Crime Weekly - S3 Ep199: Crime Weekly News: The Apple River Stabbing

Episode Date: April 17, 2024

54-year-old Nicolae Miu, of Prior Lake Minnesota, was charged with first degree homicide in the death of 17-year-old Isaac Shuman who died during a scuffle with Miu and others. The incident occurred on July 30th, 2022 at the Apple River, and Miu’s defense team claimed he was acting in self defense when he stabbed Schuman and four others. Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod ADS: 1. PDSDebt.com/Crime - Get your FREE debt assessment today!

Hey everyone, welcome back to Crime Weekly News. I'm Derek Levasseur. And I'm Stephanie Harlow. And we're gonna get right into it because we have a lot to talk about tonight and we're going to start with a story that has sweeped uh the nation and is definitely being talked about a lot on social media i have been weighing in as well i believe stephanie you you were you were aware of it but weren't as in tune with it i kind of brought it up too said we should cover it yeah because it feels like a lot of stuff happened these past few weeks by the way oh for sure like oj dies this is going on the uh ruby frankie eight passengers thing new new stuff came out about that um dylan ron does the menendez

brothers are back in the headlines you know it's like a lot of stuff started happening i even saw stuff about gypsy rose i guess her husband is getting a divorce from her now and he's like i know who she really is and there's so many things that i keep saying seeing and bookmarking because i'm like oh i gotta read about this. But so much is happening in the true crime world these past few weeks. It ebbs and flows, it feels like. But yeah, this is a crazy one. And I think we could do a whole series on this, to be honest. Yeah. We have like four, like you said, four or five topics. Dylan Rounds was another one. They found his remains after a deal. So there's a lot we could talk about. We're going to cover this and maybe a couple other things only because this case,

this whole situation is again, something where we can learn something from it and we can kind of dissect it and analyze it and break it down and see what we can take out of it to apply to our own lives. So for anyone who doesn't know about the case, 54-year-old Nikolai Mu of Pryor Lake, Minnesota was charged with first degree homicide in the case, 54-year-old Nikolai Mu of Prior Lake, Minnesota, was charged with first-degree homicide in the death of 17-year-old Isaac Schumann, who died during a scuffle with Mu and many others as well. We're going to get into that. The incident occurred on July 30th, 2022 at the Apple River, and Mu's defense team claimed that he was acting in self-defense when he stabbed Schumann and four others.

Now, I'm going to wait to weigh in at the end. Anyone who's seen my comments on Twitter, you kind of know where I stand on it. I also asked the prosecutors and defense diaries, Rob Mata, what they thought as well, being attorneys on two different sides of the aisle. We were all kind of weighing in on the conversation. So let's get into some more specifics about it from Stephanie and then we we'll discuss. So yeah, I kind of want to focus on, because I don't know, we haven't talked about how you feel about the results of the trial of Nikolai Mew. And I feel a certain way. I actually don't know how I feel. I feel like nobody was right in this situation, kind of. But I want to have a little discussion about that. Like, I think that's important in because this is Crime Weekly News. We can't really go into all the details and we can't really get as deep as we normally do, although I would like to because it's a very interesting case and I watched some of the trial. on July 30th 2022 Nikolai and his wife left their home in Prior Lake Minnesota and what they were

going to do is they were going to go to the Apple River in Wisconsin's St. Croix County and then do like floating in inner tubes I guess this is a popular spot for people to do this they just get in tubes and kind of tie their tubes to each other sit in the tubes drink wine coolers and float down the river it sounds awesome awesome. So they're going to have a nice relaxing day. They go meet up with a group of friends. Around 1130 a.m., the group starts their float. But a few hours later, someone in the party lost their phone in the water. And so Nikolai volunteered to look for the phone using scuba gear. And he kind of was like left the tubers and went off on his own with the scuba

gear to find this lost phone. And he ended up going to, you know, down the river near a bridge. And then what happened next was captured on video. Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Oh, God! He up! He up! What are you talking about? What the hell are you talking about? Ah! Whoa!

What? What's going on with your homie? He's on camera. He's tripping. He's on camera. He's on camera. Yo, the new iPhone got that good quality. What did he say? Yeah, what the hell?

Who is this? Yes! Yes! Further culture! Further culture! Who is that? Further culture! Who is that?

Who the hell is this? Go! It doesn't matter. He said he was looking for a little girl! He said he was looking for a little girl! He said he was looking for a little girl! You're looking for a little girl? Yeah!

