Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Family Camping, Murdered in their Sleep in Tent

Episode Date: August 15, 2022

Tyler and Sarah Schmidt and their 6-year-old daughter, Lula, die after an assault inside their camping tent.  9-year-old Arlo Schmidt survives, running to another campsite for help.  Autopsies show the family members were shot, stabbed and strangled. Police say the man who killed the family was himself, camping nearby.  In fact, the campsite to which Schmidt ran, belonged to the killer's family.  His mother called 911.   Investigators say Anthony Sherwin of La Vista, Nebraska carried out the attack,  Police later found Sherwin’s body with an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound. Sherwin's mother, Cecilia Sherwin, released a statement saying she and her family "refuse to believe the news" that their family member is a murderer.  Joining Nancy Grace Today: Adam Morehouse, one of Sarah Schmidt's three siblings, Gofundme.com/f/arlo-schmidt Kathryn Marsh - Special Victims Liaison for the State’s Attorney's Office (Charles County, MD), Co-Founder: Right Response Consulting, "No Grey Zone" Podcast", RightResponseConsulting.com, Instagram/Twitter: @nogreyzoneRRC Dr. Jorey Krawczyn - Psychologist (Panama City Beach, FL), Adjunct Faculty with Saint Leo University; Research Consultant with Blue Wall Institute, Author: "Operation S.O.S. - Practical Recommendations to Help “Stop Officer Suicide”, bw-institute.com  Greg Smith - Special Deputy Sheriff, Johnson County Sheriff's Office (Kansas),  Executive Director of the Kelsey Smith Foundation, www.kelseysarmy.com  Dr. Michelle DuPre - Former Forensic Pathologist, Medical Examiner and Detective: Lexington County Sheriff's Department, Author: "Homicide Investigation Field Guide" & "Investigating Child Abuse Field Guide", Forensic Consultant, DMichelleDupreMD.com   REPORTER - Brian Tabick - Reporter, KCRG-TV9 (Iowa), kcrg.com, Twitter: @BrianTabick, Facebook: "Brian Tabick KCRG"  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A family camping, slaughtered, murdered in their sleep. Why? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. First of all, take a listen to this. He did run just to the first set of adults, and she is the one that called 911.

DCI isn't releasing some details out of respect for the family, but one thing they say we might never know is why. You try to wrap our rational minds around a very irrational behavior. And more from Bo Bowman at KCCI. The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation says Tyler, Sarah, and Lula Schmidt were all shot at the Makoketa Caves on July 22nd. The autopsies found the mother and the father were also stabbed, and their six-year-old daughter was strangled.

Got a woman on the phone, says a kid came up to her camper, says police, his parents were shot. That scanner audio was the first call for assistance at the campgrounds. We knew that child was nine-year-old Arlo Schmidt. The little boy wandering from tent to tent, trying to tell someone that mommy and daddy have been shot. Can you even imagine that? And now we know the 6-year-old little sister was strangled.

Who would do this to a family quietly sleeping in their tent on a camp out? Especially because of scouts now, but forever. We have taken our twins camping, RVing all across the country, especially during COVID, to think that someone would use a campground as a hunting ground? Again, I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thanks for being with us.

We have an incredible panel to make sense of what we know right now. But first, I want to go to a special guest joining us. It's Adam Morehouse. This is one of the mom, Sarah Schmidt, who was murdered in her own tent on a family campout. This is her brother. Adam, thank you for being with us. Hi, good morning. Thank you. You know, Adam, I hated to even introduce you that way

because I know it must be so hard to put your mind around what you and your family are living through. But first of all, how is little Arlo, the nine-year-old son? Arlo's doing well. He's got a great support network of family and friends surrounding him on a daily basis. And the outpouring of support from everybody all around the world has been absolutely incredible through all of this. Is Arlo living with relatives and family? That's correct. He's currently still living in that area and he is with immediate family at this time. Can I ask you, Adam, will he be able to go back to his regular school that he was already in? Let's see, nine years old. Is that third or fourth grade? Yes, ma'am. I believe he's going into fourth grade.

