Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Dating App Serial Killer Strikes Again

Episode Date: October 25, 2021

Three women go missing in a month's time span. Their bodies are found raped and strangled, bound about the head with tape. A fourth woman manages to escape with her life. The connecting factor, the dating app, Tagged. The surviving victim says what happened has changed her entire life. Tiffany Taylor says she doesn't wear makeup anymore or have friends. She's too paranoid. Khalil Wheeler-Weaver, 20 was arrested and charged for his crimes.Joining Nancy Grace Today:Kathryn Marsh - Special Counsel, Assistant Chief of the Special Victims Family Violence Unit, Legislative Co-Chair for the State’s Attorney’s Office (Prince George’s County, MD), Co-Founder: Right Response Consulting, "No Grey Zone" Podcast", www.rightresponseconsulting.com, Dr. Shari Schwartz - Forensic Psychologist (specializing in Capital Mitigation and Victim Advocacy), www.panthermitigation.com, Twitter: https://twitter.com/TrialDoc, Author: "Criminal Behavior" and "Where Law and Psychology Intersect: Issues in Legal Psychology"Dr. Tim Gallagher - Medical Examiner State of Florida www.pathcaremed.com, Lecturer: University of Florida Medical School Forensic Medicine. Founder/Host: International Forensic Medicine Death Investigation ConferenceLisa M. Dadio - Former Police Lieutenant, New Haven Police Department, Senior Lecturer, Director of the Center for Advanced Policing at the University of New Haven's Forensic Science DepartmentNicole Partin - CrimeOnline.com Investigative Reporter, Twitter: @nicolepartin (Naples, FL) Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Did a serial killer use a dating app to lure one young woman after the next to her death? I believe yes. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. First of all, I want you to take a listen to our friends at BBC. When Robin West first disappeared last fall, her family didn't immediately panic. She was a grown woman about to celebrate her 20th birthday. Still, after a week, they reported her missing. After two weeks... Her mom called me and said, oh, they found Robin. That's Robin's father, Leroy West.

I immediately got excited. I said, well, let's put some gas in the car. Let's go get her. And she said, no, they found her body. Can you imagine your 19-year-old girl goes missing and the joy you hear the father had when he finds out they found her, they found Robin. And he goes, hey, let's go, let's go right now and get her. And the mom goes, no, they found her body. Again, I'm Nancy Grace and I want to thank you for being with us here

at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111 for Crime Stories. Let me introduce you an all-star panel to make sense of what we know now. First of all, Catherine Marsh, Special Counsel, Assistant Chief to Special Victims Family Violence Unit. You can find her at RightResponseConsulting.com. Dr. Sherry Swartz, Forensic Psychologist Specializing in criminal behavior, Dr. Tim Gallagher, medical examiner for the entire state of Florida at PathCareMed.com and special lecturer at University of Florida Medical School in forensic medicine. Lisa M. Daddio joining us, former police lieutenant, senior lecturer and director of the Center for Advanced Policing at University of New Haven. Nicole Parton joining us, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. Nicole, thank you for being with us. First, I want you to listen to more of when one of the victims that we know of goes missing. Listen. Investigators would soon tell Robyn's parents she was the first of four

victims of a serial killer. Her cousin, Zena Mason, says the news was almost too much to bear. It's just hard because she was such a good person and she was really, really loving and that's a problem in this world because people take advantage of that. It too trusting too trusted and it's just sad but it's really it's a good thing that she can't get hurt anymore. Nicole Parton joining me crimeonline.com investigator reporter Nicole what can you tell me about the discovery of 19 year old Robin West's body? So Robin was missing on August the 31st. She was a West Philadelphia native and her body was discovered in a burned out building in Orange, New Jersey. She had been brutally raped, her face wrapped in tape. It took them two weeks to identify her body because she was so badly

burned. Straight to Dr. Tim Gallagher joining us, the medical examiner for the entire state of Florida. Dr. Gallagher, again, thank you for being with us. The way that Robin West's body, a teen girl, was found, number one, the dichotomy. If when we think of a girl this age, maybe getting ready for her senior prom, maybe getting ready to go to college, enjoying the summer before college would start. The dichotomy of that juxtaposed against the harsh reality that her body was formed in advanced states of decomposition and that she had been basically hermetically sealed, I'm sure to hide the evidence, in a burned out building. What do you do when you get a body like that? You get the body, and I guess they do not unwrap the