I didn't even have that part on camera. Did I? What the hell is this guy's problem? He's looking for a little girl! We're trying to have fun. He's going to call you? He's going to claim you. You don't want this one.

He's on camera. He's on camera. Oh, God. Oh, God. He's on camera. Oh, God. He's on camera. Oh, God.

He's on camera. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh,. I'm on camera. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. He hit a woman?

He hit a woman? He hit a woman. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. You're a little woman? You're a little woman! You killed him! No! No! No! No! No!

No! No! What the fuck? What the fuck? You're dying, You're dying bro! Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god!

Are we serious? Is it real? Who is that? Oh my god! It's really me! It's really me! Oh my God. Is this real? Oh my God. Is this real? Is this real?

Oh my God. Is this real? That's not bike. That's not bike. That's not bike. That's not bike. That's not Isaac. That's not Mike! That's not Isaac! Oh, my God!

Oh, my God! This isn't real! This isn't real! So this happened at 3.44 p.m. Moo, with a snorkel and goggles in his hand, he approached another group of tubers. They look like younger kids, teenagers. And apparently what happens is the guy who's taking the video that we just see, his name was Lamond Davis. He claimed he had seen Moo come out of the bushes and he was like taking pictures of the teenage girls that this group was with. And so they're like yelling at him, calling him a pedophile, telling him he likes little girls, things like that. And they start taunting him. And then more people join the group.

So there's another group over there and they call those people over. They join the group. They sort of like surround him. And then Moo's arguing with a bunch of people. They're pushing, they sort of like surround him and then Moose arguing with a bunch of people. They're pushing, they're yelling. And literally just three minutes later at 3.47 p.m., the first 911 call came in reporting a stabbing incident. And the police were directed to the Sunrise Bridge on the Epple River. Following 911 calls reported four victims with stab wounds and they had stab wounds to their mid and upper bodies deputies on the scene found 17 year old Isaac Schumann without vital signs and he died at Lake View Hospital in Stillwater and then at 6 45 p.m Nikolai Mu was arrested downriver at the spot where the tubers would typically end their flow and then exit the river when he was taken into

custody Mu claimed he had been in self-defense mode. And initially, during his first police interview, Nikolai Mu told the police that he didn't even have a knife. He said that one of the kids, he said two of the boys had knives and that he had taken the knife off of them. That's right. So what happened? Can you tell me what happened? Yes. Four people went to the hospital with injuries. Oh my God. And one person died. Oh no. I don't know any of their names and I don't know any genders. Was that because they fought each other? I don't know. I don't know what their injuries are. I just, I was with Sandy the whole time, and then when I kind of turned Sandy over to Ernesto and Amy,

then I came here. So I have no idea what their injuries were. Oh, my God. So we just need to be able to, like, piece this together. You know, in your statement... What other pictures did they give you of me? Just that one. That's the only one I have they didn't take they well they are after cameras you should take the camera yes and so I have colleagues yeah

investigators that are that are talking to all of those you know the people in the group and the other witnesses now my whole life has gone to toots. Well, I don't know if that's the case. Because people have the right to defend themselves. I know, but this is Wisconsin. This is Wisconsin. Continue on. I usually know that people that defend themselves, they end up being accused of being this and being that. Well I think if you'd asked me what I would have done. I don't know. Yeah you don't know. I don't know. I would have been scared shitless I can tell you that. When damn many people tried to pull your pants down and hit you and yeah and two boys had knives on them. They didn't find any of those two knives? I don't know. I don't know. But we're looking, and, you know, we're looking before it gets dark out.

I'm glad I actually took that kid's knife. He would have stabbed me. He was not there to scare me. He was there to harm me. Before we continue on, let's take a quick break. So, Moo gave his version of events as he remembered it when he testified during his trial, which just wrapped up. It was very loud. All around me was very loud. I don't think that anybody could have heard me a hundred and some feet away. With everybody else yelling, did you think your yelling was going to de-escalate or escalate the situation? When everybody's raising their voice, I don't think having another raised voice would help the situation.

After you raised your hand to call for your friends, did you see Madison Cohn doing anything? Oh, yeah. She was looking towards her group, and then she waved to them to come over to her. Is that what we're seeing here in 2261, 2262, and 2263? What do you see? Yep, she's calling her group over. Did you remember when she called her group over, did her group respond? Yes.

