Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Holidays gone bad: Notorious Christmas crimes

Episode Date: December 22, 2017

Our last Crime Stories episode before families gather for Christmas celebrations looks at the most notorious cases of holidays gone bad, including the massacre of a family by an ex-husband dressed as Santa Claus. Nancy Grace assembles a panel of experts including Los Angeles psychiatrist Dr. Carole Lieberman, forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan and Crime Stories contributing reporter John Lemley. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. five people. He came in through the entrance of the door and there's a Santa Claus suit on. He was dressed in a Santa suit and brought with him a homemade device. The device basically consisted of two tanks, one which contained either oxygen or CO2 and the other smaller tank appeared to contain racing fuel. He walked up to the door. Once he knocked on the door, rang the doorbell and gained entrance. He immediately was confronted with an eight-year-old child who thought Santa Claus had come to the house. He shot her once in the face and then proceeded inside the residence. What is he wearing now? He changed his clothes from Santa Claus clothes. Okay, let me know what he's wearing.

The Santa Claus suit that he was wearing did melt onto his body. What is it about the holidays, specifically Christmas, that can engender so much love and goodwill? And then on the other hand, at the other end of the spectrum, generates so much hate and animosity and tension. I'm talking specifically about holidays gone bad. Let's just start with a man, a husband, a father, who ends up making a homemade flame thrower, goes to the home, and goes berserk. And let me remind everybody, this guy, Bruce Pardo, as I recall, was an aeronautical engineer. Take a listen to this 911 call. Is the guy in your house right now? We're having two houses down on the Cuckoo's Head. Okay, okay. Ma'am, ma'am, hold on. Hold on. Is he at your house? What do you think his name is? Bruce?

Okay, and who is he to you guys? Who is he to you? Okay. to you. He is. He's my ex-brother-in-law. They're going through a distress right now. Okay. Hold on one second, okay? I don't know who else is alive. I know, I know, ma'am. Just stay on the phone with me, okay? My whole family, there's 30 people, 25 people. I know, I know. It's okay. The officers are there. They're trying to get to you guys, okay? He came in through the entrance of the door, and there's a Santa Claus suit.

And I didn't see from when he shot. I heard the shots, and they were like poppers, and I wasn't sure what it was. So we all, everyone started panicking and running. So we all dove under the dining room. Some of us dove, some of us left. I don't know. My mom's house is on the fire.

Ma'am, the fire department's there, OK? What's he wearing? What is he wearing? Please. What is he wearing? The man who dresses as Santa slaughters nine people at a Christmas party using what else? I mean, of course, a homemade flamethrower as they quote Christmas present to set his house on fire. I want to go out to John Limley, Crime Stories investigative reporter. This guy was no idiot. I mean, he is an engineer that creates a homemade flamethrower and then the coup de grace wraps it in Christmas wrap and puts a bow on it to get it into the home. He shows up unannounced. John, what exactly happened? Well, I'd love to begin with a love story,

and that's of Joseph and Alicia Ortega. They had been married for 52 years, had created a huge family that just became bigger and bigger with each passing year. Joe and Alicia loved nothing more than each Christmas Eve to gather their entire family with them in Covina, California, a suburb of Los Angeles.

The children and their families would begin arriving early in the day. The celebration would go well into the night with the house packed to the gills with relatives. Later in the evening, the adults would play a lively game of poker while the children played. Now keep this scene in your head. For many years, a neighbor would dress as Santa, ring the doorbell, and surprise the children with a bunch of presents. So on December 24th, all seemed quite normal when the doorbell rang around 11 30 p.m., and one of the younger grandchildren, an eight-year-old girl, answered the door to see Santa standing there. As the family

was about to discover, though, this was anything but a storybook visit from St. Nick. Just moments after the door opened, the man dressed as Santa pulls out two handguns and immediately shoots the little girl. He then steps over her. Wait, shoots the eight-year-old girl in the face? Right as he enters the house. He then steps over her, enters the house. He then steps over her, enters the house. He moves back and forth between shooting indiscriminately and then shooting some family members point blank, execution style. There are approximately 25 or so family members, extended Ortega family,

