The Murder of Jade Beasley with The Viper Pit

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_03] Kevin and I both wear glasses we need them to see, but we're definitely guilty of hanging on to them for way longer than we should. Like, even after they're a bit battered and scratched, so we put it off as long as possible. We've both been wearing the ones we're currently wearing for probably two or three years. I don't even really remember. It'd be hundreds of dollars

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[00:01:00] [SPEAKER_03] Nora, our dogs. I would have expected to pay well over $100, even more for these glasses, and they were like $77. That is an amazing, unbelievably low price for prescription sunglasses, let me tell you, and I got those without sacrificing on the quality. That scratched up pair has done its job. Upgrade today with Zenni. Go to zenni.com slash podcast and use code podcast15 for 15% off your

[00:01:25] [SPEAKER_03] first order, plus free shipping on all U.S. orders over $65. The styles sell out, so don't sit on it. That's z-e-n-n-i dot com slash podcast, promo code podcast15. I'm Anya, and today we're going to talk about the murder of Jade Beasley with our darling friends, Coffee and Waffles, of the Viper Pit.

[00:01:47] [SPEAKER_00] Content warning, this episode contains discussion of the brutal murder of a child.

[00:01:52] [SPEAKER_03] Also, we're talking to the Viper Pit, so needless to say, we're going to be swearing a lot, or perhaps I should say I'm going to be swearing a lot, or maybe I should say a fuckton.

[00:02:01] [SPEAKER_00] On December 5th, 2020, in a house on Songbird Road in Marion, Illinois, 29-year-old Julia Beverly was home alone with 11-year-old Jade Marie Beasley, her boyfriend's daughter. That day,

[00:02:16] [SPEAKER_03] Beverly murdered Jade. The attack was brutal and heinous. Jade sustained over 100 wounds from a sharp-edged weapon. Beverly then dumped the girl in a bathtub and set about concocting an extremely flimsy alibi, which had her driving to a gas station, lying about going to Walmart, and then claiming she saw a mysterious masked intruder. She couldn't account for massive gaps

[00:02:41] [SPEAKER_00] in her timeline. In 2023, she was convicted of first-degree murder. She is serving a 55-year sentence. Her appeal was just denied not all that long ago. But the strong case against Beverly didn't

[00:02:55] [SPEAKER_03] stop the true crime grifters from swarming. On January 2nd, 2025, Lauren Bright Pacheco and Bob Mata started an 11-part series for iHeartRadio called Murder on Songbird Road.

[00:03:07] [SPEAKER_00] In it, they doubled down on an innocence narrative. Beverly wasn't just innocent. She was the most innocent. She was railroaded. In order to reach the conclusion they wanted, they whitewashed and dismissed and omitted key facts about the case. And Mata spent a lot of time obsessively talking about the weight and size an 11-year-old murderer. Now, this should have come as no surprise to anyone

[00:03:33] [SPEAKER_03] who's followed true crime with any sort of depth. Pacheco and Mata have a history of producing honesty-challenged work, to say the least. Just look at Defense Diaries' coverage of the murders of 14-year-old Liberty German and 13-year-old Abigail Williams in Delphi, Indiana, which saw Mata getting access and reserved seats at trial from the actual defense team, while also privately claiming that he could serve as child killer Richard Allen's mouthpiece in order to manipulate the public.

[00:04:01] [SPEAKER_03] As for Pacheco, need I say more than murder in Illinois? That show spotlighted the so-called plight of Christopher Vaughn, who murdered his wife Kimberly and their three kids, Abigail, Cassandra, and Blake. It might as well have been called the victim-blaming variety hour.

[00:04:17] [SPEAKER_00] Both of these people are bottom-of-the-barrel grifters.

[00:04:20] [SPEAKER_03] Still, by dint of the way true crime is, the industry's short memory and favoring of anything novel and sensational, shows like Murder on Songbird Road have the ability to shape the narrative on a case. They can erase Jade and elevate her murderer, and trick people into supporting a cold-blooded tiller. In this case, I would not say that happened, however,

[00:04:43] [SPEAKER_00] because our friends at the Viper Pit podcast took on this case.

[00:04:47] [SPEAKER_03] They didn't just push back. They destroyed Murder on Songbird Road. As much as you can destroy a podcast's narrative, they did so. Just like a direct hit. They did their own investigation of this so-called investigative podcast. They've interviewed sources, like a prosecutor and the murderer's own poor deluded mother. They've got their hands on documents and diaries and transcripts and audio recordings of jail calls. They've done everything. Honestly, watching them work has

[00:05:17] [SPEAKER_03] been extremely gratifying. We've always known they were amazing, and they're just proving that every day with their coverage of this case.

[00:05:23] [SPEAKER_00] So we are proud to be interviewing Coffee and Waffles about the murder of Jade Beasley and the wider problem of innocence script. My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist. 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're The Murder Sheet. And this is The Murder of Jade

[00:05:49] [SPEAKER_03] Beasley, a conversation with the Viper Pit. We are very excited today to welcome Coffee and Waffles

[00:06:41] [SPEAKER_03] of the Viper Pit fame back to The Murder Sheet. Thank you guys for coming.

[00:06:45] [SPEAKER_01] Thanks for having us.

[00:06:47] [SPEAKER_05] Hello, dollings. Hello, dollings.

[00:06:49] [SPEAKER_03] We're so excited. We were just on a trip to Ohio and we were just listening to your show, which is fantastic. So it's nice to... We feel like we've been talking with you a lot because of that,

[00:06:59] [SPEAKER_01] but now we're actually talking to you. Yeah, yeah. So I guess we've stumbled across a case that we'll be connected to probably for the rest of our lives, much like you guys did with Delphi and the team you got.

[00:07:16] [SPEAKER_02] Is that fun when you get stuck in some horrible situation like that and can never leave it completely?

[00:07:21] [SPEAKER_01] Hey, I'd rather be in this scenario than on the other side of it where they're just sounding like jackass is talking about this case. It's way better to be on the side of the truth.

[00:07:31] [SPEAKER_05] Also, I love people know who the T-Moo guy is.

[00:07:35] [SPEAKER_01] That's great. But yeah, we... I don't know. Coffee, how long have we been on this case? It's been a long time.

[00:07:43] [SPEAKER_05] In October, I think. Wow. We had a few things in between, but like between covering Murder Own Song Bird Road podcast and then getting the case filed, we had a few things going on in between there, but then we've just been diving into the case file.

[00:08:00] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. You know what? Actually, the last time we were on with you guys, I think it was whenever you came on our show. I remember telling you that we just got the transcript for it because we had a listener that paid for it, which was not cheap. And we got the transcript and I was just, I was happy to have that. And then the good brother Brent, who I, that's who I call Brent. He blessed us with, with the whole file. And then we just were like, oh, wow. Like just pretty overwhelmed at first, but then just dug into it piece by piece.

[00:08:30] [SPEAKER_03] It's been a pleasure to listen to. So, I mean, this is the murder of Jade Beasley and you're covering Murder on Songbird Road. And I want, you know, I will go back and figure out where you started covering it. I will link to that episode. So, I want people to kind of listen to the whole thing. First of all, you're hilarious, but also it's just like, it's eviscerating. I mean, like you eviscerate the coverage that's been done in the past on this case.

[00:08:53] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. This was not hard to do though. God damn. It was like, it was that, I mean, that Murder on Song Bird Road podcast is a pile of shit from top to bottom.

[00:09:02] [SPEAKER_03] How can you guys say that about somebody who went boots on the ground or flip-flopped on the ground?

[00:09:07] [SPEAKER_01] Hey dudes on the ground. Hey dudes. Yeah. Yeah. Bob Mata had it as a railroad job by episode four and he knew jack shit about the case. He was just going off of what the murderer's mother was telling him and taking every word of it.

[00:09:24] [SPEAKER_03] Are you telling me that Bob Motta was not honest on a true crime podcast about the heinous murder of a child?

[00:09:30] [SPEAKER_01] I mean, I guess, I mean, he could probably say he was honest because he's just repeating misinformation and acting like he doesn't know better. But some of this stuff is so bad, I just have to question how he couldn't possibly know. You know what I mean?