Did they join that? Yes. Did they join that? Yes. Did they appear? When you look at them, do they look like they're in fear? No, absolutely not. What does it look like to you? They're all laughing and enjoying themselves. At whose expense?

At my expense. How did you feel in that moment when they were around you saying those things? Did you think they wanted you to join in their laughter? No. Did you want to join in their laughter? No, absolutely not. Where, if this fear scale is going, is it staying at one or is it moving in a particular direction?

It's creeping up. I remember the young boys were yelling, pointing at me, saying things that are not true. Did you, were you able to see, like in this next slide, this 2429, 2440, 2401, were you able to see as you stood there what everybody was doing? Were you able to scan and see that? For a brief second, yes.

They were very close, they were really close to me. I could see and hear them. How about your fear scale there? Where is it? About two or three. Okay. I see in the one on the right there, you have your hand someplace. Can you tell me what you're doing with your right hand? Yes, I'm reaching for my pocket knife. Why? Because at one point my fear was getting really high. Okay.

And I was getting ready to pull it out. Do you know, do you remember, at some point do you take your knife out of your pocket? Yes, I do. Do you know when that is in relation to these slides? Do you have a memory exactly of when that is? Not exactly, but when they were pushing and poking at me, I remember I pulled it out then. Okay. Do you remember, did you have it out before you were punched or after you were punched? Before I was punched. Okay. Do you remember how you felt when you fell back into the water? I was number one. I was stunned. That's why I fell backwards. I was very afraid, of course. On this fear scale that you've talked about before, where are you on that scale from zero to ten?

Right at the top, ten. Have you ever been at that ten before in your life? Never been in a situation like this or a fight in my life. Have you ever been at a ten? Never. When you did that as we see on the right what happened to your head? Oh, um, well, I fell in the water. Obviously that's a river and I hit my head on river rock and my whole body went under. Well, my head went under water. When you say your head went under, is that what it felt like? Yes. Did you feel water come over your face? Over my entire body, yes. At that moment when you're down in the water,

had anybody like AJ Martin come up to you and said, just lay there and rest? Somebody came from behind, yes. I found out later who he was and pushed me down to keep me in the water. Before that, when you tried to get up, do you remember feeling anything before that? Did you, you told them? Yeah. Did you feel anything to any part of your head? Yes,

of course. What'd you feel? Felt punched in the head. Nikolai Mou says that he didn't know how many people were attacking him. He just knew it was more than he could handle. And he's had nightmares ever since. And he's just kind of, obviously he says he's traumatized by this. And once again, that person witness, Lorian Davis, who took the video, he told investigators initially that he'd seen Moo in that area taking pictures of the girls he was with. But when he testified at trial, Davis said he wasn't actually so sure about his recollection of this because there was a lot going on. And I will say personally, I believe that that did not happen. I think they said he even said in trial, he's like, oh, I didn't see I didn't see that. Why? And the defense attorney, they kind of going back and forth. Yeah. He kept

saying, well, then why'd you say it? Yeah. And then one of the other kids, I think, AJ, which was one of the stab victims, he said, you know, we regret calling him a pedophile, this, this and that. And that's fine. But at this point, Nikolai Moo has been found guilty on all counts, which is first degree reckless homicide and the death of Isaac Schumann and four counts of first degree reckless endangerment while using a weapon in the stabbings of A.J. Martin, Dante Carlson, Tony Carlson and Riley Madison. He was also found guilty for punching Madison Cohn in the face. So, yeah, like I said, there's no good actors in this situation. I think that people have lost their ability to relate to strangers, that there's just this innate feeling that you need to be cruel to people. And I always say, like, you just don't know who that person is.

This is a stranger to you. So if you're going to mess around with this person, if you're going to cause conflict, be careful because you just don't know who's on the other end of that conflict. And I say this all the time in road rage situations too, because we all have the tendency to get upset when we're driving and we can flick off people, yell out the window, shake our fists. You don't know who's sitting in that other car. You don't know if they have a knife. You don't know if they have a gun. You don't know if they have a weapon of any sort. You don't know if they're going to follow you home. You don't know if they're absolutely a bananas person. So it's just the best scenario is always to be nice to strangers or avoid them. You don't know what you're getting into. And I think that this was a scenario like that. I don't know what Nikolai Moo's story is. Is he a violent person in general? Has he had other issues like