in the house that night. So there was mass chaos as sisters and brothers, cousins, nieces, nephews run in all directions trying to get away from the shooter. In the midst of all this, the shooter stops. He stops firing and walks over to this large wrapped present that he has rolled in with him. Under that festive paper and the box is, as you've mentioned, a homemade flamethrower. He begins spraying what is discovered to be racing fuel, high-octane fuel, around the house. There's a huge explosion, and the house is quickly engulfed in flames. The last of the living family members are seen jumping out of the windows to escape the blaze. Guys, amazingly, this flamethrower is actually full of high-octane car racing fuel, and it spewed around the home to catch the home on fire.

Okay, With me, our special guest, Joe Scott, Morgan death investigator, Cheryl McCollum, cold case investigator, and the director of the cold case Institute crime stories reporter, John Limley.

And joining us today, Dr. Carol Lieberman, psychiatrist, radio and TV talk show personality, bestselling author. She's a keynote speaker and expert witness on many subjects. Dr. Carol Lieberman, it is just such a thrill to have you with us. Before I go any further with the flamethrower, can I ask you something, Dr. Lieberman?

No offense, John Allen and Joe Scott, what is wrong with men? Really? I mean, the thought of going and creating a homemade flamethrower and wrapping it in Christmas wrap and a bow, I just, that would never have dawned on me. I mean, I guess moms are too busy raising children and running around town as a chauffeur and working, right? Who has time to make a flamethrower for Pete's sake? That's right. Well, you know, it's actually a metaphor for just how much rage Bruce Pardo had towards his wife. They had just divorced a week before. And, you know, which is so typical in all of these holiday killings. There is so much rage, so much family resentment, that, you know, this is this was his way of really showing her just just how burned up he was. I mean, but to go to so much effort

to create a homemade flamethrower, I don't even know what that would look like. I'm imagining some sort of scepter-looking thing. I don't even know what that would be. Well, I'm not really sure either exactly what it would look like, but he was so angry. You mentioned that she had children. During their divorce, the judge decided that he was going to pay for her children and also pay her some money as well. And this was when he finally decided that he was resentful towards her during the marriage for having to pay for her children.

And then when they got divorced and the judge said that he still had to pay for them, that was too much. Bruce Pardo actually suffered third-degree burns on both arms, and it appears the Santa Claus suit he was wearing melted onto his body. The dichotomy of coming as Father Christmas, Santa, who is nothing but loving and full of good cheer and merriment. The dichotomy, Dr. Carol Lieberman, of him dressing as Santa with murder on his mind. What does that mean? From where does that mean? Where does, from where does that spring? That is a particular betrayal. You know, it's like clowns who kill.

We as a society love Santa, love clowns. Most people love clowns. And so for someone dressed in a suit, like in a Santa suit, it is an especially, I mean, yes, he was doing it so that he could get into the house and so on. But also, I think there was a metaphor. He was trying to say that he didn't want to be Santa perpetually for her and her children. He didn't want to keep

playing Santa in the sense of keep supporting them. You know, what's interesting about this is John Lemley, isn't it true that he had no criminal record whatsoever before this? That is indeed the case, which just made it all the more impossible for them to figure out exactly what was going on. Police speculate that the motive of the attack, as we've hinted, was related to not only the divorce, but a spate of problems that Bruce Pardot had encountered over the months prior. As we've said, his wife of one year, Sylvia, had settled for divorce just one week before this incident. Bruce had been fired from his job as an electrical engineer just in July as well. The couple had wed but soon grew

apart after their marriage. Mr. Pardo refused to open a joint account with his wife. He also expected his wife to take care of their three children with her own finances. Weren't they his biological children or no? Yes, however, there was another child that they discover exists through a woman that he was with before. And this is an interesting scenario here. Apparently, this child that he had with this woman earlier in his life, he had been at home alone with the child. The child had gotten out of its crib, entered the swimming pool, and almost died.

