Crime Weekly - S1 Ep28: A Broken System: Pravin Varughese (CrimeCon 2021)

Episode Date: June 18, 2021

Sign the Petition! --> https://www.change.org/p/united-states-supreme-court-justice-for-pravin?redirect=false Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop This is our live show from CrimeCon 2021 in Austin, Texas. We sit down with Lovely Varughese to discuss the tragic death of her son, Pravin Varughese, and how the justice system failed her family. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod

Bettering your business takes working with the best. With the James Hardy Alliance, you gain access to leads, training, networking, and support from the number one brand of siding in North America. Achieve new levels of success by joining the James Hardy Alliance today. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. Today's going to be a little bit different because we're not going to cover a case in the traditional way that we would. What you're going to hear today is our live podcast that we did at CrimeCon with Lovely Varughese, who is the mother of a young man named Praveen Varughese, who was murdered in Carbondale,

Illinois. And she's going to tell the story of what happened to her son. She's also going to ask for help from everybody out there listening to help find justice for her son because he hasn't gotten it yet. So we hope you really enjoy this special CrimeCon edition of Crime Weekly. Let's dive in to today's video. Hi everybody. Are you sad CrimeCon's almost over? Me too. I'm so sad. But you know next year we're going to Vegas, right? Vegas, baby. We're gonna have a lot of fun. We had a lot of fun this year,

didn't we? So this is Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. That's Derek Levasseur. Hi guys. This is Lovely Varughese. If you saw our panel yesterday, you already know who this woman is and how amazing she is. But we're going to talk to you today about her son Praveen's story. So without further ado, I'm going to hand it over to Lovely. And she's getting her stuff set up. And we know if you guys are Crime Weekly listeners, Stephanie and I don't know what an hour is. Every one of our episodes, or at least our short episodes, are an hour and 45 minutes, if that. But today we are on a little bit of, this is going to be a condensed version, but again, we'll have it on Crime Weekly. If you haven't already subscribed, go check that out. It'll be on the audio version and the YouTube version.

But, Lovely, let's get into the case. Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Lovely Varghese, like they said, and I'm here because of Stephanie and Derek. They watched my son's story on Discovery Plus, and Stephanie reached out to me, and she did almost four hour, three episodes on my son's story. And it was amazing. Everything I wanted to say, she said it. So I will tell you a little bit about myself and my family and then I'll tell you what happened to my son.

My husband and I, his name is Matthew. We come from India. My husband has been here since 1985, and we got married in India in 88, and I came in 1990. I'm a registered nurse by profession. My husband is a respiratory therapist, and we settled in Chicago, one of the suburbs, and we have three children. Our oldest is a daughter. She is a physical therapist right now. She's married now. And our youngest is Preeti.

She is a nursing student. She's 19 years old. And our son, Praveen, we called him Wawa. That means baby. My oldest daughter and my son were only 18 months apart. So when I was pregnant with him, we used to tell him there's a Wawa inside. So she started to call Wawa, and that name stayed.

So if you follow me on Facebook, there are a lot of times that I refer to him as Wawa. And he was the funniest kid that you want to meet, very active. He started to talk in sentences probably when the normal kids start saying words. So he was a step ahead in everything. He was a surprise in everything. He was very active in our church. We have 400-plus families in our church in Chicago.

He was a very active youth member. He played basketball, football. He was the funniest guy. Once you talk to him, you will remember something about him. He was a people person. He could crack jokes like anything. He would talk in many accents. And, you know, one funny story,

he told one of his friends, he used to dance. He was into Indian dancing. And he told one of his friends that he was born in an airplane and then he could travel anywhere free all over the world. And that girl actually believed him you know so he was that kind of a kid and if he exaggerates things you know and then his tweets and his Facebook messages everything about him and he was so close

to us and he after high school he was during high school he was in DECA he was in cross country and he played football basketball he was into sports into music so 11th grade he started to decide what he wants to do in college and he wanted to do criminal justice. Now, if you know about Indian families, they are all into the medical side. So medical or engineering, that's what you want your kids to be. You know, so I was so shocked. And I said, Praveen, you are not going into law enforcement. We don't even know what it's like. You know, I don't want to lose you.

Yeah. Right? Go be a doctor. Yeah. But he was so determined. Actually, he said he was going to do physical therapy when we did the college tour. And to the counselor, when we sat down, he, she asked, what are you going to major? And he said, undecided. That was another shock for me. So when we came back into the car, I said, why did you say undecided? And he goes, I do not want to be in the medical field. I want to be a police officer.

I want to work in the FBI. He had everything planned out. So the school counselor told me, you know, don't force him into anything. Let him do what he wants. So that's what he decided to do. Right after high school, him and his cousin, we have a huge family from both our sides in Chicago. My husband's brother's son, his name is Ashley, and Praveen and him are very close in age, six months apart. They decided to go to Southern Illinois University, and they became roommates. So that's where all this started. But Praveen was so homesick.

