Crime Weekly - S3 Ep207: Crime Weekly News: Parents Charged With Murder & Kevin Spacey Documentary Released

Episode Date: May 15, 2024

In November of 2023, the Tucson police department responded to a home on East Limberlost Drive where they found an 11 year old boy who an autopsy would later reveal had died from sepsis.  Investigators would learn that the 11 year old, who suffered from multiple medical conditions, was completely dependent on his caregivers; his mother, 33 year old Ariel Lee Horn  and her boyfriend, 29 year old Charles Jackson McClellan Jr. According to the autopsy report, the child was found with extensive lesions throughout his lower body which were attributed to not receiving proper medical attention due to neglect from his mother and her boyfriend. 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  

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Crime Weekly News. I'm Derek Levasseur. And I'm Stephanie Harlow. We got a sad story for you guys tonight. There's nothing to get into beforehand, right, Stephanie? We're good to go? Mm-hmm. All right. We're going to dive right into it then. In November of 2023, the Tucson Police Department responded to a home on East Limberlost Drive where they found an 11 year old boy who an autopsy would later reveal had died from sepsis. I do not know this story.

Stephanie, please fill us in. So there's not a ton of information about this case out there, but I thought it was important to talk about it now specifically, which I'll explain why in a second, but I'll give you some details because investigators would learn that the 11-year-old boy who had originally, even before he died, suffered from multiple medical conditions, he was completely dependent on his caregivers, which was his mother, 33-year-old Arielle Lee Horn, and her boyfriend, 29-year-old Charles Jackson McClellan Jr. According to the autopsy report, the child was found with extensive lesions throughout his lower body, and these lesions were attributed to not receiving proper medical attention due to neglect from his

mother and her boyfriend. Detectives also found evidence of extensive fentanyl abuse in the home where there were three other children besides the 11-year-old boy living. Now, at that time, Ariel and Charles were nowhere to be found, so the police enlisted the help of the Operations Division West Community Response Team to locate the couple. They were ultimately found on May 1, 2024, at which time they were arrested and charged with child abuse and first degree murder. And I think it's an important time to

talk about this now because we're in the month of May. May 7th was National Fentanyl Awareness Day and fentanyl is a big problem in the United States right now. And I wanted to talk about that a little bit to just raise awareness because what happened to this boy most likely would not have happened if his mother and her boyfriend were not under the influence of this very strong drug because fentanyl is a potent synthetic opioid. It's up to 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine. And I don't know if you see these billboards, but it shows like a pin. And then on the tip of the pin, there's like a little fentanyl and they say it just takes this much fentanyl to kill you. That's absolutely true because a few grains of sand, like if fentanyl was sand, a few grains can be lethal. It is synthetic, which means it's not plant-based.

It's made in the lab. And it's similar to oxycodone, morphine, and heroin, but it's just so much stronger. And the problem is that fentanyl is being laced into other drugs. So people are accidentally overdosing from fentanyl, but that does not appear to be the case here. Now, fentanyl can be used in a medical setting. We talked about the, the one case, what was her name? The young girl, Maya Kowalski. Maya Kowalski, that's right.

Where she was receiving fentanyl treatments for her condition, but illegally made fentanyl is very different. It's not made in sanitary conditions. There's sloppy mixing. It's not dosed correctly. It's the random and variable dose. They hide it in other drug supplies. This increases the drug dealer's profits because they're using the fentanyl to cut these other drugs like cocaine, heroin, even marijuana. They have it in marijuana now. It increases the high, obviously. And it causes an extreme addiction and dependency.

And it's involved in the majority of United States drug deaths in recent years. There's just tons and tons of fentanyl overdoses happening. Some people are actively and knowingly taking the fentanyl, which it appears is the case with this couple. And some are just getting it accidentally in other drugs, and have no idea fentanyl is very cheap very addictive drug dealers are dangerously mixing this illicitly manufactured fentanyl with and disguising it as other common drugs like oxy percocet xanax to increase their profits it's also been found in these party drugs like cocaine ecstasy md. The production process is not regulated. It doesn't undergo any kind of quality control.