[00:09:43] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. I mean, I think there's a point where especially being an attorney, I think there's a kind of a bar of what you should know better.

[00:09:51] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. And I don't know his record. I don't know what, how long he was an attorney, all that stuff. But just being one, you've dealt with the bullshit and this is just more of the bulls. Like this is so, I mean, we, okay. So you said you're going to link our coverage of the case. So what we did was we started with murder on Songbird Road. We didn't have any information. We're just going off what they're saying and then trying to make sense of it. And it wasn't making sense.

[00:10:17] [SPEAKER_05] Already you know it's wrong.

[00:10:19] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. It was terrible. The storylines would just pick up here and there and it was so confusing. So we had to structure it. So our episodes weren't as confusing as that podcast. Then they left out like the fingernail evidence from the victim. It had the murder's DNA under her nails.

[00:10:38] [SPEAKER_04] Oh, but that's not relevant.

[00:10:40] [SPEAKER_01] Oh my God. I found that out on a freaking appeal that a listener found and sent me the link and she just thought it was the transcript. I was like, Hey, you can listen to the audio of this. Then we listened to, I listened to the audio and I couldn't believe that the victim Jade had the murderer's DNA under her nails. They didn't mention that in the, the way they mentioned it in the podcast was they read a closing argument that said, we know

[00:11:06] [SPEAKER_01] that female DNA was under Jade's nails, but why didn't they test Julie's nails? And it's like female DNA. Why don't you say the defendant's DNA?

[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_03] A specific female.

[00:11:19] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[00:11:20] [SPEAKER_03] Before we get too ahead of ourselves, I do want to kind of go back just for folks who may not be familiar with the coverage, may not be familiar with the murder of Jade. Can you just tell us about the murder of 11 year old Jade Beasley? Just some of the facts about that and what you were able to kind of uncover as you're listening to this train wreck of a podcast.

[00:11:38] [SPEAKER_01] Okay. Yeah. Well, it all happened on December 5th, 2020, starting the day. The grandparents had two of the children, the small children. So Jade was the only one at the house, Michael and Julia. Michael is the father. Julia is the girlfriend, not even stepmother, but to make it simple, we'll say stepmother. Michael went to work at Cracker Barrel, seven in the

[00:12:02] [SPEAKER_01] morning. Julia works from home. Jade's at home and she's leaving at, I believe one o'clock to go to her little sister's birthday party with her mother.

[00:12:13] [SPEAKER_05] Her mom was going to come and pick her up.

[00:12:16] [SPEAKER_01] And obviously we just have Julia's story as to what happened throughout the day. She does a, what's it? Customer service for Hyatt over the phone. So she would do also social media. She would take calls, that sort of thing. And, um, she had a break that was supposed to only be 15 minutes and she, I guess you log out of the computer for that. And then you come back when you're about to work again. Well, her break went 45 minutes long. So she went 30 minutes over on her break. And then,

[00:12:45] [SPEAKER_01] um, Oh, now I don't have all the times in my head, but anyway, she steps out and she gets caught on camera for all this. And she goes to Huck's, which is a gas station. Oh, like seven, eight minutes from her house. Let's just say. And then she comes back. Well, on camera at Huck's, she is seen with a plastic, like Walmart sack and she pulls up. She doesn't pull up to a pump as you know, how gas

[00:13:14] [SPEAKER_01] stations will have two pumps. And then in the middle there's, there's usually a trash can, right?

[00:13:19] Yeah.

[00:13:19] [SPEAKER_01] She pulled up to the trash can, driver's side door, right to the trash can. Wasn't nothing about trying to go get gas and all that. She pulled up to that trash can. She gets out, she puts a, a plastic bag with God knows what, cause they never recovered it, um, into the trash can and she returns home. And that's the two cameras from, um, two residences caught her coming and going.

[00:13:45] [SPEAKER_01] And then the Huck's footage. And then of course there's this thing called cell phone data. And this genius brought her cell phone with her. So that tractor as well. And the cell phone data was really good because whenever it got her back home, it took Julia 31 minutes to call 9-1-1 to report that Jade had been murdered because her story

[00:14:10] [SPEAKER_01] originally, well, she didn't tell the cops she went to Huck's. She told the cops eight times in her interview that she went to Carbondale to go to Walmart, which is about a 30 minute drive. I think it's like 17 miles, something like that. Interesting thing about that is she drives by a Walmart to go to this Walmart. Okay. So, um, just not a very good liar. How long was that interview coffee?

[00:14:35] [SPEAKER_05] Three hours. Three hours. Um, we have it on our YouTube channel and it's cut down like all of the blank spaces where no one was talking is cut out. But yeah, she just continuously says over and over and over. She goes to Carbondale to the Walmart. She even describes where, where do you turn in and where she parked? And then she realized, oh, I don't have my credit cards. And so she turns around to go

[00:15:03] [SPEAKER_05] back home. And when she gets home, there's a masked man that runs out of the house with a knife trying to stab her. And then she waits 30 minutes to call 9-1-1. It's ridiculous. And this is what

[00:15:18] [SPEAKER_01] the Innocence Project likes? Yeah. Yes. Well, so that was the thing is just, and we spoke with, um, Jennifer Mudge, one of the prosecutors on this case. And, uh, like she said, I totally agree, throw everything out and tell us why you took 31 minutes to call 9-1-1. And, and we spoke with her mother and her mother admits she still doesn't have an excuse for that. So where the hell are they

[00:15:45] [SPEAKER_01] trying to go with this case? You know, like there's supposed to be a season two of Songbird Road and there's all this new stuff they're talking about, which I don't know what's new, but I believe Bob Mata suggested that the Innocence, one, some Innocence Project was going to take the case on. I don't know if it's the Innocence Project of Illinois or what, but where, I don't, I just don't understand

[00:16:04] [SPEAKER_03] where you can go from. Well, waffles, you have to, you have to remember they're trying to keep a spotlight on the mystery of the continuing ad revenue. So, I mean, that is pretty important. Oh, I know.

[00:16:18] [SPEAKER_04] I don't have to say that. I mean, come on. We need answers on that.

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[00:20:57] [SPEAKER_00] How did the two of you start to cover this case?

[00:21:01] [SPEAKER_01] So, basically, you know, the Viper Pit just started out as a podcast that makes fun of other podcasts that suck. And it's a great time. It's so fun to do that. It's very easy to do, too, by the way. Like, you listen to a podcast for an hour, then you're like, well, let me listen a couple more times to make sure that was that dumb. And then you take clips and you have a good time and you, you know. So,

[00:21:22] [SPEAKER_01] with that in mind, our small group of listeners would suggest us podcasts to listen to. And I believe, I think it was Melvin was the first one that suggested this. And then Bob Ruff would do this thing called, what's it, what is his thing where he'd interview podcasters, coffee?

[00:21:44] [SPEAKER_05] True Crime Binge.

[00:21:45] [SPEAKER_01] True Crime Binge. It's just a wealth of shitty podcasting to choose from. So, once I heard that Bob Mata and Not So Bright went on Bob Ruff's podcast to talk about murder on Songbird Road, I knew it was a contestant and we needed to check them out. So, I checked it out and I actually, so I knew we were going to cover this and I went on vacation and was going through

[00:22:14] [SPEAKER_01] Illinois and I just detoured on down. So, I went through and hit the spots in Marion. We found out about the case because of Bob Mata and listeners suggesting it to us. But while I was on my vacation, I tried to listen to it and it was so terrible. I could, I just couldn't, I started and stopped like three times. I was like, this is awful. I didn't want to do it. But then, I don't know, you guys ever

[00:22:40] [SPEAKER_01] get like this where it's just like the victim? It's an 11 year old little girl and, you know, she doesn't have a voice and then these scumbags have the voice. So, I was like, I got to get through this. So, at least, because it just didn't make sense because they did admit there's bite mark evidence that was found on, on the murderer. The victim bit her on the arm. They got DNA off of that. So, I was like, that's pretty clear she did it, you know? So, why would she have bit her

[00:23:08] [SPEAKER_01] otherwise? I know. So, well, the funny thing is in her interview, they see that and she said she self-harms. She did it to herself. Like, she bit her own arm. And so. And somehow managed to transfer DNA off from another person. They're saying it's from like a blanket she had on her that got, nobody else in the house has DNA on her. Just that, you know, there's just all this stuff.