this in the past? But even if he didn't, it doesn't mean he can't snap in certain situations. I will say that he was being surrounded on all sides. I will say there was a lot of pushing. There was a lot of shoving. They pushed him down in the water. They were hitting him. They tried to hold him under the water. I don't understand why you would do this to somebody you don't know who technically hasn't done anything to you. I just don't understand what the purpose of that was. I don't know if there was alcohol involved. They were teenagers and minors. So I don't know what would cause them to think that this was OK. But also, I'm not sure why he thought it was his only option to start stabbing people. You know, I understand you felt scared and I would have felt scared, too, in that situation, to be honest with you, because especially how tense things have gotten in the past several years with people fighting each other in the streets and, you know, random people in New York City just running up and killing people for no reason and then running away. You don't know. You're scared and you're feeling like suspicious towards others and you don't know what they're going to do to you. So I would have felt scared, too. But I think at the end of the day, I don't know if I would have felt like my life it was going. But I don't know if that was his only recourse, because I did read several articles which said that there were

opportunities for him to leave before things got to the level that they that they got to. And I also don't know, because at the beginning of that video, you see him, he sort of rushes up to the kids and like falls on them kind of. What was that about? Was he looking for the phone and he thought that they had it or he thought it was in that area? Like, I'm not sure where his head was at in that situation. So what's your take? So videos are tricky because we've seen them a lot where the angles that things are recorded can give you a completely different perspective on the case. Or what happened before somebody started recording.

What would happen before, but even just the incident that you're seeing, just the way it's viewed. We had training where you would see a police shooting a certain angle and it looks, the whole class would say the police officer is guilty. And then you see another angle, the same exact shooting where you can see the offender holding a gun and pointing it at the cop and now like, oh, the cop's in the right. So a lot can be interpreted by the video that you have and the lack of video that you have. And I've always said, sometimes good people make bad decisions. So I'm not judging these people based on who they are as individuals. I don't know them. I'm going to judge them off the video. And as you just pointed out to me, it looks like Nikolai

approached them in an aggressive manner. I don't know if he was under the influence and I don't, I know that they had admitted to been drinking, maybe smoking weed 90 minutes prior, but it looks like he just kind of went up to them and kind of infiltrated their group and walked in between them. I'm just talking from me personally. If it's a group of college kids, you can look at it one way, but if that were you, was you with your family and some dude just walked up and started rummaging through your tubes and through your stuff, you may have an issue with it as well. Like, hey, dude, what are you doing? Yeah, I definitely would.

But I wouldn't just keep like messing with him and calling him a pedophile and stuff. That's the only thing. Pedophile thing is completely off the table for me because we don't have any evidence of it. And it happened beforehand. I don't think I think it's completely irrelevant. But what does matter is that he came over to them first. They did not approach him. He's rummaging through the stuff. To me, it's clear that he came over to them first. They did not approach him. He's rummaging through the stuff.

To me, it's clear that he is looking for a phone. You can see at the very beginning of the video, he has like goggles in his hand and he loses them. He's clearly looking for a phone. But I don't think he liked the way they were talking to him. I don't think they liked what they were saying about him. And I think that he's looking at the situation and he's, in my opinion, also instigating. At some point he decides, you know what? F these kids. I'm not moving. I'm going to stand right here. And you can tell that he has opportunities to walk away. He didn't find the phone. He's not

going to find the phone. There's a bunch of kids there. They've clearly been drinking. Smart move at that point is to walk away. Now, in my opinion, and I said this on Twitter, do I think that he was emboldened or slightly confident because he knew he had a knife in his pocket? I do. That's my personal opinion. I think if he didn't have the knife and there's 17 kids there and there's some big guys, he probably walks away. But he knew he had the ultimate equalizer because he's sitting there with a knife in his pocket. Now here's where it gets a little gray. Immediately before they start

striking Nikolai, the video kind of goes shaky for a minute. And in that second, the kids are saying that he struck that girl that was standing right next to him, but we can't see that. However, not the person recording the footage, but if you listen, you can hear a kid say almost immediately after he gets pushed to the ground, you're going to hit a woman. And then the cameraman goes, oh, he just hit a woman. So I believe that. I believe that. And a lot of the kids said it. Well, he said that she struck him first. That's what he said. I don't think it matters, by the way. I'm not saying that it matters. I don't want anybody to think that I'm excusing a man hitting a woman. I'm not.

