Crime Weekly - S3 Ep246: Crime Weekly News: Menendez Brothers Getting Out of Prison?!

Episode Date: October 30, 2024

Erik and Lyle Menendez, who have been incarcerated for over 35 years for the 1989 murders of their parents, are currently fighting for the opportunity for parole. 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. UncommonGoods.com/CrimeWeekly - Get 15% off your next gift! 2. PDSDebt.com/Crime - Get a FREE debt assessment today!

Hey everyone, welcome back to Crime Weekly News. I'm Derek Levasseur. And I'm Stephanie Harlow. And this is our first Crime Weekly News since our break, so we're happy to be back. And tonight, as you saw from the title, we're going to be talking about the Menendez brothers. We did an extensive series on them, not only from their childhood to the actual crime to their sentencing afterwards. And we had some really interesting discussions about whether we not, based on everything we knew after covering the case, if they should still be in prison or if they should be eligible for some type of parole. At the time, they were not. So there's been some developments in the case. It's making national news. We did not see this coming, but it just timed out this way. So we're

going to talk about that, but we're also going to talk about an update from one of the cases or one of the incidences we covered on Crime Weekly News a while ago. We've always said that we're going to cover these cases. We're going to give some call to actions. And if there's updates in the case, we will make you aware of them. And it's a positive outcome tonight. There's been an update. There's been an arrest. So good news on that end. How are you, Stephanie? How are you doing? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. You know why I'm excited? Why? Because if you haven't noticed, I'm wearing, for all the YouTube people, I'm wearing this really fire criminal coffee hat.

And backstory on this hat is I've had them for a while. I've been kind of gatekeeping. So I've had these hats for a while. I put it on my social media and I heard the feedback that people were like, where can we buy them? And I'm like, I just got them made for myself because they're kind of a personal preference and they're not the cheapest hats, but I really like them. I wear hats all the time. And so enough of you got into the DMs, got into the comments. You've even made suggestions in our crime weekly suggestion box that you want these hats. So I'm happy to

announce we now have these hats on the website right now in three different colors. If you're on YouTube, I'll throw them up on the screen right now. This is one of the three colors. This is probably my favorite. I don't even know what you would describe it as, but maybe Stephanie, can you take a shot at that? What would you describe this color as? I would describe that as like a tan and gray, tan and gray.

It's like a bluish a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. It's a blue gray. The leather patch patch this is real leather it's like uh it's like branded into the the actual leather it's our criminal coffee coffee bean fingerprint logo um and then obviously the branding on it so very limited on this i know everybody says that but again these hats are not the cheapest to to make they take a while

so i did a limited run of three different colors and we're going to see how they do. If they do well, I'm going to order a lot more, but I didn't want to get too far ahead because a lot of people will ask for something and then they don't necessarily purchase it. So very limited run. I honestly think I only have like, I don't know, eight to 10 of each color. It's like a really low number. It's just to try it out and see what happens. We also have a new mug. It's the part-time detective mug. You can check that out right now. That's up on the screen as well. It's a cool little design we came up with. It's kind of a little bit retro. People really seem to like it. So we've thrown that up on the website. It's been up there for a couple of weeks. People have already purchased it, but if you

didn't know about it, now you do. That's all I got. That's my plug for the week. Okay. Well, do you want me to open up for Menendez? Because I have things to say. Yeah. If you want to give a little backstory, usually I do, but yeah, just go right into it because I think most people know it, but we can kind of just skip around and get to it because there's a lot to cover with it. Yeah. So I kind of want to open this up to sort of start this referring to the new Netflix series, or I guess it's a few months old now, but it's Ryan Murphy. It's season two of Monsters, and it's a scripted show, so it's not documentary style or anything, and they are focused on the Menendez brothers this season. And I tried watching it. I watched, I think, three episodes. And I was like, and listen, I love Ryan Murphy. I love everything Ryan Murphy does. The assassination of Gianni Versace, amazing. American Horror Story, obviously amazing.

