The Cheat Sheet: Visitations and Vacations

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_02] I'm Anya, and on today's Cheat Sheet, we're going to be talking about two cases out of Washington, D.C., as well as two cases involving mass shootings. Content warning, this episode contains discussion of murder, including the murder of children. It also contains mention of suicide. Also, I will probably be cursing a lot when talking about my second case because I had to read about it today.

[00:00:27] [SPEAKER_02] So, I would find that cathartic. If that's not for you, that's fine. Just skip over that one.

[00:00:33] [SPEAKER_03] We've all been warned.

[00:00:35] [SPEAKER_02] Everyone's been warned.

[00:00:36] [SPEAKER_03] Can I skip over? Can I get out and go out and have a smoke?

[00:00:40] [SPEAKER_00] I'm about to explode.

[00:00:41] [SPEAKER_03] I don't even smoke, but I could have a smoke.

[00:00:44] [SPEAKER_00] You wouldn't, you would probably die immediately if you tried to smoke anything. Yeah. You're a delicate man.

[00:00:53] [SPEAKER_03] I'm nothing if not a highly refined gentleman.

[00:00:57] [SPEAKER_02] You are. You definitely are. You're a little sweetie. I think that's what they say.

[00:01:01] [SPEAKER_03] A bit of a dandy.

[00:01:03] [SPEAKER_00] A bit of a dandy?

[00:01:05] [SPEAKER_03] A clothes horse.

[00:01:06] [SPEAKER_00] Oh, okay. Going in a different direction. Yeah.

[00:01:10] [SPEAKER_03] Why do you call it a clothes horse? I don't think of, generally speaking, I don't think of horses as being unusually well-garmented or attired.

[00:01:19] [SPEAKER_02] You know, I don't know where it comes from. Maybe like parading around in your clothes. The only person I know in life who ever uses the term clothes horse is you. So I feel like I would be asking you.

[00:01:32] [SPEAKER_03] I would be derelict if I didn't point out that sometimes you do see horses wearing like big hats.

[00:01:37] [SPEAKER_01] When?

[00:01:38] [SPEAKER_03] Like to keep the sun off their heads.

[00:01:40] [SPEAKER_01] What?

[00:01:41] [SPEAKER_03] Haven't you seen a horse with a hat?

[00:01:44] [SPEAKER_02] Are you having like sunstroke or something? No, no, no. Have I ever seen a horse in a hat? I don't see a lot of horses because it's 2026 and we live in suburbia. And when I see them, they're usually not wearing hats.

[00:01:57] [SPEAKER_04] Okay.

[00:01:58] [SPEAKER_02] Should we like intervene for Kevin now, folks? Weigh in. Send us an email.

[00:02:05] [SPEAKER_03] Are you looking into this or should I hit the music? I'm looking into it. Do you want me to stop or do you want? No, no. I'm just saying I'm seeing I look up horse hat. I'm seeing pictures of horses and hats.

[00:02:20] [SPEAKER_02] Well, yeah, I guess you, you know, but like you're acting like you're seeing those in daily life. And I think that's what's confusing me.

[00:02:28] [SPEAKER_03] Let's just move on.

[00:02:29] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, let's please. My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist.

[00:02:33] [SPEAKER_03] And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney. And this is The Murder Sheet. We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives into murder cases. We are The Murder Sheet.

[00:02:45] [SPEAKER_01] And this is The Cheat Sheet. Vacation and vilification.

[00:03:34] [SPEAKER_03] And I just wanted to quickly say I've done a little bit of intensive research during the music. Horses do wear hats. They're called ear bonnets or fly veils. And that's interesting. It's quite a coincidence because those are the same terms you use to describe your own hats.

[00:03:50] [SPEAKER_00] No, I don't.

[00:03:51] [SPEAKER_03] You call them fly veils.

[00:03:53] [SPEAKER_00] No, I don't.

[00:03:55] [SPEAKER_03] Or ear bonnets.

[00:03:56] [SPEAKER_00] Folks.

[00:03:58] [SPEAKER_03] Well, I'm having fun. So why don't we.

[00:04:00] [SPEAKER_02] Should we just quit the podcast?

[00:04:03] [SPEAKER_03] So why don't you.

[00:04:04] [SPEAKER_02] Should we just be done at this point? Like, we're coming in to talk about some serious freaking cases. And you're saying that I'm calling my hats horse gear?

[00:04:16] [SPEAKER_03] Ear bonnets or fly veils?

[00:04:18] [SPEAKER_02] And were you saying I look like a horse?

[00:04:20] [SPEAKER_03] No, I'm just making conversation. I'm having fun before we get.

[00:04:24] [SPEAKER_02] Just totally delusional.

[00:04:26] [SPEAKER_03] Before we get into some serious topics.

[00:04:28] [SPEAKER_02] Lost his mind, folks. I don't know what to say. Oh, man. So, all right. So I think we're going to Florida. I think we're going to Florida, Connecticut, and then two trips to Washington, D.C.

[00:04:39] [SPEAKER_03] It's going to be one extended trip to D.C. Oh, excuse me. Remember, I specifically said let's do my two together. So we cut back on the unnecessary travel. You do Florida.

[00:04:52] [SPEAKER_02] So Florida is a case that happened in 2025. I'll go over the initial murder case. And since that case is ongoing, I will be naming the shooter because he has not been convicted at this point. So we'll talk about that. And then we'll talk about the latest developments that have kind of gotten into some interesting legal territory. So in Tallahassee, Florida, there is a school called Florida State University.

[00:05:19] [SPEAKER_02] And there on April 17th, 2025, there was a mass shooting that killed two people and injured six others. And this was near the school's student union building. The shooter was or the accused shooter was 20 year old FSU student Phoenix Eichner. So here's what happened. Here's how that day unraveled, I suppose. So Eichner gets to campus around 11 a.m.

[00:05:50] [SPEAKER_02] And the shots begin. He begins firing shots, allegedly at 1157 a.m. And by noon, he's shot by police and stopped. So only three minutes. But unfortunately, he was able to injure those six and killed two men. 57 year old Robert Morales. Mr. Morales was a longtime dining services employee with FSU.

[00:06:19] [SPEAKER_02] And he was killed in the food court during a meeting. And then the other fatality was 45 year old Tiro Chaba. And he was a father of two. And he was a regional vice president at Aramark Collegiate Hospitality. That is a company that does a lot of like the dining services for a lot of universities. So those two men were senselessly gunned down just at work. And.

[00:06:45] [SPEAKER_02] This guy was shot by police and that stopped him. So obviously a very, very tragic situation. Very senseless situation. And Eichner is kind of a strange background. He is a dual citizen of the United States of America, as well as Norway. And his stepmother was a Leon County sheriff's deputy.

[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_02] And he actually obtained the firearms he used in this shooting from that stepmother, which to me is extremely concerning. If you're a law enforcement officer, I would think that gun safety would be just by the nature of your job and having to deal with the aftermath of what happens when there are accidents or homicides involving guns. Would be something that would be paramount. But he was able to access weapons from her, apparently. So.

[00:07:44] [SPEAKER_02] I. That's shocking to me. And very disturbing. He was actually the subject of a huge illegal battle between his parents because. And his mother, I guess, briefly kidnapped him to Oslo, Norway. Just a bunch of bad stuff. There were filings around him having developmental delays and being special needs, which, you know, they it's been kind of vague in the reporting.

[00:08:13] [SPEAKER_02] I've read everything from mental issues, health issues, growth hormone disorder include as well as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or ADHD. And so, you know, kind of alleging he's troubled. There's also been a bunch of reporting and I'll link to this in my show notes where.

[00:08:32] [SPEAKER_02] He was somebody who became over time known to his peers as being quite far right, white supremacist, homophobic. So someone who's actually really interested in Nazism. You know, red flags. Right. He's he's basically getting very into some pretty extremist politics there. And.

[00:09:01] [SPEAKER_02] So, yeah, so that all happens and they arrest this guy and he is currently facing trial. So. It's. I believe right now the the trial has gotten delayed so far, like it's been moved back, I believe, to. October. Of this year. Um. But. Yeah, I think it's going to be now it's been moved back to October 19th, 2026. Um.

[00:09:32] [SPEAKER_02] And yeah, I mean, this is obviously a horrible, horrible case. I imagine that there'll be. A. Defense that may center around like maybe some of his mental health struggles, behavioral challenges. I don't know. I'm just speculating there. But like that's something that you wouldn't be too surprised about. I'll be curious to see what happens as far as I believe there is perhaps a bit of a civil suit. Um. Uh. Brewing as far as.

