Crime Weekly - S3 Ep283: J.C. McGhee: Home Invasion or Contract Hit? (Part 1)

Episode Date: March 14, 2025

On the morning of July 11, 2002, 16-year-old Alyssa McGhee was jolted awake by the sound of a gunshot and her father’s scream. She rushed into the living room and found 45-year-old JC McGhee lying on the floor, covered in blood. Minutes later, just next door, JC’s nephew Omar Foston called 911 to report that his house had been invaded, his family had been tied up, and his attackers were still inside. As police arrived to investigate, they quickly realized this wasn’t your average robbery gone wrong—there were layers to this case, from a high-stakes custody battle to JC’s work as a confidential informant. And as investigators dug deeper, it became clear that there were several possible suspects, including family members. We're coming to CrimeCon Denver! Use our code CRIMEWEEKLY for 10% off your tickets! https://www.crimecon.com/CC25 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. FactorMeals.com/FactorPodcast - Use code FACTORPODCAST to get 50% off your first box and FREE shipping! 2. SKIMS.com/CrimeWeekly - Shop SKIMS best intimates including the Fits Everybody Collection! #SKIMSPartner 3. RocketMoney.com/CrimeWeekly - Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money! 4. SimpliSafe.com/CrimeWeekly - Save up to 50% on any SimpliSafe System with a Fast Protect Plan!

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apply. On the morning of July 11th, 2002, 16-year-old Alyssa McGee was jolted awake by the sound of a gunshot and her father's scream. She rushed into the living room and found 45-year-old J.C. McGee lying on the floor covered in blood. Minutes later, just next door, J.C.'s nephew, Omar Faustin, called 911 to report that his house had been invaded, his family had been tied up, and his attackers were still inside. As police arrived to investigate, they quickly realized this wasn't your average robbery gone wrong. There were layers to this case, from a high-stakes custody battle to J.C.'s work as a confidential informant, and as investigators dug deeper, it became clear that there were several possible suspects, including family members.

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. And as you heard from the teaser, we are jumping into a completely new case today. Yes. Yes, we are. And it's long overdue. A friend of ours, Madison McGee, we met her years ago at CrimeCon. This is the case we're talking about is JC's her father. And she actually has a podcast as well called ice cold case where she's going over her father's murder and everything involved with it and trying to get justice. And we talked about this case a long time ago and we said, Hey, we want to cover it at some point.

Originally I was thinking about covering it on detective perspective because it is an unsolved case, but there's so much here. It's an, and, and detective perspectives, a soundbite it's so much here. And Detective Perspective is a soundbite. It's 45 minutes tops. This really needed a deep dive. And obviously Stephanie knows Madison as well. So we wanted to do this case justice and we're going to cover it as best as we can. I will say right off the jump here, Madison has spent her entire life covering this case and studying this case and researching this case.

So although we're going to do the best we can, if you really want to hear everything, you need to go check out Ice Cold Case because obviously she's going to have more information than when we have, but we will do our best to cover everything we can. She's going to have a different perspective too, obviously. Of course, of course. So a different drive there as well, right? It's, you know, so it's, it's, she's trying to get justice for her dad. So we're going to get into it. We'll cover it as best as we can. We'll give our thoughts on it. Madison is genuinely interested in our opinions on this case. Maybe there's something that we see or hear that we look from a different perspective and it leads to some new information that results in a, in a positive outcome in this case. Maybe it comes

from one of you guys. So looking forward to covering it. And we are going to dive right in. But before we do, I know that there was a quick note, Derek wanted to. Quick note. I was on vacation, so we had banked a couple episodes. So the time was a little bit off. But as of right now, when we're recording this, it's March 10th. Criminal Coffee, our new limited edition switcher, the St. Paddy's Day edition switcher. If you're watching on YouTube, you can see it right now. Got the little clover as the O in coffee. Got the clover on the sleeve as well. Pretty cool. We only have 250 of these pieces left. That's it. We're not ordering more. Once they go, they go. This is not a presale. They're currently in the building as we speak. So if you see it on the website, we have it. Head on over to criminalcoffeeco.com. Check it out.

I've already seen a bunch of people tag us with these sweatshirts on Instagram. So that's very cool to see. They're really cool. I like them. Yeah. I love it. As someone who has a little Irish in them, I love the sweatshirt. I'm a fan of it. I was just wearing it before I came in. Yeah. I love the colors too. The white, the green, the orange. It's very cool. Very cool. All right. So without further ado, let's talk about this case. And we'll start off telling you a little bit about the victim in this case, John Cornelius McGee, who went by JC. JC was born on May 4th, 1957 in Wheeling, West Virginia to parents Daisy and Charles. He grew up in a large family with eight siblings, surrounded by cousins, nieces, and nephews.