I love it. But there's something about this that just didn't sit well with me because of the way the brothers were portrayed, which is they kind of like made suggestions that they were sexually active together. They were showing them like doing cocaine all over the place. And there's no there's no evidence that they ever did cocaine or or were, you know, romantically involved with each other at the time of their parents. So what you're telling me, the show took a little creative freedom like all these shows. Yeah. But I mean, this is, that's not a creative freedom. That's just me being sarcastic. They just throw shit in there because it sounds,

I mean, I even think about movies like the iron claw with Zac Efron. Have you seen that? Not yet. Crazy movie. If you have the opportunity to watch it, definitely watch it. It's about this wrestling family. There was so much death in it. There was an X, there was an, there was like four brothers who died, but there was actually a fifth brother or whatever the numbers were. They just didn't include that death because they were like, oh, it's going to be too redundant. They just decided to cut out his death because, you know, whatever. It didn't fit the narrative. So there's things where these companies, at the end of the day, it's an entertainment industry and they're going to do what's good for the show. But not knocking on, I'm just saying that's how it goes. Not everything's true.

No. And it looks like from what I could tell that a lot of these things like the incest thing and the using cocaine thing came from what Forbes has called, quote, the far flung theories of the late Vanity Fair journalist, Dominic Dunn, with no real evidence behind them, end quote. That's exactly what it is. And so obviously, we know that Eric and Lyle are very much sort of in the public eye right now. They've been trying to get a new trial. They've been trying to see what they can do to get out. And on the day of the premiere, September 19th, Eric Menendez, through his wife, Tammy, shared a statement to X, formerly known as Twitter, and it accused Ryan Murphy of having bad intent and slammed the show as a step backward in accurately portraying male sexual abuse and said it included, quote,

vile and appalling character portrayals of Lyle and me, end quote, which I agree. And then Ryan Murphy said that he finds Eric Menendez's point of view on this to be interesting because he knows he hasn't watched he portrayed the story. And then later he slammed the Menendez brothers for claiming lie after lie without specific criticisms and then labeled his show, quote, the best thing to happen to the Menendez brothers in 30 years. Well, listen, that might be the one true statement in this story, because I don't know if it's just a coincidence, but we're going to be talking about something tonight based on the title of this episode that hasn't happened in a very long time. And this isn't the first time that this has been fought for or been pitched by different celebrities or whatever. So the fact that we're talking about it now, I don't know, maybe there's some truth to at least that part of it,

that this is the best thing that's happened to them because there's a lot of new developments in this case. Yes. And specifically, the district attorney, George Gascon, is now saying that he believes that the Menendez brothers should be eligible for parole immediately. He's saying he wants to reduce their sentence to 50 years to life, which would, based on the time that they've been in prison, make them eligible for parole. And that could be something that happens. He says that he does not believe they are a danger to society, which is an important thing when considering whether or not to release people after they've committed a violent crime. And what's going to happen next is the judge is either going to accept the district attorney's recommendation or reject it, depending on whether or not this judge believes the brothers have been rehabilitated or if their release is in the interest of justice. does agree to hand down a new sentence, he wouldn't be bound by the one presented to him. He could do something completely different. So he doesn't have to do the 50 years to life. He can

choose a completely different sentence. If the judge reduces the sentence, the brothers could become eligible parole because they were under the age of 26 at the time of the crime and they have served over 25 years already, which is very interesting. And state corrections officials say the parole board would then have six months to schedule parole hearings. And then if the parole board agrees they should go free, then the case goes to Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, who jump through for Eric and Lyle. This isn't a get out of jail free card. This isn't an immediate like, oh, you guys are good. Have fun, pat on the head and send them out. There's still a lot of hoops to jump through, a lot of people who have to agree to this. However, it's a step in the right direction and I'm sure it's more than they maybe even ever thought they would actually get. Yeah. So so again this goes back to what you were just referring to with this monster series it was very very successful you've had uh Kim Kardashian promoting that this should be something that be

revisited as far as their sentencing and it really picked up steam after this Monsters series. So as you just laid out, Eric and Lyle might not be happy with their portrayal in the show, but it does seem like it had a major influence. And just to kind of recap even a little further, this whole request was made by the Los Angeles County prosecutors to reduce their prison sentences. And this goes for anybody who's living under a rock, Eric and Lyle Menendez. And if you don't know, if you don't know this story, we did an extensive series on it. You should go check that out, but they are currently serving life without parole for murdering their parents with shotguns in 1989 inside the family's Beverly Hills home. This originally, this petition was sent to the Van Nuys courthouse. It was then

