Crime Weekly - S3 Ep265: Jason Burgeson & Amy Shute: Couple Captive (Part 1)

Episode Date: January 10, 2025

Providence, Rhode Island, is the capital and the largest city in the state, known for its rich history, vibrant arts scene, and unique mix of old-world charm and modern urban development. As one of the oldest cities in the United States, founded in 1636, Providence was a refuge for those seeking religious freedom, which has laid the foundation for the city’s commitment to diversity and tolerance. The city is also home to some of the most prestigious universities in the United States, including Brown University, an Ivy League school, and the Rhode Island School of Design. With so many college students, you would expect Providence to also have a thriving nightlife, which can be found downtown where a variety of bars, clubs, and live music venues wait to welcome students who want to socialize and let loose in the evenings and on weekends. For such a large and busy city, you would also expect that Providence has its share of crime, and while the city does have some issues with violent crime, property crimes such as burglary and motor vehicle theft are far more common. But what happens when a basic carjacking turns violent for seemingly no reason whatsoever? In June of 2000, 20-year-old Jason Burgeson and 21-year-old Amy Shute found themselves in the crosshairs of five nefarious men who were prowling the streets of Providence, looking to get into trouble. Jason and Amy were spotted by a Providence police officer around 2:15 AM on June 9th; the couple was chatting in the parking lot of Tommy’s Bar and Grille in downtown Providence. Less than 12 hours later, their bodies were found slumped against hay bales at the Button Hole Golf course, located on the border of Providence and Johnstown, Rhode Island. They had been murdered in cold blood, and it was up to the investigators to figure out what had happened to them and why. 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. Hero.co - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY for 10% off your order! 2. Acorns.com/CrimeWeekly - Download the Acorns app today! 3. EatIQBAR.com - Text WEEKLY to 64000 for 20% off ALL IQBAR products and FREE shipping! 4. LiquidIV.com/CrimeWeekly - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY for 20% off your first order!

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bettering your business takes working with the best with the james hardy alliance you gain access to leads training networking and support from the number one brand of siding in north america achieve new levels of success by joining the James Hardy Alliance today. Providence, Rhode Island is the capital and the largest city in the state, known for its rich history, vibrant art scene, and unique mix of old-world charm and modern urban development. As one of the oldest cities in the United States, founded in 1636, Providence was a refuge for those seeking religious freedom, which has laid the foundation for the city's commitment to diversity and tolerance. The city is also home to some of the most prestigious universities in the United States, including Brown University, which is an Ivy League school, and the Rhode Island School

of Design. With so many college students, you would expect Providence to also have a thriving nightlife, which can be found downtown where a variety of bars, clubs, and live music venues wait to welcome students who want to socialize and let loose in the evenings and on weekends. For such a large and busy city, you would also expect that Providence has its share of crime. And while the city does have some issues with violent crime, property crimes such as burglary and motor vehicle theft are far more common. But what happens when a basic carjacking turns violent for seemingly no reason whatsoever? In June of 2000, 20-year-old Jason Bergeson and 21-year-old Amy Shute found themselves in the crosshairs of five nefarious men

who were prowling the streets of Providence looking to get into trouble. Jason and Amy were spotted by a Providence police officer around 2.15 a.m. on June 9th. The couple were chatting in the parking lot of Tommy's Bar and Grill in downtown Providence. Less than 12 hours later, their bodies were found slumped against hay bales at the Buttonhole Golf Course, located on the border of Providence and Johnston, Rhode Island. They had been murdered in cold blood, and it was up to the investigators to figure out what had happened to them, and why. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. So today we're diving into a new case, part one of a new case,

and it happens to be close to home to Derek again. We're staying in the East Coast. That's right, we are. This is a case that was one of the first cases that I've ever read a book on called Thrill Killers, and we're going to probably mention that a few times throughout this series. But when you become a Rhode Island detective, one of the first things you have to do is go to BCI School at the University of Rhode Island, Basic Criminal Investigation School. This school happens over an entire semester. You actually get college credits for after taking it. And they bring in numerous professors, all who work in the field. A lot of them are retired or active detectives. And in one of the classes that I had to take, I took it with David DeTora. He's now retired. He's a death investigator for the state, but he had brought up this case that he

wanted us all to read about and learn about because there was a lot that went on with it. Some things went right, some things went wrong. And this was something that he worked firsthand. So that was the first time that I was exposed to this double homicide. Up until this point, I had never heard of it. And that was surprising to me because it's such a horrific case. But then after reading the book, I really became enamored with it. And it brought home a lot of points for me. And I'll save them till we get to the end because things as a police officer, being aware of your surroundings, being cognizant, not taking anything for granted, it may be the difference between life or death for a victim.

And that's what I'll say about that. forward to getting into it I love talking about cases close to home Um, i'm not completely oblivious to this case. Like I said, I read the book so our format won't be exact but it's also been Like 15 years since i've read it So I there are going to be points where I do need a refresher and hearing it from stephanie for the first time will be good for everyone but tragic case I won't spoil the ending try not to go look it up if you want to follow along with us, but on a more positive note, happy new year to you, Stephanie. Happy new year to you.

And when you're hearing this, it's Friday. And if you're watching it, it's Sunday. And without saying too much, you're probably going to see on social media that Stephanie and I are currently together. We're in Rhode Island together, actually. So this is us talking to you from the future, but we are currently together in Rhode Island, working on some things. Got a couple of surprises for you guys this week that you're definitely not ready for. None of you, none of you have a clue of what the surprise will be this week, but it's a good one. We're going to have some fun, and we're looking forward to sharing it with you guys. But yeah, that's really it. Looking forward to the case.

Glad to break it down with you and change it up from the Karen Reed case. This is definitely a little bit different of a vibe, so it'll be good to get away from it and do a little bit more of an obscure case for anybody who's not from the New England area. Yeah. And actually, when I see you this week, I would like to probably borrow that book from you if you have it, because I did find another book about this case on Amazon. But the one that you're referring to is not the same book. And even though it's written, it seems to be written by the same people. But I would like to just borrow your book and see if it is actually the same. Yeah, absolutely. I have to find it. I don't know where I put it. I have a signed copy of it, but I'll definitely give it to you. It's a dark cover. You just see basically their eyes. I looked it up. So the book you're talking about is called Thrill Killers.

That's right. The book I found on Amazon is called Murder Without Motive. Same authors, could be a different book. I even tried to look up to see if any public libraries around me had it, but nothing within 150 miles. So I'm going to steal it from you. A lot of photos from when the offenders were arrested and just their look on their face. They're just stone cold.

Couldn't care less. I don't understand. And that's why I think, you know, Thrill Killers and Murder Without a Motive, these are both good titles because they accurately depict what happened in this case, which is what the hell did this happen for?

Kind of thing. Yeah. No, it's a tragedy. Two young people gone too soon. And we're going to get into it. We're going to get into it right now. Like I said, we're going to cover, we're gonna get into it right now like i said we're gonna cover this is part one right we're gonna do multiple parts for this yes yes so uh

looking forward to breaking it down with you guys and yeah like i said you guys will see some stuff on social media this week and um you can check that out the only other thing i had which is unrelated getting a lot of dms a lot of emails we don't plug it a lot we're always plugging criminal coffee but for the people looking for crime weekly merch, it's still out there. Everyone keeps emailing me. All you got to do is go to crimeweeklypodcast.com. We're actually using the same company now that we use for criminal coffee merch. So the material is much better. The prices haven't changed, but the materials are much better. It's not digitally printed. So you're going to get a lot better quality sweatshirt or t-shirt. So if you, if you're looking for merch, we do have some new designs coming out as well, but just head on over

to crimeweeklypodcast.com. You'll find everything you need there. That's the last thing I had. We should also start working on our design for CrimeCon in Denver coming up because we, last year we did a special. Gotta be mountains, right? Yeah, definitely. But last year we did a special CrimeCon merch design and they sold. And I love this shirt, by the way. I thought it was so cool. It was such a cool design. Yeah, that was Ashley, my assistant.

My assistant designed that shirt. So maybe she'll have something good for us. Yeah, Ashley, pull it out. Let's see what you got. Yep. So we'll be good. We got a lot in the hopper. Some new things coming up. You like that phrase, the hopper? I just thought, I saw like the detective from Stranger Things when you said that. Yeah, we got a lot of things coming up.

And so we'll get into some new cases. 2025 is going to be a big year. We're looking forward to going on this journey with all of you. Yep, absolutely. So let's dive into this case. Jason Bergeson, he lived with his parents, Nadine and Ernest, in Lakeville, Massachusetts. In 1998, he had graduated from Aponiquet High School, and that fall he began classes at St. Cloud, Minnesota, where he served as the president of his freshman class. Jason was always someone who thrived in the arts. During high school, he had been a part of the drama club, he had taken acting classes, and participated in several plays and musicals, and this continued throughout college. Jason had a passion for music, especially techno music, and he had dreams of becoming a DJ one day,

but he also liked reading and writing, and in college he would win awards for creative writing. Jason was also very close to his sister, Kelly, who was six years older than he was, but when Kelly had been little, she'd begged her parents for a little brother, so when he'd finally arrived, she was over the moon. And when they were small, the siblings had played together constantly, but when they got older and Kelly suddenly had friends and boyfriends, Jason had struggled with the concept of sharing his big sister and his best friend with others. And because Kelly couldn't stand to see her little brother cry when she left the house for dates, she actually started bringing him along with her, and this meant that she would have a much earlier curfew, but she didn't care. Now, some of the boys that Kelly went on dates with

were not receptive to her little brother tagging along, and because of this, Kelly would usually end things with them pretty quickly, feeling that if they couldn't accept how close she and her brother were, they weren't meant for her anyways. As Jason got older and he got busier with his own friends in school, he was rarely home, and then Kelly got married and moved out, so their time together became limited. However, anytime Kelly went home for a visit, she would be so excited to see that Jason was there and they would sit in his room and talk for hours.