As an adult, J.C. had a big family of his own. He had several children with different women, though the exact number remains uncertain. His youngest daughter, Madison, who he worked with on this series, she said that while she wasn't sure of all her siblings, she believes J.C. had two children when he was a teenager, but they haven't done a paternity test. There's also rumors of other children, though nothing has been confirmed. Madison herself is positive about six children. That includes her.

So there's Madison, Kathy, Joel, Yolanda, Alyssa, and Shane. So JC and Madison's mother were never married, and by the time he was killed, they had already separated. However, they did remain on good terms, and J.C. helped Madison's mother when she was struggling with money or drug dependency. Madison spent the majority of her childhood being passed back and forth between her parents, and she was also raised by her grandmother. Because she was so young when her father died, Madison's memories of him are mostly positive and shaped by her age at the time. She remembers her dad being funny and musical, and she has fond memories of him singing along to Nelly's Hot In Here album in the car. And as an adult, Madison began investigating her dad's murder, and that's when she started learning more about the kind of person he was, someone who

was always willing to help others. JC frequently bought dinner for people in need and opened his home to those who were going through tough times. Many of the people he helped were people that he met through AA or NA, people who were trying to get back on their feet. But not everything Madison learned was what most daughters would want to know about their dads. She told us that she's learned things that no one wants to know about their parents, should never know about their parents, and probably will never know about their parents. All of this has led her to look at her dad as more of a friend than a parent. Yeah, you know, and I can relate to Madison when it comes to investigations like this,

because even I'll give a more basic example. We do a lot of air searches at break where we're trying to find living relatives. And it's interesting because when I first start the case, you'll just see the name Joe Smith and you'll see a date of birth and when they died. Right. And then you start to try to map out their family tree. And as you're doing that, it's telling you a story. It's not just names. You also see marriages and then you look on their social media, you'll see the trip they went on to, you know, the Bermuda or the family members they had or what they were into as far as like race car driving. And so it starts to tell you a story about this person where now they're three dimensional. And I can only imagine what that experience would be like for someone who's

looking into their father or their mother, and they don't know much about him going into it. But now as they're doing research for a really horrific incident, they're actually learning about who they were as a person. And I think that I speak for you as a researcher and a writer yourself that you probably feel that as well when you start to, you know, you know the headline, right? You know why we're covering it. And you always do a great job of this by adding in things about the victim as a person, because it's important to remember those things as well, where I'm sure by the time you're done, you feel like you know these people. Yeah. It's important for me in doing the research because now I'm invested. So I always start with kind of figuring out what their life was like, who were they, small details,

you know, where do they live? What do they like to do? What was their dynamic like with their family? Things that are relatable to us as humans. So now I'm invested. And as I go through the crime itself, the victim is a tangible three-dimensional person to me, not just a name and a headline. Yeah, it's very important. But I would see how being a child and having to do this with your father, who you only remember from childhood and finding out, you know, we all grow and we find out our parents are not perfect and they're fallible and they have some idiosyncrasies and maybe they've done things in their life that they're not proud of. And but as she said, we never go this deep on our parents. Yeah. Yeah. We don't, we don't do that. And I don't know if I would want to, I don't, I don't want to actually. No, obviously under terrible circumstances, but I'm sure maybe Madison would disagree. You'd have to talk to her, but maybe a little silver lining in this was learning about those things, those things that she wasn't aware of where she saw her dad in person, but didn't realize some of the

things that he was doing in a positive perspective when she perspective when he wasn't around. Yeah. But then you find out all this stuff and everybody's got stuff. We all do. We all do. If you take the time to research us, you'll find some things that we may not be proud of in our past. Nobody's perfect. Yeah, absolutely. So through her research, Madison uncovered pieces of her father's past that she never expected. In the 1990s, J.C. owned a bar called Johnny Cool's in Wheeling, West Virginia, which Madison described as a fun place to be with a classic 90s vibe. But beneath the surface, things weren't exactly on the up and up.

Illegal activities like sex work and drug deals were common. And while Madison believes her dad knew what was going on, she does not think he was the ringleader. Eventually, authorities launched an investigation under the RICO Act, which is the Racketeer, Influenced, and Corrupt Organizations Act, a federal law designed to fight organized crime, and so Johnny Cools was shut down and J.C. was arrested. Facing serious charges, J.C. was offered a deal. If he cooperated and provided information on the drug trafficking operation running through the bar, he'd be released and he would avoid prosecution.