He used to come home every other week and he called us every night. There was not a single day that he missed to call us. The weekend before all this happened, he came home and he usually leaves on Sunday. But that weekend when he came, he stayed an extra day. He said, I'm not leaving till Monday morning. I don't have a class till the afternoon. So Monday morning, like around four o'clock, I woke him up. He took a shower.

We prayed and I said, don't put your music too loud in the car. And he's like, no, mommy, when I get into the car, I'm not going to put the music. So he drives straight six hours. It doesn't stop anywhere. After he got there, he texted that he got home. Monday and Tuesday went by. He called us. We talked. Wednesday night, he called around nine o'clock, and he said, I said, what did you do? How was your day? And he said, said what did you how was your day and he said he he just came back from the gym he was into um keeping his body you know very athletic he was only 5 750 but very athletic he was he wanted to build this body I think for to become a police

officer don't look at me I'm not the guy you want I'm not wondering the same thing I was like I can flex but it's yeah I'm not the guy but I was wondering the same thing. I was like, what's he looking over there for? I can flex, but it's, yeah, I'm not the guy. But, you know, he used to make fun of his cousin. His cousin would drive to gym, and he would walk to gym. So it's like, why are you driving to gym when you can just walk, you know? So he was that kind of a funny guy. So he said, I just came back from gym, and he did not tell us they were going to go out. He told me that he had a test the next day. That night, him and his cousin and a few other friends went to a house party,

and our nightmare started after that. His cousin and the other friend had work, so they left a little early, and we believe my son walked from that party alone around 11.30, and his phone records show that he was tweeting, texting, checking his voicemails up until around 11.55, and then there was no kind of communication until 1231, until one of his girlfriends from Chicago, she was a student at UIC in Chicago, she got a phone call from him, and she heard him say, a little bit over a minute. But, you know, Praveen was known to do these prank calls. He would call all these girls and see whether they are studying, and then he would hang up on them. So she thought it was one of those nights, so she did not think of anything. She hung up. The next day, he did not show up to the class. And his cousin got worried.

His friend, who was in the same criminal justice class, called my nephew and said Praveen did not show up to the class. And it was very unusual for him to miss the class. So they started to call around. He was not answering. And they were too scared to call us. They called my daughter, who was a student at St. Louis University. So they were too scared to call us they called my daughter who was a student at st louis university so they were panicking they finally got the apartment owner the townhouse

owner got there and they opened his door and he was in there so then they filed a report missing person report and we got the call around nine o'clock that night and the police called and I picked up the phone thinking it's him, it's a usual time. And he said, is Praveen home? I said, no, Praveen is in Carbondale. What is it, sir? You know, when you hear Carbondale police, your heart just sank. And initially he said, said you know he's been reported missing since yesterday if you hear anything tell him to call us because we are looking for him and he he just gave me a number and and I asked him one more time what is what did you say and you know he said it again and he just hung up and And I screamed, and my husband

was, like, in the living room, and the next thing I see is he was hanging on to the cross on the wall, and he was just crying. So we got into the car with the clothes that we had, that was where we were wearing, and I kept on calling his phone. He didn't answer. I knew there was something wrong with him because, you know, knowing Praveen, if I call him two times and he doesn't answer, if I leave a nasty message, he'll call me right back. When he did not call me back, I knew he was in trouble. So we get to Carbondale that Thursday early morning. It's a six-hour drive, and we got there. We took Ashley, and we went to the police station, and initially they said, you know, all college kids do this. They'll go somewhere and come back in a few days. I said, no, not my kid. You know, there is no way

he was going to just take off and go somewhere. He knew if he doesn't answer the phone, we were going to be there in six hours. So, you know, he wasn't going to do things like that. So I knew, I kept on telling them, my son is in trouble, my son is in trouble. So we started putting a reward money, the reward money went up to 15,000. 200 plus family and friends from Chicago started to show up the next day to help us with the search. And the police kept on telling us, we have no clue, we have no tip. The SIU did not put a mass email for the students to alert them. You know, one of my co-workers' son was in the same college, and she had to tell him he didn't even know that there was a missing student in Carbondale. So the few days went by. Saturday, there was still no clue, and then Saturday, they told us they will not do a search on Sunday because they did not

have enough staff. And it's not like there were 10 kids missing from that college. So we did whatever we could. From our own, we were handing out flyers. I went on the media and we pleaded and monday morning when we got to the police station the deputy chief kind of like was kind of mad at me for talking to the media um he said um you cannot do that and i said we did not say anything bad about you we said you know you're doing your doing a good job i just wanted to get the word out but But remember that that was a reason that we had a tip, you know, because we went on the media. So February 17th morning, we went to the police station and the lieutenant governor from Illinois, Sheila Simon, she was a friend of our, one of our community members, and they were going to, the police was going to call off this search. So I

told him, I said, I'm willing to accept the worst. Just find him. I said, you know, when you travel, you see all these missing people flyer on all these rest areas. And I said, I don't want to see my son's flyer in one of those rest areas. I said, please find him. So Mrs. Sheila Simon had called the police department, and she said, you need to do more search. Don't give up. So then they said, okay, we are going to search more. They said they had to look into the words, they had to search this, that, they had to get permission from the state.