Jason talked to Kelly about his future career in radio. He was such a charismatic and relatable personality that he'd actually been given his own show at his college radio station, and he'd become so popular that he was assigned the commuter slot, which was 6 to 9 a.m., which is the most listened-to slot of the day. Jason would also ask Kelly for advice about girls and dating, which Kelly happily gave because she knew how open and naive her brother was, and she didn't want him to get taken advantage of or to get hurt. On June 6, 2000, Kelly visited her family's home on South Work Street and was happy to see her brother's Ford Explorer parked on the front lawn.

As they always did, Jason and Kelly sat on his bed and chatted about life, and Jason told Kelly about his new girlfriend, Amy Shute, and about how much he liked her. Kelly had already met Amy the previous Saturday when she and her husband Nick had stopped by the Ferguson home for lunch. On that day, Jason had taken Amy for a ride on his four-wheeler. They had ridden around the sand pits near his house for about an hour before returning home covered in mud and smiling from ear to ear. Now, Kelly had watched as her brother lit up whenever Amy looked at him or called him honey, because I guess when they were out riding on four-wheelers,

Amy had gotten very muddy, and then they got back, and she playfully told Jason, you know, honey, you got my new shoes all muddied up. You're going to have to get me some new ones. And this just made Jason so happy to be called honey and to know that this young woman who he was so enamored with would just openly refer to him in such a term of endearment in front of his family. And he really liked that. And it made Kelly, his sister, extremely happy to see how excited and at home Jason was in

his new blossoming relationship. Jason told his sister that he and Amy were meeting some friends out the following Thursday night. They had plans to go to bootleggers in Providence, Rhode Island. Can't skip over that, by the way. Bootleggers was the spot. Yeah. It's no longer there. Rest in peace, bootleggers.

It closed in 2000, the same year this happened, actually. Yeah, and it closed because they were letting everybody in without IDs. And that's why I was there because I was about 16, 17 years old at that point. For bootleggers, they did have an 18-plus thing there, but I was going there when I was like 15, 16 years. Well, 16 years old. I had a car. Bootleggers was a spot. Anybody who's from Rhode Island or from this area who's listening to this right now definitely just got the same smile as me because there's not a ton of places to go to.

But Bootleggers, it was the jam. It was where we went. It looked kind of awesome. And I'm going to talk a little bit. Oh, it was awesome. I'm going to talk a little bit more about it in a bit. But it looked like, yeah, I mean, that was the place to be. It had two levels. There was a pool. It was right on the water. The upstairs and the downstairs. Yeah. Man, I'm old now. Life just comes at you fast. Yeah. I mean, listen, bootleggers was the place

to be. And remember, Jason loves music. He loves techno music. And he told his mean, listen, bootleggers was the place to be. And remember, Jason loves music. He loves techno music. And he told his sister Kelly, listen, I've gotten really good at dancing. You should come out on Thursday night with us and then you can see my moves. And Kelly agreed. See my moves. Yeah, he was like, you can see my moves. And Kelly was like, yeah, that sounds awesome.

Because she said, you know, she always knew her brother loved music and loved dancing. But because they were so different in age, they'd never been out to a club together before. So the only time she'd ever seen him dance was at like weddings or family stuff. But bootleggers had made Thursday nights 18 plus. 18 plus, baby. Yep. And so this would give Kelly the opportunity to check out her brother on the dance floor, caught in a rug, see what he had.

You know, according to everyone who knew him, Jason was just abundantly full of energy, never stopped. He just constantly wanted, if they were going out for the night, he wanted the night to keep going. He was outgoing. He talked to people even if he didn't know them. He was somebody that would just, especially if you had the same interests as he did, he would just talk to you for hours about it. And he wanted to connect with people very badly. One other side note, just to give context here about bootleggers and the area around it, because you wouldn't know it from the way I'm describing it, tough area. A lot of drug dealers, a lot of gang members, a lot of different people, unsavory characters that would go there.

They were in the parking lot outside. They were inside the club and a lot of gang members, a lot of different people, unsavory characters that would go there. They were in the parking lot outside. They were inside the club and a lot of fights going on. A lot of people were hurt down that area. So that was something where when I was always open with my mom, like if we were in my car, I would tell her where I was going. I never hid anything from her. Not I shouldn't say I never hid anything. I didn't hide most things. What's this basic stuff like where you're going, who you're going to to be with stuff like that. We were always pretty open with each other.

And I would tell her I was going there and she would always just say like, listen, do not go alone. Don't walk out to your car alone. Don't be in the parking lot alone because that's where the stuff's going to go down, not inside the establishment, but when you leave. And that was something I always remembered because I would see a lot of things as I was leaving with my friends where there's fights in the middle of the street. It was, it was a rough crowd at night sometimes. So that was the one downfall with bootleggers. And there had been a lot of fights in that area. A lot of people who had gotten hurt over the years, which is part of the reason other than them letting people drink

under age, part of it was just all the issues they were having there. So eventually the Providence shut them down. And I feel like this is pretty common in a lot of cities like this. I mean, we both went to Austin together and what is it? Sixth Street is kind of that same, you know, it's a college area. There's lots of bars, lots of clubs, and therefore you're going to have lots of drunk people, fights, things going down. And it's going to be kind of, you know, a fun, but, but kind of rough area sometimes depending on what's happening that night. Don't hold me to it. It's been a while, but I want to say a couple of people have been shot and stabbed outside there. That was again, don't, like I said,

not a hundred percent, but I'm pretty sure that was somebody may have even died outside there. And they said, you know what? That's it. Yeah. They definitely, I mean, after what happened, not that it really was connected to bootleggers, what happened with Amy and Jason, but that same year, yeah, they were like, let's take this place. And they never, it had operated as a couple different names and different bars and restaurants before, but in 2000, they just shut it down for good. Is it still there or was it demolished? No, I think the building's still there. What is it now? I can't remember. It's a great question. I can't remember what it is now. As you can probably imagine,

I'm not showing off my moves on the dance floor anywhere anymore. No, especially not on a techno night. No, nope. All right, let's take our first break and we'll be right back. This Father's Day at Lowe's. Score free gifts for the greatest dad.

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and her husband left. And Kelly didn't know that this was the last time she would ever see her brother. And Jason had probably meant to give Kelly a call on Thursday, but he was very busy inviting his other friends out for the night. And honestly, the way it sounded to me was that he probably, because Amy was there and he was talking to Kelly and he invited Kelly out, and then he probably, it didn't stick in his head that she said, give me a call Thursday and let me know the plans. He probably thought I extended this invitation for her to come out Thursday night. And so she'll be there. You know, this happens to me all the time where I'll say, oh, let's do this, do that. And then people will do a follow-up thing. And then that

follow-up thing completely leaves my head because in my mind, I invited you and now you'll just show up. You don't need to know what time. You don't need to know anything of that. You'll just be there magically. You'll appear. So he did not call Kelly Thursday, but he was very excited to go out that night because his white 1991 Ford Explorer had been in the shop for a few days. He just got it back on Wednesday, June 7th. Now he had his prized vehicle back. He was going to take his girlfriend Amy out on the town in style. And Jason called his friend from high school, Joshua Wilson, and said, hey, do you want to go to bootleggers on Thursday? It's techno night.

You know how much I love techno music. Wilson then hung up with Jason, called their other high school friend, Raymond Reed, to see if he would be interested in meeting up with them in Providence that night, and both Joshua Wilson and Raymond Reed agreed that it would be a great time, so they called Jason back. They made plans to meet downtown around 9.45 p.m. on Thursday, June 9, 2000. Jason was very happy that they would all be getting together, and he was especially excited to have some of his best friends from high school meet his girlfriend, Amy, for the first time. Now, Amy Shute had graduated from LaSalle Academy, which is a Catholic preparatory school

in Providence that her single mother, Carol, had sacrificed a lot in order to send her to. Now, while attending LaSalle, Amy's grandfather passed away, so she actually moved in with her grandmother, Dorothy Sansucci, at 41 East Street in West Warwick so that her Nana wouldn't have to live alone after her husband passed. And because her grandmother loved musicals so much, so did Amy and her two sisters, Elizabeth and Erin. They all loved The Sound of Music best of all, but they knew all of the lyrics to the most popular musicals at that time.