Did not, but was really left in a vegetative state. Oh, my goodness. So I want you to hear what the police chief there in Covina has to say. Again, this happened about 11.30 p.m. on Christmas Eve. There was a family party being held at the residence on Nolcrest, attended by about 25 people. It appears that Mr. Pardo drove to the location and parked his car in the driveway one house east of the party. He was dressed in a Santa suit and brought with him a homemade device, which we'll release pictures of that later for the press. The device basically consisted of two tanks, one which contained either oxygen or CO2,

and the other smaller tank appeared to contain racing fuel. It was a homemade device that was basically built where once he mixed those two items, it would turn into a vapor or atomized, and he was able to deliver that inside the residence. He walked up to the door. Once he knocked on the door, rang the doorbell, and gained entrance, he immediately was confronted with an eight-year-old child who thought Santa Claus had come to the house. He shot her once in the face and then proceeded inside the residence. Mr. Pardo was armed with four handguns when he went into the residence. All four handguns have been recovered and to the best of our belief as

of right now all guns were empty. As he went into the house he began shooting at the partygoers again indiscriminately. It appears that he did have some intended targets, those being the family members and immediate family of his ex-wife. Once the shooting stopped, it appeared that he then retrieved the homemade device, activated that, and went through the house basically delivering that and releasing a gas vapor inside the house. There's no indication that he ignited the vapor, but the vapor was able to be ignited either by a pilot light or if there was a candle inside the house because obviously there was an explosion that occurred inside the house. Mr. Pardo was severely injured during that

explosion. He suffered third degree burns on both arms. It also appears that the Santa Claus suit that he was wearing did melt onto his body. Imagine this scene, partygoers running to neighbors' homes to call police. One woman broke her ankle leaping to safety from one of the home's bedroom windows. A boy flees the home, screaming into the street street they're shooting my family they're shooting my family as the home goes up in flames it just I don't understand why something about the holidays set off so much hatred Joe Scott Morgan how can you process a scene like that? It's a nightmare, Nancy, because this is what we refer to as a stratified scene, which means you've got layer. If you imagine a big layer cake, you've got layer upon layer upon evidence. Not only do you have things like, you know, this guy when he walked in was firing a nine millimeter pistol.

There were a couple of weapons involved. So the nature of these rounds is going to be very unique to each weapon. You've got people that are trampling over one another. And then when you put it on top of everything, the explosion that took place as a result of this high octane fuel that ignited, it's mass chaos in this environment. And for an investigator, when you walk onto a scene like this, it gives you pause. Your mind begins to swirl. So when you're handling something like this, you have to be very methodical, take very careful steps one by one, and work your way through it very very slowly i mean police find the bodies

badly burned of eight victims who were just gathered at a family gathering for christmas as they entered the ruins after this fire was finally put out officers met with a scene that was indescribable said said police chief Kim Rainey. The ninth body wasn't even discovered until the next day. Nancy, if I could interject one more thing about the nature of this fire. You know, when most people, people in the vernacular, they'll say things like, well, they burn to death. Most people don't burn to death in fires.

Most people die of smoke inhalation, as we all well know. However, in this particular case, when you've got high-octane fuel in a very closed environment, what will happen is the people that are alive that have not succumbed to gunshot wounds will inhalate what's referred to as superheated gas. And so this is very horrible. The interlining of the throat and the lungs will just automatically just kind of singe. And it's a very, very painful way to die. So not only are you inhalating the debris that's being consumed, you're also inhalating the superheated gas, which in and of itself is a whole different layer of terror on top of all the rest of it. You know what's so just another disturbing layer to Dr. Carol Lieberman. For those of you just joining us, a rampage goes down just before Christmas where a whole family is wiped out, more than the family. People were quoted as saying, Dr. Carol Lieberman, that this guy, Pardo, was, quote, the nicest guy you can imagine,

always a pleasure to talk to, always a big smile, always worked as usher every Sunday evening for the past six years, working the 530 mass, the children's mass. How can someone so loving and so generous and kind suddenly turn into a mass murderer? Yes, you know, we often hear that when there's some big crime and the neighbors all say, oh, he was such a nice guy. I know. Well, you know, there's no relationship, though, that is as intimate as he would have had with his wife. And this spurning, you know, her moving out with the kids

and the disappointment of the relationship ending the way it did and so on, that brings up a lot of rage and connected with the holidays. I mean, you know, when our reaction to the holidays, I mean, of course, you've heard of holiday blues and so on. You know, how we relate to the holidays has to do so much with how we were as children. What happened during the holidays when we were children? And we bring that, the sense of whether we felt deprived during the holidays, excluded, like he was excluded from this party.