So anyway, that evening, Provence Friends had a vigil arranged at the college. And we had no idea the police received a tip that evening after seeing this reward money. That was a different story that I'll tell you later. So after the vigil, one of Praveen's professors asked me, have you been to that house that Praveen was in? I said no. And she's like, yeah, I can take you there. So we went there. There was a tweet that Praveen had tweeted out, bloody knuckles, guess I was in a fight. So that tweet went wild saying Praveen was in a fight.

Just to clarify, that tweet was the night he died, around 1130. 1130. Yeah. So when we went to that house, the owner of that house, these are all college kids. And he said, we heard from Praveen's friends also that Praveen was trying to prop up a window and the beer can, beer with a beer can and the window fell on his hand. And he actually swiped that blood on one of his girlfriends. And she said, hey, hey go don't do this

you know so she she was like Praveen was being funny you know and he was he just wanted to be show off and he said okay bloody knuckles guess I was in a fight you know if you don't know Praveen those tweets everything that he did that night was just typical Praveen. But for the law enforcement, that was something that he did so bad. So that guy also, the kid that was living in that house, also showed me where exactly the window was. Tuesday morning, February 18th, the dean of the college comes into a hotel room, and she was there. She wouldn't leave. She

was just, she took her jacket off. She was sitting down, and she was like, oh, tell me more about Praveen. She was just sitting there, and we had like chain prayer going on in our, in the, in the hotel room, you know, so I just wanted her to leave, but she wouldn't leave. Maybe like an hour later, she gets a phone call. She she goes down and she comes back with the deputy police chief as soon as i saw them walking i knew something was happening and when he came in i said uh do you know alive? And he said, unfortunately, no. So, you know, you can imagine the agony and everything. It was like my world just ended.

I just wanted the earth to open and take us all down, you know. So anyway, I was just, until that minute, I was holding on to the hope. I was thinking maybe that somebody has him tied up into a room or locked up somewhere that he does not have access to the phone, but I was not like ready to accept that he was gone. An hour later, the coroner, the deputy police chief, and a few other detectives, they all walk into the hotel room, and they said, we are going to start the process. And my daughter said, when can we see him? And the coroner is like, oh, no, you cannot see him here. A funeral home of your choice will bring him to Chicago, and then you can see him.

And that just hit me like a ton of bricks. And I'm like, uh-uh, no, no, no. We all work in medical field. And I said, how did you identify him? And they said, oh, we found his ID. We matched his ID. I said, how do you know that's somebody else's ID? And I said, no. I think something in me just hit me and said, no, you need to wake up, mom. This is going somewhere else. You need to wake up. If you knew me before, I never talked back to anybody. I was not a public person.

I was always my husband's shadow. So I said, no. I said, my English is broken, my accent is bad, but I am going to talk. And the chaplain held on to me. And the chaplain is like, and then my husband got so worried that if I say something, they wouldn't let us see him. So he's holding on to me. He's like, don't say anything, don't say anything. But then the chaplain also, no, don't worry, don't worry. So then the coroner goes, we have to do the autopsy.

I said, when? He goes, I don't know when. We don't have a pathologist here. This is a very small town. So I said, where is this pathologist coming from? And he said, Indiana. I said, my God, that's not the other end of the world. I said, we will pay for the airfare. Get that man over here. Do the autopsy. I said, I don't want my son to be here for an extra hour. I want to take him back. So he so mad they went out because we asked him whether we can see you know the corner they all went out they had their

discussion after a few minutes they come back and they're like oh we'll give you and your husband a chance to see him in the hospital and then my daughters started crying and then they said okay four you. So we get to the hospital. By then, the chapel was filled with our family and everything. So the coroner walks in, and he looks at everybody, and he's like, oh, you all want to see him? Come on. Everybody walks in. Okay, so they opened up the GI lab.

My son was propped up in a stretcher. I think they made a mistake of taking us through his right side. If they were taking us from the other side, I never would have seen the injury on his forehead. So we walk in, and I saw the bruise on his forehead right here, right away. We were like 25, 30 feet away. I could see it. And I said, my God, what is on his face? Who beat my son? And my brother-in-law asked one of the detectives and he said, oh, we found him face down. It's just frostbite. And they had him covered up to the neck. So we were not able to see anything below his body. So that stayed in my head. Everyone that came into that room saw the injury. We saw him.