I could be wrong on that, but a lot of people ask and have been asking, you know, when's what do we think is is a normal to get back to? And as we can all imagine, there's no such thing as going back to normal for Arlo in any sort of sense. No, there's really not. I know you're saying, Adam, that he's got support and relatives, which a lot of children don't have after a tragedy like this. But there's just no replacing mom and dad and little sister because Adam, my children, John David and Lucy are twins and they do everything together. Everything to go forward without his little sister and mom and dad. That's just a horrible, horrible burden for Arlo. I'm just so grateful that you and your family, you're all there to try to help him through this.

And I wonder how he's ever going to get past his memories of that night because he's the one that sounded the alarm. Adam, when did you first realize something horrible had happened? So I was notified by phone from one of my other sisters. She lives in South Dakota. And after the tragedy happened, they immediately started, the first responders started trying to find next of kin. And they notified a local police department in

South Dakota where my other sister is living who did a home visit for her and so she called me and I was notified about six and a half seven hours after the incident over the phone. What went through your mind do you remember that moment? I do it's definitely something I'll never forget it's a thing that several people have gone through before, and I have actually helped and talked to others as well through events like that. And then to have it happen to me was, I went through the different stages of shock pretty much immediately from grief to sadness to absolute rage back to sadness and disbelief and everything in between. Guys, Adam Morehouse is with me. The mom who was murdered

in her tent, along with her husband, Tyler, their six-year-old daughter, Lula, her brother is with us. Adam, where were you when you got that call? So I live in the Detroit area, and actually my children were at church camp that whole week and I was picking them up from church camp when I got notified over the phone, which was a blessing in disguise to be surrounded by a whole family of faith that we have along with our pastors that were right there to be able to sit there and just be with each other for about an hour.

Adam, were you told immediately how they were killed? When did you find out they had actually been murdered in their camping tent at night while they're asleep? So I didn't find out. I found out saying that they were shot and killed. That is the only information that I was given. And then after the investigation was getting closer to completion towards the end of the following week was how I found out that they were, what the caliber handgun was that was used and everything in between. But I have purposely stayed away from all media outlets.

I still have never read a report on what actually happened. I was not told any details and I'm doing that kind of twofold, but for my own grief process, as well as trying to be kind of unbiased in all of this, because the way I'm dealing with it is I know the outcome and the outcome is four lives are gone and there's nothing we can do to go back. And so grieving with all of this, I still don't know many details. Adam, can I tell you something? And I, of all people, you would never suspect this. I have never gone back.

I've never gone to the site where my fiance was murdered. I don't want to. I've never read the police report. I know what the prosecutor told me at the trial, but it's so painful that it can throw me into a depression that it will take me, I don't know how long to get out of. And now I have the children and I don't want them to be around me being sad and depressed. So I, you know, that's probably not healthy. I'm sure Dr. Jory Croson is going to pull me aside after today.

But I think it's called compartmentalization. I completely understand what you're saying. I hardly know which way to go next. I don't know if you've ever been in that spot where I have so many questions and such an incredible panel with me. But I'm going to go to the facts with me. A high-profile reporter out of KCRG TV 9 that's out of Iowa, Brian Tabak, is with us. And you can find him on Facebook at Brian Tabak KCRG. Brian, I really appreciate you being with us today.

Where did this happen, Brian? Explain that to me because, you know, I just wrote a book, another book, and this is called Don't Be a Victim Fighting Back Against America's Crime Wave. And because we, my family, are big campers and RVers, hikers, swimmers, all that. I wanted to write about dangers RVing and camping. And I first really keyed into it when I heard about a serial killer, Israel Keys, because he would actually stalk campgrounds. Where you think you're out in nature and you're safe, and typically you are, there are people that are like wolves, like the hyena at the watering hole on the savannah,

waiting to attack an innocent person. I got to hear about this. Tell me about this location. It's in Jackson County. It's in the eastern part of the state. It's about an hour east of Cedar Rapids. The caves are popular for the state park. It's popular for its bluffs, pine trees, 13 caves, and six miles of trails. Do you mind saying that again? I want to take that in. How many caves? 13 caves. Brian Tabak, from what I've learned, there are 323 acres at least.