tape at the scene. They would bring it to the medical examiner to do that, right? They certainly will. And typically, the first thing that we would do is we would begin taking extensive x-rays of the body, looking for projectiles such as bullets, knives, metallic objects, other things that may be hidden by the clothing or hidden by the decompositional process. Hold on, Dr. Gallagher, let me just take in what you're saying. So, Nicole Parton, you told me that she was wrapped in, what did you say, duct tape? Packaging tape around her face and head. Okay, around her face and head like Kelly Anthony, and then she's in a burned out building. And let me understand this, Nicole Parton, was her body burned or was she just left in a building

that was already burned out? She was placed in the building and then set on fire in the building. Her body was burned. Okay. Let me try to understand the evidentiary issues here. So, Dr. Gallagher, with packing tape, there had to be fingerprints on that. So how would you go about undoing that packing tape without destroying fingerprints? I really think masking tape would be easier to tear apart. But how would you do that with that very sticky packing tape? Well, you have to do it layer by layer. And a lot of the times we would use sterilized equipment, scissors, sometimes even microscopic techniques, you know, in order to remove it without destroying, you know, delicate fingerprints, DNA evidence. I'm sorry, Dr. Gallagher,

that may work in some places, but not here. What do you mean by microscopic techniques to undo tape? Well, we want to make sure that we're not, that the process that we're using is not going to destroy any evidence that is on the tape. We will use magnifying glasses and something called a dissecting microscope a lot of the times to remove some of the smaller pieces, the trace evidence, any hairs that may be stuck to the bottom side of the tape. Did you just say dissecting microscope? I've never even heard that. What is that, a dissecting microscope? A dissecting microscope is a bifocal,

which is almost like binoculars. You would put that on, it's on a stand. And then we would have a stage underneath the lenses so we can basically magnify everything that we're going to see up to 40 times natural size. So you go through all that just to undo the tape? It's a very lengthy process. And in cases like this, you know, where that is going to lead to the judiciary process, that would be very strong evidence when they do get the court. That has to be done, you know, very methodically and very regimented, very regimentedly. So which stands to stands the judicial process. So we want to make sure that that is conserved, that is preserved, and that is done in a repeatable way that will not be tossed out of

court on some technical issue. Dr. Gallagher, what effect does packing tape on the skin, on a body, for instance, the facial skin, how does that affect the skin? When you take the tape off, does it tear the skin off? It does, and it depends on the degree of decomposition. I understand that this woman was found in a fire, and it does pull off her skin or the victim's skin, but also the person putting it on will leave cells behind.

Hold on, you said something else. Oh, so you would check the tape for the perp's DNA, smart, and fingerprints. I guess it would be epithelial DNA from their skin, correct? That is correct. Epithelial DNA is the type of cells that make up your skin, but it's the same DNA that you would have in any other cell in your body, generally a mixed population of DNA. So we would find the victim's DNA along with maybe an unknown DNA,

and we would eliminate the victim's DNA along with maybe an unknown DNA and we would eliminate the victim's DNA. Do you have to take the DNA off the tape to do the comparison? Yes, you do. You do have to swab the tape and remove a portion of the DNA from the tape and then test that using a PCR chain reaction. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. You know, Lisa Daddio, former police lieutenant, now senior lecturer and director, Center for Advanced Policing. When you hear Dr. Gallagher talking, I mean, what I would do in the courtroom is the culmination of all of, for instance, your work, all of Dr. Gallagher's work. It is mind-numbing the detail that you have to go through once you get the tape off the body, then you have to try to get the DNA off the tape and then somehow separate the victim's DNA from the defendant's DNA, if there is any.

And what you do at the crime scene is to preserve the evidence so the medical examiner can do their job, right? Yes. And a lot of times, depending on the body and what's on it, that evidence will go with the body to the medical examiner's office, where either they'll remove it or the crime scene people will go to the autopsy and also do it methodically so that no evidence is damaged. You know, I find it very interesting. I think we'll bring in our forensic psychologist right now, Dr. Sherry Swartz, author of Criminal Behavior and Where Law and Psychology Intersect. Dr. Swartz, thank you for being with us. What does it tell you about the perp that he would wrap her face in duct tape? First of all, I'll start with that question as opposed to a compound question.