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_02] The Leon County Sheriff's Office goes. Mr. Morales's family. I think reached out to them kind of. Like alleging maybe some liability there. Uh. Based on the stepmother being. Possibly irresponsible, according to them, with firearms. And, you know, and what they're saying is, you know, you're saying you're this individual, this young man is possibly mentally unstable. And yet he has easy access to firearms.

[00:10:30] [SPEAKER_02] And you're a sheriff's deputy. So there's there's stuff around that. But the thing that's really gotten a lot of attention recently is that now there is. Essentially, chat GPT. Is involved. So you might be wondering why is a artificial intelligence company somehow involved in all of this wrangling. And chat GPT is is the is the AI service that's was created by the company OpenAI.

[00:10:59] [SPEAKER_02] And it's a chat bot. And what Florida's attorney general James Uthmeyer. Sorry if I'm saying that wrong. What's the thing that's saying? Said at a recent press conference was that. Oh, was that chat GPT actually gave Eichner advice on carrying out the shooting at Florida State University. That it provided him information on ammunition to get.

[00:11:24] [SPEAKER_02] That it gave him a sense of like the best time to strike and gave him advice on this. And what Uthmeyer said at the news conference was, quote. And my source for this one is. Washington Post access via Yahoo. It says, quote, if it was another person on the end of that screen, we would be charging them with murder, end quote.

[00:11:51] [SPEAKER_02] And he subpoenaed OpenAI. There's there's a whole bunch now. OpenAI spokesperson Kate Waters told The Washington Post, quote. Last year's mass shooting at Florida State University was a tragedy. But chat GPT is not responsible for this terrible crime. After learning of the incident, we identified a chat GPT account believed to be associated with the suspect and proactively shared this information with law enforcement. What what she's arguing is that, you know.

[00:12:20] [SPEAKER_02] Information about ammunition and kind of open ended questions. We're going to answer because it could be found anywhere on the Internet. And chat GPT is not encouraging or promoting illegal activity. But we are giving information. And but what Uthmeyer is claiming is that, quote, chat GPT advised the shooter on what time of day would be appropriate for the shooting to interact with more people and where on campus would be the place to encounter a higher population, end quote.

[00:12:48] [SPEAKER_02] So I guess what are your thoughts on this so far that as far as I've described it?

[00:12:55] [SPEAKER_03] It's a complicated situation. Obviously, I'm a big supporter of free speech. This this this this is a challenge because it is correct that a lot of this information is out there is not so personalized and it's not so much giving you personal advice.

[00:13:19] [SPEAKER_03] You could argue that that crosses a line, but you have to also just keep in mind that a lot of information out there has the potential to be either used or misused. And it's difficult to draw lines restricting the flow of information just on a hunch that some people might misuse it.

[00:13:43] [SPEAKER_03] But in this case, I am concerned and think it might be a relevant difference that the chat GPT seems to be giving highly personalized information about how to commit this crime most effectively.

[00:13:57] [SPEAKER_02] That's the thing. You know, I I don't think it's a secret that I've been, you know, outed myself as a as a I would I would say I'm pretty skeptical about a lot of the implications about artificial intelligence, specifically like generative, where I feel like it's has the potential to make a lot of people who are struggling with mental issues a lot worse. And we've seen cases where that seems to have happened.

[00:14:27] [SPEAKER_02] And I also feel like in general, it's also going to make a lot of people become stupider because they're going to be relying on it in a way that they shouldn't. We stay busy with the podcast, so I like my wardrobe to stay comfortable, easy and intentional. Something that I could put on that feels great while also looking super put together when we're going out to court or to an interview.

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[00:16:10] [SPEAKER_02] I view it as something where if people are using it as a tool in some capacity and they recognize its potential for problems or potential for being inaccurate or potential for misuse, I think that's half the battle, and I'm not really as concerned about those people if they're saying, well, this helps me do this, this, and this, and I'm using it for this. If you're being thoughtful about it, I feel like that's, you know, I don't know. I don't have a problem with that. But if people are kind of like relying on it, becoming overly reliant on it, you know,

[00:16:40] [SPEAKER_02] if you're not using those skills, you're losing those skills, in my opinion. And again, I'm skeptical about that. That being said, in this case, I think it's really going to boil down to, in my opinion, about like whether or not, like how specified and how personalized and how coaxing was the information. If he's just looking up like, oh, what ammunition goes with this gun?

[00:17:02] [SPEAKER_02] I don't really see how that could necessarily be put on chat GPT because that's something that you could get just searching on the internet anyway, right?

[00:17:13] [SPEAKER_04] Yes.

[00:17:14] [SPEAKER_02] If it's like, in some ways, it appears to be that chat GPT is almost kind of like aiding and abetting this to a degree that goes beyond that, and it's giving advice, and it's kind of like, here's how you do it, then things might get interesting. And I don't really know where things will fall legally, but certainly that would be something where I would, you know, hope there would be accountability there. If it's more vague than that, I think I have a hard time believing that that would be something that comes down because it just, it's like that's information you could get in other ways.

[00:17:44] [SPEAKER_02] But I think it's the cases where chat GPT is kind of like posing as, you know, like it's basically a machine, but it's kind of posing as a friend or someone giving advice. And we've seen that where it's like, yeah, you're not crazy. Everyone around is trying to kill you. And then the person reacts violently. Like those are the cases where I feel like that there is, at least in my opinion, moral culpability on the part of those companies. If it's more broad than that, I don't know.

[00:18:10] [SPEAKER_02] But I think this is one to watch and we'll have to look and see what the truth ends up, you know, coming out as. And we'll kind of, you know, see if this is another case where there's kind of this murder link to AI as far as, you know, possibly coaxing someone or pushing someone to do that. Obviously, chat GPT is saying that's not what happened here. Florida is saying it is. And I think it'll have to, the facts will have to just come out before I think any of us can really say which one it was.

[00:18:40] [SPEAKER_03] Exactly.

[00:18:42] [SPEAKER_02] So that's Florida.

[00:18:43] [SPEAKER_03] So shall we move on to the District of Columbia?

[00:18:47] [SPEAKER_02] Heck yeah. One of my favorite cities.

[00:18:50] [SPEAKER_03] Yes. And before we get into it, this case involves Catholic University, the grounds of Catholic University. I believe you, Anya Kane, in your younger day spent some time at Catholic University.

[00:19:03] [SPEAKER_02] Not only did I spend some time at Catholic University, this was my metro stop, Brooklyn CUA. I was there all the time. This story freaks me out because I was literally there all the time. I spent a summer internship in D.C. and Catholic University, a lovely campus with a very lovely basilica.

[00:19:26] [SPEAKER_02] It has like, back when I was there, it had like summer housing for, you know, people who might be staying there, you know, to do summer internships. So I stayed there and it was, it was cool. You took me there once. I took you there, yeah. I took you to my old stomping grounds and I just, I had a really good time in D.C. that summer. It was a very, it was a very fun experience. I think it's a great city. I love D.C. and I'm a huge fan.

[00:19:51] [SPEAKER_02] I always, I'm from the New York City area and I always have a profound respect for New York City. But it always felt, even when I was a kid, I was like, this is way, this is way too much. There's too much going on. Like there's way too much happening. It's too big. I respect it. I respect anyone who likes that. But good Lord, I'll always defend New York City to the hilt. You know, like I love them. But I preferred living in D.C.

[00:20:16] [SPEAKER_03] So this case has, I have multiple sources for it, including NBC Washington and DC witness.org. The actual crime itself happened a couple of years ago back on 2023, July 5th to be exact.

[00:20:39] [SPEAKER_03] A 25-year-old guy named Maxwell Emerson comes to D.C. from Kentucky for a teacher's conference. On his way to the teacher's conference, the subway stop he gets off at is the subway stop that Anya mentioned, Brooklyn CUA. And there he encounters a gentleman named Jamie Macedo.

[00:21:06] [SPEAKER_03] Mr. Macedo is armed. Some of their interaction is captured on film. It appears as if he shows Mr. Emerson that he is armed and then forces Mr. Emerson to accompany him. They spend 25 minutes together.

[00:21:29] [SPEAKER_03] During that time, Mr. Emerson sends Mr. Macedo several hundred dollars via Cash App. Mr. Emerson also sends a text to a family member indicating, help, I'm being robbed at gunpoint. After that, there is a struggle for the, there's a, there's a struggle.

[00:21:59] [SPEAKER_03] And, uh, Mr. Emerson ends up dead and Mr. Macedo, uh, flees the scene. So Mr. Macedo ends up getting arrested. He does have a record. Oh, I'm so shocked. Involving some, uh, gun crimes and gun offenses. You don't say. Uh, his claim is it was just a big misunderstanding.

[00:22:24] [SPEAKER_03] He says that, uh, when Mr. Emerson got off the subway and he, he was, he was in town to go to a particular conference, but he gets off at the subway to attend the conference.