And the caves are incredibly deep, like 100 feet deep, based on what you've told me, Brian. So out of all of that land, we have this family who goes camping, and they are the ones singled out, correct? Yes. Now, where is the park located parks located again in jackson county iowa the eastern part of the state about an hour east of cedar rapids to adam morehouse this is the mom sarah schmidt's brother who has stayed away from media but has kindly joined us today and i'm really grateful adam thank you were was sarah and her family outdoor people they were extremely outdoorsy uh they love to get out and hike as a family um they even bought snowshoes this previous christmas uh so they could start

enjoying the winter months and everything together so So as the children were growing, they became more and more comfortable staying overnight outside in campsites. So they frequented many areas in the Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota area, leaving out of Cedar Falls there. I bet her Facebook or whatever she had, Insta, was full of pictures of her family out camping and hiking, right? They absolutely are. Yep. There's several pictures that are out there, including all the social media posts and the media outlets that I provided all the photos from. And every single one of them that we have of them as a family in the past two years

are all outdoors hiking and camping together. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. I want to go to a special guest joining us, Greg Smith. You know him well. He's a special deputy sheriff, Johnson County Sheriff's Office in Kansas, and he's the executive director of the Kelsey Smith Foundation, named after his daughter, Kelsey, that was murdered. Greg, can I ask you, when we talk about these cases, you and I,

does it bring back or stir up losing Kelsey? Oh, yeah, absolutely. In fact, it brings back any case that I've been involved in that has something like this, you know, the Kara Kopetsky case, which happened right about the same time as Kelsey is one that comes to mind. You know, I was listening and I think one of the things that we talk about in some of our training is that a homicide is a unique crime in that it touches so many people. There are so many victims. There are so many additional assaults that occur after the homicide that it causes so much emotional trauma.

I mean, you even referenced it, Nancy, when you were talking. It's just one of those things. You can't fix it. You can't fix it. You can't make it better. No matter what happens, even if there's a successful arrest, conviction, the whole nine yards, it still doesn't bring back your loved one. And, you know, it's interesting, too. Catherine Morris joining me, in addition to Greg Smith, Adam Morehouse, and Brian Tabak. Catherine is Special Victims Liaison at the State Attorney's Office.

She is joining us out of Maryland. Catherine, when I first learned about the murders of this family, camping, sleeping in their tent at night on this wonderful, idyllic trip, when I heard about it, you know what I was doing, Catherine? I was right in the middle of folding up my son's camp hammock. He is a camper that he likes to pitch a hammock and not a tent. And he camps in the hammock. We put out a tent, and he camps in the hammock and then at night may or may not put a covering that goes over like a V, inverted V, over the hammock. He stays in there all night. I was rolling it up,

getting ready to go camping. And I heard about this case and I've got to tell you, it just, I felt like I got the wind knocked out of me. And it made me wonder, first of all, what happened with Arlo Schmidt, the nine-year-old little boy that was running from tent to tent trying to get help. But it made me worry about how safe it really is to take our family camping. Absolutely. There are certain things that I think we all grow up are thinking are safe. A family camping trip is the top of the list. You're with your family.

You're in a state park. You're in a safe place. You're protected. It's like the violation of a crime in your home. It's the place that's to be protected. It's not where you ever expect this kind of crime to occur. And to Dr. Jory Crawson, joining us, psychology and faculty, St. Leo University, author of Operation SOS. Dr. Jory, thanks for being with us. The dichotomy of feeling so safe and then being exposed to an unspeakable crime,

wiping out nearly an entire family on top of them being asleep on a vacation trip. The dichotomy of that is jarring, Dr. Jory. It's hard to get your mind around. Yeah, and the reciprocating throughout society, too. Everybody that reads that, that of course is shocked because i think all of us have been outdoors you know if not camping just being out in a safe place especially state parks you know the majority of them have uh officers on duty at the gate but they also patrol so you feel this sense of security there, even sleeping.