We had our priest was there. So we did our prayer and we left. And then a few hours later, the police chief, whom we never met, goes on, he called a press conference, and he announced to the world that the difficult terrain and you know that praveen probably was drunk and unable to find his way out and he ran into woods and died of hypothermia they had everything written down you know by then by two hours after praveen was found they made their case um so the next day, that day evening, you know, we were thinking, should we do a second autopsy? We had a few doctor friends in that area,

and they all were like, oh no, don't even think about a second autopsy, because no doctor is going to lie on an autopsy, you know. And I wanted to believe that so bad. But working in medical field and seeing everything that we see, you kind of question a few people. And I wasn't sure what was going to happen. So the next day they did an autopsy, and the doctor called me, the coroner called me and said it was hypothermia. So I asked him, you know, what was on my son's forehead? And he said, well, that's just nothing. It's superficial.

There was nothing. He probably just wandered into the woods. Post-mortem discoloration. Yeah, post-mortem discoloration. Thank you. Yeah, post-mortem discoloration. If you have ever seen post-mortem discoloration, you know, it was dent. You could put your finger, half of your finger in there. It was almost the size of a golf ball. It was a lot more than just something superficial. And again, you have the photos for it. Lovely has been nice enough to make them available.

You can see them for yourself. It doesn't take a doctor to figure out that this wasn't a result of hypothermia from this specific injury. Yeah, there were three of them, three injuries to the head. So then we come back to Chicago. Before we came back, we actually met with the police, deputy chief and the detectives that was on this case. And we were given Praveen's wallet and his keys and his clothes they held on. They said they found his shoes so we didn't have access to all of that and they had taken his phone, they had taken his computer from his room so they held on to that but the wallet they gave us back, which will become very crucial now because they did not do a fingerprint on it. So we took that and I asked, you know, they gave us the story that they got a tip. They were not even telling us what was happening. They said they got a tip

that Praveen got into a car with the recent acquaintance. And then they had a fight. Praveen was drunk, possibly on drugs. They had a fight. The car was stopped on the side of the highway. Praveen ran into woods and he couldn't figure out where he was and he died of hypothermia. So I said, they had a fight? And he said, yes. And I said, do you have that man in custody? And he said, no. I said, why not? He's the last person that saw my son alive. And he said, no, we have no reason to suspect him. He told us everything he could, so there is no reason to arrest him. So that was the end of the story. And I asked, specifically I asked the deputy, I said, was my son drunk? And he said, very drunk. You know, I never saw my son drunk. He never came

home drinking. You know, he was in a college party. He probably would have been drinking, but we don't know. But drugs, 100%, I knew he wouldn't touch it. So we come back to Chicago. The next day, we were in the funeral home trying to make arrangements for the funeral. And the funeral home director walks in after seeing Praveen. He goes, lovely, you're a nurse, right? I said, yes. And he goes, honey, you need to see your son. This is not a frostbitten body. He has injuries. My husband and my son are, you can't imagine how close they were. My son, all my kids, every single day when they're home, it goes and lies on his chest. So my husband wasn't taking this very well at all. He said, no, I don't want to see him like that.

I dragged him. I said, no, we need to see him. Something is wrong because this was bothering me, you know, the bruise on his forehead. So we went in, and the funeral home director mark is an angel i call him he said you spend as much time as you want with him so we stayed and i saw all the injuries he had his body was beaten up pretty bad it wasn't it wasn't we It wasn't, we're mainly talking about the head, but his entire body. He had a defensive wound on the right arm. His thigh was like somebody stamped on him.

There were 22 injuries. So we decided to do a second autopsy. And that came back blunt force trauma to the head. Both autopsies showed no drugs, no alcohol in his system. The case went to state's attorney. The police handed the case over to the state's attorney, who really screwed up the case so bad. He was so busy attacking me and my son for his own death. So with the negative toxicology sitting in front of him, he made a report a year later after calling me all kinds of names,

saying that I need to be educated, you are distraught, forgetful, whatever. He told me that my son had a comfortable death. Repeat that. that's what this man told her. Yeah my son had a comfortable death. So I sat in front of him and this is the state's attorney Michael Carr. Yes. Two R's. I'm going to look him up and write him a letter. I sat in front of him and I cried, but he didn't care. You know, I had a Justice for Praveen folder with me. We had 40,000 signatures, 500 letters asking for a proper investigation.

He didn't care. He's like, what is this? What is this? I have another one sitting here, Justice for Molly. I don't want this. And I said, if you don't want it, I'll take it back. And he goes, you brought it. You might as well leave it here.