And they kind of came up with a system that when they were out in public together, if they got separated or lost, they would locate each other by singing the theme from Oklahoma. And they would just kind of hear each other singing throughout the store, and it was like a Marco Polo kind of thing. Now, Amy worked at Concordia Manufacturing as a receptionist, and after high school, she began attending the University of Rhode Island, where she was three semesters short of earning a psychology degree. But the previous January, Amy had taken time off from school to work and earn some money

so that she could complete her education, and in April, she learned that she would have enough financial aid to return to college in the fall. She was very pleased with this, since she'd worked hard to achieve it. And so Amy decided to reward herself by spending that summer just relaxing and having fun with her new boyfriend, Jason Bergeson, who she'd met on a website called Boston Raves. And basically, it sounds like this website was just kind of the place you would go if you were into, you know, rave music, techno music, EDM. You wanted to know where certain groups would be playing or what bars or restaurants or clubs would

be having certain rave nights or techno nights. And on this app, this is where Jason and Amy connected and they shared this love of like going out, listening to music, dancing, things like that. Now both Amy and Jason actually had past relationships that were still lingering in their lives as friends. Jason's best friend at that time was a young woman named Jennifer Lawrence, who he'd known since kindergarten. The two had gotten especially close in their junior year when they were both a part of the Shape Club, which was a group that participated in community service activities, and they were both also in the Drama Club. And for a few months, the two dated on and off, and they did everything together, from running errands to checking out all the new techno clubs because they both shared a

passion for music. And Jennifer actually had her own dreams of becoming a DJ one day, so she and Jason shared that. Now, eventually, they realized that although they were very close and they had so much in common, there was no romantic spark, and so they decided to just be very tight, close friends. And a lot of people in Jason's family have described Jason and Jennifer as being almost like brother and sister. So it was kind of just like this wasn't a romantic thing, but they wanted to remain in each other's lives.

And Amy also had a friend named Jeffrey Harper, who she had dated six years prior. But when Amy went away to college, she had told Jeff that she wanted to explore her options, you know, see what else was out there. And she acknowledged that she had strong feelings for Jeff and that he had them for her, but she felt it was something she needed to do. Jeff was actually head over heels for Amy, like completely Twitterpated, was in love with her. And he agreed to remain friends with her, hoping that, I guess, when she got this all out of her system, she would return to him and then they could start again as a couple. In his head, in Jeff's head, Amy was the one for him. There was nobody else.

There was no point in looking. He was going to wait for her to do what she needed to do. And he felt confident that they would be together again one day. So the two saw each other often. They talked almost every single day. And Amy actually talked to Jeff on June 8th and asked him if he wanted to meet her, her new boyfriend, Jason, and Jason's friends at bootleggers that night. I know. I know. I feel so bad for Jeff. Happens to the best of us. It really does. But you know what? He's playing the long game. He made the decision to remain

invested. And whether that was going to pay off or not, he didn't know, but he was hoping. Well, Jeff actually had to be up very early for work on Friday morning, but he desperately wanted to see Amy. He found it very difficult to say no to her when she had a request for him, so he promised he would stop by the club for a little while on Thursday night. Now, Jason, Amy, and their various friends were all gearing up for a night of innocent fun that day. But there was others also congregating in downtown Providence who had some not-so-innocent plans in mind. 19-year-old Gregory Floyd and 21-year-old Kenneth Day arrived in Providence by 5.15 p.m. that night. They were roommates who had plans to hang around Waybosset Street that evening,

which was their usual spot for getting into trouble. Located in the heart of Providence's Arts and Entertainment District, Waybosset is the oldest street traversing the city, and it intersects with Westminster at the northeast end. This is a very historical area where some of the city's original landmarks still stand, including Fred Astaire's Dance Studio,

which he co-founded with Charles and Chester Casanave in 1947, and The Arcade, which is the nation's oldest outdoor shopping mall built in 1828. Here's the interesting part. What? As we're recording this episode, again, we're going back and forth. You're on the street, by the way. This is where we are going to be for what we're going to be talking about later. Wait, what do you mean right where we are? For the event that you're coming down here for. This is where we are right now. That's good. So as you're researching this and hearing about this road and these locations,

you're going to see them that night. I'll make sure I point them out. I'm actually very excited about that. And my hotel is very close to this place. So I'll be able to walk around and see for myself. You're going to be right there. And it's beautiful. Yeah. I'm excited. especially to see the arcade building. Yep. The arcade building is there, and it's still open. It's still an arcade. Yeah. It's crazy. It's open until four in the morning. How long? 1828? That's insane. Yep. You'll see it all for sure. So Floyd and Day, they both had their issues with law enforcement in the past.

Day was being looked for by authorities in North Carolina after he had skipped out on a pending drug charge before moving to Rhode Island. And Floyd was on probation with an active court warrant out for him because he'd violated his probation so many times. Shocker. I know, right? Which is another part of the story that pisses me off, but we'll get there. We will get there. Even though he was on probation, Floyd had decided to bring his.40 caliber Smith & Wesson with him that night.

He had it tucked into his pants at the small of his back, hidden by his leather jacket because he's a fake bad guy. He's like, you know, he's seen too many movies and he thinks that if he wears a leather jacket and hides his gun in the waistband of his pants underneath his leather jacket, he's like a gangster or something. It's just absolutely so gross. Yeah. But this is the stuff you have to worry about when you go out, not only then, but even more so now. Yeah. And that night, the two were loitering around outside of Saki's Pizza, which remember,

we talked about Saki's Pizza in the Karen Reed and John O'Keefe case because that was where one of the Albert brothers had worked at one time. And you said that you like hanging out there, too, that you like their pizza. I don't like hanging out there. You don't like loitering out in the front? Yeah. Yeah. You just if you guys want to see me sometime, just come by Saki's Pizza. I'll be there.

He'll be leaning against the wall. Yeah. Yeah. You're going to it's it's you know, we're talking about obviously a terrible situation, but I do like when we do cases that I am familiar with because it brings a smile to my face at different points because the way you describe it, you know, it makes it seem so amazing. And it is sometimes, but you know, it would be like me describing where you live. You'd be like, oh, that place, you know, know whatever nothing to write home about so when they say they would they would kind of post up outside of sake's pizza on way bossa this was this was their spot i take it to mean that it was their spot to hang out and sell

drugs this is where they would sort of sit And then people who wanted to buy drugs would know that that's what they were there. It reminds me of Jay and Silent Bob. If you've ever seen that movie, how they're always hanging out outside of this one convenience store and people just walk up and ask them to buy drugs. This is what Floyd and Day were doing, basically. And some people just like to post up. That's like their corner. That's their territory. It happens all the time. As a kid, you post up or you walk by the wrong corner, you're going to get in a fight. It's going to happen. One of the two things. So they're posted up outside of Saki's Pizza so nobody else can post up outside of Saki's Pizza. And it's like it's not even like an official gang thing. We had it in Central Falls all the time where you had these young kids. They're like their own little crews and like certain areas of the city, which is one point two square miles. Like Sunshine Market was one spot where there was one crew that was outside Sunshine.

If the other crew came by, there was a fight going down. That's simple. Where are their parents? Is that that's what I want to know. That's like it's like, what did you do today, honey? I posted up outside of Saki's. made sure nobody else posted up outside of there. What a waste of time. So they're posting up outside of Saki's, and then a man approached, a tall white man who

inquired about the price of crack. And Kenneth Day, he didn't have any drugs on him at that time. But he noticed that this potential customer had a pretty big wad of cash on him because this is a drug addict who's in the midst of fiending for some drugs. So this person isn't really using their logical brain of like, I shouldn't be flashing all this money in front of somebody I'm trying to buy drugs from because it might make me a target. Makes you a target. Absolutely. He just wants this drug dealer to know, hey, I got cash. I'm good for it.

Where's the drugs? I need it. I need it. I need it. And of course, you know, Kenneth Day picked up on this. And even though he didn't have any drugs to sell, he came up with a plan. So Day told the man, hey, go wait in this alley, you know, off of Waybosset, and I'm going to go get the drugs.

But instead, he took his buddy and his roommate, Gregory Floyd, aside. And he waset, and I'm going to go get the drugs. But instead, he took his buddy and his roommate Gregory Floyd aside, and he was like, this is what we're going to do. We're not going to sell the guy drugs because we don't have any. We're going to corner him in the alley. We're going to show him we got a gun. He's not going to do shit. He's going to give us his money. He's going to run away. We're going to rob this guy. It'll be as easy as taking candy from a baby, right? Floyd was down for this plan. He was bored and also just kind of that sort of person who didn't need much convincing to get himself into trouble. But when they eventually got back to the alley, they saw the guy had left. He was probably

looking to score elsewhere. And so the two went looking for their mark. They started with Kennedy Plaza, but they couldn't locate him. Now, they never really actually say why they went to Kennedy Plaza next, but I assume it was another place that they knew drugs would be sold. Still the case. Still the case to this day. It's a downtown area. A lot of people who are looking for something or if you're drunk, there's usually, there's a little food truck over there too. That's like a famous food truck. So that's been around for years. So yeah, a lot of people frequent that area and it's close by. Close to Waybosset. Yep. Not too far. Okay. Walking five, 10 minute walk. All right. So around that same time, 21-year-old Harry Burdick got dropped off at the bus station in Pawtucket by his girlfriend,

Christina Hartley. He then took a trolley to Thayer Street on the east side of the city next to the Rhode Island School of Design and Brown University. And there, Harry hung out with a friend who he drank some beers with, smoked some weed with, and did some heroin with. You know, just a regular Thursday night. After this, Harry met up with a friend named Brandy at the bus terminal. And as he was chatting with her, Kenneth Day and Gregory Floyd approached. Now, these three men, Harry Burdick, Kenneth Day, and Gregory Floyd, I wouldn't say they were friends, but they like knew each other from just hanging around and posting up, I guess.