transferred over to the superior court and it's being reviewed by Judge Michael Jessick. And so that catches us up to where you're talking about right now, where he has the opportunity to do a couple different things. As you mentioned, the request is 50 years to life, but he doesn't have to stick to that, but this whole case is very polarizing. And it's interesting that this is all happening now, considering the fact that we're covering Gypsy Rose, which none of these cases are exactly the same, but there's some parallels there, right? You have circumstances where the victims were also offenders, right? And we can go back and forth on whether or not Gypsy was a victim. We did that extensively. I'm not saying that's what you believe, but the optics of it, right? There was something that happened during their childhood where these individuals, at least in their minds, felt like there was no escape. And the only way to get out of it was to kill their

offender, right? Or offenders in the Menendez case. So we could go over it now, but like I said, I'm not trying to promote it, but go watch the series. You can hear the details of what happened to Eric and Lyle. It's horrific. It's absolutely horrific. And we both came to the conclusion that we believe the majority of their stories, as far as what happened to them as children and young adults, where we kind of differed from a lot of people was what they ultimately decided to do and the reasons behind why they decided to do it. But I do think we came to a conclusion that where they are now and the mitigating circumstances in this case would potentially suggest that this should be revisited. And I really want to dive

into that. But before we do, let's take our first break. We'll be right back. Okay, so we're back. And before the break, I was alluding to the fact that when we finished our series, it's got to refresh my memory a little bit, but I believe we were all under the opinion that what they did was terrific. And I'm talking about Eric and Lyle. It didn't. And what happened to them as children didn't justify what they ultimately did. We both believe that there were other alternatives. They could have gotten out. There was other factors here that contributed to them deciding to do what they did and the way they killed their money. Yeah, the money. Exactly. There was a lot of that contributed to them deciding to do what they did and the way they killed their money

Yeah, the money exactly. There was a lot of money involved and not everyone agreed with us But it was it was there was something else going on there in our opinions and the way they killed their parents was again, something you should go watch or listen to or read about but they They blew them away with shotguns. And the crime scenes were very unpleasant. Not that any crime scenes are pleasant, but it was horrific. And the way they did it, these two people, regardless of what you think about them, were sitting on their couch watching TV. Their sons came into the room and shot them multiple times with shotguns, including execution style when they didn't die right away. It's really bad. So that brings

us to where we are now. And I don't know how you want to go about this. I guess we can both go. Do you want to go first as far as what you think about this new development? Because not everyone, including the original investigators, love this idea. Well, of course, the original investigators don't love the idea because they built the case against them. So it's almost like this is my work. Yeah, I can understand it. And they don't boots on the ground. Yeah. I don't think they like the implication that maybe, maybe they got it wrong or maybe they weren't being fair, you know? So I think that's an ego thing, but I think if they were being objective. Well, pause real quick. Can we unpack that? Because ultimately their job is to put together the case. It was the prosecutors who decided to go for the charges. So as far as the police are concerned, and yeah, this is me being a defendant

of the cops. They did their job. They put together the facts and circumstances. They built the case against them, but ultimately it was the prosecutor. So if I'm the investigator who worked this case, I really don't care either way. I did my job, right? I did my job. I built the case against them. I interviewed them. I showed the facts. I showed the evidence. The prosecution decided to go the way they wanted to go. The judge agreed with them. The jury agreed with them and that's what they got. So I'll let you continue, but I don't know if it's an ego thing. I think it's more just maybe their personal opinions based on what they saw of the crime scene, being there, smelling it, seeing it. They were like, wow, these people are demented and should not be back on the street.

I think that's, but who am I? Maybe I'm, maybe I'm wrong. Yeah. I was going to follow it up by saying exactly that they were there. Right. And we know it was a horrific crime scene. So just as, you know, a point of pride of like, I witnessed what happened to these people and I don't think that these two men should ever be able to be let out. You have officers, police officers in the Gypsy Rose case who don't think she should have gotten the deal that she got. Correct. That is true. Great point. And so, like you said, they did their job and then they can't help what the prosecutors do with the evidence that's presented to them. But either way, I think, personally, should Eric and Lyle

get out of prison? Maybe the better question is, do I think that they are a danger to society? Do I think they would go on to hurt anybody else? I don't. I don't. So is the question, did they do enough time to make up for what they did? I don't think there's enough time in the world to make up for taking lives. It's not, you know, unless you're giving your entire life in exchange, I don't think it's enough time. And you could even go and say, oh, well, Kitty and Jose, on average, would have had X amount of years left to live that were stolen from them because they had their lives behind them. And so maybe if you look at it that way, 25 years is an appropriate sentence because that's probably as long as they would