What do you make of that? Well, that is really disturbing, Nancy. That's evidence to me of what I would call diabolical violence. This is a way to demean the victim and to control the victim, and not for anything good that I can think of. It also tells me, to you, Catherine Marsh, Special Counsel joining us, Assistant Chief Special Victim's Family Violence Unit, Catherine, that the PERP is exerting control over the victim even after raping and killing her.

Then we have him setting the house, it must be an abandoned house, on fire. I've seen a lot of killers try to hide the face of their victim and then of course trying to set the house on fire to destroy evidence that's two very different motivations Katherine would you agree absolutely and it just goes to show the thought process that he put into these killings and then his thought process in trying to cover it up and destroy every single thing about these victims that he just treated them like garbage. You know, another thing Catherine Marsh tells me, he felt that he had plenty of time to rape and murder Robin West. We believe he met her on a dating app and then take time to wrap her head in packing tape and then set the house on fire.

You know what's interesting, Dr. Tim Gallagher, people always think they can destroy the evidence by setting the structure on fire. Bodies are very hard to burn. Hey, Dr. Gallagher, you and I have talked about this one a lot. Stephen Avery, and yes, if anybody on the panel or you, Jackie, suggested that Stephen Avery didn't do it, making a murderer. Not me. Fur is going to fly. Okay. He did it.

And I don't care what some documentary says on some cable channel. Dr. Gallagher, in that case, Stephen Avery, remember Teresa Hallback, making a murderer? Yes. Remember he sat in the backyard and relatives, family, neighbors saw him the whole night stirring a fire pit all night.

It took him 24 hours plus to burn her body and still when the cops came out and they heard about him burning a fire pit all night stirring it like a witch over her brew, they found the studs off of And they heard about him burning a fire pit all night, stirring it like a witch over her brew. They found the studs off of Teresa Halbach's Daisy Fuentes blue jeans.

So it takes a long time and extreme heat degrees to burn a human body. And thank heaven it didn't work in Robin West's case and we found her body. How hard is it to burn a human body, doctor? It's extremely hard. If you talk about a cremation type of burn, you'll need about 1,800 degrees for about six to eight hours. How do you even get 800 degrees? I mean, that's hotter than an oven. It's much hotter than an oven. Does the house fire get that hot? No, it does not. It does not get that hot.

You would need a gas fired, you know, a gas-fueled fire. I'm sorry, a propane gas fire that would get that hot. Okay. You know what? As we're discussing all these evidentiary issues, and we had left off with Dr. Tim Gallagher talking about how they would then bring in an X-ray, a portable X-ray machine at the medical examiner's office to X-ray the body for bullets, for tips of knives that may have broken off in the body to see if there were breaks to determine cause of death.

Let's remember, we're talking about a teenage girl, Robin West. Oh, if you could see her picture, this, she just cute, cute, cute girl. Just, I'm looking at her right now. But who is Robin West? Take a listen to our friends at CrimeOnline.com. Robin West made big plans to celebrate her 20th birthday. She bought a white lacy dress, posting pictures to Facebook. Six days before her big day, West told her parents she was headed to North Jersey for a few days to celebrate early.

She vanished. At first, her family didn't panic. West was known at times to disappear for a day or two. After three, her family texted and repeatedly called with no answer. After a week, they reported Robin West missing. So as Robin's family is waiting to hear from her, starting to get panicked, the story goes on. Our killer strikes again. Take a listen to our friends at CrimeOnline.com. 33-year-old Joanne Brown was last seen on October 22nd. She was reported missing later that month by family and friends. A work crew found her body December 5th at a large vacant house in Orange. Neighbors reported hearing screaming. Police say Brown was

strangled. What we know about Joanne Brown is that she is a beautiful woman from Augusta, Maine. She came from a large family. She had a sister and six brothers. Her nickname was Billy Joe. And when she was just a little girl, five years old, her whole family moved to Newark. She had a tough childhood growing up, but her friends loved her. She loved to laugh and dance and was very joyful. And she loved fashion and style and doing other people's hair. That's what I know about her. I also know that she had a best friend named Amina Nobles. And partially because of Amina Nobles, her body was found. Also because of Amina Nobles, we have an idea about who is luring these young women to their death.

Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Nicole Parton joining me from CrimeOnline.com. Here we have just about one month later, Robin West is murdered in September. Joanne is also found in an empty,

seemingly abandoned home. And they are both duct taped. Is that correct? That's correct. And they are both duct tape. Is that correct? That's correct. And so Joanne Brown also found with tape wrapped around her face and her head, again, in an abandoned building. Only she has been strangled to death with a jacket,

which they found still tied around her lifeless body. I mean, if we can't get DNA off that jacket, why even have DNA for Pete's sake? So I find it really interesting. Catherine Marsh and I have worked on a lot of serial killing cases. And very often, I would say the majority of the time, you have the same M.O., modus operandi, method of operation. However, you have the occasional killer that does

break with the MO, like Ted Bundy. Sometimes he'd go up to women with a fake sling on his arm. Sometimes he'd wear a pair of crutches. Sometimes he would pretend he was a police officer. Sometimes he would ask for directions. I mean, he had different MOs, but when it comes right down to it, Catherine Marsh, he

still would rape and beat the victim violently, very often returning to the corpse over and over. So in a sense, he did keep some of the same MO. And here we've got two women, both asphyxiated, both with their face covered in duct tape, both left in abandoned buildings. It's like a fingerprint crime. Absolutely. It is the fingerprint that ties to these crimes over and over again,

using the same MO, using the same method to kill his victims. Now, let me go back to Nicole Parton, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter, and this is where cell phone towers and triangulation come in. Isn't it true that her friend had a nickname for her, and the nickname was London, and Xenia called her Joanne Brown repeatedly, And then suddenly Joanne called back. And if Cynia goes London and there's no answer, and then there's a hangup. So she calls back, back, back, back.

And nobody would pick the phone up. I mean, it reminds me a lot of the Gabby Petito case where I believe her phone was being used post-mortem after her death. Isn't that what happened, Nicole Parton? Right, that's correct. And so now we have that cell phone ping. We have a location, at least, of where that cell phone is being used, whether she's still living or dead. But we know that someone answers, but there's silence on the other end. You know, what's interesting, that to me is psychological terror to Lisa Daddio, former police lieutenant, joining us when you see the family calling back and back and back.

And you occasionally pick the phone up as the killer and listen to them calling the victim's name. That's pure torture, Lisa. Yeah, it honestly is just horrible to think about, you know, what was going through the mind of the killer when this stuff was happening. And how do you go from continually to do that to torture the person psychologically that's on the other end? What kind of mind game is that, Dr. Sherry Swartz? I mean, the killer knows this is a friend or family trying to call Joanne Brown. And they call and call and call, and he even picks up. And they say, London, is that you? And he just sits there.

I've heard of cases like that. The Golden State Killer did that, would call the victim's home and just listen as people ask questions, even sometimes using the victim's cell phone. What kind of a mind trip is that? Why would a killer do that, Sherry Schwartz? This is, Nancy, a hallmark of sadism. Somebody who engages as a habit, as routine in getting off on doing harm to others, to torturing others. They engage in behaviors that elicit this attempt to control other people and they get a charge out of being in control. It makes them feel powerful, that ability to inflict pain on other people, psychological and physical.

I find it really interesting because after he rapes her and duct tapes her face and then strangles her dead and leaves her body abandoned there, that the killer then went next door to where this abandoned building is and chillaxed at a fast food restaurant. Yeah, just I guess the killing did not affect his appetite. There is evidence of that. Then ultimately Nicole Parton, a construction crew, comes to the abandoned home at the request of the owner of the home to gut the home and remodel everything. And one of the crew members goes upstairs and calls down, hey, there's somebody sleeping up here. Except it wasn't anyone sleeping. It was Joanne Brown,

dead. Absolutely. And had been there dead for two months. And again, her nose and mouth covered in tape, strangled to death with that jacket that was still tied around her neck. Amazingly, Joanne Brown is not the last victim because so much time is passing before their bodies are found. Police aren't even thinking to, wow, let's go look at their computer, their cell phone. Let's find out their last movements. It's it's amazing to me that even more women are getting sucked into a serial killers trap by a dating app. Take a listen to our cut. Double O.C. Crime online dot com. Thirty four year old Tiffany Taylor, 19 weeks pregnant, to meet someone. When she gets into the car,

the man is wearing gloves and a ski mask as they're driving. He says he needs to go to the bathroom and asks Taylor to pull over. When she does, he hits her knocking her out. She wakes up in the back seat, handcuffed and being raped. She also has duct tape wrapped around her head. She persuades the man to take her to her

hotel room to get her cell phone, which contains their text conversations. When she gets to the hotel, Taylor hatches an escape plan. That is amazing to me, Nicole Parton, joining us from CrimeOnline.com, that this woman agrees to meet someone she meets on a dating app. She's 19 weeks pregnant, gets into the car. The man is wearing gloves and a ski mask. I mean, right there, it's over. You get in the car, guy's got on a ski mask. He takes off. She begs to go to the bathroom. When they pull over, he beats her unconscious. She wakes up handcuffed, her face covered in duct tape, and she's being raped. Let me understand, Nicole Parton, she has the wherewithal to actually reason with her attacker? Absolutely. And so she has an amazing story. She says that she's crying to the point that her tears have begun to loosen up the tape on her face.