Like it wasn't like, oh, we hang out socially or like I'm going to your kid's birthday, but it's like, yeah, we see you around. We know who you are. We've talked. And they walked up, they showed him that they had this gun and they said, hey, we've got some crackhead out here looking for drugs with a ton of money. We are going to find him and take this money off of him. He's got a lot of it. There's plenty enough for all three. Are you in? And Harry Burdick was in fact in. And so the devious twosome

became a threesome. From a payphone outside of Mama's Metro, Kenneth Day paged 19-year-old Raymond Anderson, who at that time was with his girlfriend, Bedzadia Carrera, at her home at 212 Wallace Street in Providence. The couple had been hanging out all day with Carrera's infant child, smoking weed and bickering. So when Anderson got this page, he was like, saved by the bell. I am ready to get out of this house. So he called Day back. And Day told Anderson, hey, we're going to rob this dude, meet us in front of Saki's Pizza.

We're going to track this addict down. There's enough money that he's got for it to go around for all four of us. And the search is going to be easier in your car than on foot. And apparently Anderson was the only one out of these people that had a car at this point. And so he's down too. He's ready to go. He actually called his friend, 20-year-old Sammy Sanchez, who picked Anderson up around 11 p.m. in his Chevy Nova.

And Anderson did this because he wanted to rob this drug addict with the money, but he didn't want to do it in his own car. Yeah. Samuel Sanchez, that's the last of these five, 20 years old. And this is to go over these ages because she's not wrong. 19, 21, 21, 19, and 20 years old. And if you go look up their photos, they look about that age. So when we start talking about what we're going to talk about tonight and how this whole thing unfolds. And some of them already have a criminal history, by the way. Already have a criminal history.

But when you think about what transpires as this night progresses, and by the way, it almost seems like a bad dream you would have, like a nightmare. Like this is how it would play out. And this is not your normal case at all. So yeah, these are the people that we're talking about here as she's starting to lay out the foundation very young to think that they were capable of doing this, but what we'll get into it because there's different levels of culpability. Some guys have come out and said, you know, whatever I wasn't, I was more there because I felt like I had to be, but we'll save that for a different day. We'll, we'll talk about that as we get there because that, that I had to be, but we'll save that for a different day.

We'll talk about that as we get there because that whole thing pisses me off too. It is frustrating at how young they are because once again, it's like the victims were young, the assailants were young, and you think about what was the potential that any of these five young men could have reached if they hadn't taken these paths. But the problem is they seemed more than willing to take these paths. It seemed like that if they'd been presented with a better path, they would have passed it up because this bad path was way better for them. And it's easier. Easier. It doesn't require any work.

We're just going to take what we want. And to know how young they were and how cold blooded they were. That's shocking to me. Absolutely. What happened to you? You know the story. A lot of you guys, if you haven't gone and looked ahead, you're going to be shocked by this one. Let's take a second break. We'll we're back. And at this point, we've got Jason and his friends headed to Providence. And then we've got these five bad guys.

They're young, but they're bad guys with badness in their hearts and dark deeds on their mind. That is all that they want to do. They're not there to hang out. They're not there to make friends or that they want to do. They're not there to hang out. They're not there to make friends or make connections like Jason is. They're not there to enjoy techno night. They are there to target people and take things that don't belong to them. And so Jason Bergeson's friends, Josh Wilson and Raymond Reed, drove from Lakeville, Massachusetts to the corner of Westminster and Waybosset in Wilson's 1986 Chevy Celebrity.

This is where they had planned to meet Amy and Jason, and they arrived a little bit late, around 10, 15 p.m. They were supposed to get there at 9.45. They're a half hour late at this point, so they say a little bit late, but... Casually late. Casually late. Sounds about Stephanie late. It's absolutely Stephanie late. As soon as I was like, relatable. That like, I'm not being hard on them. You're like, listen, it happens. Okay. It does. Like I just assume I'm going to be at least a half hour late to everything. Cause I can't find my phone, my keys or anything when I'm about to leave. So once the four of them were all together, Wilson followed Jason and Amy who were in Jason's Ford

Explorer. They parked nearby behind Tommy's Bar and Grill. They went inside. They got some food with the boys. They were all getting to know Amy. They stayed for about an hour before leaving all together in Jason's vehicle around 1130 p.m. So they left Josh Wilson's celebrity in the parking lot of Tommy's. And they took Jason's Ford Explorer to Bootlegger's. They parked. They parked,

they entered bootleggers around midnight. Bootleggers was a three-story, 25,000 square foot complex overlooking Narragansett Bay. There, she got it. By the way, we were trying to get that a couple of times in the edit, but we got it. Rhode Islanders, I got you covered, Narragansett Bay. I got my Rhode Island accent. I was like, Narragansett? I have to say it like that, Narragansett? Narragansett. And by the way, now accent. I was like, Narragansett? I have to say it like that? Narragansett? Narragansett. And by the way, now it's coming back to me. This building is no longer there.

It used to be called Shooters after that. Shooters after that, yeah. They took it down. They took it down. Well, this place, like I said, featured a waterfront pool, bars inside, bars outside. 90 Slip Marina. This is the place to be. How cool does it sound?

It sounds super cool man the pool was outside overlooking the bay i know and were there people in the pool oh yeah people would definitely you weren't supposed to be but people would jump in and stuff what did they have the pool for if you weren't supposed to be in the pool there were certain parties you could jump into it but at night it was more of just like a feature but people were not supposed to be in the pool but in the summertime they could open it up but i think if you were drinking you weren't allowed in there i don't know i can't imagine drinking i never went not trying to jump in the pool man i was just trying not to get caught for being underage to be honest i would say keeping a low a low profile i would have been in that pool

in a not as not in a second because it would have taken like three four drinks first but then i would have been in that pool yeah yeah that sounds awesome you've been getting kicked out in the parking lot well it would have been worth it yes okay i would have waited in that pool. Yeah. That sounds awesome. You've been getting kicked out in the parking lot. Well, it would have been worth it. Yes. Okay. I would have waited till the end of the night. Yeah. When I was in there, I was on my best behavior. What is your best behavior at a nightclub? Staying in the corner and sipping my one drink that I wasn't supposed to have and just trying to pretend like I'm 18 or 21. Were they not IDing people at the door or were they not IDing people at the bar? It was a combination. They were supposed to be IDing us at the door or were they not IDing people at the bar? It was a combination.

They were supposed to be IDing us at the door. A lot of the times they didn't. And we knew somebody who worked there. So we kind of got slipped in. And if they didn't mark you at the door, then the bartenders usually didn't ask. I see. And so we did have the fakes and all that stuff too. But mostly it was just kind of like, hey, I know him.

He's so-and-so's cousin. You could go in there, grab a drink. But even then there were people inside the place that you had to watch out for who were like management. And they were actively on the lookout for like people who looked underage and they were trying to find them. So I would always just, and I looked as you could probably imagine, I didn't look 21 when I was 17 years old. So I had to be careful. Yo, I feel like, so it's really not like bootleggers fault that people were underage drinking because they had people prowling around trying to prevent it. It was y'all not following the rules. Oh yeah.

Oh yeah, of course. Damn. Absolutely. And you ruined it. Okay. This is why we can't have nice things like bootleggers. No, the murderers ruined it over there. Not even just these, but just in general. You said alleged murders. You don't know.

There was definitely some people who were stabbed and shot over there. The more I think about it, it was a bad area to be in at night. Well, it's funny that you say that you would know someone at the door because that night, the guy working the door let them all in for free because he knew Amy from high school. It's Rhode Island for you. That's Rhode Island for you. And when they got inside, Jason and Amy kind of split off from the group. They went their own way for a bit. And Josh and Ray, they went to the top floor, and that's where they ran into three girls that they and Jason knew from high school. This was Jason's best friend and ex-girlfriend, Jennifer Lawrence,

along with her two friends, Robin and Caitlin. So Robin, Caitlin, and Jennifer, they run up to Josh and Ray. They're like, oh, hey, it's so good to see you. Where's Jason? Where's Amy? And Josh and Ray said, oh, they're on the bottom level of the club. So the girls went looking for them. And Jennifer was actually nervous because she felt that Amy was not super comfortable

with Jennifer and Jason's close relationship, even though Amy's got a close relationship of her own. You know what I mean? But I guess the two had met previously. They were at a party and Jennifer had gotten some weird, jealous energy from Amy. She felt that Amy was sort of like

corralling Jason away from her. Every time Jason and Jennifer would talk, Amy would be there to like pull him away in another direction. But on this evening, the vibe was good. The energy was good. Amy seemed excited to see Jennifer. She even hit it off with the other girls, especially Robin. And Amy took Robin through the club and showed

her around. It seems like Amy's been there a bunch before. And when the two were alone, Amy confessed to Robin that although Jason was not her usual type, she couldn't help but fall for him. She said she was really into him because he was so sweet. Now, Amy also invited Robin to go out with her and Jason the following night. Robin said she already had plans with her boyfriend, but they would all get together soon. Sadly, that would not happen. Amy's friend, Jeffrey Harper, also showed up to bootleggers that night. So you've got Amy's ex-boyfriend, Jeff, and you've got Jason's ex-girlfriend Jennifer who are now they're all supposedly friends and honestly you would think this would be a recipe for disaster but it seemed

to go okay it seemed to go okay Jeff got there he saw Amy dancing and having fun with Jason he said hello to her he gave her a hug and Jeff watched Amy dance and laugh with Jason and his friends for a while, and he said, you know, it kind of tore him apart inside to see her so happy, but also it made him feel good to see her so happy because he really loved her and cared about her. So this is a tough situation for Jeff to be in. And then after he was there for a little while, he told Amy he had to leave. He had work the next morning. Jeff left bootleggers at around 10 to 1. And as he was leaving, Amy ran up to him.