have had at the age they were. I can't even remember what age they were actually. I don't think they were that old. Weren't they in their 30s, 40s? When they killed them? When Jose and Kitty died, how old were they? Oh, that's a great question. I don't know. I'm assuming 40s because Eric and Lyle were what? 18 and 20 something. Okay. Yeah. Maybe they were in their late 30s, early 40s, maybe early 50s. Yeah. Jose was 45 years old. So if you look at that and say, you know, 40, 50, 60, maybe he would have lived till 85. Maybe you give them 35 years for what they took from them. There's no perfect formula for this. It's just really at this point, are they going to do this again? Are they going to hurt anybody else? I genuinely don't think that they would. What do you think? I struggle with this. I'll start with the thing I don't like. I don't like

the fact that there are a lot of cases like this Where there are individuals in prison right now who should have a reduced sentence or a change of sentencing But we'll never get it because kim kardashian isn't pushing for them And there's no doubt in my mind That this decision to to come forward with this based on quote-unquote good behavior That's what that's what they're alleging is the reason for this, not the show, that these two guys are getting some type of treatment that many people in prison right now will never get because the crimes they committed weren't salacious enough. They weren't able to turn it into a TV series or a movie, and they

don't have reality TV stars promoting them and trying to get them out. There's no doubt. I don't care who you are, what side of the fence you fall on. This is motivated by politics in a way, right? There's an opportunity here for George to use this to maybe build a resume going forward. He didn't just pick Eric and Lyle out of a photo packet and said, hey, you know what? These are the people I'm going to bless with a second chance at life today. There's a reason behind this. So I don't love that. I don't love that the people who are in prison right now for crimes that should have a reduction in sentencing will never get that opportunity because they're not Eric and Lyle Menendez. That's number one. Now, I think of this more in a macro sense because

whenever you have things like this done, it sets a legal precedent. It's not just individualized to the people it's involved. What I mean by that is Eric and Lyle, if this goes through, there's now a standard that has been set, a legal precedent that's been set for any other criminal that's committed a similar crime to come forward and say, hey, I've been in prison for 25 years. I've had good behavior. I should get out as well based on the court proceedings that just happened. What makes my crime any different? And so let me just pose this question to you, Stephanie, but I'm also posing it to everyone else out there. And I'm not asking you to consider all the details of Eric and Lyle's case. And the reason why is according to George Gascon or whatever his name is,

Gascon, he's not claiming mitigating circumstances. He's not claiming, hey, these kids were abused by their offenders and that's why they deserve it. They're grown men now. He's claiming that based on what they got originally, that it was too much. And again, cites here that they're not a high risk to re-offend. They were good behavior in prison. They have opportunities to go somewhere else. One of them is married at this point. Do you know which one it is? Lyle. Lyle's married. And that's what he's claiming. I'm sure there's a lot of

prisoners. Oh, it's Eric maybe. Eric. Whatever it is, they have a place to go. They're going to live up, live out the rest of their lives in peace, all that good stuff. That's basically what they're claiming here. Now, if there's more to it that I'm missing, please cite in the comments below. I say all that to say this different circumstances. There's a guy in prison right now. His name is Derek. Well, I don't even want to use my name for this, for this scenario. I thought his name was actually Derek. There's a guy in prison right now. His name's Joe. Okay. 25 years ago, Joe killed a 16 year old girl that was jogging on a hiking path in LA. Okay. Horrific murder, shot her with a shotgun, no rhyme or reason to it, just killed her. But since then

He's been in prison He's been a model citizen He regrets what he did He had never committed a crime before He was going through some mental health things And as a child He experienced a lot of trauma He was abused by his father

He was mistreated by his mother They made him eat out of dog bowls Just a horrific life Grew up hating people Saw something in this young 16-year-old girl Tried to flirt with her, she wasn't having it, he killed her. 25 years have passed and he's changed his life. He's educated himself, he's been a model citizen to everyone around him, he doesn't have a high likelihood of

re-offending. He originally received life without parole. He sees this and now he wants to apply for the same thing. Considering those factors that I just told you, and I'm asking, I'm posing this question to everyone out there, but I'm directly pointing it to you, Stephanie. What's your thought on that? If you're this girl's mother? So, um, obviously not, not good. Um, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be comfortable with that. I think the circumstances are a bit different. Those mitigating circumstances you spoke about, but I would have to ask you, this is in California and you're saying, oh, you know, how would everybody feel if this sets a precedent? I'm pretty sure that precedent has been set in California already. If these two people, right, if these two people had done what they had done

in 2020 and not back then, they would have gotten completely different sentences, as we can see from the way that people who commit crimes, and not just in California, in many states, are being sentenced now. For instance, this man in California was charged with four murders in Oakland over just six weeks, and they made a deal with him. They made a deal with him that even though he was part of a violent street gang who was responsible for a series of murders and a slew of other shootings during a crime spree in the summer of 2008, even though there's all these mothers whose sons are gone because of this person, even though 26 people testified against him in court, he's going to be out.