She's biting her tongue to try to be quiet because he's threatening her life. Blood pouring from her mouth where she's biting her tongue. But she begins to try to pull the tape away and plead with him to take her back to the hotel. And at that point, she's making up the story. Let me go back, get my cell phone. Let me go to the restroom. Let's go back to a hotel. And she's able to convince him to turn and drive in that direction all while she's fighting for her life. Okay, what happened then?

They get back to the hotel. She's still in handcuffs. She's managed to pull some of the tape from her face, but still in handcuffs. They walk to the hotel room where she has a friend who is already staying at the hotel. She kicks on the door. I guess her friend realizes it wasn't a pleasant knock. Her friend opened the door and she ran inside, slammed the door in his face, and was able to lock the door without him getting inside. Finally, one of these women lived to tell the tale.

Listen to Tiffany Taylor. That's why I tried so hard, because I kept thinking to myself, I knew I had to get away. I wasn't planning on dying that day. My every thought was to get away. My every thought. Or kill both of us. But it wasn't him getting away. No.

Nicole Parton, now we have a victim that lived. Does she reveal what app? How she met this guy? Yes. So apparently she met him on an app called Tagged, which is a dating app. An app where you can go on anonymously with a username and you can meet people to begin to date them. And that's where she met the killer. So we have one victim that lives, Tiffany Taylor, who is pregnant at the time, but it's not over yet. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A 20-year-old college girl, Sarah Butler. Listen to our Cut 6. Sarah Butler, a 20-year-old college student from Montclair,

was found strangled in the woods at Eagle Rock Reservation in West Orange on December 1st, one week after she disappeared. Nicole Parton, isn't it true that the third victim, Tiffany Taylor, went to police, made a police report, but was poo-pooed? Absolutely. She called 911 from that hotel room immediately after escaping from this guy. She picks up the phone. She calls 911. But it kind of played off like, hey, you went out on a date with this guy. You changed your mind. You went back to your hotel.

And they kind of brushed her off. Okay, what is that, Catherine Marsh? And I hear it over and over and over. This woman who's pregnant, goes on a date, and is nearly murdered, calls police, and they blow her off, saying, well, you went on the date. Yeah, especially anytime we involve sex crimes into it, and it's that cultural myth that we have about sexual assault here, that it's buyer's remorse, or it's revenge to get back on somebody they're dating. And unfortunately, in this case, they blew off Ms. Taylor,

and she had that exact motive MO that you talked about before that could have identified this killer. I mean, to you, Dr. Gallagher, joining us, medical examiner out of Florida, we've now got two dead bodies. And, of course, a medical examiner wouldn of Florida, we've now got two dead bodies. And, of course, the medical examiner wouldn't know this, but a woman who lived who wakes up from a beating with her face wrapped in duct tape being raped. The police, I don't understand. Why can they not put it together that the same perp is doing this? There's a serial killer.

Well, you know, I guess it's important not to jump to conclusions right away. But, you know, sometimes they don't mention it first off, but they want to make sure that they've collected all the evidence, got all the interviews that they would need, you know, before they come to a conclusion like that. If you could imagine the people who were in the area living there suddenly told that there is a serial killer among their midst, you don't want to incite any panic among the public. I'd rather panic and know not to use this dating app tagged than not know. I've got to disagree with you on that, Dr. Gallagher. Guys, now we've got two dead victims, one victim that lived, and now Sarah Butler, a college

girl. Take a listen to what her family says. Earlier, you heard our friends at the BBC. Take a listen to Chris Keating at News 12 New Jersey, cut 10. The parents of Sarah Butler were on hand today. They spoke of their 20-year-old daughter whose remains were eventually discovered in Eagle Rock Reservation. She loved to dance.

She loved to dance. She loved to swim. She never got a chance again to teach the little kids how to swim, teach them how to dance. We didn't even put up a Christmas tree because there was no joy in it.