[00:23:34] [SPEAKER_01] But anyway, finally, I was able to just say screw it and listen to it. And it was just awful.

[00:23:41] [SPEAKER_05] And I'm like, well, I mean. The podcast is absurd. They spend almost half an entire episode describing a video they had never even seen. The Huck video. Yeah.

[00:23:51] [SPEAKER_03] Where were they getting the information about the video from then?

[00:23:54] [SPEAKER_01] Renee. The mother. The mother of the murderer. Renee is the main source of their podcast. For everything. And I mean, they had, she hired a private investigator. I don't know what your thoughts are on private investigators.

[00:24:12] [SPEAKER_04] Bad. They're bad. Mostly.

[00:24:14] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, mostly.

[00:24:15] [SPEAKER_04] I'm sure there's some good ones.

[00:24:16] [SPEAKER_01] One out of ten maybe?

[00:24:17] [SPEAKER_04] Maybe.

[00:24:18] [SPEAKER_01] Right. Like, but for the most part, you're going to get a scumbag is what my experience.

[00:24:23] [SPEAKER_05] A PI. You're paying them to find the information that you want to get. So how reliable is that?

[00:24:29] [SPEAKER_01] So you got a guy that you gave a bunch of money to and he feels like he's obligated to give you something in return. So, I mean, they got, this guy had a shooting range, I guess. And he said that he overheard police officers at a shooting range talking about a 911 call that came in about this case, but it wasn't. It was, there's so much uncorroborated stuff that is still being leaned on today.

[00:24:58] [SPEAKER_01] And I'm just like, I can't do anything with that. If there's no evidence of it, why are we talking about it? But that's a lot of what is still going on with that case today. It's just me or another, another one is like a home invasion, right? It's a pretty common crime. It has its own name, a home invasion. Well, there would be another home invasion across town.

[00:25:23] [SPEAKER_01] Oh, look, that must've been who killed the 11 year old kid because it was a home invasion. It's like, no, it's not how, that's really not how it works. I mean, we have evidence on the convicted that she did it like damning evidence, DNA times like DNA, DNA, DNA lies, lies, lies, lies, lies. It, I don't know.

[00:25:44] [SPEAKER_05] Disgusting excuses. Like Jade was bigger than Julia. So how could it, how is it possible that she was overcome by someone with a fucking knife? Like, come on.

[00:25:57] [SPEAKER_00] Coffee, I'm curious. How did you feel when Waffles came to you and said, oh, there's this podcast hosted by this Bob Mata fellow that I think is less than ideal in many respects. I think we should cover this case. How did, how did you react to all that?

[00:26:14] [SPEAKER_05] I was all in. And as a matter of fact, I think that this is a perfect time to play our favorite sponsor. I have an ad for you guys. Are you ready? Yes. Yes. Okay. This is a warning to everyone. This episode is unsponsored by all conspiracies.com. If you need justification for anything that you don't want to take as a fact,

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[00:27:16] [SPEAKER_01] Okay. So this is kind of how it went creatively. Maybe you guys get in your own head sometimes too. Like I do. I'm like, how the fuck are we going to cover this? It's so, so all over.

[00:27:26] [SPEAKER_04] Oh, every time.

[00:27:27] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. So I wanted to cover it because once I got into it and I started, you know how you, once you get onto a new case, it's kind of intimidating because you don't know anyone's names. And that's really the big one. Once you can get everyone figured out and get their roles figured out, the case starts to just roll downhill. So, well, imagine having that to do anyway. And then

[00:27:51] [SPEAKER_01] you also have this lady that just, just slung spaghetti at the fucking wall to see how that should stick. And then you just got to piece it all together. So basically I went through all these damn episodes and I would, um, write every time, like storyline, every storyline that was in there. And then I finally got all the storylines together and I was able to make sense of what she was trying to say.

[00:28:16] [SPEAKER_01] Okay. Because people like listen to that podcast and they'll say like there was a 911 call at the same time as the murder. Yeah. And the police showed up and the guy was crazy and they booked him into the hospital and he was at the hospital until nine o'clock. It's like, they say that on the podcast, but it's two or three episodes later and you forgot about the first night, the whole reason for them. So once I pieced all that together, we, we were able to cover it.

[00:28:46] [SPEAKER_01] And, uh, in a more listenable way, I guess you should say.

[00:28:50] [SPEAKER_05] That podcast was created to confuse people.

[00:28:53] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. It was so confusing. I don't really blame people for being, I was confused. You know, I don't blame people for thinking about that.

[00:28:59] [SPEAKER_05] I mean, even Jennifer Lutch, she said when she listened to it, she was mind fucked by it because she thought, wait, what's going on here? Because that's not the case. I tried, you know?

[00:29:10] [SPEAKER_03] Tell me more about the hosts, the intrepid boots on the ground hosts of, of murder on Songbird road and, and sort of, you know, what sort of vibe they were putting into this whole mess.

[00:29:21] [SPEAKER_01] You want to go first, coffee?

[00:29:22] [SPEAKER_05] I would say, wasn't it episode four? They were already saying she was railroaded.

[00:29:27] [SPEAKER_01] That was the famous she was railroaded quote. Yeah. And they didn't get the trial transcript until episode eight.

[00:29:34] [SPEAKER_04] But you know, I mean, they just, the vibes were all for them. They have no information.

[00:29:39] [SPEAKER_01] But to their, to their defense, it didn't fucking matter once they got that trial transcript. You know what I mean? That didn't fucking do anything. It never does.

[00:29:48] [SPEAKER_05] Just, but basics are the trial transcripts, right? Yeah. So hopefully by now they have the case file because Brett shared it with everyone, anybody who wants to have it.

[00:29:57] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah.

[00:29:57] [SPEAKER_05] And so maybe they did get it and hopefully, honestly, if they do a season two, I want to do a episode by episode, like bashing them down because this is ridiculous. Jade deserves better.

[00:30:12] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. So with the hosts, um, they did this like buddy cop thing where they, we rode around together and they did like, Oh look, we're driving around. You can hear road noises.

[00:30:24] [SPEAKER_05] The road, yeah. They get out of the car. Oh look, a bird. Whoa. Ominous.

[00:30:30] [SPEAKER_01] Whoa. Oh look, those trees. Yeah. They've been there at least a hundred years. Okay. Gripping. Yeah. We've got fucking horticulture Bob Mott over there. I hate it when podcasts do this extra bullshit to just make it seem like you can hear the crunching of the gravel, all that bullshit, you know, like when they're walking up to a driveway to talk to a nadir, you know, all this bullshit.

[00:30:57] [SPEAKER_01] So they, they get, they go talk to this one neighbor and we're still looking at this. We've had a listener tell us that this happened a year after the murder. But anyway, they claim that just a few days after the murder, a crazy guy showed up at their house and this guy was coined as wind chime guy and the ring doorbell camera picked him up and he's saying like wild stuff, nothing like threatening or anything. He's not damaging any property. He's not beating on the door.

[00:31:27] [SPEAKER_01] He's just saying, I've been here for what was 30 years ago or something stupid like that. So if somebody commits a home invasion in Marion, Illinois, that must be the murder. Just like with this, if a weird guy walks up to your, to your porch and says weird stuff and your ring doorbell picks it up, that must be the murder. Right. But we broke it down and he, like, even what the neighbor said, they would, did you call the cops? And they're like, well, he wasn't doing anything really. He wasn't damaging any property. He wasn't beating on the door.

[00:31:57] [SPEAKER_01] He wasn't threatening anything. So we just thought it was weird and shared it with our family.

[00:32:02] [SPEAKER_05] Right.

[00:32:02] [SPEAKER_01] And that's a pretty normal way to go about it.

[00:32:05] [SPEAKER_05] But worse than that, Lauren, not so bright, says it was five days after the murder. It was the year after.

[00:32:13] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. The home wasn't sold for another, like, till 2021, right?

[00:32:18] [SPEAKER_05] Right. We have all the receipts for that. It was a year later.