There are different things, the hot buttons that get triggered, particularly during the holidays. I want to pause as we examine what about Christmas and the holidays brings out the worst in some people. I want to thank our partner. It's Link AKC. Now, if you're like me, you don't leave your dog out of all the fun. Oh yes, he totally has a stocking and so does that horrible little cat that keeps climbing up the Christmas tree. Well, this year's must-have gift for dogs and their owners is the Link AKC Smart Collar. It's backed by the American Kennel Club. The Link AKC Collar is a GPS locator, a fitness activity tracker for a dog, yes, for a dog, all controlled through a smartphone app. It even has an LED light and temperature

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Save 30% and free shipping. You're not going to get that at the pet store. LinkAKC.com. Code Nancy. Thank you for being our partner today. I don't really understand it. At a time when we celebrate everything good in the world, how that could somehow be twisted and contorted into something so evil. We now travel to Fort Lauderdale, where a guy, a dad, Paul Mary has dinner, a wonderful holiday dinner, sings songs around the piano, Christmas

songs, and then suddenly, oh, oh, oh, and hymns out of the church hymnal, and then suddenly unloads. It all ends in a massacre where he executes an entire family. John Lemley, another holiday, a festive, peaceful, loving get-together of family and friends, goes completely awry. What happened? There were no arguments, warnings, or even red flags before he started the rampage. Marriage shot his 79-year-old aunt to death, killed his twin sisters, one of whom was pregnant. It's not- Eight months pregnant.

Exactly. Just a month or so away from delivering. It's not clear exactly who was shot when, but the bloodbath could have been much worse with 16 family members present. Mirage, 35 at the time, also pointed the gun at his uncle, but it twice would not fire. At one point, he turned and started to walk away and said, I have been waiting for 20 years to do this. Oh, my stars, waiting for 20 years to do this. You know, to Dr. Carol Lieberman, psychiatrist, radio and TV talk show host personality, a bestselling author, speaker, you know dr carol lieberman you've seen so much uh as an expert i still don't understand

how holidays when we're celebrating everything good in the world as the prince of peace comes to our world how it could all be so twisted and horrible. And I guess my specific question right now is no warning flags, no mental illness history, no episodes of uncontrolled anger, nothing. Well, actually, he was going to, his attorneys were going to try to do an insanity defense. And that's how he got to strike a plea. I mean, before the attorneys got a hold of him. Well, and then there's a story about how he went to see a doctor, although it's not clear what doctor he, you know, whether it was a psychiatrist. But the idea that he said he's been waiting 20 years to do this, so he's 35 years old. That means when he was, since the time he was 15, he has had all this resentment, jealousy of his twin sisters who were younger.

So they replaced him in the family, you know, the typical sibling rivalry. Well, it's not so typical when he shoots them all. But he was jealous of them. And one of the people that he killed was this six-year-old little girl who was performing. She was singing. She was supposed to be in the Nutcracker, and so she performed in front of all the relatives. So what it had to do with is how he was not getting enough attention. He was feeling like the family wasn't paying enough attention to him, and since he was 15 he felt that way and he had this resentment stored up for 20

years and finally um you know he let loose and he went to this there were there were some warning signs in the sense that um his sister and he had his sister took out a restraining order but then dropped that so you know this is such a good example of a family not paying enough attention to, well, like he was complaining about, not paying enough attention to the psychological issues that were plaguing him. treated nothing. He had had disagreements with one relative, and they took out a TRO and then dropped it almost immediately. What's so shocking to me, the fact Joseph Scott Morgan, forensic expert, professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University, is that these victims were totally taken by surprise. I mean, they were literally standing around the piano. One of the daughters, they just had this huge dinner, a holiday dinner, and they were all around. They were looking at note cards. His daughter, Michaela, had written about how thankful she was for her family and strung them on a clothesline.