So I don't know what he did with it, but, you know, I left it there. I had two conversations with him which did not go well, and I know he has problem with women, that he does not want any women questioning him. So he took it pretty bad, I think. So I don't know whether it was an attack on me or an attack on my son. He made a report, an 18-page report, I mean 10-page report. In 18 times, he said in that report my son was drunk when he knew there was this guy that

took my son and he admitted to the police of beating him and he did not bother to question him. So everything that other boy did was justified in that report. So meanwhile, when Lovely met with Michael Carr the second time in person, she spoke to him on the phone first, she met with him in person after. He said to her, I'm not going to have this kid arrested. I'm not going to ruin his life too. And if he gets arrested, I will have him unarrested. Yeah. So a week after my son passed, there was a lady by Monica Sucas down in Southern Illinois. She had a radio show at that time. She got interested in this case, and she was researching, and she found out through Facebook messages that there was a state trooper behind this truck

that was carrying my son. The night of his death. The night of his death. So she told one of the news media, and they confirmed it, and after filing, they filed a FOIA. The news media and they confirmed it. And after filing, they filed FOIA, the news media filed FOIA. The video came out. You can see this guy, his name is Gage Bethune, walking from the slope towards the state trooper. The slope where Praveen was eventually found.

Right. And you can tell me more about it because he had his hands in the pocket. He's walking to the state trooper. There was no audio, but you can see him walk to the state trooper. They had a few minute conversation and then he goes back to the car and then the trooper goes to the passenger side talking to him again and he shone the flashlight three times to the treetops and that was it and then he cleared the call

and he left what was the reason the offender gave the trooper for why he was doing that forgive that first and then we'll talk about the pockets right so the story that Gage gave to the state trooper was he was driving back see Praveen and him were on

the same street, on College Street, but two different houses. The house Gage was, it was a drug house, and Praveen was on a different house, house party, somebody's birthday. Praveen was walking two sticks, and the house where Gage was, it was the way so we believe that's where he was attacked and he probably was put in the truck and he lost consciousness and maybe he came to it and Praveen had a the pattern lock on his phone correct so we know he became conscious to make that call to Anita so that's probably when this trooper pulled up. So Gage told the trooper that he was driving back home and he saw a black male walking on the street and he asked him if he needed a ride and he said he's a good Samaritan. If you see a person walking with a bag of grocery,

he's going to help that person out. So he asked him if he needed a ride and he said yes and that person got into the car and they tried to rob gage and gage said he opened the door he turned his car off and then they had a fight and he ran into woods so there's a couple problems with this as as a police officer someone who's stopped many people um first and foremost one of the first thing you're taught in the academy is if you can see someone's hands whether you think they're someone who has nefarious intentions or they're just a witness you always ask politely that they take their hands out of their pockets because if you can see someone's hands most likely they're not going to be able to hurt you the the state

trooper may be a good trooper, he may not be, I don't know who he is, but in this particular case, he was 100% wrong. He treated Gage as if he was someone who should not be taken with some speculative about him. More importantly, you see this individual coming from a wooded area, and all you do is shine the light in there two or three times, when at that point, even if he believes Gage, this is a potential robbery suspect. But the bigger issue with it is, as Lovely just mentioned, if this state trooper would have taken an extra five minutes to search the immediate area, he most likely would have found Praveen. And there's a very high likelihood that we would not be here right now because Praveen would still be alive so although it might seem like oh it's a minor mistake it ultimately resulted in someone's

death and and again if that if he would have found Praveen at that moment more than likely Gage would have been arrested at that moment as well so for me when we look at cases in crime weekly that's always something where you try to see where it went wrong and and this is to me from a law enforcement perspective probably one of the most egregious acts that took place in this case because everything that transpired afterwards that you had to go through wouldn't have happened if this was handled properly and he did not make a report that night no no no official report yeah no official report was made until that evening where the vigil was. The police got a tip. The tip came from Gage's cousin. He called in for the reward money. So he's the one who told the police about the state trooper. So the police went and got the

state trooper, and the state trooper showed where the truck was stopped. Then the police said Gage showed them, but Gage did not show anything. The police went to Gage, went to his house. But by then, his dad had talked to a few attorneys and everything. So then they interviewed him twice because the police found out he was lying because he kept on telling the police that Praveen was on the phone talking to his buddies in Chicago about cocaine.

Praveen's phone was silent. The police knew that. So then they brought him back saying, we know Praveen's phone was silent. And then he said, oh, maybe then he was pretending. And then he said to the police, I'm not used to that kind of population he was not my race I was I was scared I wasn't sure what he was capable of so the police is sitting there

taking all that they knew that this guy's lying he lied to the state trooper he lied to the police once he lied to the police twice nothing mattered he. They let him go. And then the state's attorney made this decision not to charge Gage Bethune. That was in 2017. And by the way, why did he have his hands in his pockets? Why did Gage have his hands in his pockets when he's approaching a police officer? Where we see videos all the time, if you have your hands in your pockets, the police are usually withdrawing their firearm. Why do we think he had his hands in his pockets? His knuckles. Thank you.

His knuckles. Guys are good. I like it. It's good. Yeah. Was the truck searched? Absolutely. Not that night.

