00:29:20] hold on to him, then, you know... And I mean, to be blunt, any time a spouse is killed,

[00:29:26] the other spouse is suspect number one. Yeah. And as it should be given the prevalence of

[00:29:30] domestic violence. And we all know what marriage is like. Why are you looking at me like that, Kevin?

[00:29:39] And it's really, I mean, it's unfortunate, but the people who are closest to us in life are

[00:29:45] going to be almost always the ones who pose the most risk to us. And that's a fact. It's easy to

[00:29:51] be afraid of strangers. It's easy to be afraid of the unknown. That's understandable. I'm not out

[00:29:57] here encouraging people to hitchhike and trust strangers with your life or whatnot. You shouldn't.

[00:30:02] But I think sometimes in true crime, there's a kind of an unspoken thing where it's more

[00:30:10] interesting to talk about like a serial killer who's attacking strangers.

[00:30:14] And I think it's important to emphasize that, you know, domestic violence being what it is,

[00:30:21] you have to be very much focused on people who are in the victim's life as well. And also,

[00:30:28] I should add, if you or someone you know is dealing with a domestic violence situation

[00:30:32] and you're in the United States, call the hotline 800-799-7233. You can get help there.

[00:30:40] They can help guide you on how to deal with whatever you are going through or, you know,

[00:30:43] whatever situation you are sort of an observer to. So let's go back to the Suzanne Morphew case,

[00:30:49] because there was a pretty big break not too long ago where Suzanne Morphew's body was actually

[00:30:57] found. So that's a pretty big deal where it felt like maybe the lack of remains hindered

[00:31:07] the prosecution, but then she was discovered and she was found in a place called Sewatche

[00:31:12] County in Colorado. Sort of sounds like kind of a rural area. So just recently,

[00:31:20] her autopsy was completed. Her death was ruled a homicide according to the Colorado Bureau of

[00:31:26] Investigation. And the coroner found some interesting things in the toxicology report

[00:31:31] for Mrs. Morphew. What did they find? I'm going to probably say some of

[00:31:37] these drugs wrong, but she tested positive for butorphanol. That's a painkiller, as well as

[00:31:46] zaperone, a tranquilizer that can be used on pigs, elephants, and metadomidine,

[00:31:55] which is used to decrease an animal's heart rate, often used at the vet. So these are

[00:32:01] drugs and sedatives and tranquilizers that seem like they might be used on animals. So it's very

[00:32:09] perplexing and disturbing to have them turn up in the toxicology report of a murder victim.

[00:32:15] And what's interesting is that Mr. Morphew, apparently when police searched his gun safe,

[00:32:22] found a tranquilizer dart gun, empty darts, and needles. Now, what authorities did not find were

[00:32:31] the tranquilizer chemicals that I described just now in his house. And his explanation for this

[00:32:36] dart gun was that he used to collect deer antlers. And so he didn't want to kill the deer though. So

[00:32:41] he'd hunt with a dart gun and knock the deer out and I guess steal their antlers. So it's weird.

[00:32:49] But I mean, I'm not saying that's weird if you do that and you're not killing the animals,

[00:32:54] you know, good for you. I mean, I don't have anything necessarily against hunting.

[00:32:57] It's just odd that it would turn out that she was seemingly tranquilized and he has that interest.

[00:33:04] Yes.

[00:33:05] But I don't know. I don't know if that's enough to do anything with really,

[00:33:12] unless you can really, you know, have more evidence against him.

[00:33:16] Yeah. It sounds like a tough...

[00:33:18] Well, if you're looking at people who are not Barry Morphew for the murder, you have to look

[00:33:23] at, you know, who was prepared enough to bring a bunch of tranquilizers and sedatives.

[00:33:29] If she was just out on a bicycle ride and she's just intercepted by somebody,

[00:33:33] is someone just carrying that stuff around to like sedate someone and kidnap them? That's

[00:33:39] pretty well prepared.

[00:33:40] Yes.

[00:33:41] So yeah, it's interesting.

[00:33:43] It's interesting.

[00:33:44] Do you have another one?

[00:33:46] I have one more and then we'll call it a weekend.

[00:33:50] Let's go to Oakland to a story that I found in the Mercury News.

[00:33:55] This is reporting on a man named Charles Beale who has been sentenced to 60 years

[00:34:01] for the murder back in 2021 of a 33-year-old man named, apologies for the spelling,

[00:34:08] a 33-year-old man named, apologies if I mispronounce this, Yukono Hall.

[00:34:14] This killing was actually caught on surveillance camera.

[00:34:18] And this is another situation where people are taking matters into their own hands

[00:34:28] instead of contacting police or maybe even, I don't know.

[00:34:33] This is a case where Beale and Hall were both romantically interested in the same woman.

[00:34:44] And Beale had told Hall, don't come to her apartment.

[00:34:50] Don't want you to come to the apartment.

[00:34:52] And there's also something in here to the effect that maybe Beale believed that

[00:35:00] Hall had assaulted the woman earlier.

[00:35:04] Don't know if that's true.

[00:35:05] That's something that's out there.

[00:35:08] So in any case, Hall doesn't listen to Beale's request and he comes to this apartment

[00:35:16] and he is shot in the chest and in the back and is killed.

[00:35:23] Prosecutors called it an execution-style murder.

[00:35:26] So he wasn't like breaking in, was he?

[00:35:29] It doesn't sound like it.

[00:35:31] Okay.