She gave him a hug and a kiss. She thanked him for coming. She told him she loved him and asked him to call her around 2 or 2.30 to make sure that she got home OK and so that they could talk. And even though Jeff had to be up early for work that morning, he would call Amy more than once at that time. But she never answered because she wasn't okay. Yeah. And you can understand you kind of laid the foundation for this where Jeff is trying to give her her space. He wants to be with her. He's head

over heels for her. And, you know, we will never truly know, but it almost seems like there was still something there. Maybe Jeff wasn't the right person at that time, but maybe she felt like there could be something later because I don't know how you feel, but to have a guy leave and say, hey, I'm going to call you when I get home at two in the morning to make sure I'm okay. There's still something there. I don't know what it is.

So as you said, Jeff, who is really into Amy, he's going to wait up. He's going to wait up, especially when she gives him that invitation to call her and make sure she's okay, because what's he looking at it as? An opportunity to talk. And it's an opening. She trusts me. She feels safe with me. She still wants me in contact and constant contact even. I think that kind of looking at this and not knowing that there's these other five people, you might even start thinking like, well, maybe did Jeff attack Amy and Jason because he was so jealous and he

saw her happy and he realized that like his ability to get her back was kind of slipping through his fingers as he saw her get closer and closer to Jason. No, Jeff's genuinely just a good guy, a good friend. And I will say that Amy making that comment to Robin about, oh, you know, Jason isn't my usual type, but he's so sweet. I'm falling for him. It kind of did maybe suggest that it wouldn't have been a forever thing with Amy and Jason, but she was trying on different things and she was trying relationships with different sorts of people than she would normally try. And maybe Jason and Jeff were very different people. But at the end of the day, they were both good hearted people. And that's what seemed to attract her.

Let's take another break. We'll keep it going. All right. So Jeff leaves a little, you know, around 1 a.m. He leaves before the club closes. But at closing time, Jason and Amy, along with their friends, including the three girls from high school and the two boys from high school, they left the club with the other patrons and they stood outside for a while talking about what they were going to do next for a few minutes.

Because like I said, Jason never wants the party to end. It's like pushing, you know, 2 a.m. He wants to keep going. And he said, hey, I heard there was like a house party happening somewhere. But Jennifer and her friends, they'd been out all day. They still had a long drive ahead of them. So they passed. And then the other two boys, Ray and Josh, they were like, you know, like, let's just call it a night.

Let's hang out. We can talk a little bit more, but it's kind of late. And so Jason reluctantly was like, fine, I'll bring Josh and Ray back to their car in the parking lot of Tommy's and then I'll bring Amy home. So Jason Bergeson was a guy. He had a lot of energy.

He blasted music from his Discman as they drove from bootleggers back to Tommy's. And when they arrived, the four friends sat in Jason's car and they continued talking for about 20, 25 minutes before Josh Wilson and Ray Reed left in Wilson's car to drive back to Lakeville around 1.45 a.m. But Jason did not want the night to end yet. He was enjoying Amy's company too much. So they sat and they talked in the parking lot for a while. Now, at this time, Amy was sitting on a low wall that ran along the side of the arcade building. And it kind of separated the arcade building from the parking lot of Tommy's.

Are you familiar with this area? Do you know this Tommy's place? Yeah, I don't think Tommy's is what it is anymore. It's not that anymore, yeah. But I think I know the wall. I think I know the wall, which is interesting because I don't think Tommy's is what it is anymore, but I think I know the wall. I think I know the wall, which is interesting because I never put two and two together after going there recently and that wall being there. Yeah. So it's kind of a low wall and it's like just this little division kind of between the arcade building and then that parking

lot behind Tommy's on way boss it. Right. Yeah. So we can actually throw up a map here and I, and I hope it's the same place that I'm thinking of but shannon can throw it up here there's basically way boss it and westminster run parallel to each other if they're given a visual and there's this one building this one big building that's there and there's a place right now called the arcade which is this two floor arcade place that's open till four in the morning i'm assuming that's the original arcade that we're referring to here yes and then that's on Westminster. And then on the opposite side would have been Tommy's Bar and Grill, which was Tommy's place at one point, but is no longer there. So if it's the same building that I'm thinking of, and I'm pretty sure it is, there

is a wall there that separates that building from a parking lot next to it. And that's got to be the wall that you're referring to. It has to be. It's a low wall. I think there might be a fence on top of it now. The front of the arcade building. And then there's like an alley on the side. And that alley is going to bring you from the arcade building to the parking lot, which was behind Tommy's, which would then also lead to Waybasa. That makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah. No, I think it's, I think the layout, the structure of the buildings are still the same. Obviously it's a little different now, but I do believe that wall is still there. And now, honestly, I want to go find it. And when we might have to do that, we might have to be a little side quest

when you're here. Oh, I'm down for a side quest. You know, that might be something we have to go check to see if that wall is still there. So Amy is sitting on that low wall and Jason standing in front of her. They're talking. His Ford Explorer is behind them parked. He's got the door open because he's still playing music. And so you can hear the music streaming through the open door of his Ford Explorer. I love how you said streaming there. Yeah, it's streaming.

That's it. Back then, Jason and Amy would be like streaming. What are we talking about? I mean, it was streaming in a different way. Yeah, streaming in a different way. Playing. It was playing. Yes, you could still hear it as you were standing in the parking lot because he was playing it loud enough for ambiance. So the couple, they were so engrossed in their conversation and flirtation that they didn't notice that they were being noticed. And they were being noticed by a lot of people, actually. So at 1.55 a.m., Providence police officer John Lau was responding to a call in the area when he saw

two people talking next to a white Ford Explorer near the arcade building. At that time, he didn't stop, even though he said he felt it was odd that these two young people were there alone, talking in the open like that at that time of night in this kind of like empty parking lot. And he's just like make it just making a little note in his head. Like that's kind of odd. Yeah. Can I say one more thing, by the way? Yeah.

To kind of bring it back to them being watched because I hope Shannon, we can throw a bigger map where you zoom out here. But you mentioned Kennedy Plaza earlier, which is where they were kind of the five were hanging out. Kennedy Plaza for a five minute walk. There's actually a street there that you can get across. You can either take Dorrance, which would bring you right to Westminster, where, which is where the arcade is, or there's actually arcade street that runs between Kennedy Plaza and it's, it's off of

Fulton street. So Fulton is connected to Westminster through Arcade Street or Dorrance. So when we're talking about where the five were and where we now have Jason and Amy, it's a four or five minute walk. So as they were looking for people to rob in that area of Kennedy Plaza, they must have kind of gravitated toward Westminster because you have a lot of people who are drunk and hanging out over in that area and are susceptible to this type of crime. Oh, dude, these five are going to be all over downtown Providence that night. Oh, yeah. Just looking for the perfect victim. That's right. But this is all in the same vicinity. We're not. Yes. When you're describing this, it sounds like completely different places. It's all close to each other. And we'll have that map up. So you guys kind of have a visual of what we're talking about here. But as you would imagine, Rhode Island, it is Providence.

It's a big city for us at least, but it's relatively small comparatively speaking. Rhode Island is relatively small, yeah. To New York. Yeah. It's a lot different. Yeah, well, Rhode Island is pretty small. It's small. It's small, yeah.

Everything's close by. So it's a big city in a small state, so it's still small. Yeah, which makes it small. Yeah. But where they all are, we're talking walking distance. So John Lau, this police officer, he sees them at 155 on two at 210 a.m. When he's on his way back from the call, he was on his way to another call at bar one, which is a few blocks away. He saw Amy and Jason in the parking lot still talking again. This was at 210 a.m.

Now, surveillance footage from an alley off of Waybosset Street captured two men walking towards the parking lot of Tommy's. One was wearing a dark leather jacket, and the other was wearing a white t-shirt and a baseball cap turned backwards. These two men were Gregory Floyd and Harry Burdick, who'd been striking out that night in the crime game. So earlier, after searching and failing to find their initial target, which was that drug addict with a lot of money, Floyd, Burdick, and their three associates had prowled around the city trying to find someone else to rob. And Harry Burdick also had it in his head that they should be stealing a car.