No. And he had a red solo cup of alcohol in the cup holder of his truck. Yeah. The state trooper did not give him a breathalyzer. He didn't do a sobriety test. I don't even think he took his license or any of that. I literally think he spoke to him for a couple minutes and he said, get home, because Gage

told him that his father really wanted him to be home on time that night. But Gage did not go home to his father's house that night. He went and got some cocaine, which is what he was trying to do all night anyways, even though he said he was afraid of Praveen because Praveen was talking about getting cocaine in the car. And he said, oh, this kid's bad news. He wants to get cocaine. That's exactly what Gage was trying to do all day long. So then he goes and he gets cocaine.

And then he goes to some 16-year-old girl's house. And she says he is messed up when he gets there. He can't even walk up the stairs because of all the cocaine that he did but he didn't have money for cocaine earlier that night did he only had ten dollars to his name which he claims he put in his gas tank so where did he get the money to now get all this cocaine to get so messed up well because he stole it from pervine out of his wallet because pervine was found with his wallet tucked into the uh front office the front of his boxer shorts. And that's not how he had his wallet, okay? That was put there after somebody removed it from his pocket, stole his money, and then put his wallet back on him. And as Lovely said earlier, police never did any fingerprint tests on that

wallet. And his Praveen was wearing purple shoes. And they found, until we found out, got the report, two and a half years later, we did not know anything about what the police found or anything. It was such a struggle for us to get the police reports. Multiple times we filed FOIA. They would, Michael Carr would deny it saying because we had filed a lawsuit against the police department and they said the family has filed a lawsuit in hopes of collecting money from different government entities. So after a couple of months, we withdrew the case and I said, I don't need your money. Give me the police report. They still wouldn't give it.

So Monica and I decided to go to the city council. We spoke. She showed all of Praveen's injuries to the mayor and the city council. A month later, or before that, I have to tell you, the state's attorney, after he released the no charge report, the community went wild. Everybody was making so much noise. So a week later, he recused and he gave the case to the special prosecutor. His name is David Robinson. Thank God for him. He started to investigate the case, but I had no idea he was doing everything in private. But meanwhile, you know, we were still being denied the police reports. So after we went to the city council and showed the injuries to the mayor and the city council,

we know now that Robinson told them to give us the report. So we got unredacted police reports. That's when we found out all these crazy things that the shoe that they found from the woods, it's some random shoes, it's Puma, some random size, broken ties. And I said, my son will never wear that shoes, you know. He was like really top notch. So I'm like, no, that's not my son's shoe. And they're like, oh, you don't know.

These are college kids. You don't know yours. And I said, I knew every single shoes, every single shirt of him, you know, because he was very particular. There are certain things he did and certain things he did not do, which the police got wrong. And I knew they were wrong on it. It wasn't Praveen's size. Yes. It wasn't Praveen's size. Yes, it wasn't Praveen's size. So after Robinson

came into the picture, he sat down with us and he explained to us that if he finds evidence, he will charge him. If he doesn't, he will tell us why he cannot charge him. So I asked him, can you do a DNA on the shoes? And did and for sure it was not Praveen's it's somebody else's who knows who's it is but they said it was his shoe yeah and Praveen was found wearing no shoes yeah yeah his feet no scratches were not scratched his socks weren't dirty but he was running through the woods drunk that's what they said he was drunk and he was confused and it was cold and he was just running randomly in the woods and not getting his socks wet not getting them dirty and then he just lost his way and then passed out from hypothermia and died that

was their story but his body doesn't support that story and his socks were clean there was no scratches or anything on his feet like you would you would think you'd see if you were running barefoot through this very wild, overgrown area. So Robinson started to investigate. In 2017, he convened a grand jury, charged Gage Bethune for two counts of first degree murder, attempted robbery, and felony murder, aggravated battery. He was in jail for one night. The next day, $1 million. The next day, his dad paid $100,000. He got him out.

In cash? In cash. So they investigated. Robinson used the same police officers from Carbon. I have to give them, you know, clapping for those police officers for sticking with David Robinson. So the case went on to trial in 2018,

a two-week trial. The jury found him guilty. They found him guilty on aggravated battery, murder charge. The robbery, they did not find him guilty. He was facing in Illinois, the felony charge, a murder charge is 20 to 60 years mandatory. There is no minimum, no maximum. You have to be served between 20 to 60 years.

So he was sent to jail. He was there three months. Meanwhile, there was reports that was filed in court. There was juror harassment from him and his so-called private investigator they approached the jury foreman with a visible handgun and and then he was dealing drugs there were eight times stephanie did it on her um youtube that she read it out loud how he was making those conversations where it is how much to sell it for all that so there were eight times he did drug dealings from jail. Nothing was done. The judge did not care. The state's attorney did not care. It should have been a revocation of his bail. His bail should have been revoked. At that point, his bail should have been revoked. His bond should have been revoked and it wasn't. So a week before the sentencing,

he fires his attorney, who was the former state's attorney before Michael Carr. This is like a web of... His name is Michael Wepsick. If you want to look him up, too, send him a letter. He was state's attorney before Michael Carr for 30 years, and then he became Gage's attorney. He sent a letter or an email to Michael Carr very early on in this, before Gage had even been charged, before anything had even happened. He was never named a suspect, and Michael Wepsik said, I'm going to be Gage's attorney, and I have more than a passing interest in this case.