They're making a deal. He got 13 years, but he's expected to be released early next year because he's been in custody on those charges since 2013. And his co-conspirator is also set to be freed next year. And how do those mothers feel? Well, they don't. They don't feel good about it, right? Nope. Nope.

So that's kind of, I think that's where we're at in California. So to say like, oh, sucks to be you, Menendez brothers, you just happened to commit your crime in the wrong time in the right state. And there's a bill that I know, I don't know if it passed, but it was suggested last year, a California bill that would basically let the most heinous murderers out early. This was a California Democrat revived the bill to propose early release of prisoners serving life sentences without the chance of parole. This is a sentence typically awarded only to those who commit the most violent or reprehensible of crimes. And that's another thing. In California right now, very few people are getting the

sentence of life in prison without parole to begin with. And the only exclusion, barring early release under this bill, would be for those who have committed first degree murder of a police officer or three or more people, or if the crime driving the life without parole sentence involved a sexual act such as a rape homicide. Those sentences for only two murders, so long as one of the two was not of a police officer. Basically, there's a few things that prevent this bill from working for you. And obviously, there was other politicians who came out in opposition of the bill, but this is just one of the many bills that have kind of made criminal justice in California an issue. So I don't think that it's crazy to understand that this district attorney,

George Gascon, right now is kind of just looking at it in the way of if the Menendez brothers were charged today and sentenced today, would they be getting life in prison without the chance of parole? Probably not. So maybe they're just kind of— Well, maybe he should work on all the people that are in prison for marijuana charges right now that don't have a celebrity attached to them, that are in prison for crimes that wouldn't even be crimes today. Let's start with them, too. I think that a lot of—I think a lot of those people, especially in California, are getting second chances. They got to get—there's still people there.

They got to get—because that's ridiculous. That's my point. Like you said, this is high profile, right? That's it. That's it, right? Bingo. Okay. So let me, I'll round out my thoughts because I'm speaking out both sides of my mouth and I know I'm doing that in this case, but that's fine. So on one hand, I try to find a standard to apply to all cases to be impartial and there's really none, but I try. So when it comes to murder, mitigating circumstances for me, what would not be applicable if I were the judge would be your

childhood and what you experienced, regardless of even if it's your offender you're killing, because you still have the choice you can make. Mitigating circumstances would be for me, was it self-defense? Were you in fear of your life at that moment? Like really like to justify the actions where you took an action. If you can prove that I have no problem letting you out. You have a right to defend yourself. And I think we both agreed that in the case of the Menendez brothers, that was not happening. That was not the case.

There was no, like in our opinion, obviously we're not Eric and Lyle. We can't say for sure. Cause we weren't there, but in our opinion, based on what we know, based on where Jose and Kitty were at the time they were killed, there was no direct or impending threat to Eric and Lyle's life that was coming from their parents.

Yeah. It's offensive and defensive. This was clearly offensive in our opinions. They went in there. They shot him with shotguns while they were sitting down. It doesn't appear they had guns or knives in our opinions. They went in there, they shot them with shotguns while they were sitting down. It doesn't appear they had guns in there or knives in their position. Obviously, the argument could be made that they felt they were going to kill them at some point. So they were going first. Yes. They said that they were, they were paranoid and they were just so stressed out and which once again, nobody can say what they were feeling in their heads besides them. Right. That's the problem. So in that vein, I would say if you murder someone and there's not

a clear indication, example, evidence of self-defense, if you murder someone, there's no way to rectify what you did to that person. They are dead. They will never be back. They can never live their life again. Their family members will never see them again. Therefore, if they can't rectify that situation, regardless of how much time has passed, you don't get the right to live your life if they can't. That's just the eye for an eye approach. I know a lot of people won't agree with that. That's on one side of it. That all being said, taking this case in a vacuum and not seeing the implications it can have on the entire judicial system, not only in California, but across other states.