I'm just saying that's what the facts were of what he claimed happened and why he gave his justification for doing that. That's why he claims, and she was in his face, and maybe she did fall into it. Maybe she did push him, whatever the case may be, but there's multiple opportunities as the adult to deescalate that situation. It's not going well. You didn't find the phone, walk away, be the bigger person, be the adult. There were multiple points to exit. They weren't all like in a circle around him where he had no way to go. There was a, just from the angle that we could see he could walk out that way, or he could have walked out the other way. I don't think he liked the conversation that was happening. I don't think he liked what he was being accused of or how he was being portrayed, which I don't blame him. But as soon as there was an altercation between him and a woman,

those guys, by the way, let me not just make it completely one-sided. They were acting like idiots. No doubt about it. Nobody's doing the right thing here. Nobody's deescalating it. Were there adults in that video, the ones that came in kind of at the end? Were they adults? They looked older, right? They looked a little older, but it did appear that everyone was kind of on the side of like, what are you doing, guy? Get out of here. So whatever happens, we can't see it for a second. He gets pushed to the ground. And then as you mentioned, he has said that he was in fear of his life. That is subjective. There are police of all shootings where the officer said

he was in fear of his life, or she says she's in fear of her life. And the jury doesn't believe them. That's very subjective. We can't tell how he felt in that moment, but they were absolutely positively without a doubt assaulting him. And I could see a world where maybe he felt like I'm going to drown if I don't do something. But then you see the video, he pulls the knife out and could he use the knife as a deterrent to say, hey, back up and then maybe get away? I think so again, but no, he starts stabbing people. So what I had said on Twitter to kind of round this all out is I did not think he'd be found guilty of any out is I did not think he'd be found guilty of any charges. I did not think he would be found guilty of those charges.

I thought they would do reduced charges, possibly. I thought it was going to be a hung jury. I thought you would not get 12 people to agree on a charge. And they did. And they did. And I don't have a problem with it. I don't. I feel like there was multiple

opportunities for Nikolai to avoid this situation. He walked over to them. His behavior during the interaction to me was questionable. His actions after looking for the phone, not finding it, deciding to stand right in the middle of them was questionable. The fact that he got and he engaged with that woman, whether she struck first or he struck first again wrong decision and then ultimately the decision to pull out that knife and use it in the manner that he did I don't think that what was occurring justified that and I also question the fact that he had the knife in the first place again everyone's different you're out on the river with your buddies you're on the river with your friends I don't know if it was like a utility knife that would use for fishing line or something like that. It didn't look like that to me, but it's one of those things where you're in your bathing suit shorts and you got a knife on you. It just seems a little odd. I wouldn't do it personally, but I have no issue with the outcome of this case. And I think even his actions afterwards make me question him because he wasn't

completely forthright in the beginning. And I think he was concerned about what was caught on video, what wasn't, which is why he was asking about it in the beginning. So overall, I think you hit right on the head at the beginning of this. You never know who you're going to approach. And whether it's like you said, road rage incident, or you're out at a park, you could be the bigger, badder person. You might be a UFC fighter for all I care. The other person could have a gun and you're done. That's it. And it doesn't mean that they're going to use the gun in the right way. They could be going through something where you could just say the wrong thing about someone in their life. And it escalates to the point where something so stupid like cutting you off at a traffic light or speeding by you, just something that you wouldn't care about

99.9% of the time could ultimately result in you losing a friend or family member or your own life. Ask yourself, is it worth it? Because at the end of the day, whether you agree with Nikolai or not, some of his decisions are now going to result in him going to prison. And if you can't sit there and watch that video and say- For a long time, for his life, he's not going to- He's done. He's done. There were multiple crossroads in that video where he could have made different decisions and they could have as well. And nobody would be injured or dead right now. But there were multiple decisions that were made by all parties, which resulted in one man going to prison for a long time and a 17-year-old boy being killed. All over what? A lost phone. A stupid confrontation. Yeah. And just a general unkindness and having no

compassion for your fellow human, honestly, because it's like, you just never know what anybody's going through. And I've been there before where I've been tempted to sort of get into like a verbal altercation with somebody who's being mean to me in public. And I mean, it's happened to me before, but in the last few years, like I've kind of realized that when you're going through something difficult, you can lash out at anyone around. And so you just never know. And it's always better to try to make a friend or, you know, to just be like, hey, man, I'm sorry. Like, I'm having a hard day. You probably have a hard day. Like, this didn't need to happen. You know, just find commonality. Like everybody has things in common. Everybody has family that they love. Everybody has things that are important to them that they're passionate about. Like find your commonality, find your