I know here in Florida they do. They make rounds just like regular patrol officers. And to have that violated, it really impacts people. To Adam Morehouse, kind enough to join us, he has not been doing media rounds and trying to deal with the loss of his sister, his brother-in-law, his little niece, Lula, just six years old. And I am so grateful, Adam Morehouse, that you were joining us. And while you're here, I'd like to tell everyone about a GoFundMe. You only have to Google Arlo Schmidt GoFundMe and you'll see it to help Adam. Adam to help Arlo as he grows up with all of the expenses of school and hopefully college and having a life therapy, whatever he's going to need after being in that tent,

discovering his mom and dad and little sister dead. That's the way we find it, right, Adam? Arlo Schmidt GoFundMe? That is correct, yep. And so many people have already donated, and there's no way to say thank you for all the support from our families, from the Schmidt family and the Morehouse family, for everything that everybody has done for Arlo up until this point and in the future. The Cedar Falls area and everybody worldwide who has tapped into that

is just absolutely incredible. Adam, was Sarah, your sister, was she always an outdoors person? Yes, she was. So she went to school at Truman State University up in Kirksville, Missouri, and then followed that on to work and went to school at Kansas University. And she worked in the science department there and was involved with a program called Monarch Watch and was attempting to get her doctorate for the longest time doing a big study of the Kansas River and the insects that are in that area. And she'd always been out on the water. She's always been outside camping and hiking all through Girl Scouts growing up and all the way until this event.

You know, I noticed, Adam, and I still do it too, you're referring to their murders as this event. It's really hard. It's really hard to call it anything else I understand. Back to the facts. To Brian Tabak, KCRG TV9 joining us. When did you first learn about this family being attacked and killed? That day, that Friday night, I saw the mayor had made a post. The mayor of Cedar Falls made a post on Facebook.

And I had reached out to him to see what he had known about it immediately. What happened that evening? Take a listen to our friends at GMA. Tyler and Sarah Schmidt and their six-year-old daughter Lula were found dead in their tent at the Maquoketa State Park Campground Friday. Their nine-year-old son Arlolo, surviving, running to get help. A report of a child that went to another camper said that there was a possible shooting in his camper.

Parents are in there. This family camping, three of them killed seemingly randomly. When authorities found them, they evacuated the campground. Investigators, family, friends, and community members all seek the same answer tonight why why would somebody do this to a cedar falls family enjoying time together while they camped but the why may never come according to the division of criminal investigations assistant director the dci says that the schmitz had been camping in a tent in Makoketa Caves State Park Friday morning.

Adam Morehouse is joining us. This is the mom, Sarah's brother. Adam, were they all in the same tent or did they have separate tents? No, they were all camping in one tent. So the little boy, Arlo, age nine, who lived, was in the tent at the time of the shootings and stabbings. We knew that Arlo was in the tent, at least at the beginning. We don't know exactly how he was able to get out. And the only information really that we do know is that the DCI investigators and the first responders

and the detectives who first spoke to Arlo said that he was an absolute ideal witness. Poor little guy. I mean, Dr. Jory Crawson, you're the psychologist. How is he ever going to get beyond being in the tent at the time and escaping while mom and dad and little sister are killed and running from tent to tent trying to get help. With trauma, there's this psychological dynamic of time compression where things slow down as the body starts to experience that high level of stress and trauma. It almost like electrifies the body.

You get into this denial. And some people have that fight or flight. Some have that freeze and submit but the time just seems to stop where it compresses the best way to get through that is with you have to decompress time and it just takes time to do that and just like what he said as being a ideal witness you know he has that ability, and especially properly interviewed, he'll be able to decompress that time and that trauma together.

Poor little guy. Oh, age nine. I'm curious, Dr. Michelle Dupree joining me right now, forensic pathologist, former medical examiner, author of Homicide Investigation Field Guide. Dr. Dupree, thank you for being with us. I find it very unusual that the killer used three modes of murder. He shot the family in their sleep.