So Sammy's beige Chevy Nova was too large and noticeable. It was old and beat up. The driver's side quarter panel was discolored with gray bondo, and the door on that side was also dented. And they'd already been spotted by law enforcement earlier that night as they were driving down Pine Street. And they were spotted by the same cop who saw Jason and Amy. This was Providence patrolman John Lau, and he'd seen them drive by as he was standing outside of Challenges, which was a sports club

where fights were known to break out. So basically it seemed like if John Lau wasn't actively responding to calls that night, he was sort of just hanging out in areas of downtown Providence where he knew maybe trouble would happen and he could be there to respond to it. Now, Harry Burdick

had already missed his last bus back to Pawtucket and he needed a ride home. But the Nova had no gas and surprise, surprise, none of these clowns had any money to fill the tank. On top of that, Sammy Sanchez and Raymond Anderson, they really didn't like Harry Burdick. He was too loud and obnoxious. He kind of always just seemed to be around when you didn't want him to be around. He acted tough when they knew he wasn't tough. And Sanchez had already flatly refused to drive him home because I guess Burdick had been dropping like hints all night. Like, oh man, I missed the bus.

How am I going to get home? I really need a ride home. And I guess at some point Sanchez was like, I'm not bringing your ass home. So like, shut up about it. Like, it's not going to happen. You're weird. I don not bringing your ass home, so shut up about it. It's not going to happen. You're weird. I don't like you. Figure it out. So what they did is they were like, let's get rid of this car because it's just too noticeable. We've already been spotted by law enforcement. So they parked the Nova in the lot behind Saki's, and then they set off on foot looking for a victim

to rob and now looking for a car to steal. They spotted their first potential target as they walked west on Pine Street back towards Challenges. This was an area they knew was going to be very busy and rife with drunk, oblivious people at that time of night. Now, as they walked, Day spotted a tall man who was by himself. He was talking on a cell phone as he walked. And what does Derek always say? Derek literally always says, like, don't be on your phone when you're walking. And this is a man, you know, this double goes for women. And I hate to say it, and I don't want them to be like, oh, we're equal. In this, we're not, because women are going to be targeted far more than men. Women alone are going to be targeted far more than men. And if you're distracted by your phone or wearing

your AirPods or headphones, you're going to be targeted even more because you're not paying attention to your surroundings. And this is exactly why Derek always says, pay attention to your surroundings, because this tall dude, he's on his phone. He doesn't realize he's being cased by these five men walking behind him. He's not aware. Yeah. And this is another thing. I'm starting to remember the book a little bit. If you have the chance and i we will have the book and i'm going to give it to stephanie but there are some images in that book i was trying to look them up online uh videos and stuff like that video when you were talking about seeing him in the leather jacket walking around they have that footage and that footage has been released publicly i can't find it online i know i saw it

by the way because i was i watched it in the I watched it in the seminar that we had for the training. But I also think there might be stills of it in the book. I don't know how we would put that online here. It wouldn't look great. But if you're fascinated by this case and you want to learn more about it, you want to get all the specifics of how they solved it because we're covering it from a generic level. We're not going into every single page like the detective did, but there are images in that book as well. We'll try to get them. If not, thrill killers, if you want to see them, that's where they are. I have the book that I talked about, The Murder Without Motive on Kindle. So I'm going to check and see if there's photos and if there are, I'll screenshot them. That'd be the way to go. But there are definitely screen

grabs of the things you're describing. So these five men, they're behind this tall guy walking on his phone and they're like, oh, perfect target. We'll grab him. He's alone. He's distracted. But then the tall guy, within just a couple of minutes, met up with a group of people that he looked like he was previously planning to meet up with. So the gang of five men had to pivot.

They kind of were like, ah, this isn't going to work. And they scattered and then came back together. Next, the gang of five men headed to the Cactus Grill at Duval Square. But once again, it was far too crowded there. They saw police officers everywhere. And they're like, this isn't going to work. You know, it's just there's too many people, too many opportunities to be spotted and there's cops everywhere. So let's abandon this plan and go someplace else. So at that point, the group crossed the Point Street Bridge heading east towards the waterfront where bootleggers was. Yeah. Point Street Bridge actually is still there now. It's been redone. I took my daughters there during the summer, got some ice cream. And it's upsetting because you have this connected to this tragedy, but yet it's so beautiful now.

When we go down there, you're going to see it. So unfortunate. It's unfortunate, but it's a nice area now. All right. So when we're talking about Westminster and Waybosset, that's in one part of Providence. And then when we talk about, um, where they're going and they're crossing the bridge, this would be what, like the river walk area. Yeah. Kind of, kind of like that. It's not immediately where, uh, it's not immediately

where Kennedy plazas you, it's a little bit further away at this point. Um, it's along that canal area. Obviously you have the body of water. So still in the vicinity, I guess, relative to the Providence, but not as close as what I was describing earlier. And so it wouldn't, it would still be walkable. It's still walking distance. Yes, it's walking distance. But if we're talking about from the arcade, it's only about a five minute drive because you're going to go over the bridge. You're going to go, well, if you're coming down this dire street, right? So if you're going from the arcade, they obviously, they went down Dyer street and then that turns into Eddie street. And from Eddie

street, you would take point street, which goes over the Providence river. That's the point street bridge that you're referring to. And then from the point street Bridge is where bootleggers would be at that time. And that's India Street. So it's all over there. But I would say if it was a direct walk, it's probably about a 20, 25 minute walk, but only- 26 minutes, according to Google Maps. Boom. Boom. Look at that. But only five minutes in a car. So- Which is crazy if you think about it. It's a little bit of a hike. But- Yeah. why are you walking that far? But this is the epitome of a crime of opportunity. And I know it's hard for normal

people like us to be like, what, you just go out in a city looking to commit a crime and waiting for your opportunity to arise. Yes, there's people who literally do that. They don't get up in the morning with a crime in mind. They're just like, I'm going to commit a crime today and I'm going to wait for my opportunity to show itself. This is what these five guys were doing. And back in the day, you know, 2000, not too long ago, but more people were walking around that area. Now everyone takes a car, but that's kind of the layout and we will, we can blow it out. Obviously Shannon's hearing all this too. We'll have an image, another Google map. You can see, you can see it for yourself, not completely out of the

possibility. That's clearly what they did. And based on them kind of going from one point to the other, looking for a target, it's kind of just where they gravitated towards knowing that that's where the crowds would be. That's where the targets would be accessible. It reminds me of a pack of predators, just like prowling around the jungle or the plains looking for something to kill. And that's what I always say to you guys. And you said it, it's not necessarily that they're going out looking for you. They're looking for someone who's susceptible to a crime and you can in some way,

make yourself that person by the way you're pre you present yourself. Or you can make yourself not that person. Or you could exactly. You travel in a group, you travel with, you know, you're looking around, you're aware of your surroundings. You're not on your phone. Or you can make yourself not that person. make you less enticing to a criminal, which it's scary that we have to think that way, but it's almost like in the jungle, right? You want to present yourself to the predator as someone who's not the best person to the best animal to attack. And so that's what you're doing here. So even though you might have good intentions, you don't know who's around you and what they're thinking about. So you always want to at least represent yourself as someone who's aware of what's going on, can defend themselves if need be, and has the capability of getting

away before you get the drop on them. So those are little things that you can do to decrease the odds that you could become susceptible to a crime. Yes. Yes, absolutely. I think that's a really important takeaway from this. Let's take our last break. We'll be right back. Okay. So these five guys, they head over the Point Street Bridge. They're looking for people, but not a lot of people altogether. They want the numbers. They want to have the numbers. They want to be able to isolate a lone victim and then just say, hey, we, Hey, we, we have you in numbers and we have

a gun. So what are you going to do? And again, just like the jungle, jungle analogy I gave you, you see hyenas, all this stuff, they, they travel in packs. They're looking for that analogy, but you, you made me. Okay. Okay. Well, I did say the animal looks like the jungle and it's like, they're looking for the people that they can take advantage of because they don't have, they can't protect themselves. What is, what do, what do they always do? These, these predators, they look for the one that they can take advantage of because they can't protect themselves. What do they always do, these predators? They look for the one that got separated from the pack. Yeah, the weak one. The one that's injured or slower.

Yeah. Don't be that guy that gets separated from the pack. Yeah. Don't be that person as best as you can. Because once you're there and you realize that you're that person, it's too late. Yes, exactly. And in some cases, hopefully, the worst that happens is you get robbed. That's best case scenario. In Amy and Jason situation, that's not what happened. No,

no. So they go to the other side of the river, but even on the other side of the river, it was too crowded. I mean, it's June, right? Like you said, there's a lot of people out. There's a lot of people walking around. It's a nice weather. It's party night. There's going to be tons of people everywhere. And they were like, man, there's tons of cops over here too. So they headed back to Weybasa. And I once again want to point out that a lot of times we hear things like, oh, police presence doesn't deter criminals. Yes, it does. Right? So if you've got a ton of patrol men out there, whether they're on foot or in their cars, just seeing that there's a high concentration of law enforcement in an area will deter a criminal from committing a crime in that area.

They're going to look for a place where there's not as many police officers or hopefully for them, none. Yeah, no, it definitely does. And they're looking for the easy, accessible angle where the path of least resistance. So more law enforcement. And I can tell you now there's the hot club over there now. There's also, I think it's called Whiskey Republic or it used to be Whiskey Republic, but that's over there right now. It's right on the water. I've gone there a few times, India street. There's a bridge right under there. That's where the old bootleggers was.