And she suddenly started singing. It was kind of an impromptu dress rehearsal. She was performing the Nutcracker the very next day. She was. Daughter Michaela. And in the middle of all this, marriage shows up. And of course, they let him in. And he has the dinner. He's standing around the piano. Everything seems to be fine. And then out of the blue, he pulls out a gun and methodically targets victims, shooting his twin sisters, Carla, a real estate agent, and Lisa, who was eight months pregnant. Like the daughter, McKayla, both of them love to sing.

They did this every year at Christmas and Thanksgiving. He shoots his aunt, Ramonde, his brother-in-law, Patrick, another man who happened to be there, Clifford. That wasn't all. That wasn't all. He goes into a baby's room. He sees her there and murders her. Beside the baby's bed was a little novel that she had been writing about a squirrel,

where, of course, the squirrel can talk and sing. She was actually writing a book. She would have turned seven a few days later. Joe Scott, how do you process a scene like that? It's hard to get past it, Nancy, because as an investigator, you want to look at the physical evidence and assess what you see before you relative to the scientific value.

But one of the problems that you encounter is that when you do this, and I'm going to wax philosophical for a moment, is that you drag your own humanity in there with you. And sometimes it's very, very difficult to view these things and not be put off emotionally by what you're seeing. And it's a surreal event many times because, and I liken this when I'm teaching my classes, I tell my students many times, listen, you're there to view the abnormal in the context of the normal.

And what's more normal? What's more peaceful, a better word, than to have family all gathered around during the holiday season? You're singing around the piano. People are celebrating life. It's joyful. It's festive. And then all of a sudden, carnage visits.

It's pure hell on earth. And you're having to contextualize all this stuff as an investigator and process it and try to figure out what happened to these individuals. And then you begin to kind of interweave their stories about how much they suffered in these events. And it's very, very hard. And a lot of people, you know, they sit back and they look at investigators and police officers and say, I don't understand why you're so jaded. I don't understand why you have this twisted view of the world. And it is because of the fact that we always see in 3D living color before us the abnormal in the context of the normal. Well, I don't know so much that it's jaded as that you at some point to get to get through it you have to numb yourself or you

you just can't keep going i mean when i read when i've studied this case for this moment i mean there's this six-year-old little girl who the dad says she's quote just our life I don't know how we're ever going to recover. And you look at them, there's an eight months pregnant mom. I mean, I remember when I was six months, you know, I gave birth so prematurely, I never made it to eight months, but I could hardly walk. It was so difficult. And here's this mom, eight months pregnant, dead. Her twin sister, dead. And then to even suggest John Limley, Crime Stories investigative reporter, that he was insane. It doesn't work because he has the wherewithal to then hop in his car and go on the run. He goes straight out after gunning down a whole family,

he jumps into his Royal Blue Toyota Camry and heads off. In fact, police immediately alert Michigan authorities because they think he was headed there. I mean, he knew exactly what he was doing because he goes on the run. There had to be a plan in place after the mass murder. Marriage was, as you say, on the lam for weeks until a tip was called in after an episode of America's Most Wanted highlighted this murder case.

And another thing, again, to Carol Lieberman, Dr. Carol Lieberman and Joseph Scott Morgan, also with me, John Limley. This was a picture perfect place. This is in Jupiter, Florida, where Tiger Woods and all those millionaires live. It was a beautiful home in a beautiful subdivision where there's no crime at all. Take a listen to this. The trauma of that night is inexplicable. One of my regrets, if this were not to go to trial, is that the world will never really hear the horror that we endured that night and that we still live with today. The bullets flying, blood spattering everywhere, bodies falling to the ground, and the screams for him to please stop, people running for their lives. And now listen to baby Michaela's dad in so much pain on the courthouse steps. I feel like I failed my daughter again you know

I couldn't save her that night and now today I couldn't kill the defendant. The one thing that really upsets me in this case is we have a good case. We just don't have a good state attorney. We have, you know, if my pregnant wife has the strength to prosecute a death penalty case, why doesn't he? As we examine what it is about the Christmas holiday where so much of the world is celebrating, what is good in the world, what is joyful, what is peaceful, what is loving. How does that get contorted in some people's minds and end up in horrific acts?