[00:32:21] [SPEAKER_03] Well, why let the facts get in the way of something that sounds good to stand in pocket? You know what you're saying when you're talking about the boots crunching on the gravel and all that shit? You know what that is? That's to trick the audience into thinking that you're really, really doing something.

[00:32:34] [SPEAKER_01] You're locked in. Yeah. I know. I know. Yeah. I, I, it's just, and that's what this, that's what these podcasters are. They need that. They need that because their, their substance is dog shit. They don't have any substance. It's all hearsay.

[00:32:49] [SPEAKER_05] Another example of that is when Renee is being interviewed and she said, well, I asked Julia to try to remember what happened that day. And so you hear like a chair scraping across the floor, sit down. And she realized she went to Hawks and not Carbondale. It's like, what the fuck?

[00:33:10] [SPEAKER_01] And though, of course the famous.

[00:33:12] [SPEAKER_05] Three days later that you didn't go to Carbondale. Okay.

[00:33:15] [SPEAKER_01] And then the famous one is like, then I received a phone call. Ring, ring. Hello.

[00:33:24] [SPEAKER_02] It's called the theater of the mind. Yeah.

[00:33:26] [SPEAKER_01] All the, all the podcasts do that. Like the phone call. Somebody say a phone. I got some rings. I'm going to chime in here.

[00:33:34] [SPEAKER_03] Maybe it went something like this.

[00:33:38] [SPEAKER_01] But that's, that's like the whole podcast is them trying to be this like team and they go, they go boots on the ground to Marion, Illinois, and they dig up all this stuff. Look at all this stuff we found and they found nothing. They found nothing. We, like I said, we got the, and the biggest one, and then this is the big one for them and for listeners alike, because a lot of the listeners in the true crime space, they're bleeding hearts, aren't they? They just want a good underdog story.

[00:34:07] [SPEAKER_01] So they, they really do paint this picture. Like Julia is this great person and she was just put in a tough spot. Put yourself in her shoes. You would lie to the, you would lie to the cops eight times and say you went to Carbondale when you didn't. Wouldn't you? I mean, you never know. You just don't know. That's what the whole thing is. They try to make it out. Like she's a great, her job, for instance, as a customer service or whatever the hell her title is at Hyatt.

[00:34:32] [SPEAKER_01] Like she, they have her in that position because she's so calm and she can talk to customers and oh my God, we got her diary and like she fucking hates her job. She hates, she hates everybody. She, it's just wicked how she talks about people in her diary. And then jail calls. So we got about thousand jail calls. And these things are telling, holy shit. She is not, I mean, she's a scumbag.

[00:35:01] [SPEAKER_01] She is a fucking liar. We just covered the gender reveal parties. So when Julia went to jail for this five days after the murder, she was pregnant. She didn't know she was pregnant. She just got pregnant some, sometime around then. So she's in jail and she has this baby. And the sad part of this whole thing is Michael just lost his daughter. They arrested his girlfriend and he's still got to talk to her. And she, I mean, he doesn't really talk.

[00:35:30] [SPEAKER_01] They don't talk to case as much as I would have, but he is trying to do the right thing by the baby and just called us. She calls him from jail and to see how the baby's doing. Well, she hangs this gender shit over his head for like months, held it over his head and said she didn't know, said she had the gender in an envelope and she wanted to open it together with Michael just to have something normal in this pregnancy.

[00:35:58] [SPEAKER_01] Meanwhile, we got all these other jail calls where she's talking to her mom. She's talking to her friend, telling him the gender. She admits she told girls in jail what the gender was, all this shit. And then every time she gets on the phone with Michael, she lies about it. And the point here is no shit. She's a liar. We heard her in her police interview, but Murder on Songbird Road tries to paint it as the aw shucks poor Julia. And she didn't lie on purpose. Just she was traumatized.

[00:36:26] [SPEAKER_05] Right. She was traumatized.

[00:36:28] [SPEAKER_01] So just everything about Murder on Songbird Road, we've debunked the living shit out of it. The living shit. And we still got more to go. We got a whole journal to look through.

[00:36:39] [SPEAKER_05] I still want to dunk on Bob Mata. Like he, that guy makes me crazy. So Julia is so Lilliputian, right? She can fit in his front pocket. But Jade is so much larger and it's so not fucking true. And also just gross. It's a 15 million difference. Why is he fat shaming an 11 year old murder? Also, why does he do that to girls? Because he hates women, guys.

[00:37:08] [SPEAKER_05] Abby and Libby, oh, he's like, they're not heroes. How are they heroes? I hate this person.

[00:37:14] [SPEAKER_03] Do you want me to tell you? If any of you, if you guys ever change your mind about Bob Mata, you ever want to really impress him? Here's how you do it. Okay. Go brutally murder a child, especially a girl. He'll love you. He'll do anything for you at that point. That's how you make Bob Mata love you. Yeah. He'll call you by a nickname that nobody uses except you because you're a fucking weirdo. I can tell you Bob Mata stories. This guy would show up to the Delphi courthouse. I mean, this was before we even had a problem with him.

[00:37:43] [SPEAKER_03] And he'd peacock up and down the line of reporters and being like, yeah, you know, I remember a case we did in Nebraska, blah, blah, blah. Come to find out that he and his wife fucked that case up so badly to the point where the judge kicked her off and they were humiliated. It was going to be their big case, right? It was going to be their serial killer case. Guy got like the worst penalty possible. I mean, it just, they fucked it up. They suck at their jobs.

[00:38:11] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah.

[00:38:11] [SPEAKER_03] He's peacocking around doing this. Oh yeah, blah, blah, blah. And the reporters who we knew, we got to know a lot of them. They'd come to us afterwards and they'd be like, who the fuck is that? Like, who does he, like, who the hell does that guy think he is?

[00:38:25] [SPEAKER_05] Like, I've never heard the fuck. Right. In one of the intros of one of our episodes, I played the video. Well, you only see the audio of him just approaching people in the line, waiting to get into the trial at Delphi. You want to talk to me? Do you want to talk to me? And you guys were there and you were like, no, thank you.

[00:38:45] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. That was back when I didn't really know who Bob Motta was. And we were caught. I don't know what was it Delphi that we were covering. You played that clip. Yeah. And I didn't, I wasn't familiar with the Delphi case and everything like that. So she's kind of taking the wheel on that episode and introducing me to all this good shit. And then this Bob Motta character, I'm like, what a fucking douchebag. Just right off the bat. And then I was like, yeah, you, so I heard that clip. I'm like, I got a pretty good idea of the kind of guy this guy is.

[00:39:13] [SPEAKER_01] He just seems like the stereotypical, not the typical, the stereotypical person that was in a profession and then spun into entertainment.

[00:39:22] [SPEAKER_03] He wafts like insincerity and insecurity. It's not subtle. I sat next to this man at a Delphi hearing. He's bouncing up and down in the seat when the judge is talking while it's going on, whispering loudly next to me. I knew it. I called it. I called it. And it's like, am I here with like a badly behaved six year old boy or I mean, it just it's off putting. He's off putting in person and on the show, as you can get pointed out.

[00:39:52] [SPEAKER_01] Amdust not to get sucked into conspiracy shit. I really do. Like, I really, really do. That guy's in our soundboard.

[00:39:59] [SPEAKER_04] I've had something to say.

[00:40:01] [SPEAKER_01] He's in our soundboard so many times.

[00:40:04] [SPEAKER_03] He tried. It's just impossible, apparently. He's going over the Niagara Falls of conspiracy. You know, Coffee, you were talking a little bit, though, just, you know, with his I mean, the dynamic of this this duo. OK, Lauren and Bob taking on this mystery. You know, one thing that was really shocking to me that you guys pointed out was their treatment of Jade's family. And I was wondering if you could speak to that a little bit, because they also appear on Murder on Songbird Road.

[00:40:30] [SPEAKER_05] They do. Waffles, was it her aunt and her cousin that were interviewed?

[00:40:36] [SPEAKER_01] Maybe her great aunt. Yeah. Stuff like that.

[00:40:39] [SPEAKER_05] Right.

[00:40:40] [SPEAKER_01] When we covered it, we hardly I don't even know if we had a clip of the family because I just wanted to leave them out of it.