I bet you don't see that a lot, shooting someone in their sleep, stabbed some of them and strangled the little girl. I don't, that's very odd. Killing them three times over, essentially. Nancy, that is very odd. Most people obviously don't do that. And so he obviously most likely brought the weapons with him and we know that he brought the gun with him that's very strange guys take a listen to our friend at gma you're going to

hear some police dispatch listen the family from cedar falls was on vacation stranger wearing all black in the tent had some sort of a small gun and and he took off running. A stranger wearing all black got in the tent, had some sort of a small gun, and then took off running. Greg Smith, Special Deputy Sheriff joining us out of Johnson County, wearing all black. That tells me the killer had dressed up ninja style to attack an innocent family in their sleep. What does that tell you? Well, it sounds like it was calculated. It was preplanned. But it doesn't necessarily mean that that family was the target.

Or known to the killer. And I can tell you just right now, Catherine Marsh, we're going to know the killer is the man. And I'm basing that on statistics right off the bat. It's highly unlikely the killer would be a female. Agree? Agreed. Especially when you add in the modes that were used in this case, specifically strangulation, that is almost always predominantly a male method of killing. Guys, this is not the first time that an innocent family has been attacked camping.

Take a listen to Our Cut 14, our friends at KABC. The investigation continues into who shot and killed Tristan Beaudet during a camping trip with his two little girls at Malibu Creek State Park

in Calabasas at Allergan in Irvine, where the 35-year-old scientist helped with research and development. The company says it is rare that we lose a friend and colleague, especially in an event that was senseless and difficult to understand. Tristan will be remembered as a talented scientist who was admired by all who knew him. There's nothing you can describe that losing a family member like this, particularly like this, a family man like this with two small children. Tristan Baudet had taken his children camping as two little girls.

I recall, Jackie, correct me if I'm wrong, the mom was studying for some exam, and he took them for the weekend so she could have complete, total quiet, so she could study. And the case lingered for a long time as authorities tried to determine who would shoot into a tent of a sleeping, a family about to go to sleep. Take a listen to our friends at CBS News. Tristan Bondette was shot in the head as he lay sleeping with his two young daughters in a tent. The suspect has a lengthy criminal background including illegal weapons possession and apparently picked his victims at random. Anthony Rauda was blocked from cameras by his public defender as he appeared in a Los Angeles

courtroom Monday. Authorities reportedly say the 42-year-old was a survivalist who lived off stolen food while often sleeping outside in the Malibu area. He now faces multiple charges, including the murder of 35-year-old Tristan Bondette. To Adam Morehouse, this is mom Sarah Schmidt's brother. Sarah lost her life in the tent with her family that night. Adam, so hard, and I dealt with this too, it's so hard to comprehend that this could have been a random killing. Because in Tristan Bodette's case, the dad with the two little girls I just told you about, the killer didn't know them. He just targeted campers.

Just like shooting a bird up in the sky. You don't know the victim. He just targeted campers. That's really hard to take in. No connection whatsoever. No motive, no grudge, no angry argument. Nothing, Adam. Nothing at all. That's definitely been one of the hardest

struggles in this entire thing for everybody is we were immediately asked by several of the investigators, did we know the families involved? Did we know any of the alleged individuals? Was there any contact? And that's one thing I've been stressing from the beginning of all this is this was 100% random. There was no interaction. Nobody knew each other. This individual just decided on a whim that morning to pick a tent and to walk into a tent and inflict evil. And now my family and the Schmidt family, and more importantly, Arlo Schmidt, is living with that forever. You said that morning. What time did the shootings occur?

I don't know that to the correct extent. I just know that I was notified later that day in the early afternoon period. Brian Tabak joining us, KCRG TV9 out of Iowa. You've been on the case from the get-go, Brian. What time do we believe the shootings occurred? We believe around 6 a.m. Friday morning. Interesting. Dr. Michelle Dupree joining me, forensic pathologist and author.

Dr. Dupree, you don't see a lot of crimes of this ilk occurring at 6 a.m., but those are the heavy sleeping hours when, you know, the early morning hours between, say, 2 a.m. and 6 a.m., when you're finally gotten to sleep on a hard surface of the ground and completely unaware what's going on around you. Yes, Nancy, that's exactly right. And so, I mean, if you look at it, it's unfortunately a perfect opportunity for something like this because the people are unaware. Completely unaware. Earlier, I mentioned to you a serial killer, Israel Keys, that stalked victims at campgrounds.