[00:22:37] [SPEAKER_03] And then instead of attending the conference, he is so taken and so moved by hearing about Mr. Macedo having some economic and family struggles that Mr. Emerson basically ditches the conference and wants to try to help Mr. Macedo by giving him this money via Cash App. Uh, and then he says, darn it, uh, Mr. Emerson sees that I have a gun.

[00:23:04] [SPEAKER_03] He freaks out, thinks he's being robbed and there was a struggle and he's accidentally shot. That's his story. Uh, I don't find that particularly credible.

[00:23:14] [SPEAKER_02] No, that's not credible at all. That's actually one of the stupidest things I've heard.

[00:23:17] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. Uh, there are some complications to all of this. Uh, for instance, the, when the first detectives on the case ended up being removed from the case, this is detective, uh, Thomas Roy.

[00:23:41] [SPEAKER_03] And he was removed from the case because he was, uh, accused of having sex on the job with a fellow detective and recording it on a phone that had been issued to him by the police, his employer.

[00:23:59] [SPEAKER_02] He's recording porn on his police phone?

[00:24:02] [SPEAKER_03] Yes. Porn of himself with another detective while he's on, he's on duty. Obviously, obviously, this ain't good. No, that's not, that's not the sort of thing you're supposed to do.

[00:24:16] [SPEAKER_02] Oh, isn't it? Yeah. No. Good Lord.

[00:24:19] [SPEAKER_03] And so there's some things involving things like that, but to my way of thinking, that's, as I say, that's bad.

[00:24:27] [SPEAKER_04] Yeah.

[00:24:27] [SPEAKER_03] He should face whatever appropriate consequences there are for that. Yeah. I'm not sure that impacts his investigation of this case. No, I mean, during the time he was on it.

[00:24:38] [SPEAKER_02] Not unless, I mean, like, I mean, if there's a reason for it, then I'm sure, you know, we can hear that out. But I, it's definitely a very bad choice.

[00:24:47] [SPEAKER_03] Yes, it's not, it's not, it's not a smart move. It's not something I would recommend. It's inappropriate. Yes. Yes.

[00:24:53] [SPEAKER_02] It's completely inappropriate.

[00:24:54] [SPEAKER_03] So I'm not defending it at all.

[00:24:56] [SPEAKER_02] I find it gross personally, but I also, um, I mean, it doesn't really impact this investigation unless like this guy was like, you know, going to testify against him in the porn thing. I don't know. What is wrong with people?

[00:25:09] [SPEAKER_03] But it's certainly something that the defense should have access to that information. Yeah. And they should have access if this guy, uh, comes up to testify to say, oh yeah, but isn't it true that you yourself are facing blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You could argue it goes to his credibility. I just want to bring up those things like that floating around in the background of the case.

[00:25:32] [SPEAKER_03] Perhaps that helps explain why the jury in the case, because the trial has happened and it's ongoing, but the jury is deliberating. They're, they're, they're having trouble reaching, uh, a verdict. And while they have been pondering a verdict and trying to figure out, uh, a verdict, they have actually sent to the judge 22 notes.

[00:26:02] [SPEAKER_03] Ah, in one of the notes, uh, they said, quote, we have been trying to come to common ground, but there hasn't been any new progress for two weeks. Uh, a note from a different juror said, quote, well, a significant majority of us strongly believes that the government has not met its burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt to convict the defendant of the first four counts.

[00:26:24] [SPEAKER_01] Wait, what?

[00:26:26] [SPEAKER_03] They're saying a majority of the jury doesn't believe the government has done its job. So they're saying a majority of the jury.

[00:26:34] [SPEAKER_02] When he texted his mom that he was being robbed by this guy.

[00:26:39] [SPEAKER_03] Again, if you buy the story, which I don't buy the story, but if you buy the story, it was a misunderstanding that he kind of freaked out once he noticed the guy was armed. Which if you buy the story.

[00:26:54] [SPEAKER_02] If you're a moron.

[00:26:55] [SPEAKER_03] Didn't happen until much later.

[00:26:57] [SPEAKER_02] That is stupid. This jury is stupid.

[00:27:00] [SPEAKER_03] So they are struggling with that. Most of them seem to want to acquit. Uh, there seems to be some holdouts. Some rational people. Who want to.

[00:27:09] [SPEAKER_02] Mixed in for fun. Well, they should call. It's a mistrial then.

[00:27:12] [SPEAKER_03] The prosecution has said, yes, please judge, go ahead and call a mistrial. Instead. And this is why this case came to my attention because this is, this is very unusual. The, the judge, judge, judge Todd Edelman says, no, let's not have a mistrial. Let's take like a week off.

[00:27:33] [SPEAKER_01] That's what?

[00:27:35] [SPEAKER_03] So like one of the jurors is like traveling out of the country. What? You know, so let's wait. Let's let him have his trip. We comes back. Let's all get together again and see what happens. What? It seems to me, I'm sure everything that happens has probably happened before. Maybe this is a very regular thing in other jurisdictions, but off the top of my head,

[00:27:57] [SPEAKER_03] I can't think of an instance where the deliberations of a jury have been interrupted for an extended period like this. For a vacation?

[00:28:10] [SPEAKER_02] For an international vacation?

[00:28:12] [SPEAKER_03] It's an international trip. I don't know if it's a vacation or a business trip. It's an international trip. I'm certainly aware of instances where the jury is deliberately, it's deliberating. It's Friday night. Let's let's reconvene.

[00:28:25] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, I mean, I've heard of that.

[00:28:27] [SPEAKER_03] But this is like over a week off.

[00:28:30] [SPEAKER_02] That's nuts. A nutty jury and nutty judge. I'm sorry, folks. I'm in a really bad mood right now. And you'll find out why later. Yes. But that mean, like, I don't know, I guess given that maybe the prosecution did mess up the case and didn't do a good job presenting it. And if that's the case, then they got to acquit. It just seems kind of like nutty to believe that.

[00:28:54] [SPEAKER_02] You don't have to check your common sense at the door when you're on a jury and buy some kind of really implausible alternate explanation. Having an alternate explanation does not mean that you have to believe that. Having a decent alternate explanation. Yeah. I mean, if there's two plausible things, I think you have to acquit. But that's not plausible. That's crazy that they're buying that. And it's crazy that the judge doesn't say, like, it's just a mistrial, folks, because it sounds like a mistrial.

[00:29:22] [SPEAKER_02] Aren't they concerned about, like? I don't know. Like, it just seems like.

[00:29:28] [SPEAKER_03] It's very odd. It's very odd. And again, some of the telling points to me is Mr. Emerson was with Mr. Macedo for about half an hour. And the prosecutors argued that during this time, Mr. Emerson knew he was under the control of an armed man.

[00:29:48] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, he was abducted.

[00:29:50] [SPEAKER_03] The defense would have you believe that Mr. Emerson was ditching the conference he came to D.C. to attend just to spend more time.

[00:30:01] [SPEAKER_02] You know, it was help some like criminal who's in and out of the system constantly and constantly doing gum crimes. Yeah, that makes sense.

[00:30:07] [SPEAKER_03] He's ditching everything to help this guy he just met and is also of his own free will sending him three hundred dollars on a cash app.

[00:30:18] [SPEAKER_02] And a total stranger. To a total stranger. Who's armed. Yeah, makes sense.

[00:30:23] [SPEAKER_03] He's 25 years old, you know, in town for a teachers conference. Three hundred dollars is not a small amount of money.

[00:30:30] [SPEAKER_02] You know what? I don't care if people think I'm being mean to this jury. That's stupid. That's a stupid. We have to call what's stupid stupid. That's stupid. The only way that they're not being stupid is if somehow and I have not seen the trial. If the prosecutors are just absolutely botching it, if they're absolutely botching it. Fine. But otherwise, this is stupid. And this is disturbing to me.

[00:30:54] [SPEAKER_02] This guy brutally murdered a tourist after, you know, or a guy who was in town for a conference after, you know, psychologically tormenting him for 25 minutes at gunpoint. That's very obvious that that's what happened. But, you know, but this guy just had such a compelling story. You know, it's great that this, you know, this, you know, contributor to society is going to be let out to do it again. I love that for us. You know, that's wonderful. What comfort to the victim's family.

[00:31:23] [SPEAKER_02] I mean, like, just screw this.

[00:31:25] [SPEAKER_03] So the jury is going to come back on May 4th, which I believe is this Monday.

[00:31:29] [SPEAKER_02] Oh, hopefully they're all rested from their vacays. I mean, please.

[00:31:33] [SPEAKER_03] And we'll see what happens.