[00:40:46] [SPEAKER_05] I don't, you know, want to invade their space at all. You know, if they would like to come on, that would be cool. But yeah, they were interviewed.

[00:40:56] [SPEAKER_01] Once they were interviewed, I don't think any of the podcasts had been out because I mean, they probably wouldn't have interviewed with them if one of those episodes had touched air, you know. Right. So they're doing it. They're doing it with like, you know, kind of in confidence.

[00:41:11] [SPEAKER_05] So later I got an email from part of the family and. I think it was Mike's sister, actually. They were blindsided by this podcast and disgusted by it and appreciative that somebody's calling it out because so many people, you know, oh, iHeartRadio is throwing this money at this attorney and whoever.

[00:41:36] [SPEAKER_01] It's getting advertised everywhere, you know.

[00:41:38] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah. And wow. So it must be true. Right. And their side of the family was devastated.

[00:41:47] [SPEAKER_01] And like you said earlier on about the case that Bob Mata messed up in Nebraska or whatever the hell it was, I don't I'm that doesn't shock me at all because this case, the murder on Southern Road, Jade Beasley being murdered. Like people have stopped listening to us because they're like, we get it. She's guilty. It's just that easy of a case. It's not even close how guilty she is. It's not even close how guilty she is.

[00:42:12] [SPEAKER_01] But here comes two people that are complete idiots that take this on to make it like a feature podcast, like a serial style podcast they try to do. Not like we do a podcast every week and we're covering it like 11 episodes and we're going to dig into this and all this stuff. And it's like dig into what? The way they describe everything was so off. Like the interrogation of of Julia Beverly.

[00:42:39] [SPEAKER_01] Once we got the case file from the good brother, Brent, we got the DM interview and we're looking at it like when's this interrogation start? It was the most casual conversation up until the very end whenever the detective accused her of committing the crime and then she breaks down crying. And that was really the end. That was the end of the interview. But everything before that was she's never spoken again, was as casual as can be. And then, I mean, we mentioned the eight Carbondales where she said she went to Carbondale eight

[00:43:09] [SPEAKER_01] times. They also asked her if she went to to get gas. Did you get gas anywhere? No, no, I didn't get gas.

[00:43:16] [SPEAKER_05] And then her car was on empty, though, and that's probably why she did not make it to Carbondale, which was going to be her. Alibi story or whatever.

[00:43:27] [SPEAKER_06] Who knows?

[00:43:28] [SPEAKER_03] It's so telling that they didn't have all the materials going in. But I just want to, like, state for people who might be like, well, you know, people have different perspectives on a case. What you guys, Coffee and Waffles, uncovered in this was not differences in interpretation of evidence. It was withholding key pieces of information from their audience in order to make their narrative more palatable. It's just, let's just cut out anything that makes Julia Beverly sound bad. It's lying. Yeah. It's absolutely lying.

[00:43:58] [SPEAKER_00] What's it like to go from listening to a podcast and making fun of that podcast to what you're doing now when you're actually, like, sitting down and, like, talking to a prosecutor on the real case?

[00:44:11] [SPEAKER_01] I think we made a turn in our audience's eyes whenever we, I think it was the journal episode. We got all the excerpts that Cindy Geithman made of all the mean and awful things that Julia had to say about the victim and a few other things. Suicide was in there, of course. And we played that. We did that episode and we read those excerpts and everything and people were, like, starting

[00:44:37] [SPEAKER_01] to see that we were, like, for real on this case. It wasn't just to talk shit or to make fun of how dumb somebody was. We were for real. Then after that, we got to interview Renee Hightower, which I don't have a problem with Renee Hightower. Actually, I thought we ended on pretty good terms. And I told her.

[00:44:56] [SPEAKER_05] You interviewed her twice.

[00:44:58] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, well, I told her that, you know, I'm going to talk more shit, but if you want to come back on, we can talk about what I said or whatever. I didn't want to give her the impression that, like, she won me over and, like, I was going to be done talking about this. But, man, that interview was so bonkers, the way she was trying to defend her daughter,

[00:45:21] [SPEAKER_01] that we just, I mean, I feel bad for her in a way, but she also has, like, been a reign of terror on this case. So it was kind of nice to let her do that to, you know.

[00:45:35] [SPEAKER_02] She exposed herself.

[00:45:36] [SPEAKER_01] I mean, she comes off. Pretty much. Pretty much. Yeah. And so.

[00:45:39] [SPEAKER_05] She's also been such an online bully to Jade's family. That was important to talk about. But in our second interview, which might not air ever, I'm not sure, she's talking about the police planting evidence. It's ridiculous. Like, the level of delusion that she needs to have to make her daughter innocent is just really sad. And I actually like Renee.

[00:46:08] [SPEAKER_05] I do.

[00:46:09] [SPEAKER_03] But she definitely hates us now. You guys are nicer than us because I thought she, I mean, I wanted to friggin' throw myself out of the car listening to her talk. Like, I wanted to fucking end it all. Like, she came across awful. I think you guys are very, the fact that you can still find humanity in someone who's done what she's done is a testament to you and maybe a sign that my heart is too hardened.

[00:46:33] [SPEAKER_01] I mean, to be honest with you, if I didn't have people in my life that reminded me of Renee Hightower, I'd probably be off-put to the max. But I have a few people that are kind of quirky like her, to say the least. And...

[00:46:47] [SPEAKER_03] I can see how she raised a kid that was that fucked up. I guess I'll say that.

[00:46:51] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. I mean, just, it's the accountability thing. And that's what we come across in the jail calls. There's absolutely no fucking accountability with her and her daughter.

[00:46:58] [SPEAKER_03] No, nothing's their fault. It's just evil cops. It's evil prosecutors. It's evil everybody planting everything.

[00:47:03] [SPEAKER_01] Even the shit, the dumb shit she was bringing up in the podcast.

[00:47:07] [SPEAKER_05] The chain line darting on it too, Waffles.

[00:47:10] [SPEAKER_01] Even the dumb shit she was bringing up in the Songbird Road podcast that it's stuff we're going to cover probably just to close out this whole thing. But like Julia cried that one of the officers that arrested her yanked a scrunchie out of her hair. And it hurt her. Oh, scrunchie pulled it. And I'm like, who gives a shit? You know, you gotta, you just murdered her. Like, I'm a, I think we need more police brutality, but that's a different subject. But anyway, whenever I didn't, I mean, who fucking cares about a scrunchie?

[00:47:40] [SPEAKER_01] So then I'm listening to the jail calls that are taking place, you know, right after she's arrested and all that stuff. And then I'm like, okay, so did this happen? You know, did this happen? The scrunchie thing? Like, we've got to be some sort of report on it. Did we corroborate this? Because the only thing that is brought up one time about her getting a scrunchie ganked out of her hair and it pulled some hair with it and it hurt her. Julia told her mom that. And her mom just runs with it. And then it's like, you're not going to question? Like, she's, okay. So then she does question.

[00:48:10] [SPEAKER_01] She calls, I don't know who she called. She called somebody and was talking about how she talked to them about it. I don't know, this was the showers. That's what it was, the shower. She didn't get a shower for two weeks or something like that. And then she calls somebody to report on this and they're like, you know, sometimes these inmates lie. And then she says, excuse me, that's my daughter. I'm like, that tells me all I need to know about Renee Hightower. She would not for a second believe that her daughter would lie to her.

[00:48:40] [SPEAKER_01] With the showers, I think what it was is she was in a fucking manic state. She just got arrested for it. She was crazy. And then I guess the inmates just take showers. I don't really know how the process works there, but I'm guessing she was just out of it and didn't want to shower. Or she did shower and she's just lying. Or she didn't know where to go to shower and she just didn't ask anyone and she just stayed being funky, whatever it was. But guess what? She got to shower after that.

[00:49:08] [SPEAKER_01] She got to shower and who gives a shit? But just all the little dumb shit that comes up on Songbird Road, where they're supposed to be these big meanie moments. It's all stuff that just came out of Julia's mouth and Renee Hightower runs with it. Which is what Bob did whenever they got all the information from Renee Hightower. They just ran with it and made an 11-part episode podcast. Ugh.