There's always a cop parked under there now. Always. It doesn't matter what time of day or night, especially on the weekends, there's a patrol car there. Well, thanks for letting me know. You're welcome. So they head back to Weyboset, right? Their old stomping grounds is what they're familiar with. They go back there. As they walked, the men saw a red sports car pull up at the curb in front of Hemingway's Seafood Grill and Oyster Bar on South Main Street. Didn't you bring me there once when I was in Rhode Island? I think we went to Capitol Grill. We talked about Hemingway's.

Oh, we did go to Capitol Grill. Yeah. That was delicious steak. Yeah. It was really good. Shout out Capitol Grill. So they see this red sports car pull up in front of Hemingway's. They watched as two women got out of the car because these women wanted to use the ATM,

which was on the side of the building that the restaurant was housed in. And as the women approached the ATM, a man got out of the driver's side of the car, walked over to some bushes to relieve himself. Now the plan for these five men watching, they were gonna split up. Half of them were gonna rob the women at the ATM.

The other half were gonna act as lookouts and also wait for an opportunity where they might be able to overpower the man who was peeing, rob him, and then take the car. So Gregory Floyd stood behind the women at the ATM, and one of them, her name was Colleen Valentine. She'd been drinking that night, you know, like everyone else. She was having some trouble typing in her PIN correctly. So she kept typing in the PIN, and it would say incorrect, incorrect. Gregory Floyd over here, he's getting kind of antsy and this went on for a few minutes, but this plan had to once again be abandoned because Thomas Ventasenke, who was a security guard working in the Providence, Washington building on South Main, he actually stepped outside. He saw this going down. He thought it was suspicious and he shouted out a warning to Colleen like, yo, lady, you're about

to be robbed. Keep your wits about you. So when this happened, which was at approximately 1.19 a.m., the five guys, they knew they'd been kind of made, and then they scattered again, and they ran off. A security camera outside of Textron captured the five men walking away from that area on South Main. They turned onto Westminster and headed back in the direction of Waybosset at 1.23 a.m. Outside of Saki's Pizza, several Providence police officers were dealing with a belligerent and drunk woman, and the five men kind of watched the scene unfold for a few minutes. But that whole incident wrapped up really quick, and then they were like, we're bored. We're going to call it a night.

Nothing happened. We're going to head home. But Harry Burdick, he was not going to give up so easily. Because remember, he had no way to get back to Pawtucket. He told the others he was going to run inside of Saki's to use the bathroom. And the second he was gone, the other four dudes were like, we're out of here. They rushed to the car because they planned to leave him there. Good friends.

Rather than have this awkward conversation of like no one wanting to bring him home and having him just be annoying about it. So they were like, let's just take off. We'll figure this out later. Like I said, not really friends, criminals who knew each other through criminal stuff. Yeah. So somehow, and this is why these guys really didn't like him, is no matter how many times they tried to ditch him, he always ended up back where they didn't want him to be. And he managed to get out of Saki's and into the Chevy Nova before they were able to ditch him. Hey, guys, let's take the cartoon where they get in the car like, oh, we got rid of him. And he pops up in the backseat. Hey, guys, I'm back here.

Don't worry. That's exactly how they made it sound. Like, they were like, ha-ha, we did it. And then he, like, apparated in the back backseat and he was like, what did you forget about me? He's like, oh, I almost missed you guys there. Oh, you almost left without me. I'm sure you didn't mean to do that.

So he gets in the backseat of the Chevy Nova, which really annoyed Sammy Sanchez. And after he got in the car, Harry Burdick handed Floyd a bunch of latex gloves that he'd stolen while he was in Saki's and Floyd quietly put them into his pocket. Now as the men in the Nova drove by the arcade building they also saw Amy and Jason chatting in the parking lot behind Tommy's but they'd already seen them earlier when Jason and Amy and their friends had left Tommy's and they were walking to Jason's car to drive to bootleggers. It was actually Jason's white Ford Explorer that had caught their eye because they were like, hey, that would be a great car to steal. It can fit all of us, comfort and luxury, four-wheel drive in case this is a good car to steal.

So Floyd and Burdick decided to approach Amy and Jason in the parking lot. They were going to rob them of their money, whatever money they had, and then take their car and leave them there. While the other three that were in Sanchez's Nova kind of pulled around the block and kind of just kept circling until they saw Burdick and Floyd leave in the white SUV. And then they're going to follow them. So the two men creeped through that alley, which led to the back of Tommy's parking lot. And it kind of came out right where Amy was sitting on the wall. So they were able to kind of have the element of surprise. And they approached these two people and they're like, give us your money, right? But Amy and Jason, they're like 20 and

21 years old. They don't have any money. They don't have the kind of money that these people wanted. And so as this exchange went down, some headlights swept over the parking lot. This spooked Floyd and Burdick. They were like, oh, someone's coming. And so they pulled out their gun and they demanded that Amy and Jason get into the backseat of the Florida Explorer, which they did at gunpoint. So then Floyd got into the driver's seat, Burdick got into the passenger seat, and they drove off signaling Sanchez in his Nova to follow them. I just want to pause here real quick. And you guys know how I feel about these cases. And I'm never coming from the perspective of victim blaming, because in that moment, who knows what you're going to do. But this case and

many other cases are our prime example why if you are ever presented with a similar situation, and I hope you never are, if this is the threat that's being made where they're asking you to get inside a vehicle, please do not do it. Statistically speaking, it will not end well for you. And the hope is that they're just threatening you and they're not actually going to do anything at that moment because it's too populated of an area. If they fire their weapon, someone's going to hear it, whether that's a police officer or a witness. So they're less likely to actually shoot you in that moment. And in this case, if we're going to talk about it specifically, there's two of you, I would even employ you to run in maybe the opposite direction just to try to throw them off a little bit, but don't go too far from each other because if they do give chase, then

you're going to be alone. So there's no perfect scenario, but I can tell you definitively from all the cases we've covered here on Crime Weekly and all the cases that I've researched and I've worked in my career, don't get into the car, whether it's a carjacking or robbery, et cetera, it's not going to end well. You're not going to be able to talk your way out of it. Yes, there's a small possibility that they could potentially drop you off somewhere, but if they're pulling a gun on you and it's the middle of the night, now you know their face, getting in the car is not the way to do it. Now I'm not blaming Jason and Amy. They were young kids. They didn't expect this. How would you have known? I say this to you all now because part of the reason I believe you come to hear or watch these episodes is to learn something, just like you would in a history class, so that we don't repeat some of these things that happen. And this is one thing where if they hadn't gotten the car, I do wonder to this day, would we be sitting here talking about Amy and Jason? I don't know, but I would have loved to have that opportunity to find out. So that's what

I was going to say. If you're not getting in the car, you suggest just running, even though you know they have a gun. That's a very hard thing to ask people to do. It is. It is. Run, walk away. I would run. If I were by myself, I would obviously run. I'd maybe go in like a zigzag pattern, do something, see if they follow. And if they do, I'm trying to run to a populated area. I'm not running down an alleyway. If I know the area that I'm in, I'm trying to go to an area where there's going to be a lot of people because even if it's not cops, they're less likely to follow because the more they follow me,

the more people that see them, the more likely they are to be caught. They approached you because you were alone. Change that for them. So yes, if it were me, I would run. I wouldn't walk because they could grab you and throw you in the car. You got to run.

You got to get away from them. Don't let them take you to a secondary location. Secondary location. And the further, the bigger the car, you got to run. You got to get away from them. Don't let them take you to a secondary location. Secondary location. And the further, the bigger the gap between you and them, the less likely they are to continue the chase. And that's the hope. And you know what I would, again, hindsight's 20-20.

But if I'm sitting there and I got my keys in my pocket or they're in my hand and they're saying, hey, get in the truck. I'm throwing my keys at them and I'm running. Yeah. Here's the keys. No, I'm not getting in the car with you I'm running but you're but you're afraid because they have a gun and you don't want to get shot in the back as you're Running away, but getting in the car is probably gonna lead to the same outcome

Statistically speaking. That's my point. You have a better chance of survival and now now you're with them longer You've seen their faces, you know their voices You have no control actually personally as morbid as this sounds, I would rather get shot in the back running away than allow them to take me somewhere and do whatever they want. And do what they did to Amy and Jason, which we're going to talk about that. But I don't want to find out. I would much rather. And, and if we're really diving into it, if you're running away and you're doing a little bit of a zigzag, I mean, obviously don't run in a straight line.