[00:31:34] [SPEAKER_02] I mean, just call a mistrial, though. I mean, you know, like, there's nothing wrong with calling a mistrial. It, you know, I don't even get that. I don't think it would be right. I don't think it would be right to not call it, even if it was a one holdout for the stupid position of he's innocent. You know, I mean, like, I think if that person's not changing their mind, then it's a mistrial. You know, like you don't. It seems like playing around with that is kind of dangerous. I don't know. Well. Now we're staying in D.C.

[00:32:05] [SPEAKER_03] Staying in D.C.

[00:32:06] [SPEAKER_02] This better not be another stupid jury story because I don't I don't have the patience for it.

[00:32:10] [SPEAKER_03] It's not. This isn't even technically a case. This is a former FBI Cyber Division deputy. Cynthia Kaiser offered some testimony to a congressional committee. I got this from TechRadar. What I found interesting is there's always a lot of discussion in the true crime space about the concept of felony murder. Can you explain felony murder in a nutshell?

[00:32:37] [SPEAKER_02] I'm not a lawyer. Just a stupid journalist. A felony murder is you're you know, I'm doing a felony and it's inherently it's a type of felony that's inherently dangerous. And someone dies as a result of my actions, even if I'm not the person who actually killed them or I didn't necessarily do anything in order to kill them.

[00:33:00] [SPEAKER_02] The classic, for instance, is like I'm committing a bank robbery with my three friends and friend number two shoots the teller and kills them. I'm the getaway driver. I didn't have anything to do with that decision. I didn't tell the person to shoot them. I wasn't even there. I was in the car. But because I'm participating in this bank robbery and someone died as a result, I'm still guilty if I could be found guilty of felony murder under the law because I have contributed to a dangerous, inherently dangerous felony.

[00:33:30] [SPEAKER_02] And someone has died as a result. Yes. Yes. It's a controversial concept in law.

[00:33:36] [SPEAKER_03] And some people argue that it's really overused.

[00:33:38] [SPEAKER_02] Some people argue that it's overused and it leads to unfair outcomes. There's been situations where somebody might be the trigger man shooting somebody. But then another person that was with them that didn't shoot anybody gets like a harsher sentence. Sometimes people feel like it's overused or, you know, used too broadly by prosecutors.

[00:33:59] [SPEAKER_03] So with all that, I thought this was interesting because this woman, again, former FBI Cyber Division Chief, former FBI Cyber Division Deputy Cynthia Kaiser is actually urging the Department of Justice to use this charge more. And she's using it more specifically.

[00:34:20] [SPEAKER_03] She's urging that it be used in ransomware cases where the ransomware hacking of the ransomware attacks results in death. Because one very valuable target for people who do ransomware is hospitals and healthcare.

[00:34:40] [SPEAKER_03] The thinking is, oh, these people are more prone to do what I want when I do my ransomware attack because the lives could theoretically be at stake. And so that encourages people to do that. But the unfortunate thing is there are actually deaths caused by this.

[00:35:03] [SPEAKER_03] Ms. Kaiser indicated between 2016 and 2021, at least 47 people died as a result of hospital ransomware attacks. And she says that that number has almost certainly gone much higher in the year since then, probably in the hundreds. So this is something that is killing people. And she says we need to take it more seriously.

[00:35:26] [SPEAKER_03] We need to recognize it as felony murder when people do these ransomware attacks on hospitals and it causes death. I'm just curious. What do you think?

[00:35:35] [SPEAKER_02] Oh, I totally agree with her. Absolutely. If you're doing something like that and kill somebody, felony murder.

[00:35:41] [SPEAKER_03] I'm inclined to agree.

[00:35:42] [SPEAKER_02] Completely agree. Here's the caveat.

[00:35:45] [SPEAKER_03] Uh-oh.

[00:35:46] [SPEAKER_02] She says this specific number. I think it would be very, very important before any such charges were brought to really prove that those people dying in the hospital or dying in whatever circumstances they're dying in, that their deaths are actually caused by the ransomware attacks.

[00:36:05] [SPEAKER_02] If you have a situation where, like, this person would have probably died anyway or, you know, like, like, you don't want to get into a situation where it's just like, well, this many people died in the hospital while the attack was going on. So you're responsible for, like, 50 deaths. That's, um, that's dangerous. That's a situation where I don't think that's fair and that that's, um, wrong.

[00:36:27] [SPEAKER_02] But if there is, like, you know, if you can prove the ransomware attack caused X to happen and X killed patient Y and that's all proven, then yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. But you have to, I mean, obviously you'd have to prove it.

[00:36:45] [SPEAKER_03] Yes. Agreed. Now, are you ready to explain why you're so angry? You're the angry young woman of the airwaves.

[00:36:56] [SPEAKER_02] I'm so mad right now, guys. Okay. Here's why I'm mad. My last case that I decided to do because I hate myself and want to be miserable, apparently, is, uh, out of Connecticut. And reading about this made me extremely angry and it just put me in a really bad headspace. And I'm probably going to curse a lot because I've just been, I had to read about this all day and I just got really mad.

[00:37:25] [SPEAKER_02] And I think it's because of some experiences you and I have been through, Kevin, that we've seen this side of true crime and that we continue to see it. And reading about the effect it had on these people broke my heart and made me mad. So, yeah. I guess to start off with, let's talk about December 14th, 2012. That was the day there was a mass shooting in Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Connecticut.

[00:37:54] [SPEAKER_02] There was a 20-year-old shooter who I will not name. He deserves to be forgotten forever. And he shot and killed 26 people. 20 of those people were children between the ages of 6 and 7. 20. 20 babies. And in addition to that, six adult school staff members who were working there to teach these children and to educate.

[00:38:21] [SPEAKER_02] And in addition to that, the shooter fatally shot his mother, who is somebody who seemingly hoarded guns despite her son's deteriorating mental health. So she was his first victim with guns that she collected in her house despite knowing what he was devolving into. So, I'm going to read out the names of those shot here because I think it's important to acknowledge them.

[00:38:50] [SPEAKER_02] The perpetrator's mother was named Nancy. She was 52. Shot in the home. At the school at Sandy Hook, it was Rachel Devino. She was 29, a behavior therapist. Dawn Hawksprin was 47. She was the principal of the school. Ann Marie Murphy, 52, special education teacher. Lauren Rousseau, 30 years old, a teacher. Mary Sherlock was 56, a school psychologist.

[00:39:19] [SPEAKER_02] And Victoria Lee Soto was 27, and she was a teacher. Here are the students. Charlotte Bacon was 6, Daniel Barden was 7, Olivia Engel was 6, Josephine Gay was 7, Dylan Hockley was 6, Madeline Sue was 6, Catherine Hubbard was 6, Chase Kowalski was 7, Jesse Lewis was 6, Anna Marquez Green was 6.

[00:39:44] [SPEAKER_02] James Mattioli was 6, Grace McDonnell was 7, Emily Parker was 6, Jack Pinto was 6, Noah Posner was 6, Caroline Previti was 6, Jessica Ricos was 6, Aviel Richman was 6, Benjamin Wheeler was 6, Allison Wyatt was 6. I apologize if I pronounced anyone's name wrong. I remember this.

[00:40:11] [SPEAKER_02] I actually remember this is one of those cases like I remember where I was when I heard about it. I remember because it was a weird thing. I like I was done with I was my first year in college. I was done with finals before all my friends. And like way before I had any right to be like I just they were all really front loaded. So I I was actually back home in New York in the suburbs of New York and in the suburbs of New York and suburbs of Connecticut, they kind of can have a similar feel to them.

[00:40:38] [SPEAKER_02] And I remember I was literally like I remember hearing about this on the radio in the car while we were driving near. I remember I went through a I went to a K through 12 school. So, you know, it was like very small town and you like kind of couldn't escape the elementary school. Even when you were in high school, you'd see all the elementary kids and their part of the building and like that that spot and whatnot.

[00:41:02] [SPEAKER_02] So I remember just like looking over at my school and being like, oh, my God, like a whole classroom of children have been massacred by a gunman. And just being really devastated by that. I love kids, you know, like I mean, and I think like kids are our future and I think like they should be protected. And obviously tragedies happen with children. Right. We see that with the true crime all the time, unfortunately. But like, you know.

[00:41:32] [SPEAKER_02] Being in a classroom like you think that's that's safe. And it was just a really horrifying thing for them to be so young elementary schoolers. And for what it just was one of the it's one of the worst things that I think I've ever read about. It's just horrible. So there's this underlying tragedy. You know, the shooter was a person who was, you know, just a very disturbed individual.

[00:41:59] [SPEAKER_02] He wrote like an essay advocating for the rights of pedophiles claimed he wasn't a pedophile. But like that's, you know, an interesting thing. Seemingly had a deteriorating mental state, had a lot of hatred for women, had a very nihilistic attitude. Mental health disorders. He had autism spectrum disorder, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, anorexia. And after after a certain point, like he was not being treated for any of these things.