[00:49:33] [SPEAKER_05] We could make an entire jail call podcast. Calls from the Slammer, right? The ones I've been listening to recently is Mackenzie Shurilla and her mom. Have you listened to any of those?

[00:49:46] [SPEAKER_03] Not yet.

[00:49:47] [SPEAKER_05] I haven't watched the doc yet. Okay. Yeah, that's pretty nuts. And then there's the Taylor, I can't remember her last name, the woman who cut a baby out of another person. Taylor Parker? Those verb jail calls also with her mom are freaking crazy. Like, why are we enabling murderers? I don't get it.

[00:50:06] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah.

[00:50:06] [SPEAKER_03] Some people just, I think, love to. I mean, like, it's not a matter of, like, actually caring about the system or guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. I think they just get a weird, perverse pleasure from supporting people who have done unthinkably awful things.

[00:50:20] [SPEAKER_05] Well, especially when it's your daughter. Well, I mean, with that, but the bottomata's the world.

[00:50:25] [SPEAKER_03] I mean, that's who that is. But with the mothers, it's like they're raising people who are totally unaccountable. Oh, of course.

[00:50:30] [SPEAKER_05] They don't want to be blamed for raising a murderer. Yeah, it's embarrassing. If I'm raised a murderer, I would be like, you suck, I love you, but sit in jail.

[00:50:41] [SPEAKER_03] Well, that's something you can love someone and still say, I love you and shut the fuck up and you fucked up and, like, you need to be held accountable, but I'm going to be there for you regardless.

[00:50:52] [SPEAKER_01] Well, that's the best part of those jail calls was just, you know, she never took the stand. And on the Songbird Road podcast, all we got was Bob Mata going to talk to her for an hour, getting some bullshit story together and then coming back and telling us what she said. That's it. So we never got to hear from her. So with about, fuck, 500 hours of jail calls that I listened to, you really, I'm telling you, I know more about that family than I ever needed to know.

[00:51:20] [SPEAKER_01] It's very clear that Renee Hightower prioritized Julia Beverly over her other kids. Now, maybe her siblings will say otherwise, but, I mean, fuck, one of them even testified that she was spoiled as a kid. So I think they know it. I mean, if you've ever, I don't know, my sister was, my sister was the spoiled kid. My mom had six kids and every time a new kid came, that was the one that got spoiled the most.

[00:51:49] [SPEAKER_01] And so my sister came, I got like 359 good days out of my mom. And then my sister came and she got her tubes tied. And so like my whole childhood was my sister just being the princess of the family. So like your siblings can definitely tell, you know what I mean? And so with the jail calls, you get to see that and you get to see how she, I mean, she was not like Renee did so much. I mean, she got a fucking podcaster to do 11 episodes over this case for God's sakes. Like, oh my God.

[00:52:19] [SPEAKER_01] She was paying for all these, these jail calls were like 20 cents a minute. And like I said, I listened to like 500 hours of these damn things. Renee paid for all that stuff. She put money on her commissary, all that stuff, bought her whatever she needed, got a private investigator. Not one time do you hear Julia Beverly say, mom, thank you for doing everything that you do for me. Thank you so much. It's just expected. It's just expected. Not that Renee would be like, oh, well, thank you very much.

[00:52:49] [SPEAKER_01] Renee would probably be like, you don't need to say anything. You know, I'm your mother. This is what I'm going to do. But there's no, never once is she trying to show her mother that she appreciates what she does. Not one time in those jail calls that I hear.

[00:53:03] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. And of course it's easy to understand why a mother might be sympathetic to a child in that sort of situation. But what do you suppose it is that gets regular Joes and regular Zs could be so susceptible to these false claims of innocence and innocence grift?

[00:53:22] [SPEAKER_01] You want to go first, Kothi?

[00:53:25] [SPEAKER_05] I don't know. Is it romantic somehow? People like the underdog. The system is so terrible. The cops are so mean. They're so bad. The government hates everyone.

[00:53:39] [SPEAKER_01] We're not like the biggest podcast in the world, so we don't really get a lot of pushback. But we had some people come on our Facebook group and say some things. But man, it was like few and far between. So it seems like once the war, like, oh, you know what? It actually through those jail calls, the family was pushing the innocence stuff. So I guess there's some sort of local Facebook group that they were doing all this on. But there was a lot of drama with the Facebook stuff.

[00:54:08] [SPEAKER_01] Then the podcast and then, of course, other people outside of the area would start to think one way or the other. Shit. Somebody put it on a murder sheet or not murder sheet.

[00:54:21] [SPEAKER_04] Don't blame us.

[00:54:22] [SPEAKER_01] Sorry. The M's. Mata's Facebook group, whatever the hell, Defense Diaries or whatever the hell it is. Yeah. Why does it said something like, why do people think she's innocent and all this stuff? And then, like, his own listeners are like, I don't know. I think she's pretty damn guilty. But then, like, some people were like, I don't know this or that. There was a few people, but nobody was, like, just all in. And I will say the only ones I've dealt with that were all in on our innocence were either family or, like, local. That went to school with her or something like that.

[00:54:52] [SPEAKER_01] So this case is a little unique that way. But at the same time, we're not the biggest podcast. We're not going to get the biggest pushback either.

[00:54:58] [SPEAKER_03] I've seen that outside of, like, our space of true crime where people are like, hey, what did you think of Murder on Songbird Road? And a bunch of comments are like, yeah, I listened to the Viper Pit and that shit's fucked up.

[00:55:08] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. I don't know how you defend the chick after the stuff we've brought to the table. Because the Murder on Songbird Road has the – they write the script. Like, this is why she's – you should trust her. This is why you should believe what we're telling you. And then we go take their bullshit and we go prove otherwise. On every account that they had of her possibly being innocent, there's just no scrolling Facebook in the driveway while dogs are barking.

[00:55:37] [SPEAKER_01] Like, there's no – like, 31 minutes. That's, like, the best she could do to try to account for the 31 minutes. Well, I was in the driveway scrolling Facebook and dogs were howling, whatever. But there's just – no.

[00:55:49] [SPEAKER_05] Well, is it 800 pages of Facebook data? And they didn't even bother, like, analyzing it because that story is stupid.

[00:55:57] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:55:59] [SPEAKER_03] I do want to ask you, you know, I think you guys are very much at the forefront of something that I really appreciate about your show. And we try to do this, too, as much as possible. But it's to puncture some of this innocent grift. I feel like there is a trend in true crime. It's been a trend for a while. But it seems to kind of just keep coming of these really badly made, dishonest narratives about cases trying to posit innocence and actually, like, lying about the evidence.

[00:56:27] [SPEAKER_03] And not just saying this is our opinion, but, like, manipulating the audience into thinking it's stronger than it is. And usually it's just factually wrong. And so, like, do you guys, as people who are very much in that and kind of poking holes in a lot of this stuff, do you guys – is there a backlash coming? Because I just feel like I see more and more people being, like, pissed off where it's like I listened to this and then I heard the facts and now I feel, like, tricked. I mean, am I being too optimistic? Do you see a backlash coming? What do you think? A lot of people –

[00:56:57] [SPEAKER_03] If we do have backlash, Kevin is our attorney, right?

[00:57:00] [SPEAKER_01] Yes. Absolutely. I see a ton of people that are thrilled that we said something or we spoke up. And I think, surely, like, people want – they just want to hear a podcast and trust it, right? Instead of, like, hearing a podcast and then being – then they go and tell their friends, oh, my God, you got to listen to this. And then six months later, another podcast comes out and destroys that podcast. And then all their friends are like, hey, man, I thought you said this guy was innocent. Then you feel kind of stupid.

[00:57:30] [SPEAKER_01] And I don't think too many people want to do that too many times. I just – I think a time is up for this shit. And it just needs to be better – not like I'm a journalist, but better journalism for covering these cases. Because it's – when you're just spinning all the time, then you're – what is your content, really? You know what I mean? So I hope – I hope there's a backlash coming. I don't know why the hell it's taking so long, frankly.

[00:57:57] [SPEAKER_03] What do you think, Coffey? Do you think there's a backlash or am I being too Pollyannish?