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I mean, at this time, is it looking around at other people that are seemingly so happy and loving the holiday? And then you feel like you're not so happy. Does that bring out that much angst and anger and hatred? Yes, that's a very big part of it. You know, there are some patterns that are fit through all of these different cases that we're talking about. One is the idea of money or gifts and, you know, the sense of deprivation that these people feel at this particular holiday and have felt in previous holidays, and the resentment builds up.

Then also family, feeling like they are abandoned, either physically or emotionally, by their family. You know, the wife leaves, or the parents leave, or planning on leaving. And jealousy amongst the family, jealous of children, jealous of siblings, and so on. And the holidays and this, you know, the fact that we don't all look like Hallmark cards, you know, nobody's family, nobody's family really looks like the picture of a family on a Hallmark card. And for people who have deep resentments and something recent to trigger it, like a divorce or parents stopping paying their money, giving them money and so on.

These are the things that then trigger it and bring out the violence. Well, you know what's interesting also? And Joe Scott, you have a family, most all of us do. You know, the other day, what was I fussing at David about? I can't even remember. And Lucy looked up at me and she actually had tears in her eyes. She said, Mommy, please don't leave. Don't leave us. Don't get a divorce. And I looked at her and I said, Lucy, sweetheart, nobody is leaving anywhere. Number one, I'm in my pajamas. And number two, of course, I'm not leaving. I would never ever have I ever left you. And of course, I'm not leaving your dad. Although he's totally socially awkward. I do fuss at him. But honey, I would never ever leave your dad. I love your dad. And I guess somebody at school has the parents that are divorced and she hears about that.

And my point is, sometimes our fears get magnified, not just her, but our fears become magnified. Our feelings are magnified sometimes. And I'm wondering what it is about everyone being together. It just seems to boil over one crossword, you know, over setting the table. And suddenly somebody pulls out an AK-47. I don't understand it. But I'm thinking about right now a guy, a 28-year-old guy, who has everything in the world to be thankful for. His name is Joel Michael Guy, Jr.

And his parents, Joel Michael Guy, Sr. and mom, Lisa, have been supporting him his whole life. He's been in school, I think now, for 10 years. I'm talking about college. College. Okay. He's a... Now Now I can't say a lot. Now, Mackie, I know you're listening. You're in school and college going on 10 years. Okay. But mother and daddy were not fitting, you know, putting the entire bill because my brother would work, drop out of college, then go back,

then he'd go back and forth. Finally, my mom, you know, tied him down and said, listen, you're going to have what your father and I never had come hell or high water. Now you drop this job. That means nothing. And you finish. And he did. This guy, on the other hand, oh, and by the way, went on to be the one who is so successful and live on the golf course, by the way, my brother, who would actually hide his grades from school. My sister would make all A's and would be waiting on her grades to come in the mail. He would make all f's and hide his and my sister's grades so my parents would not know the grades that come and you know my sister the brilliant one who was a college professor you know raising her children and my brother who was the master in getting f's is the one living

on the golf course can somebody explain the justice in this thing? But back to this guy. He was not working. Living off his parents. He's been in college now 10 years. I'm proud to say my brother did it in seven. Okay. And he comes home and asks for more money. The parents are trying to retire,

and they have to break it to him over a holiday meal. Son, you're going to have to make it, and you're going to have to get a job, son. Finally, you've been in school 10 years to get a four-year degree. It's over. We're selling the house. We're retiring. We're not going to work anymore.