[00:42:29] [SPEAKER_02] And, you know, do any of those things cause this kind of mass violence? No, they're not an explanation at all that lies within that individual. But he was obsessed with mass shootings, Columbine High School, the Norway attack that killed so many people. And just, you know, a lot of his online writings and things like that just reveal a very narcissistic, dark mind.

[00:42:57] [SPEAKER_02] And seemingly one thing that may have triggered this was his mother wanted to move out of the area. And he did not like that change. So he shot her with a .22 caliber Savage Mark II rifle at their home. And then took her Bushmaster XM-15 E2S rifle, as well as 10 magazines of 30 rounds. And got into the school by shooting through a glass panel next to the school's locked doors. I don't, do you remember where, do you remember this happening?

[00:43:27] [SPEAKER_02] I mean, like it was a pretty big news story.

[00:43:29] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, I remember. It was horrifying.

[00:43:32] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, it makes me sick to talk about it, to be honest. So that happened. And most people, most normal people, were anguished over it and so disturbed. Even if you don't have kids, you remember being a kid. The idea of an armed gunman coming into your classroom and killing you and all your friends is just horrifying. But unfortunately, that was not the only reaction to this tragedy.

[00:44:01] [SPEAKER_02] Let's talk about Alex Jones for a minute. When did you first hear about Alex Jones, Kevin?

[00:44:07] [SPEAKER_03] I probably first heard about Alex Jones when you were a very, very young child. Probably either in the late 90s or early 2000s. I've always had an interest in cranks and conspiracy theories for a couple of reasons. Number one is the idiocy of those theories. And most of them are pretty idiotic.

[00:44:37] [SPEAKER_03] Yes. Can be amusing. And secondly, looking at conspiracy theories and figuring out what is wrong with them, either by yourself or by reading critical discussions of those theories. It's a good way to develop critical thinking skills. So I found him as a ridiculous figure, kind of amusing.

[00:45:03] [SPEAKER_02] Kind of a clown.

[00:45:04] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. And this was over 20 years ago.

[00:45:06] [SPEAKER_02] Do you remember what conspiracy theories he was espousing then that attracted your interest?

[00:45:10] [SPEAKER_03] I don't, to tell you. Maybe 9-11 stuff.

[00:45:13] [SPEAKER_02] He's done all of it, right? I mean, he's the kind of, one of the kind of fundamental conspiracy theorist figures in modern day United States history. Certainly one of the most successful at translating those conspiracy theories to a large media platform and a lot of money for him. And a lucrative business. So, you know, I remember, you know, he was kind of a meme, right?

[00:45:38] [SPEAKER_02] Like, I mean, I remember, like, there were, like, people would, like, kind of cut up, like, his videos and, like, post things. And I thought it was funny. Like, I thought he was funny. I thought it, like, funny in the sense that I thought it was, like, amusing to, you know, because I felt like this is really idiotic what he's saying. But there's something funny about the way he's saying it. I remember, like, there was a video of him, like, chasing a guy on the sidewalk, being like, come back here, you coward. And I remember I used to, like, yell that at my dog when we'd be, like, running around the backyard together. So it was like, this is funny. You know, it's a funny thing.

[00:46:09] [SPEAKER_02] What this case reveals is that, you know, you and I and anyone else who kind of just finds this stuff amusing, we were incorrect to treat it like it was just a joke, like it was just meaningless. Because these conspiracy theories, as we're going to learn, have a real impact on real people's lives to an extraordinary degree.

[00:46:37] [SPEAKER_02] And when a misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theory campaign is revving, it can cause untold damage to people, many of whom have already suffered something pretty awful. Maybe the worst thing you can ever suffer, losing a child or losing a loved one in a violent situation.

[00:47:00] [SPEAKER_02] You know, so Alex Jones, it bears noting that he is a person who espouses far right politics. He is very far along the right wing. One thing and his his site was called is called Infowars. So one thing about American politics is that this is generalizing things because I think there is, like, some middle ground or there might be, you know, varying views of this.

[00:47:29] [SPEAKER_02] But in general, the right wing, which is the party would be the Republican Party, tends to be anti-gun control. And the left wing, the Democratic Party, which is center left essentially, is is more pro-gun control. And again, there's different degrees within the party, differences within the parties and, you know, how far people are willing to go with this. But that is just a general generalization.

[00:47:55] [SPEAKER_02] When you had Sandy Hook happen, there was immediately a very big public debate, public push for and then backlash to discussion of gun control. Because it was if if a if a class of elementary schoolers can be massacred and we do nothing. You know, there's no line. Others took the viewpoint of, listen.

[00:48:23] [SPEAKER_02] That's that's not the effective way of dealing with this. There are other things we should do. I don't care where anyone is on the gun control debate. OK, like, I mean, I have my own views. I have my own views. I'm not even going to share them. I have my own views. But if you're if people are looking at the situation and they're saying we need more gun control because this is a horrible tragedy, we need to prevent this. And other people are saying, yes, it's a horrible tragedy. We need to prevent this. But gun control is not going to work or that would infringe our constitutional rights.

[00:48:53] [SPEAKER_02] Right. So we have to do something else. Those are all people that at the end of the day are acknowledging that a horrible, horrible tragedy has happened. And they're having conversations around that in a shared reality, in a shared reality. It's a very heated debate. People on both sides don't like each other or they don't like what the other one's saying or they feel like it's irresponsible or they feel like that you're putting more people in danger or you're not really addressing the root cause or you want to infringe our constitutional rights. It's heated. It's angry.

[00:49:20] [SPEAKER_02] It's it's a tough situation because the stakes couldn't be higher. But they are all ultimately talking about. What happened, which was all of these children were murdered, along with a bunch of their educators. So. Jones doesn't represent any of that. Jones represents coming in and essentially claiming that the whole thing was a false flag operation.

[00:49:50] [SPEAKER_02] Do you want to talk about what a false flag operation is?

[00:49:53] [SPEAKER_03] A false flag operation would be something in which a group arranges for themselves to be attacked. In order to generate sympathy for themselves.

[00:50:10] [SPEAKER_02] So he's his initial kind of statements to this effect on his conspiracy theory propaganda site and Infowars was not that. Oh, gosh, this is a tragedy, but that we shouldn't. This shouldn't be used to enforce to bring about more gun control because that's not going to work or because I don't believe that or I think we have rights. His thing was, no, it was actually perpetrated.

[00:50:34] [SPEAKER_02] Initially, it was I think it was that it was perpetrated by these, you know, deep state people who want gun control. Then that shifted to. Being there were actually there was no one killed at Sandy Hook. That the children were all paid crisis actors and the whole thing was a hoax. The whole thing was a hoax in order to attempt to force through gun control measures and therefore control the American populace more.

[00:51:03] [SPEAKER_02] Again, regardless of how you feel personally about gun control, that's insane.

[00:51:08] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, that's crazy.

[00:51:09] [SPEAKER_02] That's a crazy thing to think. That is a crazy, crazy fucking thing to think. And so. But that's what that's what he put out there. And that's what he continued to put out there again and again and again. He was not talking about being anti-gun control. He was talking about how these little children didn't even exist and how they really didn't die.

[00:51:36] [SPEAKER_02] And that to me is significantly crueler than simply saying I disagree that we should do anything about this or I disagree that gun control would be the effective measure here. Those are conversations that adults can have with each other and disagree and go back and forth and try to figure out how to deal with this. You can't talk to somebody who's just saying, no, it didn't even happen. It's all fake.

[00:52:01] [SPEAKER_02] But unfortunately, over the years, Alex Jones and Infowars have attracted a tremendous audience. I think some people have watched because they find it amusing. Some people over time have watched because maybe they think he goes too far, but they they agree with him on some things. They kind of feel like, yeah, he's attacking the evil elites or, you know, maybe there is something to what he's saying.

[00:52:29] [SPEAKER_02] I think the most hardcore people who follow him and who really believe in everything he says are broken, unwell. Rejects of society. And of course, those are the people that are the easiest for him to control and wield his weapons. And unfortunately, that is exactly. What happened in this situation.

[00:52:53] [SPEAKER_02] So he put out all these lies about Sandy Hook, about how these kids weren't real, about how their parents were evil because their parents were trying to. They're also paid crisis actors who are going to help take everyone's guns. And. This led to a. And also, this isn't the first time he's done this with a murder case, by the way, he's done it with other mass shootings. He's done it with other murders.

[00:53:17] [SPEAKER_02] It's like these murders become a prop for people like Alex Jones to play with and entertain their stupid audience who then take that and run with it. And it's so amusing. It's not amusing, but it's so interesting to me, like these people he claims to be speaking for, like, the common everyday man standing up against the elite, powerful people who are trying to crush the everyday man.