[00:58:02] [SPEAKER_05] I'm not sure. To go back to the original question, I think that people have this romanticized view of being oppressed. Because for some reason, we're not keeping our own power. Like, we want to let everyone take our power. And so to view somebody who – oh, no, they're in prison for life, but maybe they're innocent.

[00:58:31] [SPEAKER_05] Like, they gravitate towards that because they also aren't accepting their own power and letting other people take it away. Does that make sense?

[00:58:42] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. They want – they almost like a victimization narrative. They can put themselves in it.

[00:58:46] [SPEAKER_01] I can see that, too.

[00:58:48] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. I see this in the mainstream press, too. You have so much, like, skepticism for police and prosecutors. And to a certain extent, I think you should. You know, that's an immense amount of power to wield. You should be skeptical. You shouldn't – I mean, and there's certainly cases of police corruption and prosecutorial misconduct. But you have to apply skepticism to defense claims as well. And I just don't see people doing that. It's like, oh, the police said this and they have evidence for it.

[00:59:16] [SPEAKER_03] But what – but the defense attorney said the real killer flew in on a hot air balloon and then shot him and then went up with aliens. And people are like, yeah, that makes sense. And it's like, what the fuck? That's not skepticism. That's – oh, my God.

[00:59:29] [SPEAKER_05] It's crazy.

[00:59:30] [SPEAKER_01] I think another thing, too, is the Innocence Project does a good job of getting innocent people out of jail. But I think there's been cases where clearly guilty people have gotten out of jail. And they think that just because they're out and they might even get exonerated out of the deal that they're innocent. And there was a corrupt process and everything. And it's just like we saw how that Adnan shit played out.

[00:59:56] [SPEAKER_03] Oh, yeah. And there's a lot of money in exoneration. Oh, yeah.

[00:59:58] [SPEAKER_01] And politics. Like, just throw politics in there. Once politics gets into a true crime case, it can go anywhere.

[01:00:05] [SPEAKER_05] So Tyler Robinson shouldn't be prosecuted because it was an exploding microphone. Like, where are we coming up with this stuff? What is this, like a fucking 1960s spy movie?

[01:00:16] [SPEAKER_03] I mean, like, what are we doing? I mean, like, I want to tell you – I mean, recently Timo's been claiming that, you know, he's got people in the Trump inner circle that are going to, you know, help him out. So it's like you definitely see that. And I'll add to that just one opinion. And I've certainly seen this with some of the cases you guys talk about. There's this kind of contrarianism of, like, it's making people feel smarter because it's like, yeah, you think that this is the story. But we're going to tell you it was really this.

[01:00:43] [SPEAKER_03] And it kind of like – and it's like you have the hidden secret information now. And we're all really smart because we're – it's like that's not – like, look at the fucking facts. Like, I mean, I don't know.

[01:00:53] [SPEAKER_01] Another one, that Jason Flom guy. Oh, man. You guys heard of this fucking weirdo? Yeah, yeah. That dude doesn't do a damn bit of reason. Just tell him you're innocent and he'll make an episode for you. I mean, that guy doesn't do shit.

[01:01:05] [SPEAKER_03] I think he could, like, make AI make a fake case and he would do something like that.

[01:01:10] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Totally. So he was on the Songbird Road podcast and they made it out like this guy was a fucking rock star and all this shit. And he ends up paying $20,000 for what he says Kathleen Zellner and for the appeal. And they ended up getting this chick that looked like – you heard that we played the whole appeal on our episode. It was like 30 minutes long. But this poor girl, I don't know if she was even 30 years old yet.

[01:01:40] [SPEAKER_01] So to be a lawyer – I don't know. How long does it take to become a lawyer? Like –

[01:01:45] [SPEAKER_00] Three years.

[01:01:46] [SPEAKER_01] Three years? She was 21 years old then, I guess. I felt so bad. Anyway, basically, he paid $20,000. They make it a big deal like they got Kathleen Zellner on the case. And they just got someone in Kathleen Zellner's office on the case, which is fine, I guess. But, man, this woman sounded – she was so nervous and just stuttering. Like, it was so sad to hear. I felt bad for her.

[01:02:16] [SPEAKER_01] But they make it out on the podcast like this big feel-good moment that we got Kathleen Zellner. I'm like –

[01:02:22] [SPEAKER_03] I just also want to say something to your point. Like, there's no National Innocence Project. It's all different organizations associated with different institutions and different locations. It is. You have some that I think are very credible and do a good job and are pursuing cases. You get some that are not credible at all. And the fact of the matter is that as DNA technology advanced, especially at the turn of the century, I think they got a lot of innocent people out of prison and should be commended for that because there were DNA cases.

[01:02:50] [SPEAKER_03] And it was like, this victim was raped and murdered. My client's DNA did not match. Okay. I feel like some of them are almost just trying to keep the money going and they just take on whatever case.

[01:02:59] [SPEAKER_01] Because nowadays those cases don't get tried because they tested DNA. Precisely.

[01:03:04] [SPEAKER_03] It's a different era. And I feel like, honestly, if they were – if some of these organizations were more honest, they would transition to something more like, I don't know, clemency or something else. But anyways, where can people start to listen? Like, how can people launch into your amazing coverage of this case? It is – it just – it has tremendous depth. You tell it with a lot of humor. But there's a lot of – I love how victim-centric you guys are. I know that sounds really weird to say.

[01:03:30] [SPEAKER_03] But, like, I feel like I'm laughing and then I'm getting pissed off because, like, you are defending this 11-year-old and I don't see anyone else doing that.

[01:03:39] [SPEAKER_05] I'm pretty sure it will be that episode 120. I posted this in the group. Start there and play it until you want to cry.

[01:03:48] [SPEAKER_01] So basically just remember our first – I don't know how many episodes we did was on – It was just on the podcast Murder on Songbird Road. Then, after that, I think our first – it was so funny. Renee Hightower called us out for our coverage on the podcast and said that we didn't do our due diligence.

[01:04:07] [SPEAKER_05] And then we got the case file.

[01:04:09] [SPEAKER_01] Then we got the case file. And I believe the first episode is called Due Diligence on Songbird Road.

[01:04:14] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah, it is.

[01:04:17] [SPEAKER_01] And then you can pretty much just go from there from Due Diligence on Songbird Road all the way to now is pretty much 95%.

[01:04:27] [SPEAKER_03] I'm going to say this, Waffles. Earlier you said you're not a journalist. I mean, you are journalists in the sense that what you did was investigative journalism. This did what investigative journalism is supposed to do and exposed lies and put out the truth. And so we – We're not a fangirl.

[01:04:41] [SPEAKER_01] Thank you.

[01:04:42] [SPEAKER_03] I am fangirling. You guys did a fucking great job. Yes, absolutely.

[01:04:48] [SPEAKER_01] Can I just say one thing? You said how the Innocence Projects aren't all like one national Innocence Project. I described it a few weeks ago as basically a McDonald's franchise.

[01:04:58] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. That's odd. You go in a McDonald's franchise and they run that shit like the Navy and it's beautiful.

[01:05:04] [SPEAKER_01] Except for – yeah.

[01:05:05] [SPEAKER_03] And then you go in the next one and it's a post-apocalyptic nightmare.

[01:05:09] [SPEAKER_01] I don't know what neighborhood you're in.

[01:05:11] [SPEAKER_05] I want to present to the Innocence Project the Bay Harbor Butcher and have them prove him innocent.

[01:05:22] [SPEAKER_06] What the hell's that?

[01:05:23] [SPEAKER_05] No thoughts on that. No thoughts on that. What is Bay Harbor Butcher? That's Dexter.

[01:05:28] [SPEAKER_04] Oh.

[01:05:29] [SPEAKER_01] Hold on.

[01:05:30] [SPEAKER_04] Save him. I'm sorry to be Dexter.

[01:05:33] [SPEAKER_01] They would run with it. They would.

[01:05:35] [SPEAKER_04] I mean, they would.

[01:05:36] [SPEAKER_01] So speaking of jail calls, you guys had the team you jail calls that I fucking loved.

[01:05:40] [SPEAKER_04] Oh, my God.