Listen to our friends at CrimeOnline.com. Serial killer Israel Keyes was set apart from other serial killers. He had no victim type. It didn't matter whether it was a man or a woman he killed or ethnicity. But the thing that Keyes' victims had in common was where he would find them. Listen to Keyes speaking to the FBI. When I was smart, I would let them come to me. Just a remote area. Kind of good with a remote area that's not anywhere near where you live, but that other people go to as well. Those remote areas, according to Keyes, included lakes, beaches, national parks, campgrounds, especially wooded areas.

He was very comfortable out in the woods and in wilderness areas. Keyes told the FBI that by the age of 14, he realized that he could sit in the woods for hours on end without making a move. You know, Adam Morehouse joining me, special guest today. This is mom, Sarah, who lost her life in her camping tent with her family. Adam, it just, I don't know really how to react to hearing a killer speak so calmly, so nonchalantly about stalking his victims at campgrounds. It's like there's no idea the weight of pain. about stalking his victims at campgrounds.

It's like there's no idea the wake of pain. He's leaving behind him. That's exactly right. And I think the biggest thing to remember in all that, when you hear individuals who are still around who have committed such heinous acts, is that it's the big part of the mental instability that other folks kind of have a hard time, I think, dealing with that others, somebody like myself, I understand the repercussions and I know what pain it could cause and everything in between. And now I'm part of it. And I think listening and hearing other serial killers who are talking about this or individuals who have done this obviously are in a mental state that are different to what I can even comprehend.

And that's the hardest struggle to try to figure out as a human being. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. You know, Dr. Jory Croson, I want to follow up on what Adam Morehouse, special guest joining us, just said. He's referring to the nonchalant discussion this killer is having of his victims. He's talked at campgrounds. It's not a mental illness. I think it's a characteristic that you don't feel someone else's pain. Yeah, they're able to, well, really that feeling doesn't exist in them if you follow some psychological theories. They're just incapable. And when you listen to them verbalize, there's no emotionality. You notice the flat tone.

Plus, they don't use, if they use any emotional words, they have no meaning to them. They're not something where you can actually see that it has impacted them like love or caring for people. You know, Catherine Mars, joining us, Special Victims Liaison, State Attorney General's Office and star of the No Gray Zone podcast. Catherine, I have sat in court so many times and when the jury wasn't looking or wasn't in the courtroom, I'd look over at the defendant and they would be so calm and cool like nothing had ever happened. They show very little emotion at times. They will, as you know, they can sit there and just doodle

and act like nothing else is going on around them, especially when they are detached emotionally from what they did and the harm that they've caused. A family on a camping trip slaughtered by a gunman as they slept in their own tent. The sole survivor, a nine-year-old little boy, Arlo, set for a lifetime of trauma after escaping that tent. Of course, Israel Key is not the only one. These are a pair of victims that came to light during the Gabby Petito murder investigation. Crystal Turner and Kylan Schulte murdered. Listen to our friends at ABC4. Friends

say 24-year-old Kylan Schulte and 38-year-old Crystal Turner were married on April 20th of this year and often camped together with their pet rabbit. Moab resident Cindy Sue Hunter shopped at the food cooperative where Kylan worked. When the couple hadn't been heard from in three days, Hunter got a phone call from Kylan's father in Montana. He said, I just found out that there was a creeper dude that they were scared of that they were scared of, that they were saying they needed to move their camp. And more from our friends at Fox 13. The Grand County Sheriff's Office has identified 44-year-old Adam Pinkowitz as a suspect in the murders of Kylan Schulte and Crystal Turner.

The newlyweds were camping in the LaSalle Mountains. Their bodies were found with multiple gunshot wounds on August 18th of last year. Pinkowitz was a former employee at a McDonald's where Crystal Turner worked, just outside of downtown Moab. So as it turns out, there was a connection between that killer and the two women he murdered as they camped. So in this particular case that we're talking about, Adam Morehouse, the resolution was a hard one to fathom. Take a listen to our friends at WQAD. Police say this all started just before 6.30 this morning.

