Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - 'Arrests Are Coming' in Beating Death of Arizona Teen Preston Lord: Police Chief

Episode Date: January 18, 2024

It's been nearly three months since Preston Lord, 16, was beaten to death outside of a Halloween party in Queen Creek, Arizona — a suburb of Phoenix. Preston's family and the community have called for justice as the police chief announced charges have been referred to the Maricopa County Attorney's Office against seven juveniles and adults in Preston's murder. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy talks with retired FBI agent Bobby Chacon about the bureau's involvement in the case in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show that delves into the biggest stories in crime.HOST:Angenette Levy: twitter.com/Angenette5CRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoAudio Editing - Brad MaybeGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@LawandCrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this law and crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Preston's death is a high-profile investigation case. Preston is more than a headline. He is the son. The family of a 16-year-old boy in Arizona pleads for answers in his murder after he's beaten to death outside of a Halloween party. Now, nearly three months after his death, police in Queen Creek are promising justice for Preston Lord.

To those that are responsible for the murder of Preston, you will be held accountable. Arrests are coming and we will bring justice to the family. I'm Anjanette Levy. It's Thursday and this is Crime Fix. Preston Lord had just turned 16 last October 28th when he went to a Halloween party in Queen Creek, that's a suburb of Phoenix, and ended up being beaten to death. Preston's murder has sparked outrage because it's been nearly three months and no arrests have been made. His stepmother spoke just last week at a council meeting in Chandler, Arizona. She wants to ensure that people know who Preston was and what his loss means to her family.

Preston was an upstanding young man. While no number of words can fully describe him, I will list some of his attributes to help you get to know who he was. He was a junior at Combs High School, although he did live with us in Chandler. A member of the basketball and golf team. He was very academic, and he received the 2023 President's Education Award from the U.S. Secretary of Education. Additionally, he was a leader of the Honor Society and involved with student council. Preston was content and appreciative of anything that was given or done for him. He was loyal, respectful, trustworthy, and responsible.

He had empathy for children and was gentle and kind. He stood up for the weaker person, and he knew the difference between right and wrong. He inspired many people to be better and to do better. Just last night at the Queen Creek Council meeting, the chief of police assured the community that arrests are coming in Preston's murder. At the forefront of every day, every weekend, every long night, we are focused on making sure that we get this case to where it needs to be. So as you know, we in late December submitted charges to the Maricopa County Attorney's Office against seven individuals related to this case. police have been tight-lipped about the investigation and the suspects they will only say the people they would like to charge are both adults and juveniles but

the lack of information has caused a lot of frustration in the community the homicide investigation that we're involved here is complex. It has many pieces. The submittal is extensive, a lot of supporting documents and other evidentiary items. And we've been working diligently to follow up on all the tips that we have up to this point, which is in excess of more than 300 at this point. There's been a lot of chatter that a group called the Gilbert Goons is responsible for Preston's murder, but police aren't saying whether the group is connected or not. Preston's mother talked about who was at that party last October. At the Halloween party that Preston attended, there was teenagers from Mesa, Queen Creek, Santan Valley, Gilbert, Chandler, and Atlas

Hooky. Many residents including myself are concerned about safety and the presence of teen violence and bullying in our community. Our children are sent to school to get an education and to prepare them to be an upstanding and contributing member of society. When children are afraid, okay that didn't go, afraid of their lives This is a grave concern. We should not be afraid in our own communities. There's concern over what's being labeled teen violence. It's so great that earlier this month, school officials Queen Creek are looking at whether the Gilbert Goons can be classified as a violent street gang and recently reopened cases in which members of the group were suspects. Now again, Queen Creek police are not saying whether Gilbert Goons members are involved in Preston's murder or not. To show support for Preston and his family, people wore orange at last night's

meeting in Queen Creek. Members of the community spoke about Preston's case. Orange is also the color on the Justice for Preston Lord Facebook page. Several fundraisers have been organized in his memory, and a GoFundMe page has raised more than $125,000. The FBI is assisting with the investigation into Preston Lord's murder. A $10,000 reward is being offered for information that leads to an arrest in his case. Bobby Chacon is a retired FBI agent and an attorney. Bobby, why do you think the FBI got involved in Preston Lord's murder case? The FBI, you know, it's hard to say specifically, and because they've been sort of closed-lipped