Users have no way of knowing what they're getting in these street drugs. And this puts them at significant risk. And I almost wonder if this couple was maybe using the fentanyl they had to cut other drugs and selling them. But regardless, the reason I want people to understand that is I'm not judging anybody. If you do drugs here and there recreationally or whatever, you do you. They do have fentanyl testing kits that you can get. And if you are actively using drugs, you should have Narcan on hand in case because you may be buying something and not knowing you're buying fentanyl, not knowing that there's fentanyl in there and the amount of fentanyl that is in there

could potentially kill you. And so having the fentanyl testing kits as well as an Arcan on hand can at least mitigate your risks of having a lethal experience with whatever drug it is that you're taking. Yeah, fentanyl is a bad drug and it affects everyone. You've got kids in college, prominent universities who are dropping dead from this, and you have people in economically deprived areas that are being killed as well. It does not have a preference. It will kill everyone equally the same. And it's being used by all types of people. Like you said, you just laid that out perfectly. Fentanyl was a drug that was coming up in the game when I was in narcotics. It wasn't as prevalent as it is now, but it was something that was on the cusp and something that we were starting to become very concerned about,

at least in my area at the time when I was getting ready to move on to a position as a sergeant. But yeah, it's a scary drug. It's a scary drug. And I know I got myself in some hot water last time. I was under the impression it could be absorbed through the skin. Apparently, that's not the case. It feels like it would be able to be. I mean, your skin's your largest organ and it absorbs everything. And listen, I'll tell you this right now. Even knowing that, there ain't no shot that I'd be playing with it without gloves. I'm not going to be that person that proves the theory wrong. But there's a lot of people who have an education as far as fentanyl

is concerned because it does get this negative stigma associated with it because of everything that's been done. But there's a lot of people who use fentanyl for medicinal reasons. And we had a very strong reaction to it the last time we discussed fentanyl on this channel. So I will caution it. And you mentioned it, that it can be used. But there's two different types. There's the pharmaceutical fentanyl, which is regulated and carefully used in a sterile environment. There's a legally made fentanyl. So we're talking about two different beasts here. Beasts here, yeah. the fact we are discussing fentanyl because of what you had mentioned as far as it being that time of the year. And it's something that everyone's trying to raise awareness for. But I also want to get back to this 11-year-old boy, which I don't believe they mentioned him by name in this article, which is unfortunate because- Well, he's a minor. I know he's a minor, but we know the parents' names. We should be talking about him. But it's just a really sad story. And it's something where,

whether it's fentanyl or heroin or cocaine, there's so many instances where I've gone into a home that was being investigated for child neglect. And I will say in a lot of those instances, it's because one or both of the parents have some type of dependency, whether it's alcohol and or drugs. And ultimately, the children become the biggest sufferers of that, whether it's alcohol and or drugs. And ultimately the children become the biggest sufferers of that, the biggest victims, because their parents' actions are resulting in what they're experiencing. And this is what makes the story so sad, is because in many cases, the reason that we find out that there is potential child neglect is from the schools. So we'll get calls from a

teacher or the principal will say, hey, listen, this kid has come to school the last four days. They're falling asleep at their desk. They don't seem to be showering or bathing. I opened up their lunch the other day and there was like a half-eaten bag of chips and a rotten banana. And it just, it breaks your heart. And this was well before I was a parent. And in COVID where, you know, so many child abuse cases and child deaths happened because the kids weren't going to school

and those early signs weren't detected. That's right. And so it's one of those situations where there's a couple things I take from this case. One, everything that you said, as far as fentanyl, whether you're someone who, like you said, dabbles in- Some recreational drugs, yeah. Recreational drugs, or you're a parent or an aunt, an uncle, or a teacher, an educator,

whatever it might be, just be on the lookout for these things because there could be a deeper situation going on more than just the kid isn't getting enough sleep at night because they're watching cartoons at home. There could be something else going on here. It could be related to drugs or it could just be a case of child neglect where the parents just don't care, which I've seen that as well. There's no dependencies. They just don't give a shit, honestly. So there's a lot of different things. And that's pretty much, I mean, either way, whether you're on drugs or not, you didn't give a shit, in my opinion. I don't care. I don't care. Okay. I don't care what you're taking. I don't care what you're putting in your body. You made the active decision to put that in your body,

knowing you had four children in that home. And one of those children was, as this press release said, completely dependent on you because of his medical conditions. And I don't even think this kid system because he's he's got medical conditions. It's really bad. It starts as an infection or an injury to the body. Something else that's going to provoke an immune response. It can be unpredictable. It can progress rapidly. And usually what happens is you're just organs, your organs shut down one by one. The heart first, you know, starts to weaken. As soon as the heart starts to weaken, the patient's going to go into septic shock. And then your lungs, kidneys, liver, all of these things are going to shut down. And then the person dies. It happens after a prolonged time period of not being addressed.