Try to throw them off a little bit. Even if they did shoot you, you're hoping that the injury isn't fatal, that it's, you know, the hip or the leg or something where you can still survive. But if you allow them to bring you somewhere, it's not, it's more than likely not going to be the case. So for me, I'm going to take my chances. I'm not getting in the car with anyone. And even at a carjacking situation where you're in the car, I've suggested before, if that

happens, you get out of the car. Go away. They make you move over to the passenger seat. I'm opening that door and I'm jumping out that side. If I get hit by a car, I get hit by a car. I'm not going anywhere with them. That's my point here. And I knew this was coming up and this was a point

that we're going to have to discuss. You take anything from this episode and you learn anything from this tragedy, this would be the point that I'd want you to remember. Yeah. I was even thinking just do something weird that they don't expect. They come up and they're like, oh, hey, we're taking your car. I'd be like, oh my God, thank you so much. I've been trying to get the insurance money for this. Here's the keys. Take it. Let's call it. That'd be amazing thinking. Yeah. Act like you're their friend and you're like, okay, absolutely. Please take this. I've been trying to get rid of this thing. I have to get the engine fixed. I want to get rid of it anyways. Take it off my hands. I can claim the insurance. Just completely something that they

wouldn't expect because they expect you to be scared. They expect you to try to run or they expect you to cower, freeze, whatever. And just, and then you're going to have them thinking like, what the heck's going on with this person? You know, like what's the deal here? And in those moments where they're confused, now you have the opportunity to, to get away and you have a little bit of the upper hand. Just remember distance is your friend. As soon as that interaction happens, you want to start stepping back. You want to walk backwards. And then as soon as you get the opportunity, boom, you take off. You take off like your life depends on it because it probably does.

That's what you got to do. Create that distance. It's more of a deterrent for them to follow. So they pull out in the Ford Explorer and they go the wrong way down a one-way street. And at 2.15 a.m., Providence patrolman John Lau drove by Tommy's again. And this time he noticed that Jason and Amy, along with the Ford Explorer, were gone. But then he saw that same Ford Explorer headed east on way Bossett, accelerating as it approached Westminster.

And Lau was traveling west on that same street. And the Explorer, like I said, is driving the wrong way down that street. Lau was in a marked patrol car. And as the explorer approached, obviously, they saw that he was a police officer. So they slowed down. And then Lau said he was able to see the same Chevy Nova he'd spotted earlier because he saw the dent and he saw the color of the car. And it was very noticeable, which is what those five men were worried about to begin with. He saw that that Nova was following behind the Florida Explorer.

And inside the Nova, Lau could see two black males and one Hispanic male. And he also saw a black male driving the Ford Explorer with a white male in the passenger seat. Now, Lau was able to make out that there was two figures in the back seat of the Explorer, but he could not make out their features. He couldn't really describe them. As the Explorer passed Lau, the man driving, who was Floyd, he stuck his hand out the window and waved to the police officer. And even though the Explorer was driving the wrong way, and even though the whole scene didn't really make any sense,

Lau claimed that all the clubs and bars were letting out at that time, and he didn't see anything that suspicious about the scenario. This man should have pulled them over, okay? Because not only is it suspicious, you see these two kids in the parking lot in the Ford Explorer. Earlier, you see the Chevy Nova, and you're like, huh, that car stands out to me, and those people in it are kind of suspicious. Now you see these two cars together driving the wrong way. Even if you don't think to yourself like, oh, there's a carjacking happened. You think to yourself, hey, whoever's driving these cars down the wrong way of the street are probably drunk. I should pull them over. Correct. They're breaking the law. Correct. But instead he's like, yeah, go on you crazy kids. Yeah. I remember having this discussion in, uh, in the class and it's, uh,

you know, there are times as a patrolman where you see a traffic infraction and you won't, you won't act on it because something more urgent is coming up. But to your point, it's late at night. You've already had a couple different things raise your suspicion. This person that's driving the wrong way could be drunk, but at minimum, they're driving the wrong way and could strike another vehicle, an oncoming vehicle and hurt that person or that family that's driving home. So for that reason alone, you would want to flag them down, pull them over and just let them know, hey, you're going the wrong way. Now, I didn't have the chance to speak to Lau and I really do hope in my heart that that was the true reason and that he wasn't just being lazy, that he felt like he had to get to the clubs.

But I can tell you this much. I don't know the guy, but man, do you think he wishes he had that moment back? Do you think how many times he thought about that moment over the years based on what you know about this case that our audience doesn't? Of course. Can you imagine having that guilt and that burden on you? Yeah, hindsight is 20-20. But can you imagine that, right? I don't know how I would do it.

Because right there, another moment where if it's a binary, stop them or not, yes or no, you stop them, this all comes to an end, more than likely. You don't, and we end up losing two young people. So it's just, this case is so infuriating. It really is. And I remember that's why they wanted us to hear about it, because as detectives, that's not necessarily our job,

but this was something that was emphasized by our professors, by our instructors. That decision because you're tired or you feel like something else is more important, where you say it's just a routine traffic infraction. Eh, I don't need to do anything. Imagine. That's a burden to carry. I'll tell you that much. And I'm sure he did. I would hope so. He didn't seem like a bad cop.

I don't even know if he stayed on as a cop. I don't even know. He seemed on top of it all night. He's hanging out in places where he thinks stuff might go down. He's paying attention to different vehicles, what he sees. He's not a bad cop, but it's 2.15 in the morning. He's like, hey, everyone's leaving the bars. And that does happen. We do always gravitate towards the bars and clubs. Yeah.

But man, you got to act. You got to act. Well, John Lau did not act. He kept driving. And so did the Explorer and the Nova right to the Buttonhole Golf Course, which at that time was under construction. And this is where Jason Bergeson and Amy Shute would meet their tragic fate. And that's where we end today with this portion of the story. Yeah, there's a lot of information in between, right, that we got to talk about.

You're kind of going ahead. But there's a lot that went down. and then obviously how this case was ultimately concluded. I don't want to give too much away here, but please stick with us. There's a lot more to this story and we got some information where you're going to want to hear it for sure. Yeah, this is a tragic case and made more tragic by the fact that at multiple junctures, it was unavoidable. It was avoidable. It was avoidable. Yes. Yeah. I agree. No, there's a lot more to cover. There's a lot of details

that have come out about this case and what transpired after Jason and Amy were picked up. And some of it's going to be tough to hear for sure, but we're going to go over it all. I don't even know. It's so tough because you don't even know how much of it's really true. You don't, you know, obviously we cannot hear from amy and jason that's right we only know what these five men would tell us happened after they got picked up but if they're lying about it and it's worse than what they said happened imagine imagine because the version we have is pretty is horrible it's bad yeah we're gonna go over it all. Obviously, tough one. And appreciate you guys sticking with us.

If you made it to, I'm going to try to end this episode on a positive note. How about we do that? So I did say at the top of this show that if Stephanie and I are going to be together, well, this episode's coming out on Friday, so I can actually say it. I'm going to be on Traders this season. And Stephanie's known all along. I flew over to Scotland. And if you're not familiar- After CrimeCon last year. After CrimeCon, literally took a flight. This is the first time I can talk about it publicly, but literally took a flight from CrimeCon to Scotland and entered this crazy game called

Traders. And the short version is it's almost like Clue. I went into the house with a bunch of reality stars, and basically they secretly pick a couple people to be traitors, and then the rest of the house are faithful, and ultimately we have to figure out who the traitors are before they murder us. It kind of sounds like Among Us, the game. It kind of is like the game. It is.

It is. It is. It is like the game, but there's a lot more to it. It was a hell of a ride. Stephanie kind of knows a little bit of what went down out there. So I'm interested in you guys checking it out. It's the first time I've been back on reality TV since big brother. So if you made it to the end of the episode, you're the first to hear it on, on crime weekly, but it was a lot of fun. I actually had to, we bulk recorded. Stephanie was a hero. We bulk recorded all the episodes, uh, before I left.

So basically you guys didn't even notice that I was gone. That was crazy. That was, that was, you were a champ on that one. I really appreciate you for that. But it was, uh, it was a good time in the premiere as you're listening to this just came out earlier tonight on Peacock. So if you want to check it out, the first three episodes are already out on Peacock right now. There'll be a new episode every week and you can see how I made out. Was I a traitor? Was I a faithful? If you already watched the episode, then you know, and we'll see depending on what I am, how far I make it, but it was a lot of fun. And you might see me take some really good diggers and stuff because we were doing some physical comps. So I'm sure that Stephanie will be memeing

that and posting it on her own social pages. You would too. Yeah, I would. You would. I would. Any final thoughts other than that? If you made it to the end of the episode, and if you did, put a sword in the comments because that's the logo for Traders. So put a sword in the comments. All right. I'm excited. Any final words from you? No, no, no. But when I am in Rhode Island, we're going to go to some of these spots so that when we film the next episode, I have a better understanding of the lay of the land. You could even take some, we could take some photos. I think that's a great idea. Yeah. Obviously we're going to be there. We're having a little premiere party and ironically it's right near where this all went down. It's right around the corner. There's a

new building there now, but we're going to be at this, uh, this place having the party. And then it's probably about a five, 10 minute walk. walk but if we remember and we haven't had too many celebratory drinks we could take a walk over there but we also don't want to be over there by ourselves so we will figure it out and uh if we have an opportunity we can just take everybody with us yeah you guys just all meet us there we're just gonna do a tour of the area but um it's kind of like when they bring a jury to the scene you know that's what we'll be doing we'll make the walk walk too from the arcade to Point Street. It's not June, so. It's pretty cold.

There's a pizza place over there that's amazing though, so it might be worth the walk. Fellini, shout out Fellini's. We can drive. All right. Guys, we appreciate you being here. Like, comment, subscribe. Give us your input on the episode. What do you think about it?

I had given some suggestions on how to better protect yourself. If you have some suggestions, maybe some experiences that you've been through, please share them. Let us know what happened because we can all learn from this. Until then, everyone stay safe out there and we'll see you next week. Bye.