about this, the chief has anyway, the FBI gets involved in a number of different ways for a number of different reasons. Mainly, it's to bring resources to a case like this. The FBI laboratory in Quantico, Virginia has kind of stepped up abilities than a lot of state crime labs have or local crime labs have, so that it could be a crime lab situation. It could be other resources that the FBI brings in. The FBI has, you know, computer-assisted regional forensic laboratories that they can do computer forensics with. There's also, you know, a strategic prosecutorial possibility that if, you know, in a case like this where, you know, you're on the periphery trying to get people to talk,

if you can target somebody through another investigation unrelated to this and kind of get a hammer over their head prosecutorily and get them to talk about that case to make a deal on the case that you charge them with, that's also a possibility the fbi has a number of different investigations at any given time and if anybody on the periphery of this case you know has come across the fbi's radar the fbi could come in and go after that person in an effort to make them a deal on the other unrelated case to talk in this case. Now, I'm not saying that that is what's happening here. I'm saying there's a number of different ways and reasons the FBI could get involved. It's a resources thing. It's a capabilities thing. Often it's a strategic thing.

So I think it's yet to be seen in this particular case. They've been asking for video and it sounds like they're still asking for video, despite the fact that the police chief is saying, look, you know, we've we've turned over referrals for charges against seven different people, both adults and juveniles in Preston's murder. But they're they're still looking for information. They're still investigating. They say this is going to take some time. It's going to take the prosecutor's office a while to kind of go through the case and look at the evidence. How complex is this? I mean, we're talking about a 16-year-old boy who's beaten to death outside of a Halloween party. Kids are supposed to be able to go to Halloween parties. That's what they do, right? Teenagers go to Halloween parties. This kid went to a party and was murdered. Yeah, and we saw some of that frustration boil

over at the last, the council meeting where the chief gave the update and, you know, Pam was saying like, you know, these kids who ever did this are still walking around in our community, among us. And I understand the frustration with parents and the community there. I think they're at the point now where they've identified the people involved and they're moving forward with getting ready to prosecute. Now, people have to understand that with double jeopardy,

you get one shot at it. You have to do it right. You have to cross all your T's. You have to dot all your I's. And this may be, from the prosecutor's office, an abundance of caution to do it right, to get as much as you can

because you're going to be facing defense attorneys that rip your case apart the prosecutor's office an abundance of caution to do it right to get as much as you can um because you're going to be facing defense attorneys that rip your case apart and they only need to get one juror to have one reasonable doubt and you get an acquittal and you can never bring those charges again so i think that they they've identified the people they've identified the evidence that they're going to go into court with and present to a jury they're just trying to get as much as they can to make sure they secure a conviction again because you only have one shot at this in our system and and i think that i think it's and i understand the patience is wearing thin in the community um but it looks to me like with those charges as you alluded to with the seven people

um that they're they're really trying to get it right. They're really trying to be thorough. They're really trying to get as much information and evidence as they can, you know, before they actually, you know, actually drop the hammer and go forward. Because with speedy trial rules, you have to be ready to go to trial right away

if the defense, you know, wants that. Oftentimes they waive speedy trial, but you have to be ready to go into court pretty much day one with all your evidence and convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. So I think that they identified the people and that's another part of the frustration. There's a lot of people in that community probably who know who was involved and who did this, because like you said, it's a party. There's kids. Kids talk. Kids know each other. Everybody in school the next day or the next week probably was talking about this and knows who did it. And so I think that that's the case. I kind of have confidence in the

prosecution at this point that they're just trying to be as thorough as they can and careful as they can to bring the charges and get the convictions. What's concerning to me about this is the fact that they're saying there are both juveniles and adults involved. Granted, we don't know the age of the adults. Adult could be 19 under the law, 18 under the law, 20. You know, that's still pretty young, a young adult, but still it's an adult nonetheless. Seven people, they're looking to charge seven people in relation to the beating death of a 16-year-old boy. I mean, what is going on? And

this sounds like this has been a consistent problem in that area of Arizona. They're talking about teen violence being such a big issue in this area of Arizona, the greater Phoenix area. They've canceled two basketball games with Preston's High School this month because of the concern over something maybe happening. What is going on, Bobby, in our society that this is happening? I mean, we saw a kid beaten to death in Las Vegas recently outside of a high school. Yeah, terrific, the level of violence. And I think you're right. It's not one-on-one.