Not taking that into consideration. What we talked about with the Menendez brothers, if everything is true, what we heard, and we believe the majority of it is, what happened to them and who they ultimately killed, a lot of people may agree with that, especially if they did in fact feel like their lives depended on it, even though it wasn't immediate, but they least give them opportunity for parole at some point. And the fact that they didn't have that could be viewed as unfair. So the fact that they're not just being immediately released, but it's being reviewed where they at least have the opportunity for parole. I'm okay with that in a vacuum. I am okay with it. If they're no longer a threat to society, the likelihood of reoffending, which I agree with is highly improbable. And they can go out there and live the rest of their life, even though they've experienced a lot of trauma, considering

who they killed in a vacuum, I am okay with it, which I said in the series. But I just think you have to separate your emotion with it because I feel bad for them, what they experienced as young boys. And that's as a parent, where my heart goes. But I just try to think bigger because it's not just about them. It's about everybody and all these other victims of crimes that may also have to look one day and see on the news that the person responsible for killing their loved one is now getting out because they had a tough childhood and they've been a good boy or girl while in prison for 25 years. Yeah. But even the family members of Kitty and Jose are kind of like, yeah, I mean, we can't believe what they did to these boys. Like we think they've served their time. Yeah. Exactly. And we

said that in the series. So that's, that's why I'm saying in a vacuum, but I think we just have to be really careful about it because it could, it could be a slippery slope where you talk about the case that you referenced. I feel like everything is a slippery slope now. You know, it's so hard and you have to go, you really have to go on a case-by-case basis. So what do you think about all this? What's your final thoughts? I mean, like you said, we don't have a choice one way or the other. We don't control it.

We got nothing. Ain't nobody listening to that. Nobody listens to us. The criminal justice system are going to be the ones who decide. And like I said, this is just the beginning. This is a door being cracked, but it's not like being thrown open, letting them back out into the wild. They have to go through a lot of people and a lot of checks and balances before this is even a potential reality. So I'm okay with it if the criminal justice system decides that. And I just thought it was funny. In one of the articles I was reading, one of the experts was like, I'm just wondering what's going

to happen to their marriages because these boys both got married in prison and now you get out and they're going to get on social media. And it's like, what's going to happen to their marriages? And I'm like, that's your concern, but I mean, fair, but I don't think that's the main concern here. I think the main concern is will they go on to re-offend? Are they a danger to society? If not, I'm all right with it. Yeah. Yeah. Way down in the comments below on that one. I know it's going to be very divided. That's why we're talking about them. That's why there's shows being made about them. That's why this special is being made because everyone is fascinated by this case.

We're going to take a quick break. We're going to be right back. I'm going to talk about an update from a previous Crime Weekly News. So a few months ago, we had brought you a Crime Weekly News about a home invasion in June where this family, a family of five, including young children, were tortured at their home on Checkmate Court near Cameron in Harnett County, North Carolina. These members of the family were bound with duct tape. They were burned with heated forks and knives. And the suspects were on the loose at that time.

Had no clue who they were. Yeah, we had no clue who they were. They had not been apprehended. But in October, they were apprehended. They were arrested. And these people are Christopher Jamal Richardson, age 22, Isaiah Rashun Speed, age 25, and a 17-year-old juvenile because remember they took their car, felony possession of stolen goods, assault inflicting serious injury, and assault with a deadly weapon. The sheriff, Wayne Coates, he said he still does not know why this specific family was targeted. When we had talked about it back a few months ago,

we said it was probably because they were in the garage and it was just a crime of opportunity. That's right. That there was probably no connection. These people just happened to be driving by or walking by, saw the family and saw them as vulnerable targets and struck. Yep. Maybe some, maybe some previous information because we're going to talk about it here, but there's a belief that they were, they were torturing with these hot forks and knives. They were poking the victims, trying to get them to tell them where the money and guns were. And that's a direct quote from the sheriff's department, basically saying, hey, where's

the money and guns? Now, why would they be asking that if they had no clue? I could see them saying, where's your money? But why would they be asking them specifically about guns? And I don't- Maybe just assuming they may have had them and not wanting to say, hey, do you have guns? And then the family says, no, but they do. So these people are assuming the sale, essentially.