[00:53:42] [SPEAKER_02] And what we have here is Alex Jones, who earned a shit ton of money from spouting lies for years. He's using his power and influence to crush everyday people whose only crime was they happened to live in a certain town with a guy who was a monster. And who happened to wake up one day and go into a classroom and kill a bunch of kids and kill a bunch of educators. That was.

[00:54:12] [SPEAKER_02] They didn't do anything wrong. They didn't do anything to deserve that. They lost their babies. They lost their babies. I can't imagine raising a child for, like, six or seven years and then you send them to school one day and, like, I don't know how those people are still standing. But God bless them. I mean, it's horrible.

[00:54:40] [SPEAKER_02] And not only does that happen, but then this guy starts saying that your child wasn't even real. And you have all of these freaks online saying the worst possible things. And it's even worse than that because people would, like, go out and confront these victims' families.

[00:55:10] [SPEAKER_02] I'll give you some examples. Like, these are real things that happened as a result of this. There was a guy named Gene Rosen. He took in some students and a bus driver in the middle of this attack into his home. He was harassed. And they were acting like, oh, he was part of the cover-up. You had victims' graves have been, like, the target of these people. Online harassment, stalking.

[00:55:39] [SPEAKER_02] You had a woman named Lucy Richard back in 2017. She had been threatening Noah Posner's father, Leonard. She was sending him, you're gonna die. Death is coming to you real soon. Look behind you. It is death. She sent four voicemail and email threats to him on January 10, 2016, after looking at a bunch of these conspiracy sites.

[00:56:07] [SPEAKER_02] She later claimed that, oh, it's because she has agoraphobia and obsessive-compulsive disorder and anxiety disorder. The judge was like, yeah, mental health is not an excuse here. You know? And she claims now that she made a horrible mistake. But, you know, what an evil person. You had a guy named Andrew David True Love. He stole a memorial sign from playgrounds dedicated to the victims Chase Kowalski and Grace McDonald.

[00:56:35] [SPEAKER_02] Then he called Grace's parents and boasted about stealing the sign memorializing their murdered daughter and how he didn't really even think she was dead. I mean, you had a guy named Matthew Mills. He went up to Victoria Soto, one of the educators, her grieving sister, shoves her picture in her face and starts angrily screaming at her about how her sister never existed. He ultimately did an Alford plea and was sentenced to one year in prison.

[00:57:05] [SPEAKER_02] I mean, this is all, I mean, can you imagine?

[00:57:11] [SPEAKER_03] It's horrifying.

[00:57:13] [SPEAKER_02] It's evil. It's absolutely, it's, it's, it's, it's evil. It's, it's, it's just fascinating to me that these people who follow him and these people who have this conspiratorial mindset, they see themselves as fighting back against an evil world when they are the evil ones. They're talking about, oh, everyone's demonically possessed. You are. What is wrong with you? How can you support this?

[00:57:37] [SPEAKER_02] I understand back in the day when he was this, this kind of fringe whack-a-doodle figure and it was funny and it was a clown and I get it because I'm, I was there too. I was like, oh, this guy's ridiculous. But not like, oh, this is frightening. We should be frightened by this stuff. Okay. This is evil. This is, this is, these are people doing evil. They, they're delusional at best. And this guy was making money off of them for years.

[00:58:05] [SPEAKER_02] And at the expense of the safety and healing and, and, and just anguish of these families who already went through the worst thing. And what's so crazy is that Alex Jones won. We'll talk about some of the legal fallout, but we live in Alex Jones's world. Conspiracy theories are so mainstream now that you barely like, you shrug at them, you know?

[00:58:33] [SPEAKER_02] And like, you know, you might have like, oh, that conspiracy theory is really bad. Yeah, that one's kind of dumb, but it's, I guess it's not doing as much harm. Conspiracy theories are just everywhere now. And that, I think he bears a lot of responsibility for that. For, for injecting them into society to the extent that they're just, I mean, do you feel, I mean, like, I don't know, you tell me. Were things this conspiratorial in society in the past?

[00:59:01] [SPEAKER_03] No, I think at least in my experience, a lot of it was relegated to smaller outlets and cranks and craziness. We're not afforded the kind of attention they receive today. A lot of that, I think, is because of social media.

[00:59:18] [SPEAKER_02] Social media is a big part of it. Alex Jones has also cultivated powerful connections. And, you know, when President Donald Trump was running the first time, he went on Infowars. Sam B. Hook families actually wrote him open letters begging him like, hey, please disavow Alex Jones because he's been torturing us for years. He went on Alex Jones and talked about how great he was, you know? And, you know, I don't, from my knowledge, he never responded to any of these people.

[00:59:46] [SPEAKER_02] But, I mean, Jones has boasted about his White House connections for years. I mean, there may have since been a falling out, but I think that is notable. Like, you know, he acts like he's this guy fighting the elite. And it's like, you have a friend in the White House, or at least you did. You know, I mean, it's just appalling hypocrisy. You know, he's a disgusting propagandist.

[01:00:12] [SPEAKER_02] I think it came out in court that he was diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, which makes sense. I just find it's just a vile, vile man. And so what ended up happening—and here's a question, Kevin, right? Because I feel like this gets—I see people defending this stuff sometimes, and I'm just like, what? The fact that there are still Alex Jones supporters existing in 2026 is an affront to God, in my opinion.

[01:00:40] [SPEAKER_02] When we've seen him do this in front of everyone, and people are still defending this, it's an affront to God. That's just my take. That might sound kind of extreme. I don't really care. I've had to read about this all day. I have a question for you.

[01:00:54] [SPEAKER_03] Yes, sir.

[01:00:56] [SPEAKER_02] Does my First Amendment right to freedom of speech, amongst other things, but freedom of speech, does that protect me when I go out and decide to lie and claim someone is a deep state crisis actor, pedophile reptile, who's colluding to pollute the water to turn the frogs gay?

[01:01:21] [SPEAKER_03] No, you do not have a First Amendment right to defamation.

[01:01:26] [SPEAKER_02] Okay. So defamation is what?

[01:01:30] [SPEAKER_03] Defamation is when you're spreading false information about someone that's negative and that hurts their reputation and their standing.

[01:01:40] [SPEAKER_02] Now, you and I have talked about this. It's fair to say that defamation can be a hard case to win, right?

[01:01:45] [SPEAKER_03] Especially if you're a public figure.

[01:01:47] [SPEAKER_02] If you're a public figure, even a limited purpose public figure can be difficult because we want, under our society, we want to be able to encourage people to say what they want and feel what they want and express what they want about people, especially in power, powerful people. That's something that is a very integral part of our system. You should be able to say, I think the president sucks. You should be able to say, I think Congress sucks. Like, you should be able to say that.

[01:02:12] [SPEAKER_02] And so that is why there is a higher bar for, you know, essentially famous people or public figures. But again, if it gets so egregious, if it gets so egregious, then I think it becomes a lot easier. And when the lies become so ridiculous, when the lies, and in this case, the lies were ridiculous. It's ridiculous to act like this didn't happen.

[01:02:38] [SPEAKER_02] And so what ended up happening were there were several lawsuits. I think some of them got consolidated ultimately. There was one in Texas with one victim's family and then a number of victim's families sued up in Connecticut. I think it was Leonard Posner and Veronique De La Rosa, who were Noah Posner's parents, filed a defamation suit against Jones in Travis County, Texas in 2018.

[01:03:05] [SPEAKER_02] And in 2018, the same year, six families of the victims, as well as a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent who responded to the scene, filed against Jones in the Bridgeport Superior Court in Connecticut. And that was so there were two defamation suits. And there. Yeah. I think. And there was also Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, who were the parents of victims, Jesse Lewis.

[01:03:34] [SPEAKER_02] They filed in Texas as well. So. This this has resulted. I mean, this case dragged on forever, largely through Alex Jones's attempted. Legal wranglings. I mean, I'm not going to go through every specific legal development. And this is kind of a multifaceted thing because there were multiple cases.

[01:03:58] [SPEAKER_02] He ultimately, as part of this process of getting sued so many times, acknowledged that he the deaths were real. But while he would be. Acting one way in court, then he would like go live and broadcast about how, you know, he was being railroaded by the deep state, you know.

[01:04:19] [SPEAKER_02] It's not deep state to get sued for defamation for lying about people repeatedly over the years and sending your wave of idiotic followers to harass them. Like, that's not the deep state. That's literally like you're not above the law. So ultimately. So ultimately. There was, you know, a pretty significant. You know, you may have seen this news a couple of years ago.