common interest, your common goal and connect on that instead of disconnecting and othering someone because of all the ways that they're different from you. And I've been trying to really practice that with strangers because one, I'm scared of being murdered by them. And two, it's like, I just don't want to, I don't want to do that. Like I'd rather make friends than burn bridges. Absolutely. No. So there's definitely a lot that can be taken from this altercation, this incident, because it does drive home the point of just minding your own business, staying to yourself. And if you're, if you're faced with a situation like this, take a breath and ask yourself,

is it worth it? And, and plant and play out worst case scenario. I'm either going to get sucker punched by someone, hit my head on concrete and kill myself or, or be killed, or I'm going to hurt someone really bad and I'm going to lose my freedom or run the risk of losing my freedom. Is whatever I'm mad about at this moment worth that? And I guarantee you, the answer will always be no, it's not. 90% of the things, 100% of the things that you get in arguments about, the items that in question can be replaced or a lot of the things, 100% of the things that you get in arguments about, the items that in question can be replaced or a lot of the times it's road rage. You may get there two seconds faster if this situation didn't happen.

So is it really worth going through all of it? No, it is not. And I think that's something we can all take from this because we're not judging their personalities, who they were as people before or after. You look at the video, you can see a lot of people making the wrong decisions. And now two lives are changed for more than two lives, but two lives are dramatically affected. And then you have the residual effects of all the family members, the parents of Isaac, all these people now that, and the family members of Nikolai as well, they both lost someone in this

occasion. And so it's a terrible situation, but it's the world we live in. And I think in something like this, we have to look at it. We have to dissect it, analyze it, break it down and use it to our advantage in our own lives so that we can take something positive out of this and hopefully prevent something like this from happening in the future to someone you care about or more importantly yourself. Yes, absolutely. And our hearts are with the victim's family members because obviously his parents are incredibly upset at this loss and it happened so quickly and they don't know why. And they're still trying to wrap their heads around what happened and why they no longer have their sons. So just be kind to people, be kind to each other, be kind to strangers, treat people like you want to be treated.

The golden rule, just treat people the way you would want them to treat you with kindness, respect, and yeah, stay in your lane. On another note, and we'll make it super, super quick because everybody's covering it. OJ Simpson, he passed away. I believe, what was he, 76 years old? Who cares? Something around there. Cancer. It was a private investigator, Bill Deere, who believed that OJ was innocent. You can go watch it if you want, but the overall is Dr. Chris Mohandy and I came to the conclusion, shocker here, OJ did it. OJ did it. life considering what I personally feel he's responsible for. And I will say this, Stephanie and I covering true crime and a lot of people covering true crime these days and how big and

how prevalent the true crime culture has become in our society. A lot of people have said that the OJ Simpson trial was the start of all of it, right? That's when people really started having a fascination with true crime. So that's basically the only thing that I take away from OJ Simpson. I definitely think he killed those two people for what it's worth, Nicole and Ron. According to the experts though, the case that we're covering on Crime Weekly this week was what started people's obsession with true crime. Oh, a little teaser there. You know what? If you're listening to Crime Weekly News and you made it this far, I think we owe them to tell them right now who we're covering this friday really yeah like this is it i mean this is the reward for staying to the end all right hit them with them

oh you want me to yeah you were the one that decided to do it all right it's the menendez brothers which was literally like i have been obsessed with this case since I was young. It was one of the first cases that in Casey Anthony that I sort of tried to learn everything about. I found it fascinating. And I do think it's interesting that, as you were saying, for anyone who doesn't follow Stephanie, OJ made his family member sign an NDA before they could visit him while he was on his deathbed. So I don't know what you take from that. It's so weird. And like I said on Instagram, I was like, is he trolling because he just wants us to think that he said something? Or did he actually say something? Because why would you say something at that point if you were never going to? And then you would never want it to get out. Like, why would you just tell a handful of people?

And then how would you even reinforce that NDA when you're dead? You know, they could technically just tell anyone. Like, what are you going to sue them? I suppose as a state could. But do NDAs even count if you've murdered somebody? Like, I don't even know. If you go to a priest and say you murdered somebody. I think the priest has to say something.