[00:35:33] The most I've heard is, again, there's this thing out there that maybe Beale believed

[00:35:37] that Hall has assaulted the woman in question earlier in the day.

[00:35:42] And if that's the case, if you believe this guy has assaulted this woman and here he is

[00:35:46] again, even though I've told him not to come, maybe call police.

[00:35:51] Yeah.

[00:35:52] Yeah.

[00:35:54] I mean, we've heard horror stories of police agencies in certain areas not taking such

[00:35:59] reports seriously or just being dismissive or whatnot.

[00:36:02] So it's not like it's always a perfect option, but it's certainly better than vigilante justice.

[00:36:07] Yes.

[00:36:08] And we also don't know what the circumstances were here.

[00:36:10] Was this a false accusation?

[00:36:12] Was this a true accusation?

[00:36:14] What was it?

[00:36:15] I mean, it's hard to analyze without knowing more, but it's definitely a situation where

[00:36:22] just up and killing people is usually not the answer.

[00:36:25] Angry people with guns seldom leads to a happy conclusion.

[00:36:30] I agree.

[00:36:32] And again, you pick a lot of these cases where it's just some awful sort of pseudo self-defense

[00:36:41] thing gone wrong where self-defense doesn't really apply.

[00:36:44] But it's a matter of self-defense is a specific, I am defending myself.

[00:36:49] This guy's coming at me with a knife.

[00:36:51] This guy's coming at me with a gun.

[00:36:52] This guy's already beaten, is continuing to beat me after beating me up.

[00:36:58] You need to have there needs to be something going on that it's like your life is in danger.

[00:37:02] It can't be like someone shows up in a location where I don't want them.

[00:37:06] It's on site.

[00:37:07] You know, you can't that's not how it works.

[00:37:10] Yeah, I think it goes back to what you were saying earlier.

[00:37:13] I think I have something really draws me to cases where it's not necessarily evil people.

[00:37:19] It's just maybe people who get angry and make mistakes.

[00:37:23] Which is like, let's be honest, probably most homicides.

[00:37:26] Yeah.

[00:37:27] Or maybe not most, but at least a good size of them.

[00:37:32] And he shot also in the back that seems to indicate he's fleeing.

[00:37:36] Yeah.

[00:37:36] Doesn't pose a threat.

[00:37:38] Yeah.

[00:37:39] But I mean, I guess do people do people not understand that?

[00:37:42] I mean, is there is there like like I almost are some of these people thinking,

[00:37:46] oh, it's self-defense because I felt threatened because of his presence.

[00:37:49] And it's like, it has to be more than that.

[00:37:52] Now, there are exceptions.

[00:37:53] If some guy shows up in your house and is like broken in to get there.

[00:37:59] That's a different situation than someone in a parking lot.

[00:38:03] It just is, you know?

[00:38:06] I mean, like there's there's different nuances that can push something over the edge

[00:38:10] into a justified homicide as far as the law is concerned.

[00:38:15] But but there needs to be something.

[00:38:17] It can't just be like, I don't want this person here right now.

[00:38:23] So I guess on that sad note.

[00:38:29] Yeah, we'll wrap it up.

[00:38:29] So happy weekend, everybody.

[00:38:31] Happy weekend.

[00:38:32] So when are we releasing this thing, Kevin?

[00:38:34] Our production schedule is all messed up because.

[00:38:40] At least when we're recording this, the trial is still scheduled to begin on May 3rd.

[00:38:46] And by the trial, you obviously mean the Delphi trial.

[00:38:49] And we want to be in a situation where we have shows in the can ready to go.

[00:38:53] And this is going to be released, I believe, on the Friday before that.

[00:38:58] And we might be spending the Friday before that kind of decompressing

[00:39:02] or trying to get mentally in the right headspace.

[00:39:04] So we wanted to have this episode done and ready.

[00:39:07] So I believe the Friday before the Monday.

[00:39:13] What?

[00:39:15] So we're recording this like a week and a half before it's released.

[00:39:19] So we do apologize if there's anything, any updates that we miss.

[00:39:22] But just be gentle, be gentle with us, please.

[00:39:26] And have a good weekend.

[00:39:27] And maybe the next time you hear our voices,

[00:39:30] we'll be telling you about voir dire in the Delphi case.

[00:39:33] Or maybe by the time you hear this, the trial has already been postponed.

[00:39:38] The future holds many wonders, I'm sure.

[00:39:42] All right.

[00:39:42] Well, thanks, everybody.

[00:39:43] Thanks, everybody.

[00:39:44] Bye.

[00:39:49] Thanks so much for listening to The Murder Sheet.

[00:39:52] If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover,

[00:39:56] please email us at murdersheet at gmail dot com.

[00:40:01] If you have actionable information about an unsolved crime,

[00:40:05] please report it to the appropriate authorities.

[00:40:10] If you're interested in joining our Patreon,

[00:40:12] that's available at www.patreon.com slash murdersheet.

[00:40:20] If you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests,

[00:40:23] you can do so at www.buymeacoffee.com slash murdersheet.

[00:40:30] We very much appreciate any support.

[00:40:33] Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee,

[00:40:36] who composed the music for The Murder Sheet

[00:40:38] and who you can find on the web at kevintg.com.

[00:40:43] If you're looking to talk with other listeners about a case we've covered,

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[00:40:59] but we ask for patience as we often receive a lot of messages.

[00:41:04] Thanks again for listening.

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