[01:04:48] [SPEAKER_02] But what ended up happening was that essentially Jones like lost his lawsuits. And in Connecticut, the jury awarded almost, I think, like one billion dollars in compensatory damage. That was back in 2022. A judge added 473 million in punitive damages. And that was like, I think it was about 1.4 billion.

[01:05:18] [SPEAKER_02] In Texas, there was another jury that gave 49.3 million. Like that was 4.1 million compensatory and then 45.2 million punitive. Like it's I mean, he lost badly. Now, to deal with this, he filed for bankruptcy. The families have gotten nothing from him. They've gotten I think I don't think they've gotten anything so far or very little.

[01:05:48] [SPEAKER_02] There was an attempt to liquidate Infowars and its assets back in 2024. There was an auction where that was actually won by the onion. But then that was voided by a judge later on. Now, what's happened lately is that in this month, a licensing deal that has been backed by the families of the Sandy Hook victims is basically a licensing deal. It would let the onion transform Infowars, the website, into a satire.

[01:06:17] [SPEAKER_02] This is pending a judge's decision in Texas. Now, Jones is claiming he will keep fighting it. He'll keep fighting everything. I just find him to be just an evil demonic being. I just I don't think there's any humanity left in somebody like that who's capable of doing this. And then not just going off and crawling into a hole, you know, I just there's nothing there's nothing funny about it.

[01:06:47] [SPEAKER_02] There's nothing good about it. The onions bought it. You know, I'm sure he'll keep fighting it. But I hope they're able to use it to mock him and his legacy. Oh, and you know who's a big fan of his, by the way? Do you know?

[01:07:03] [SPEAKER_03] Yes, I know. I know what you're about to say.

[01:07:06] [SPEAKER_02] This is this is a tweet from May 24th, 2022. You know, the same year he filed for bankruptcy and lost big in court. This is a this is Kara Weineke responding to a tweet about monkeypox. She says, quote, great. We all know what to do with fact checks like this one. We've officially identified the source of the outbreak. Even more proof.

[01:07:34] [SPEAKER_02] Alex Jones is batting a thousand percent on conspiracy theories.

[01:07:39] Yeah.

[01:07:39] [SPEAKER_02] That just tells you everything you need to know about her as a person, morally, ethically, intellectually. She thinks that Alex Jones, a man who said that. An elementary school's class worth of children who were gunned down. We're actually crisis actors who are, you know, being flown around and doing different crises all over the world. They're not they're not really dead. It's all OK. He's batting a thousand on conspiracy theories.

[01:08:09] [SPEAKER_02] So obviously she believes that, too. To me, if someone is a Sandy Hook denier, I just that that's it for me. Like that's you're just that's worthless. It's completely worthless. I can't I can't believe anyone would treat victims families this poorly. I can. I've seen I've seen it at this scale. It's pretty astonishing. But. Again, I like that the onions come in and done this. They've given others.

[01:08:37] [SPEAKER_02] They're saying that their plan is to give over control of the site to Tim Heidecker, who's a comedian who I think is a genius and I love him. And so, you know, a lot of his work actually deals with the kind of like toxic masculine nonsense that kind of Alex Jones personifies of this like, you know, kind of like I'm a freedom fighter for America. But like, you know, I also like, you know, piece of shit. You know, I think that could be fun. But I guess the big problem is that.

[01:09:07] [SPEAKER_02] Again, we live in Alex Jones's world now. He may have lost in court. He may be facing financial ruin. But there's still people out there who support him and there's still people out there who kind of follow his thought patterns. He's managed to kind of, I think, do horrific harm to a lot of people, not only the people he targeted, but the people he duped into. Adopting.

[01:09:33] [SPEAKER_02] This level of uninformed thinking that tricks people into thinking that they're the intellectual skeptics when it's the stupidest people you've ever met in your life. You know, back in the day, they would just exist anonymously and they would just, you know, live their little humdrum lives potentially. Maybe some of them would get into some scrapes. But now it's like taking them all and building a community on the Internet and inflicting them on others. And it's just a mess. And some of them have literally gotten into legal trouble over it.

[01:10:04] [SPEAKER_02] It's disturbing. But unfortunately, it's just what we see in true crime. Yes. This is true crime. It's literally true crime. It's a murder. I mean, it's mass murder. Mass murder turned into this. One of the lawyers on one of the cases, I think the Connecticut case, Chris Matei, he's actually involved in a lawsuit now with the Karen Reed case. That'll be interesting to see.

[01:10:33] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, we certainly follow that.

[01:10:34] [SPEAKER_02] I mean, what I hope is that. Cases like the Jones case and possibly, you know, even if he succeeds in Massachusetts. I'm hoping that a line is drawn. We draw a line and stop doing this shit to victims families. OK, we saw it happen in Delphi. We saw it happen with John O'Keefe's family. We saw it happen to a degree with the Idaho case. We're going to see it again and again and again and again and again.

[01:11:05] [SPEAKER_02] There needs to be a line. I support people's free speech. I support people's free speech even when I disagree with them. There's a lot of stupid stuff that got said in Delphi. And I wouldn't want that to be necessarily censored. I would like those people to shut up and go away, but not because the government told them to or because they're going to be sued. Because they didn't cross a line. But people who are actively spreading conspiracy theories, especially on behalf of like defense attorneys in a case and who are running around doing all this.

[01:11:34] [SPEAKER_02] And it's essentially a conspiracy in order to pollute jury pools. There has to be a line in the sand and there have to be some basically. There have to be some cases that can be pointed to, because I think a lot of these people are cowards. And if they see. Plaintiffs prevailing in these situations, they will stop. They're not really freedom fighters speaking the truth. They know what they're saying is complete and utter bullshit. But.

[01:12:02] [SPEAKER_02] There's a lot of money to be made off of extremely stupid people. That's what I will tell you in true crime. If we wanted to make bank, we would get on here and we would become conspiracy theorists. And we would be alive every night telling you about what the government, what doesn't want you to know. And those people would be, you know, taking their the little scraps of their money that they have and they would be funneling it to us. We would make bank. Right, Kevin?

[01:12:28] [SPEAKER_03] Absolutely.

[01:12:29] [SPEAKER_02] We've cultivated an audience of people who are smart and nice and don't want to be like that. I feel like our audience is actually pretty diverse, like I would say, like ideologically and like certainly in terms of life experiences and where people are coming from. But it's people who across the board ultimately, I think, care somewhat about the ethics of true crime, want it to be done in the correct way, want it to be done with some compassion, want it to be incisive and smart and want it to be something where.

[01:12:57] [SPEAKER_02] Somebody is not just trashing victims, families for absolutely no reason and sicking an audience on them. I think if we started to, you know, do that, a lot of people would be like, OK, bye. But unfortunately, I feel like that is not. The case for everybody in true crime. I mean, it's certainly not. I mean, there's a whole other side to it. And we have to. We have to not only bar the gates against the barbarians, but we I think we have to go on the offensive.

[01:13:27] [SPEAKER_02] I think we have to rouse these people from our communities. We have to moderate our spaces so that they have, you know. No call. And if people in that community are willing to at least be open to hearing the truth, I think we have to try to educate them and try to draw them away from that bullshit. You know, I think this stuff is I mean, again, like I didn't see it years ago when I just thought Alex Jones was a funny meme.

[01:13:55] [SPEAKER_02] But it's not funny and it gets to a really dark place and it has to be stopped. We have to stop it within true crime. It's not right for people to go through this and then go through the aftermath. It's not right. It's evil. It's wrong. If we want to stand up against what's evil and wrong, we have to stand up against this. Doesn't mean we have to be in lockstep about gun control or politics or anything, but it does mean we have to be lockstep about defending people.

[01:14:25] [SPEAKER_02] Who don't deserve this, who've already lost a child or a mother or a loved one or whatever. You know. It's we can't we can't let this keep happening. And I guess. I didn't realize. I mean, I knew that this had happened. I was kind of following it, but the extent of it is just chilling and it ruined my day. So. I'm sorry to cry and get all emotional and be all pissed off about it, but I'm just I'm angry.

[01:14:52] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. Understandable and very well said.

[01:14:54] [SPEAKER_02] Thanks, babe.

[01:14:55] [SPEAKER_03] Should we move on to the concluding portion of the program?

[01:14:59] [SPEAKER_02] Sure, we can move on.

[01:15:01] [SPEAKER_03] We wanted to talk about dogs, awards and your sister.

[01:15:05] [SPEAKER_02] Want to start with my sister?

[01:15:07] [SPEAKER_03] Sure.

[01:15:08] [SPEAKER_02] So my sister.

[01:15:09] [SPEAKER_03] The Kane Publishing Empire.

[01:15:14] [SPEAKER_02] What?

[01:15:15] [SPEAKER_03] That's what happened. We talked about your book and now your sister has a book.