So he took the deal, testifying in court against 75 people who were ultimately indicted. And one of them was his own nephew, Rico, who was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. So right off the bat, I'm thinking here's 75 people that might want to see JC dead. Absolutely. And I do want to say one thing, and I've said this to Madison in person when she originally came to us about covering this case. She's not doing this for entertainment purposes. She wants answers. Regardless of what those answers might be, she wants to know the truth. So I put this disclaimer out there for everybody to let you know that we're going to tell our honest opinions. Even though we know

Madison personally, this isn't about covering up certain details to paint someone in a certain light. Just like on every case we cover, we're going to call it how we see it because at the end of the day, that's what matters, the truth. And I'm sure that that's what Madison wants. So going into this, as Stephanie had said before that paragraph, JC was not perfect. He did some things that we did not approve of. And we're going to cover everything, the good, bad, and the in-between. Yeah. And I mean, I don't, like you said, she does want to know the truth. She wants the truth. Yeah. So we're not going to say like, oh, we don't the in-between. Yeah, and I mean, like you said, she does want to know the truth. She wants the truth. Yeah, so we're not going to say like,

oh, we don't want to say that. We want to protect her feelings. I mean, Madison knows more about JC at this point. I'm sure she knows things that would pale next to anything we had to say because we're not just going to come out and be like, oh, what a scumbag. Clearly wasn't.

Somebody got in trouble. He took a deal that benefited himself. But in order to take that deal, he had to testify against some people who, as we know, were not above doing illegal activities. So it's a growing suspect list. And I'm so glad when you said at the end there, it's a suspect pool. When we're looking for the answers, we have to ask the question, who would want to hurt JC? And as you said, there's 75 people right off the rip. One of them being his nephew, Rico, who would have access and probably know his whereabouts, who he associates with, where he lives. Would know a lot about him. Yeah.

That's not someone you want having that type of information. And it wouldn't be the first time you'd have a relative who's the person responsible for another relative's death. I'm not saying that's the case here with Rico. Not the first time, no. And I don't know the story. I know the overview of this case, but I do not know the details. So I'm learning it right with you guys. So as expected, this decision to testify had its consequences. Within his family and beyond, JC gained a reputation as a snitch. But Madison says it wasn't like he had a choice. His back was up against the wall. In the aftermath, he found himself ostracized, not just by some of his relatives, but also by people in the community who no longer felt that he could be trusted. With his reputation damaged and no job to fall back on, J.C. needed a way to

make money. That's when he became a confidential informant for the Belmont County Sheriff's Department, which Madison was able to confirm through police records she obtained. Being an informant weighed heavily on J.C., and Madison believes the moral struggle of working with the police while living in a community that viewed him as a traitor did take a toll on J.C.'s mental health. She said, quote, my dad struggled with a lot of depression and anxiety. And I think if my dad wasn't murdered, the moral struggle would have killed him. End quote. Yeah. And this is interesting to me, obviously, from the mental aspect of it. I've worked with a lot of confidential informants and it can be very

stressful because they live in the community that they're currently working against. I do raise an eyebrow a little bit because in one sentence you're saying that he is, he's already been established as a snitch, right? And I'm just talking as a former narcotics detective. Most of the snitches that worked for us hadn't been exposed yet. Like we might arrest them for something, but they get released without charges or the court date gets pushed down the road. We want as little people as possible to know that they've been found guilty or arrested for anything because that obviously changes their credibility and people won't trust them. People won't sell drugs to them. So in one breath,

he's lost this credibility. He's lost street cred to put it more specifically. And yet he's still working as a CI. And so I could see that being kind of difficult because you already have people who don't trust you. So any house or dealer he goes to, I would assume would be extremely skeptical of him. And again, thinking from narcotics perspective, is someone like JC going to be able to infiltrate the top people? No, they were not going to let anybody who snitched on anybody else. Yeah. Is he going to be able to go as deep as he needs to go?

Yeah. So I'm guessing here, and if I'm wrong on any of this, Madison will correct me. When we're talking about as a CI, I think he's probably doing a lot of low level stuff. Street dealers, hand-to-hand transactions, just quick buys where JC is not even necessarily familiar with the person, but I had confidential informants that I would say, Hey, there's someone selling over on darling street. I need you just to walk up to them and see if you can buy from them, do a hand-to-hand. And the CI would do that. They didn't have a previous relationship, but they were street savvy. And so they had an ability to do it. And that's how those

confidential informants would work. They weren't the high level ability to do it. And that's how those confidential informants would work. They weren't the high level ones. I have to imagine that's what JC was doing based on his reputation within that community. So could he also be giving some like insight into the behind the scenes of a large operation? Cause it does seem like it was a large, like 75 people that he testified against. That's a lot of people included. So could he be kind of like maybe he only testified against these people in court and during the trial, but he has more information on them and more information on the people they work for. And so he's kind of giving that out here and there. competitors, also the manners of operation, what type of cars they use, what type of tactics they're implementing to avoid apprehension or detection. There could have been a lot of things. And yeah, if you're someone who's willing to divulge that information and help out on other cases where I would almost refer to them as a consultant, where I've definitely consulted with