We don't know what the connection is, but Michael Wepsich, Michael Carr. Yeah. So the day of, I mean, the week before, he fired his lawyer, and he hired a high-profile lawyer from Chicago who represents R. Kelly and who also represented Drew Peterson, who called me over.

Tell me you're guilty without telling me you're guilty. So the day of sentencing, we were sitting in court. I had my victim's impact statement written to read, and I am so thankful Stephanie read it on her show. So we were sitting there. The judge comes in unusual. He was acting weird. We didn't know what was going on. And then Gage comes in in street clothes, no shackles, nothing. I thought, what in the world is going on? I asked Robinson, I said, what is it? And he said, like, I don't know. I have to find out. Before anything, the judge sat down and he said, one side of this courtroom is going to be upset about what I'm going to say. If you can't handle it, you leave.

So I'm thinking, okay, he's going to be sentenced for 20 to 60 years. Then the judge started to talk. Pre-written statement. It was nothing that happened in court that day. So he started to say there was no prosecutorial errors. The jury had enough evidence to find him guilty. But then he started to talk about the indictment the charging sheet which happened an year earlier and he said there was a word in that indictment

knowingly that came after a coma and he said I'm not sure if the jury was confused I don't think they were confused because they had a chance to come and ask me question but I'm not sure have to what to think of it so I'm putting the verdict aside let him go free ordering a new trial so this man is walking free he left and the Robinson had to dispose that case because he could not charge the case that the judge threw out. So now he has to be charged again and, you know, tried again and all those things. But he tried to take it to Illinois Supreme Court, but the attorney general at that time, Lisa Madigan, got involved and she blocked it. So the Supreme Court did not get a chance to hear it. That's where we are now. And that's why we're here. It's not

just about sharing the story with you because obviously Lovely is amazing and courageous for coming out here and being able to tell the story the way she does, but there's a purpose. And that's kind of what with Crime Weekly, that's what we, we always want to give a voice to the voiceless, but also push the case forward if possible, if it's unsolved. So why don't you tell them what we're looking to do here now? Because we hear your voices, we're as frustrated as you are. What we don't want to happen is you guys to go out there and harass this offender or his family, because that's counterproductive. It makes him look like a victim, but there is something you can do. And this is not only for the people in the audience, but for the people that are going to hear this online. And what is that?

Stephanie started a petition copying Department of Justice and the Supreme Court. We are hoping they will take a look at to all these officials, you know, like to me, the system can work. It is the people who does not want the system to work is the problem. So we need to weed them out. And I'm really hoping that the Department of Justice will take a look into that. You know, I know I cannot bring my son back, but we are, I'm talking to community colleges, students who are going into criminal justice. We have a scholarship in Providence name, who the kids who are getting into criminal justice, especially in Southern Illinois, you know, that place is known to be a place where they don't stay in school. They get into fights, and drug is a big issue there.

So we are trying to instill the value of education down there. Every year when we go down for Provence Memorial, we have a scholarship. And I have to tell you, the current and the new police chief and all, they all come and they stay with us. We have a really good relationship with us. The police chief who announced those things that day, he's fired, he's gone. Michael Carr is also no longer the state's attorney.

Yes, Michael Carr was. The former chief actually came to you afterwards and was like, hey, I can help you now if you want. You're like, what are you going to do for me? Lisa Madigan is no longer the attorney general. Michael Carr was voted out. And he was there for, I don't, and then ever since the state's attorney business started in Carbondale, for the first time, a minority state's attorney was elected.

One by one. One by one is good fishing, right? So I say, you know, all these years they did so wrong. My brown boy had to be there to make a change. And I feel like this is a mission that my son has given me, you know, to continue his legacy. And he wanted to work with the law enforcement so bad. He was so into all these cases. He watched the crime shows, and he was like, oh, they should have done this, they should have done that. And I'm like, he would have been a great person, you know. And every president, when they walk out, if he see a secret service,

and he used to tell me, Mommy, I'm going to be that one day. You know, he had so much hope. And even now, when I see these police officers, you know, next to me, and I'm driving, and I just admired them, you know. And I think one of the Halloween, he had a police costume and I still have that picture. So it's like, you know, I just have to think of the goodness that he would have come up with

and I'm trying to get to people before they put their uniform. You know, just have some kind of common sense. And empathy and understanding and don't treat everything as just this is a case. It's basically fact or fiction. There's emotions attached to it. And that's something that we all can do better at. But in law enforcement specifically, we're trained. We kind of become robots.