[01:15:19] [SPEAKER_02] My sister, Mary Kane, has a book coming out and I wanted to shout her out.

[01:15:24] [SPEAKER_03] It's already out.

[01:15:25] [SPEAKER_02] It's already out. Oh, right. Because we're recording this. Yep. We're recording this in advance. So Mary is coming out. So she's my sister. I'm the first Kane child. She's the second. She's awesome. She was a professional runner. Incredible talent. And she went through some very bad stuff in her time as a kind of child prodigy of running. And she is coming out with a book about it. It's sort of like a memoir.

[01:15:55] [SPEAKER_02] It's called This Is Not About Running. And I think it would be something that people would find very interesting. You could kind of learn about her story, what she went through with coaches, with Nike, the company, the shoe company. And you can it's going to be something that's interesting for people who I think are interested in athletics. Certainly people are interested in running. But I think it's also going to be interesting for parents about, you know, what can happen when.

[01:16:22] [SPEAKER_02] Basically, what can happen when there's a gifted child in some way, but then bad things happen. It's something where I'm really proud of her for writing down her story. I really hope it's cathartic for her. And I think it's going to be a really good and well done book. And she's awesome. She's really, really fucking smart, guys. I think she's very, she's like, she's like the math and science person, I feel like, in the family, certainly.

[01:16:52] [SPEAKER_02] Like, she's very talented. So she's not just good at running. She was, she's also very smart. But yeah, I think check it out. I think it's going to, at this point, it's certainly available for sale. But it's, this is not about running. And it's kind of, I told her, I'm like, this is kind of weird that we both came out with like kind of depressing nonfiction books in the same kind of, not the same year, but like back to back. But, but no, she's great. Anything else that I missed on that one, Kevin?

[01:17:17] [SPEAKER_03] Award.

[01:17:18] [SPEAKER_02] All right. Now we wanted to, well, and you, I just did that. So you, you talk for a while.

[01:17:26] [SPEAKER_03] We won an award.

[01:17:28] [SPEAKER_02] Next. No, tell them about the award.

[01:17:31] [SPEAKER_03] The Society for Professional Journalists, Indiana chapter was kind enough to give us the award for best nonfiction book of the year. We were very honored.

[01:17:40] [SPEAKER_02] We were extremely honored. It meant a lot to us to be recognized by the Society for Professional Journalists because that is an organization that we vastly respect and, you know, seek to emulate, seek to look at their code of ethics. And, you know, just being kind of independent podcasters, it can be kind of like a little bit like, oh, man, you know, we're kind of these podcasters running around. And being recognized by journalists like that is an honor and meant a lot to us.

[01:18:08] [SPEAKER_02] And, you know, like just being able to we went to the banquet where they gave it out. We got it. We were so happy. And we were just like the fact that, you know, we were grateful to everyone who shared with us the story of what happened to Liberty German and Abigail Williams in Delphi. We were grateful to all the journalists who welcomed us into the media space within that case. It meant a lot to us. We saw some of them at the banquet. That was really nice to catch up.

[01:18:36] [SPEAKER_02] And just it means a lot to us, I guess, like it's just really validating. And we really appreciated the recognition. And, you know, it's just we're not we're not in it for awards, but it was really, really nice. And it meant a lot to us. I think like it hit me when we when we were there, like how much it meant to me. So we're we're super grateful.

[01:18:58] [SPEAKER_03] Dogs. You start. We got a dog.

[01:19:03] [SPEAKER_02] Well, we already had one.

[01:19:04] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah.

[01:19:05] [SPEAKER_02] Why don't you explain?

[01:19:06] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, we were nervous about this award ceremony. It was what can we do to stress ourselves out in another way? Take our mind off it. We talked for a while about getting a second dog. And we said, well, let's certainly let's not get a dog today because that would be a silly thing to do. But let's go to the Humane Society and talk to people there about what the process would be like to introduce two dogs to each other, blah, blah, blah. And we went there and they said, hey, here's a dog. And Nania said, I'll take her.

[01:19:35] [SPEAKER_02] I just saw her and I was like, that's my dog. All right. I interacted with her and I was like, that's my dog. And then we introduced her to Nick. And he was a little he was a little bit rude.

[01:19:45] [SPEAKER_03] It's a work in progress.

[01:19:47] [SPEAKER_02] He tried to hump her and she corrected him. And he backed off to his credit and, you know, seemed a bit befuddled. But, you know, it's a work in progress. We don't we know with dogs introducing them is very crucial. We're trying not to rush things. So for the most part, we're having like supervised chill out hangout sessions. But we're not just letting them run around together because it feels like that would be a mistake. Nora is the new dog.

[01:20:17] [SPEAKER_02] She is a shepherd husky mix, we were told. And she's really sweet. She is just a very, very sweet, calm, nice dog. She's six years old. So she's been older than Nick. Like Nick for a day or so was totally obsessed with her. He was just like freaking out and following her around. And today he's not quite as obsessed with her. But he's still he's still looking at her.

[01:20:42] [SPEAKER_00] Did you see him, Kevin? I did.

[01:20:44] [SPEAKER_02] He's like we have a baby gate set up because, again, like unless we can be closely supervising them, we want them to not be, you know, we don't want them to get into a fight or have some kind of altercation. But, yeah, he's like looking at her through that kind of gazing, gazing lovingly. So, yeah, she seems very happy. She's settling in. Very, very sweet girl. And we're really excited. So we have Nick and Nora now. So we've got the full thin man set.

[01:21:10] [SPEAKER_03] Do you think dogs wear hats like horses do? Because, of course.

[01:21:13] [SPEAKER_02] Are they fly nets or what the hell did you call it?

[01:21:16] [SPEAKER_03] Shoe fly nets. You don't listen to me.

[01:21:18] [SPEAKER_02] You know what? Yeah, I try to block it out.

[01:21:20] [SPEAKER_03] I try to tell you things that are important to me.

[01:21:22] [SPEAKER_02] I'm going to sleep in the frigging, you know, Alex Jones minds today. I don't have time for this.

[01:21:26] [SPEAKER_03] For the fly veils.

[01:21:30] [SPEAKER_02] I've been dealing with the worst humanity has to offer. And then you're like, oh, here's your fly, the swatter veil, oh, the bonnets. Yeah.

[01:21:40] [SPEAKER_03] I think our dogs look good in hats.

[01:21:42] [SPEAKER_02] I don't think they'd let us put them in hats. I think they would sooner kill us than let us put hats on them.

[01:21:47] [SPEAKER_03] Well, there's only one way to find out.

[01:21:49] [SPEAKER_02] We could see our obituary soon. No, they're really cute. I mean, I think they've been getting along. I think it's been going well despite Nick's exuberance.

[01:22:01] [SPEAKER_03] Have you ever put a hat on a dog?

[01:22:03] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. My first dog, we rescued a dog. He was a mini poodle, a little white mini poodle. Very cute. I named him Albus Dumbledore. I was a big potter head back in the day. And for Halloween one year, put him in a little wizard cape and a little wizard hat. And he promptly was like, absolutely not. And took it off. And I did not force the matter because he was an older guy. So he was just like, listen, I'm setting my ways. I'm not doing this stuff. And I got to respect that.

[01:22:33] [SPEAKER_02] He was okay with the cape, I think.

[01:22:37] [SPEAKER_03] So this episode, we're bidding people on a due for the weekend. And the last image is Anya once put a wizard's outfit on a dog.

[01:22:46] [SPEAKER_02] I'm sorry. What were you? You were the one talking about putting hats on our current dogs. Despite the bloodbath that would ensue.

[01:22:54] Yeah.

[01:22:55] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah.

[01:22:55] [SPEAKER_03] Well, I think we're done.

[01:22:58] [SPEAKER_00] Now suddenly you're out of things to say. Yeah. What are you smiling about?

[01:23:03] [SPEAKER_03] I'm not smiling.

[01:23:05] [SPEAKER_00] What are you doing over there?

[01:23:06] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. Let's end it.

[01:23:08] [SPEAKER_00] Oh my gosh.

[01:23:10] [SPEAKER_03] 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.com. If you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.

[01:23:28] [SPEAKER_02] If you're interested in joining our Patreon, that's available at www.patreon.com slash murdersheet. If you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests, you can do so at www.buymeacoffee.com slash murdersheet. We very much appreciate any support.

[01:23:53] [SPEAKER_03] Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for the Murder Sheet, and who you can find on the web at kevintg.com.

[01:24:03] [SPEAKER_02] If you're looking to talk with other listeners about a case we've covered, you can join the Murder Sheet discussion group on Facebook. We mostly focus our time on research and reporting, so we're not on social media much. We do try to check our email account, but we ask for patience as we often receive a lot of messages. Thanks again for listening.