If you go to a psychiatrist and say you murdered somebody, I think the psychiatrist has to say something. So can an NDA really cover like a crime? I don't know. Maybe he was just concerned about like photos or videos getting out and people trying to make money off of it. Well, then I guess you if you can't trust your own family members to not take pictures and videos of you, yeah, because he wouldn't let them bring phones in. There you go. He wouldn't let them bring phones into the room because obviously he was afraid of being

recorded. But at that point, it's like, are these people really the ones I want to be with in the last moments of my life if I can't even trust them to not use me for financial or social standing? Yeah, no, it was an interesting case. I had the opportunity when they wrote the book, if I did it and it was with, with him and Pablo. It was never published though, right? Yes, it was. It was published?

Yeah. That's how all the profits go to the Goldman family. Oh, I thought they tried to block it from being published. Not only did, did he write it, I read it and I actually got to interview the author that he co-wrote it with, Pablo Feves. We met and interviewed him in LA. And what was interesting sitting down with Pablo was when he was describing, if I did it, how he thought it would have went down. There were moments where Pablo said he went from like hypothetical to almost describing it in first person where Pablo's like, oh, but you mean like, if someone had come. If you did it.

And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I meant. That's what I meant. But like- He's like, that's what the book's called, Pablo. Come on, just use context clues. Every time I sound like I'm actually admitting to it, just make it sound hypothetical. So the book was released and all the profits,

I believe, go to the Goldman family. They sued him for that. It was part of the civil case. So yeah, that's where it was. But a fascinating case, obviously for most people believe that justice was not served in that case. Although I will not deny that there were a lot of prosecution issues with that case where they just didn't do their job. So if you're asking me- I mean, you also have the audio recording of, what was it, Furman? Mark Furman, yes. Being very racist. And I think that it was over. The trial was over at

that point. Yep. You had a racist cop with an agenda. You had some chain of custody issues. You had the decision to have him throw on the glove, even though he was already off his arthritic medication for a while. They didn't know that. So his hands were swollen. I had interviewed Tom Lang, who was actually on the phone with OJ when he was fleeing the scene in the Bronco, right? And Tom Lang is a great cop and did a great job. And that was one of those cases that stuck with him forever because of the outcome. But it's definitely two different questions. Do I think the way the trial turned out was probably the right chain of events? Yeah. Based on how shitty the prosecution's case was, he deserved to walk. Now in the civil trial, I think they got it right. And because obviously there's a lesser threshold there, but overall, he's no longer here. And we talk about it, you know,

now and then about what you out there believe happens when you die. That's up for you to decide. I know what I believe. I think afterwards we all got to answer for what we did on this earth. And if, if you believe in that, then, then that's, that's, that's his cross the bear. Now he's got a answer for what he did in the afterlife. And if if not then the switch goes off and he got away with it in my opinion i mean does anybody get away with anything i don't know like it had to have it it's haunted him in a way with with you know his reputation and i mean personally taking lives like that that's going to affect you and change you no matter what so he got away with it from a legal standpoint, but I think there was a civil case where he was found guilty.

$33 million. Yeah. So, I mean, he got away with it, but he really didn't like, he didn't serve time in prison, but hopefully he was in a prison of his own making. And now hopefully he's burning in the flames of hell. And he did serve time on a charge. Again, we're going into the weeds here, but on a robbery, alleged robbery that of his own memorabilia, where he got, Oh, dude, remember that?

Yeah, he got, he got hammered for this and he probably shouldn't have, but it was definitely a, you got away with that one. Yeah. A hundred percent, which is not right by the way,

but he did some serious time for a crime. I mean, karma, right? The, the universe keeps score. Definitely keeps score. I just wish we had a justice system

that did things the right way all the time. Oh, that would be super nice. And then it'd be so much easier. You and me both, man. That's where we are. Again, leaving this case, thinking about everyone involved in the Apple River incident.

Nobody wins here. Even with Nikolai going to prison, you may say, oh, you know, justice... No, nobody wins. Nobody wins. A lot of people affected by this. We're thinking about everyone. And obviously with OJ, see you never.

That's how I feel about it. I think you feel the same. Any final words before we get into it? Nope. That's it. All right. But make sure you tune in for our next deep dive. That's right.

Menendez Brothers. Coming this Friday on audio part one. And then the YouTube will be out on Sunday. If you made it to the end, you now know that. And if you didn't, you missed out, hopefully read the comments because I'm sure it'll be in there somewhere. Guys, everyone stay safe out there. We will see you in a few days.

Bye.