[01:05:42] [SPEAKER_01] I loved. How many of those calls did you guys have? If you want to take this off, you can do this.

[01:05:46] [SPEAKER_00] We had like 33 or 34 hours.

[01:05:48] [SPEAKER_03] 34 hours, but we only used a small fraction.

[01:05:51] [SPEAKER_01] Can we have those? I think we could use – I think we could use a few more of them.

[01:05:56] [SPEAKER_03] Oh, my God.

[01:05:57] [SPEAKER_01] You guys are way too professional. I think we could really –

[01:06:00] [SPEAKER_03] You guys could have fun with them. I would love to hear your take on some of these.

[01:06:04] [SPEAKER_01] I think we could. That would be great. That would be good. But those fucking calls, that's solid gold. And you only had 33 or 34 hours? Yeah. Yeah. Can you imagine if you had 500 hours on that couch? Oh, yeah.

[01:06:16] [SPEAKER_03] It's horrifying. And it's just like – it's just unpleasant to spend time with him even remotely. And he's not yelling at us, but we're just like, man. I'm like, wow.

[01:06:24] [SPEAKER_01] I don't see the charm in this. I don't – I'm so puzzled. He's not charming.

[01:06:27] [SPEAKER_03] I don't get it. I think it's more like people are charmed by the story and the idea that they're going to help. And then they get to the hero at the heart of it. And it turns out he's awful.

[01:06:36] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[01:06:37] [SPEAKER_03] They're in too deep at that point.

[01:06:38] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. So you guys just got the good brother Brent to acknowledge this guy is a creep finally. Did that happen?

[01:06:44] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. Brad and Julia from the consulate came on the show and we had a good conversation. I'm not sure. I don't think they necessarily agree with our take on guilt. But honestly, we're comrades and arm in arm with anyone who will at least admit that he is a – He's a piece of shit.

[01:06:57] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah.

[01:06:58] [SPEAKER_03] You know?

[01:06:58] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. That's it. That's the good reality. Yeah. We don't have to like change your mind on innocent or guilt, but come on on his personality. Let's quit with this romanticizing of him.

[01:07:07] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. Let's stop romanticizing murderers and creeps. Oh, my God. And same goes with Julia Beverly. So you guys, thank you for fighting the good fight.

[01:07:13] [SPEAKER_00] But just to close, this is something I think you guys would appreciate. The other day on Facebook, Timu insulted this particular guy who's running for governor of Michigan. He made some very specific claims about him. So, you know, just as a matter of course, I don't know if we're going to do anything with it. We said, let's write an email to this guy who's running for governor to see what he has to say about it. And when we did that, Anya looked up the name.

[01:07:42] [SPEAKER_03] You're not going to believe this.

[01:07:44] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. The name of his press advisor, right?

[01:07:46] [SPEAKER_03] Do you want to know what the name of his press advisor is?

[01:07:49] [SPEAKER_00] Uh-oh.

[01:07:50] [SPEAKER_03] Timu Jin Kensu.

[01:07:52] [SPEAKER_01] What? What? Give him the name.

[01:07:55] [SPEAKER_04] You guys somehow will this into existence?

[01:08:01] [SPEAKER_01] Holy shit.

[01:08:02] [SPEAKER_00] That's his first name.

[01:08:03] [SPEAKER_03] No way.

[01:08:04] [SPEAKER_01] Wow.

[01:08:04] [SPEAKER_03] I was like looking at it. We were literally at a book festival waiting to do like a panel or something. And I'm looking at it on my phone. I'm like, Kevin, the fuck is this? Is this like, is this Google like hallucinating? And then I was looking it up and it wasn't. The guy's name. I don't know what's going on.

[01:08:18] [SPEAKER_00] I forget his last name. His first name is Timu.

[01:08:20] [SPEAKER_03] I forget what his last name. It was Timu. It was spelled different. It wasn't spelled like the store, but it was.

[01:08:25] [SPEAKER_00] It was an extra E in there.

[01:08:26] [SPEAKER_01] Did he change his name back to Fred? What's the story there? Last I heard, he changed it back. Then I see him going by it again.

[01:08:35] [SPEAKER_03] I think like our view is that he may have never like legally officially changed it in the first place. But he's going by Timu. And it's always very funny when people ask us about like, oh, what are you working on with that? And we have to explain Timu Jin Kenzu. And then we're like, well, he's a white supremacist. And they're like, oh, really? Because they think he's Asian. And we're like, no, no, no, no. Yeah.

[01:08:54] [SPEAKER_01] The whole thing. I know. I was thinking that. The first thought, I was like, oh, this ought to be some sort of. I was like, then there was karate involved. I was like, this is going to be some weird crime.

[01:09:05] [SPEAKER_05] It's an actual ninja maybe.

[01:09:06] [SPEAKER_03] I don't know.

[01:09:06] [SPEAKER_01] It's fine. I was just some white dude.

[01:09:08] [SPEAKER_03] He's the Rachel Doll is all of murderers.

[01:09:15] [SPEAKER_01] Oh, my God. I don't remember her. She's a little more pleasant.

[01:09:18] [SPEAKER_04] Yeah. I mean, she was pleasantly delusional, but she didn't kill anybody.

[01:09:24] [SPEAKER_01] She didn't kill anyone. Just her character. That's all.

[01:09:28] [SPEAKER_04] Just looked completely insane.

[01:09:30] [SPEAKER_01] That one was lovely.

[01:09:33] [SPEAKER_03] She's definitely the moral superior of this guy. But anyways, we had so much fun talking to you guys. Where can people listen to The Viper Pit?

[01:09:41] [SPEAKER_05] Absolutely everywhere. Excellent. You can join. Podcast catcher. We'll have our podcast.

[01:09:48] [SPEAKER_01] And also, we have, if you're interested in some of the case, while we've got some, not everything. We're still trying to figure out. I guess the good brother, Brent, he can help you out more with all the file stuff. But we do have a bunch of pictures of the crime scene and all that stuff.

[01:10:03] [SPEAKER_05] Nothing. We do not host photos of Jade. Of course not.

[01:10:08] [SPEAKER_01] But you can go to The Viper Pit Podcast on Facebook, join that, and then go up to the tab for the information. And our YouTube channel has Julia Beverly's interview, Michael's interview, the mother Jessica's interview. Also has the surveillance footage and the Hux video.

[01:10:30] [SPEAKER_03] You guys did such a good job. And it just, you have such a resource of this. I would, I would strongly encourage everyone to listen. Because it's not just, you're not just going to get the truth about this case, but you're also going to get like how these fucking podcasts manipulate you. Yeah. How they make you think one way and basically why you can't trust a lot of them.

[01:10:47] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. I mean, this one was, it was a lot of things. I think laziness was a big one. And just, they had that I heart radio money, I guess. I don't know. And so it's just, this is, this case is open and shut, but man, yeah, we, we pretty much exposed.

[01:11:04] [SPEAKER_05] It's a human condition that fascinates us about why people want others to be innocent so badly that they're just going to lie to the masses and the masses agree. It's crazy.

[01:11:18] [SPEAKER_03] Well, I hope the masses will eventually wake the fuck up because it's, it's getting stupid out there.

[01:11:23] [SPEAKER_01] Thank you.

[01:11:25] [SPEAKER_03] Well said.

[01:11:26] [SPEAKER_01] Well said.

[01:11:26] [SPEAKER_03] Well, you guys are the best. And, uh, and yeah, thanks for coming on.

[01:11:30] [SPEAKER_01] Thank you for having us. This was great.

[01:11:31] [SPEAKER_03] Thank you, darlings.

[01:11:33] [SPEAKER_01] Thanks.

[01:11:33] [SPEAKER_03] Thank you. Thanks to Coffee and Waffles for coming on the Murder Sheet. We think they're great. And we think that you ought to listen to them wherever you get your podcasts. I actually went ahead and created a little playlist that I will link to in our show notes where you can listen to all of their coverage of Jade's case from the very beginning.

[01:11:57] [SPEAKER_00] 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.

[01:12:17] [SPEAKER_03] 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.

[01:12:41] [SPEAKER_00] 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.

[01:12:50] [SPEAKER_03] 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.