And as the report said, this child had these sores and these lesions all over his body. It's not as if you wouldn't look at him and know. This didn't happen overnight. No. Like you said, it's a prolonged case of abuse where the child was initially injured or cut, something along the lines there. It was improper. He's got a medical condition, so it could have been maybe he has medications he has to take, right? Like insulin, say, and they're using dirty needles to give it to him. They're

not bothering to change anything. It could have been an accident or it could have been something they did to him that introduced that bacteria. Who knows? But either way. If the child had received proper medical treatment or brought to a physician that could have been something they did to him that introduced that bacteria. Who knows? But either way, if they had if the child had received proper medical treatment or brought to a physician that could have done something, maybe we're not in this case. Maybe we're not talking about this story right now. So I think just overall, we can all what do we take from it? We can't bring this boy back, but we can all be more cognizant of our surroundings because maybe there were moments, this case, the child appeared to be at home most of the time, but if there was any moments where there might've been people who interacted with this young boy and now in hindsight are wishing that they had come forward and said something sooner that could have prevented this. So I think overall,

we all just have to be aware of what's out there as far as the fentanyl and other drugs, because that's not the only one that's killing people. And to be aware of, even though your situation might be good, that's not always the story or the case for other people. And just because they're a child and they're innocent and they have their whole life ahead of them, it doesn't mean that they're being treated properly at home. And we can't just go ahead and assume that. There are signs to look for. Some of them are more subtle. Some of them are more overt. In this case, it appears that they were more overt, but you have to, regardless of what position you're in, it could be at a restaurant. If you see something involving a child where it looks to you that they may be in a dangerous situation, err on the side of caution. Let

somebody know about it. Worst case scenario, the parents of that child are pissed at you because you misread the room. They'll get over that. But what won't be something that you can get over is if you could have done something to prevent it and you didn't act. So that's kind of the way you got to look at it, going in that. Can I ask you one quick question just to change up the topic? I want your opinion because I'm not necessarily a documentary watcher. Kevin Spacey doc is coming out. Will you be watching? I mean, if I have nothing else to do, I guess, but no, it wasn't. I know you're very busy. It wasn't on my to watch list. But is it something that you're interested in? I know there's a lot surrounding that as what he's been involved in. Is that something that you're going to be checking out? Is it something that

you're interested in? I am interested, but I don't know if I, I don't know. I don't know. Are you going to watch it? Of course not. But I don't watch it. Of course not. I don't think. I mean, since I've been doing true crime to the, you know, for so long, I kind of don't watch a lot of these documentaries because I'm so immersed in it that when I'm not doing, you know, active work on Crime Weekly or my YouTube channel, I sort of try to ingest lighter material and content. So you're not like racking your brain the whole time? Yeah. I'm waiting for that Drake documentary. The Drake documentary with what? With who? Kendrick Lamar? Yeah. You know what he's being accused of and all this. I mean, listen,

we got some things going on. Got some stuff going on, man. It feels like they're falling one by one. If anybody wants to check it out, it's called Spacey Unmasked and it's going to be appearing on Max. I think it's already out or it's coming out this coming week. So if you want to check that out and you can weigh in the comments. What are you, his freaking public relations person over here?

No, no, I just saw it. I know a lot of people are talking about it because there's been a lot of speculation about what he was involved in, what he wasn't involved in. Maybe we can do a Crime Weekly news on it so that I don't feel like I'm watching it for no reason. Maybe we can do that.

Well, anything else from you? No, that's it. All right, this was a quick one tonight. I wish we knew the name of the boy, but we are thinking about him. We're also thinking about all the other children that are out there right now going through something, living in a difficult situation.

And hopefully someone out there sees something, hears something that can prevent this. So we're not talking about these stories on a consistent basis. Everyone stay safe out there. We will see you later this week for Menendez Brothers Part 5 on audio, which will be out Friday.

And then it'll be out on YouTube on Sunday. Everyone stay safe out there. We will see you very soon. Bye.