We kind of become emotionless because we see it every day. That's not an excuse anymore. Lovely is a prime example of that, of how there needs to be reform in law enforcement. I'm speaking for myself, but I think I'm speaking for, we've spoken about this. We don't want to defund the police. We want to

reform. We want to change things. We want to make it better. We want more training and not necessarily training for use of force, but training how to deal with situations like this, where you're not only dealing with someone who's, who's passed away, but the family as well as a, as a victims and not just as witnesses. And, um, that's something that's going to take time. But I think with, with people like Lovely speaking out, that's, that's how change happens. Yeah, you know, so much victim shaming, assassination of his character. My husband completely, you know, until, if you know the Indian culture, you know, like they think you did not raise your kid right. You know, my son had

an earring a few months before. He took it off, but the missing person picture, he had an earring and his pants were pulled down a little bit. So the Indian community went wild. Oh, you did not raise your boy right. But now they all know. This is typical college kids. He got the earring and then he took it off. It was just a craziness for a month. So it's like, so for me to come this far, it took everything in me. You know, my husband had gone, he's gone completely silent. And he became a walking zombie until we met with Mr. Robinson. And he told us, you had a good kid. You raised a good boy.

Because he had access to all of Praveen's pictures and everything in his phone, and only thing that he found in his phone was, like, pictures of us and Bible verses, and, you know, he had a tattoo that said, fear God, you know, so those are the things that he was, he found on his phone so this was not a kid who stayed on the weekend in campus and did or deal drugs right so you know like the blaming the shaming and I don't know what they were trying to achieve in the beginning but I thank God for giving me the the sense and the courage to stand up so you know I talked, I talked to a lot of women right now, like, you know, they think, how did you, they asked me, how did you get this far? I said, I am one among you,

you know, it's the circumstances that push you. If I don't speak, who's going to speak for my son? So, you know, and I feel like his voice has been heard. He's speaking through me. I was never a public speaker, but my son was. He won, he was at the national level from school for DECA club. You know, if you know, they give you the subject to speak just a few minutes before and you have to speak in front of the judges and he was so good at it so maybe he left that in me when he left absolutely you know so i here i am well you're speaking for him and now we can speak for him as well because power in numbers right that's how we

do that's how we create change public pressure we've seen it already guys it can make a difference so everyone out there in the audience everyone going to be listening to this online whether you're going to be watching on youtube sign the petition change.org it's going to be available we'll have it posted on the website as well um lovely thank you for your strength your courage for being able to speak around for her okay thank you so much thank you thank you Thank you. Thank you, everybody, for coming. We really appreciate it. Thank you. And sit tight because I think closing video is going to be playing if you want to watch it.

Absolutely. Thank you all for being here. I really appreciate it. Thank you for coming out. All right. So that was CrimeCon 2021. Again, we want to thank Lovely. She was amazing to me.

And thank you, Stephanie, for introducing her to me because I didn't have any interaction with her very little before we went down to CrimeCon. But she was amazing. I said it in the video. I'll say it again now. circumstances is something to be inspired by for all the parents out there who may be going through something or maybe having a bad day, realize there are people out there like Lovely who have a lot bigger things going on and she's still able to move forward and turn a really negative situation into something that may be positive for someone else by using her son's story. Thank you guys so much for being here this week. Really appreciate those of you who, you know, gave it a shot. I know it's not what you're used to. And I know that when I'm listening to podcasts, sometimes I'm like, oh, it's a special

episode. I'm not going to listen to that. But we really do appreciate those of you who were here. And before we go, we do have a speak pipe message that one of our listeners sent us in regards to the Cody Joyce case. And I really like it. Derek actually sent it to me directly today. I was at a kid's birthday party, which is a miserable place to be. And he said, I'm here. I had to send this to you directly. And so it gave me an excuse to leave and be in the quiet and listen to it. And I listened to it twice because I was like, yes, exactly. This is exactly what we've been trying to say. So we are going to leave you with that message from one of our listeners and we will see you next week.

Take care. Hey y'all. My name is Jennifer. I'm a prosecutor in South Carolina. I've been prosecuting down here for about a year, but I was in North Carolina for about eight years before this. I just started listening to this week's new episode and I just, I had to get something off my chest and I'm not even through the episode yet. When I was listening to Derek talk about the detective who was hesitant to interview the witness again because he was concerned about the defense shredding this kid on the stand. Quite frankly, as a prosecutor, I don't want you to care about that.

That's not your problem. You don't have to worry about doing direct and cross on witnesses. That's not your problem. You don't have to worry about doing direct and cross on witnesses. That's not your issue. That's my issue. And if this witness has more information than they were able or willing to give at the beginning of the investigation, I'm all for that second conversation and I will deal with and prepare them for that cross-examination. That's not your problem. That's mine. And it really frustrates me when officers use that as an excuse to avoid a second conversation with a witness. For the love of God, don't do that.