I think there's more to this story. And I think I said it in the original one as it's starting to come back to me where there's something there, whether it was a friend or family member or even one of the victims themselves, maybe talking to someone while they're out about their gun collection or whatever. It feels like this was a targeted attack. We don't know the motive, but it feels like the motive may just be as simple as this house has money and guns in it and we want them. Yeah. I mean, it definitely could be, or it could be just the wrong house. We had mentioned that too. Misidentification. Yeah. They were maybe

somebody else in that neighborhood and they just happened to show up at this house. I really do think it's the fact that they, this family was sitting in the garage. It's the early morning hours, right? So it's not a time when a ton of people are out. You're not in broad daylight. You're not on the open. There's not a lot of eyewitnesses. They're driving by. They see the garage open. They see these people sitting in there and they're like, hey, why not? Let's see if they got money and guns. But who knows? I don't know. Well, they got away with uh, multiple pieces of personal like personal items They also got away with two stolen cars. They stole two cars from so to your point. Maybe it was just a Crime of opportunity where they saw them out in the garage easy access

They could get the jump on them and they really didn't know what they were going there for They just wanted to get as much things as valuable as they could To maybe try to sell them pawn them off, exchange them for other things. Who knows? I will tell you in my experience, there were multiple times, especially when it came to narcotics, we would go into a house and we would find GPSs, radios, tools, specifically tools. Tools were big where they would basically just hoard all these things. So they could pawn them? Yeah. Well, they could pawn them, but now with pawning, it's tough because pawn shops, I don't know if you want to go down this road, but pawn shops are required, especially with like expensive items to document and report them as far as the serial numbers, all this stuff, because law enforcement can go in there and say,

hey, we're looking for these items. And pawn shops are required to keep an inventory, especially of like jewelry, where they can say, yeah, we brought that item in and here's the person who turned it into us. Here's the person we bought it from. So not even in my experience, it wasn't even necessarily to pawn it. It was an exchange of like, Hey, these houses would usually be dealers houses. So a user may come in and say, I only have 10 bucks, but I got a hundred dollars worth of tools right here that they stole off the back of a truck at 5am when a construction worker was setting up. So they'll give them the crack cocaine or heroin for the $10 and the tools instead of just full cash value. So like the barter. The bartering. And a lot in the morning, what I would always do,

especially when I was in patrol, 4 to 6 a.m., that's when all the people who were, all the addicts were out because what they would do, hand check doors or just smash out the windows and yank out the GPS units or the radios. They need something quick, they grab them, they go. And so I don't know the background of these individuals, why they did it, why they needed the money, but I'm glad to see they were caught because it doesn't always work out this way. We don't know the specifics of how they were caught yet. I do think it probably has something to do with the cars. Yeah. They said that one of the cars was found abandoned in Durham and that the police had tracked it there and they didn't go into

specifics about how they had, but they said they obviously used technology, I'm sure GPS of some kind, and one thing leads to another and then you can apprehend these people. Yeah. And Speed was caught in Michigan, right? Wasn't that something I was reading? He was caught in Michigan and then transferred back to Harnett County. So they had some intelligence. They were pounding the pavement. Somebody snitched. Oh yeah. Which I think is really great for law enforcement because it's a horrible thing to happen to this family, but nobody was murdered. So to go this hard for a home invasion because of the way that these people are tortured with these hot forks and

things, that's just horrendous. You don't want people like that out there because the most logical next step is if you're capable of doing this to young children, especially, you're capable of accelerating that violence and you could, could take someone's life. And it's, uh, it's interesting that we're ending this episode after talking about sentencing and how that goes, because a direct quote from one of the articles, this is from wral.com. It's a news organization down there. Uh, there's a quote from law enforcement where they asked, they were asked how the family's dealing with it. And they, and the officer said, quote, they're coping with it.

The family was tortured so badly, they're never going to get over it. It's something they're going to have to live with for a long time, and these arrests hopefully will help them heal. So it's an interesting question right here because we're talking about young adults. As you said, their ages, we're talking, just to refresh here, 22, 25, 17. Definitely adults. The 17-year-old, I would even argue that's close enough to be 18. In my opinion, these guys committed a horrific, horrific crime. They've traumatized these people for the rest of their life. They'll never feel safe again. And I'm sure when we start looking into the backgrounds of these individuals, they probably had a troubled childhood that got them to this point. And so the question will become down the road, when do they get out? How much time is enough to

pay for what they did to this family, which they will live with for the rest of their lives? I don't have the answer. It's rhetorical, but I'm just saying it's something to think about. If they were in California, maybe they wouldn't get a huge sentence, but they're not. They're in North Carolina. So- It might be a little different is what you're saying. May the odds be in your favor. So it's just it's a lose-lose. It really is.