It's not revenge stuff. It's this groupthink and this pack mentality that's kind of pervading a lot of our youth groups. I don't understand how it's happening or why it's happening, but it's definitely happening. And it's definitely kind of a pack mentality when one individual or two individuals are on their own, they might not take a certain action. But when they get into a group, for some reason, that group provides them with the protection or the feeling of strength in numbers. And they start carrying this out. Like you said, seven people to beat one small teenager to death is horrific. I mean, we don't know that all seven were involved. The seven that are charged, some of them could be charged with,

you know, helping after the fact or hiding stuff or, you know, doing whatever. But but it could be seven people because they have this pack mentality. And when they set on a victim, it's like a frenzy and they all just start taking part in it. And it's horrific and it's wrong. And it should be dealt with, you know, obviously in the strongest possible way, you know, in court, these people should pay very harsh penalties, both for what they did and as an example to others that are, like you said, taking part in this on almost a regular basis.

You know, they said that there were kids from all over at this party. So this wasn't just, you know, his mother, his stepmother said that at the council meeting. You know, there were kids from a number of different communities. And there's all this chatter. The police won't comment on it, but there's this chatter that this group, the Gilbert Goons, which it sounds like is just a big gang, might have been involved and that they might be responsible for other acts of violence in the area. If this was possibly a gang related crime, what does that mean for Preston's murder? And what does that say about what's been going on in that area? Well, to me, you know, personally, I was involved. This is one of the things I did in my FBI career was investigate gangs and prosecute gangs under the RICO statute. So, you know, that's another possible FBI involvement in this case. If they're an organized group, even if it's loosely organized,

if we can show that there's somehow an organized group carrying out these things, you know, a prosecutor, a federal prosecutor could look into it from a RICO standpoint. RICO is the Racketeering and Influence Corrupt Organization Act that we use to go after mob families and gangs, you know, big organized gangs. But you can apply it to any group of people that are organized in a way to carry out criminal acts. That's what RICO does. So, you know, if this group, if this Gilbert Goons group has grown to the point where the federal prosecutors want to start looking at this as a possible RICO case, you know, that's another way the FBI can get involved. And that's a very strong motivator for people that are kind of roped into a RICO organization. You get 20 years minimum mandatory in federal prison. There is no parole anymore on the federal those. And so, you know, you're talking about long federal prison terms, which is a motivator for people to cooperate and plead guilty and tell us what's going on and testify against other people and stuff. So, you know, when you have

groups like this, when they grow to a certain size, they certainly could come on to, you know, the federal prosecutor's radar and the FBI's radar. And they have tools at the federal level to go after these groups and dismantle them and punish them accordingly. Well, we know the Maricopa State Attorney's Office says that it's going to take time, but they are reviewing the charges that were referred to them in Preston Lord's murder. It's a horrific case. Preston Lord should be here. It's horrible. The FBI is still seeking information on the case, offering a $10,000 reward. Bobby Chacon, thanks as always for coming on. We appreciate it. Thanks for having me. And that's it for Crime Fix on this Thursday,

January 18th, 2024. I'm Annette Levy. Thanks so much for being with us. We'll see you back here tomorrow night. Until then, have a great night. You can download Crime Fix on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your favorite podcasts and new episodes post each weeknight at 6 Eastern time on Law and Crime's YouTube channel. Daniel Camacho does our video editing. Our head of social media is Bobby Zoki.

Our senior director of social media is Vanessa Vine. Savannah Williamson is one of our producers. Diane Kay director of social media is Vanessa Vine. Savannah Williamson is one of our producers. Diane Kay and Alyssa Fisher book our guests and Brad Mabey is our audio editor.