So it's going to take some time. And take a listen to our Cut 11. This is Brian Thompson with News 4. This monster took my daughter. This person is a monster. That monster deserves the maximum. That monster should live to daylight again.

33-year-old Joanne Brown was one of the victims. Also killed in that year was 20-year-old Joanne Brown was one of the victims. Also killed in that year was 20-year-old Sarah Butler, as well as 19-year-old Robin West, her mother, speaking. Please note that hundreds of people were affected by her life and saddened due to her death. To Nicole Parton, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter, could you tell me how the college student Sarah Butler's body was found? Yes, in similar fashion. She was found in a wooded area, this time covered in leaves and debris, but just like the other victims, her face wrapped in tape, and she too was strangled to death with clothing.

They believed it to be a pair of jogging pants that she was strangled to death with. She was found decomposing underneath debris where she had been covered with leaves and sticks. Once again, Dr. Sherry Schwartz, we see the killer hiding the face of the victim. And we know because of Tiffany Taylor, the pregnant victim that lived, the face from the nose down was duct taped before death. During the rapes, the nose and mouth would be duct taped every single time. What does that mean, Dr. Schwartz? What it says to me is, well, first we go from sadism, right, torturing the victim's family by answering the phone and not saying anything. And now we move into sexual sadism. Now we'veuring the victim's family by answering the phone and not saying anything.

And now we move into sexual sadism. Now we've got evidence of that. And this is a really disturbing individual. So this is somebody who these women are just tools to get him wherever he wants to go, whether it's a sexual charge, which is what it appears that he needs to harm them in order to be able to have sex with them. But the covering of the face is he doesn't want to be able to see them, right? They're not important enough to engage with. And he doesn't want to be stopped, right? Look what happened to the victim who survived. She was able to get loose and talk to him. And that was his undoing in a way. And ultimately, Nicole Parton,

based on what they know, police began to zero in on a guy that had been working as a security guard and heading off for training as a police officer. And I find that very interesting because Tiffany Taylor was still wearing a pair of handcuffs at the time she escaped. So how, Nicole Parton, do police zero in on a guy that's heading off to police academy? Well, it was actually friends of Sarah Butler who went back into her cell phone and began to kind of investigate for themselves who was the last person she was texting who was she talking to on this dating app and they found the username of the guy that she was going to meet up with they created a fake account on this tagged app and basically lured this guy into meeting up with them, and that's when they alerted authorities.

Okay, to Lisa Daddio, former police lieutenant, aren't you just a little embarrassed? I mean, because I am, as a former prosecutor, that the friends had to figure it out. Yes, absolutely, Nancy. It was hard to hear that, to be honest with you, and learn that that's how he was caught. And the first thing I thought of is like, why didn't investigators think of doing that?

So definitely troubling and something of concern. Okay, guys, what is so amazing, and I'm going to go to Catherine Marsh on this. We learned that this guy that they zero in on, Khalil Weaver, actually came from a family with multiple police officers in the family. What do you make of that? were planned and conducted and where he chose to commit them, how he chose to leave the bodies and try to destroy evidence. I think we can see that from what he grew up with, what he grew up hearing, what he may have learned about evidence, how to destroy evidence. All of that factors into how he committed these crimes. That's very astute. Guys, I want you to take a listen to our cut to our Brian Thompson News 4 Listen.

Wheeler Weaver was given a chance to speak, proclaiming his innocence. I would like to say I do put empathy for the victims, and my heart goes out to their families and friends. However, I was not the person who committed these crimes. But the evidence in his trial was overwhelming, including cell phone records and the testimony of a woman who was almost his fourth victim, but escaped after she was raped. I don't wear makeup anymore. I don't do my hair. I don't have friends. I don't want friends. I don't trust no one. I'm always paranoid.

It was Joanne Brown's father who put an exclamation point on this wrenching moment, speaking to the judge. And I hope you find in your heart that you can give him the longest maximum sentence. And I hope that he live for a very long time and they make him suffer every night in there like he made our girl suffer. OK, thank you very much. I hope you suffer, boy. Every night in there, like he made our girl suffer. Okay? Thank you very much. I hope you suffer, boy, every night. The family speaking at sentencing. The sentencing 160 years behind bars.

Maybe too light for what he put these women through. And I have no doubt in my mind, there are others. One serial killer down. Khalil Weaver behind bars. But how many are still stalking their victims? Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.