Because on one hand, if these guys went through something that got them to this point, you want to see them get the help they need. And hopefully, you know, as far as rehabilitation, become better people. It's so hard, too, because I was thinking the exact same thing about five minutes ago. We were talking about sentencing, and I was like, I think people like this could be rehabilitated, like you could teach them through, you know, programs and education and therapy. This isn't the right way to go. But our society is so just completely screwed up right now. It's almost like, yeah, you fix them in prison and then you send them back out into the streets, which screws them up again. Until we fix our society on a broader

scale, I don't even know if anybody's capable of rehabilitation. Honestly, it's just so difficult out there right now. The economy's terrible. People can't buy houses right now. They can't get really jobs. And even if they're working a job constantly, they're not making enough to survive. And there's violence and crime all over the place. And especially if you've kind of grown up in that atmosphere, how do you get away from it? When you go back home after you get released, you're just going right back into it. So even if you fix the person or teach them, this isn't the way you go back out into the world and you're like, well, if this isn't the way, then what way is? This is all I know.

And I can't survive, you know, and I'm not saying that that's the case with these people that maybe they were stealing because they needed money or they couldn't. And I'm sure there's a million other things, but it's very hard to walk the straight and narrow when society around you is crumbling. Well, the bigger question is the capability, right? The ability to go in there and torture someone with a hot knife. Well, some might say humans all have that in them. Yeah. Well, here's my, here's my final thought on this and we can talk about the different things, but universally, and I strongly believe in this, I would argue I'd put money on it that at least two out of three of those offenders

have been arrested before on an unrelated crime. Oh, a hundred percent. And so here's my final words on this one. I think it should be a universal standard regardless of what state you're in. Specifically of felonies, right? I'm not talking about misdemeanors because there's a spectrum there on misdemeanors, right? You could steal a pack of gum and be convicted of a misdemeanor, but you're arrested and convicted on a felony. You serve your time and you are back out on the streets and you re-offend and commit another felony unrelated to the first crime. That's it. No three strikes, you're out. That's it. If you've given the second chance at life to not re-offend and you go out there and

prove who you are, that's it for you. And I'm not saying life in prison, but I'm saying it should be heavy. I'm talking 20 years. And again, I'd have to vet this out, but it should be a very severe sentence as a habitual offender, because you've proven to the judicial system that you're not going to change. You're not going to change. This wasn't a mistake that you made. That's my opinion, not Stephanie's. Come for me on that one. But I don't want that person who's shown us who they are to continue to escalate their crimes.

To have the chance to show us again, yeah. To go out there and end up killing someone. And that's when we realized what we did was wrong. I'm good. Yeah. Society, the criminal justice system, I think at this point, this is, it's so far gone that this is one of those things that you got to kind of destroy it, bring it to ashes and build it back up to build it back up again, because there's no right answer. And I feel like even police officers, district attorneys, lawyers,

judges, jury members, they're all just trying to do their best on a case-by-case basis, and there's no right answer. There's no good way to handle something like this. No perfect system, yeah. You can put these people in prison forever. You got a 17-year-old here. His life's done, right? Yeah. Well, that's what I'm saying. If this is his first felony, he should have a second chance, whether it's five, 10 years, 15. I don't know. I don't know where it's going to go. But if he hasn't offended before, he's going to get out at some point. I bet he's tried as an adult. And when he gets that second chance, I hope he makes the best of it. Now, if he chooses not to, you're going to be charged and one of your crimes will be as a habitual offender. We'll see you in 20. You can rehabilitate behind closed doors. You're not going to make someone else a victim. See ya. That's my opinion. Any final words from you

before I close it out? No, I think we're good. Guys, we appreciate you being here. We're so happy to be back. These are the topics we like talking about. This is our platform and allows us to kind of have conversations with you and discuss these big issues that everybody's talking about. That's the whole point behind Crime Weekly News. So we appreciate you joining us each and every week. We'll be back later this week with Gypsy Rose Part 5. We're going to be continuing on in the timeline. So we're looking forward to that. But until then, everyone stay safe out there. We'll see you soon. Bye.