Three people were found dead in the park's campground. Then a short time later, a fourth person was discovered nearby. That person was identified as the suspected shooter, 23-year-old Anthony Sherwin of Nebraska, who authorities say died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The mother of the suspect, who was also at the park at the time of the shooting, writing in a statement to ABC News, he gave us no warning that he was planning anything of this sort. Anthony was not capable of this sort of violence. But authorities say all indicators point to the suspect. There's nothing to indicate that there was anyone else responsible or anyone else acting with him. Sarah Schmidt's brother says nine-year-old Arlo is safe with family in Cedar Falls and he described him as an amazing bright young child who's been a courageous little

man in all of this. To Brian Tabak joining us KCRG TV 9 who is the suspect Anthony Sherwin age 23? We know very little about him we just know that he's from La Vista, Nebraska. We also know that his mother claims that in no way would he ever have done this. To Greg Smith joining us, Deputy Sheriff, Johnson County Sheriff's Office in Kansas, what do you make of that? Because in nearly every trial I ever tried, right behind the defendant would be his mother, who would never believe her son had done such a thing. Yeah, it seems to be a common theme, Nancy. There's always, it seems like there's always a family member somewhere that sits right there behind the defendant and is, you know, fully behind them and that this is a miscarriage of justice or something along those lines. Despite 99.9% of the time, there's overwhelming evidence that, you know, points to the contrary.

In this case, Dr. Michelle Dupree, I would imagine that the part being found with the weapon would be the biggest indicator because he, the suspect, used the weapon on himself, and clearly those ballistics can be traced back to the bullets inside the Schmidt tent. Explain how that works. Yes, Nancy, that's exactly right. And one of the other most interesting things about this is that he used a ghost gun. And a ghost gun is either a kit gun or one that is put together without a serial number that the person makes themselves. It can also be 3D printed. And so this was premeditated.

This was intentional. And then, as you said, to find him with the weapon and to have used that weapon on himself, this is irrefutable. Irrefutable ballistics. And everyone, when I say, Catherine Morris, you jump in because you're all so familiar with this. A bullet is like a fingerprint. When a gun is created with hot metal,

it dries a certain way. Inside the long portion of the gun, there are drippings of metal, and when a bullet hurtles down that cylinder, certain marks, striations is what they're called, are made on a bullet. So you take the known bullet from inside the Schmidt's tent, you fire a test shot with the murder weapon, and compare the two bullets under a microscope. And that is really irrefutable evidence, as Dr. Dupree said, Catherine Marsh.

Absolutely. We rely on ballistic, as you said, fingerprinting all the time. Those striations, which are basically twists and turns that are on the fired bullet can be matched to the gun for that test fire to any other bullets that are on scene to show that they all came from one gun. We'd probably also be looking here for blood testing on his body, on DNA evidence within the tent, on fingerprints within the tent. All of those make that overwhelming evidence picture. Now the mom, Celia, the mom of the killer, denies her son could be the killer, claiming Arlo said the gunman was wearing black, but that her son was wearing green.

Adam Morehouse is joining us. Adam, thank you so much for speaking out today. And what is your message to everyone listening or watching? the one that the Schmidt family, Tyler and Sarah, Lula and even Arlo, were the quintessential Midwestern family that a lot of people think about when it comes to volunteerism, when it comes to caring and kindness and faith. And knowing who they were was extremely fortunate and loving in my uh my situation but understanding and seeing how many people that they affected uh who have come out and supported us all through this entire uh tragedy has just been absolutely incredible. So I want to thank everybody, both families want to make sure everybody is thanked for all of their support

now and going forward, as well as it's cliche to say, but enjoy every moment that you have while you're on this earth, whether that be with family or doing what you love, because you never know. Adam, it's not cliche. We all get so caught up in our everyday lives or buzzing around like little ants that it's so easy to forget, to appreciate every moment. And I, like you, was totally changed by a tragic murder. And it makes me realize every day how blessed we are. Thank you for being with us.

Thank you. Thank you. Nancy Grace, I'm Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.