And what does he do, John Limley? I just, I hate the ending of this story. What happens, John? The family is gathering for a holiday feast at this beautiful, tiny little two-story home that's on a corner lot in the Golden Lane neighborhood of Knoxville, Tennessee. Now, it was already to be the family's last holiday together in that particular house. Did you say tiny? Because I'm looking at it and it's a mansion. I'm looking right at it. Did I hear you say? Oh, I said tidy. Tidy. Okay. I said tidy. Maybe I should. No, no, no, no no just go ahead i mean this place is it looks like

maybe the italian kind of like stucco oh jackie's saying she knows exactly where it's i mean it's gorgeous yeah okay not that that means the crime can't happen but what it does mean is it's probably a very low crime area okay sorry i just had to make sure you knew this was not a tiny home. Because I've been watching too much HGTV and they do all the specials on the tiny homes that people put on the car and drive around the country with them. This is not one of those. All right, go ahead. Now this was already to be the family's last holiday together in that house

because in two weeks, Joel Guy Sr. and his wife, Lisa, were going to move into his late mother's mountain house about 90 miles away. Family members were already talking about getting together there for a Christmas reunion. The guys said their goodbyes first to their three daughters, who all live in Tennessee, and planned to send off their son, Joel Michael Guy Jr.

As we mentioned, he'd been living in Baton Rouge for nearly a decade and his parents were financially supporting him. Authorities say they plan to tell him that they were indeed cutting him off. It's still unclear exactly what happened next, whether the guys ever had a chance to even deliver their message. What authorities do know is that the 28-year-old stayed in Tennessee another three days longer than he'd planned. And by that Sunday afternoon, his parents' home had been turned into what police say was a horrific and very gruesome crime scene. During a welfare check that following Monday, after Lisa Guy's employer told police that she did not show up for work, authorities entered the home and discovered a barking dog that was locked in an upstairs room, and the remains of Joel Sr. and Lisa scattered throughout the house,

their dismembered body parts resting in a homemade acidic solution concocted. He was trying to erase all evidence that the crimes even took place there. Whoa, wait a minute. Joe Scott Morgan, Joseph Scott Morgan, forensics expert, professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University. What about this acidic solution, drums of it, and this beautiful home? Jackie's waving a note at me that it's a really expensive area in Knoxville, but you go in the front door, the crystal doors are surrounded by glass of this mansion and you find

drums of acidic solution. Joe Scott. Yeah. Uh, words like torture, stab wounds and dismemberment are also used, uh, in this tale. And he was with his parents for an extended period of time, which is why the police believe that prior to them dying, he very well may have tortured them.

A lot of anger involved with this. And, you know, after this feat of killing these intimates, these people, and that's the way we commonly refer to them, if you're in an intimate relationship, not referring to a sexual relationship, but just, you know, a familial relationship, very close parent and child, after you go through killing them up close and personal with an edged weapon then before you even get to the acid you have to dismember the bodies and this is no easy feat particularly if you've never done it before i've worked in the morgue for many many years and i'll just leave it at that i know what what it takes. And for someone in this fancy home that has limited knowledge, and I would think limited specialty tools in order to facilitate

this, it'd be very difficult. Also, if you don't use the right combination of, you know, what they're referring to is not necessarily a pure acid solution, but something that was kind of concocted, uh, always that makes me raise an eyebrow. It's not going to work very effectively. And from what I understand, uh, he essentially left the scene and, uh, returned back, uh, to Baton Rouge and, uh, you know, where later, as John had pointed out, you know, the police entered this house of horrors and I can't, uh, I can't imagine what it would be like to be a young uniformed officer, which more than likely it was that entered this home just to

conduct a welfare check. And this is something that's done on a regular basis. And you walk in, this is the last thing you're expecting to see to dr carol lieberman psychiatrist radio tv talk show host best-selling author dr carol please give us some guidance well this story has again some of these same um elements of these holiday massacres um money you know he was going to be cut off. It's so interesting because there are even some reports that maybe he wasn't even enrolled in college, at least not for the whole 10 years.

He supposedly wanted to be a plastic surgeon, which I guess could explain the dismemberment, right? He was practicing. And then the idea that his parents were going to be selling that home, perhaps his childhood home, or at least perhaps just something that represented status, and moving away, abandonment. So money, deprivation, abandonment, you know, all the ingredients were there for him to finally express his rage. As we head into the beautiful Christmas season, I want to look around and see what is good in the world,

what is joyful, what is peaceful, as we welcome the Prince of Peace yet again. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.