former drug dealers to say, hey, we have this target. I'm not going to tell you a name, but this is what they're doing. We're getting the buy. But for some reason, they never go back to the house where the product is. How are they doing this? And they'd say, oh, they got magnets under the cars. They're putting the stuff in storage magnets under the car. Exactly. Yeah. Like a consultant. I think of Frank Abagnale in Catch Me If You Can and how he sort of- Yeah, something like that. Right? Yeah. he knew all of this information and he only gave what he needed to get his deal. But now he's got a plethora of

knowledge that he can share to go kind of deeper into the operations and how it's done because they probably a lot of these criminal organizations probably follow the same sorts of patterns and do the same tactics. Completely agree. Yeah. It's a good analogy. And so that's my guess on what JC was doing. A lot of low level stuff. But again, these are all people, even though they're just low level people, where if they're being arrested for transactions that are occurring with JC and they're able to connect the dots at trial, because a confidential witness is different than a confidential informant. Confidential informants, when we use them, we're using them in an affidavit to say,

hey, CI1 made two buys on these dates. And then we'll have to actually do, we'll get the search warrant based on that affidavit. We hit the house and then based on what we find in the house, that's what the dealer's arrested for. Not those previous buys. A confidential witness will make those buys. We can get an arrest warrant for that person. And the reason we're able to do that is because

the confidential witness will testify at court. So if he's a CI, they were trying to avoid revealing who he was, but that doesn't mean that if multiple dealers are arrested, they don't start to compare notes and realize based on the affidavit for the search warrant who they sold to on those days. Perfect. Exactly. Exactly. So there's a lot that he could be doing from the capacity of a CI and some of it could be active out on the streets. But like you said, he's not infiltrating any of these other big organizations because he has a reputation. However, it looks like he's going to sort of maybe not stay in Wheeling, West Virginia, because he was still working as a confidential informant in July of 2002 while living on Berkeley Avenue in Bridgeport, Ohio, just across the Ohio river from Wheeling, West Virginia. So maybe, you know, he moved out of the community, moved a little, a little

geographically. Yeah. That's what we did. Yeah. Didn't have such a bad reputation there. Can't be shit in where you eat. It's tough. So he might've actually worked another community where he has the savvy and he has the know-how and he knows how these groups work, where it's just what I just said. I could send a CI onto a street that they weren't familiar with. They would come back to me two hours later with three different houses that they just by communicating, using the verbiage because of their ability to know what's going on. They're able to get into those groups pretty quickly. And JC was probably a charismatic guy who was able to use his street knowledge to gain their trust from people that weren't familiar with who he was.

Yeah, because Belmont, so the Belmont County Sheriff's Department, that is in Ohio, not in Wheeling, West Virginia. So he got burned in Wheeling, but now he moves across into a different, even though it's kind of close geographically, he moves to a different area, a different state, and his reputation has not preceded him. So that would make more sense with what I was saying earlier. As far as him having your reputation as a snitch in that one community, maybe that information doesn't travel to this other area. And so he's able to go in there and start to build some relationships with some of the low-level dealers. And maybe he did get a little higher. I don't know. Well, we would never know. It's confidential. It's confidential, but I'm sure a lot of it, well, that's the question, right? Like

he was a confidential informant and I don't want to put the cart before the horse, but this is going to come into question when we start talking about his murder, because as detectives, we are responsible for the safety of our CIs. And so if a CI is killed and there's a possibility that he was killed because of the work he was doing for us, that's a big deal. That's a really big deal. But that happens a lot, right? Like it's never knock on wood happened to me, but absolutely it can happen. That is a dangerous game. And that's, that's the takeaway here as we go into this first break, right, is bottom line, JC was in a very dangerous situation and he was making a lot of enemies. And making a lot of moves. So let's take a quick break.

We'll be right back. All right. So like I said before the break, JC went ahead, left Wheeling. He moved across the Ohio River to Bridgeport, Ohio, and he lived on Berkeley Avenue in Bridgeport. And his house was actually right next door to his sister Pearl and his nephew, Omar Faustin. And he had custody of his 16-year-old daughter, Alyssa. So JC saw his other children as often as possible, including Madison, who was about to turn seven years old that same month. But tragically, all of that was about to be stolen away from him

and his family. At 6.41 a.m. on July 11th, Alyssa called 911 and reported that her father had been shot inside their home. She told the dispatcher that she was in her bedroom when she heard a pop, followed by her father screaming and the sound of something hitting the floor. Grabbing a pair of nunchucks, which is badass, by the way, she rushed into the living room less than a minute later where she found her father lying on the floor. Most of his body was in the living room, but his head and shoulders were at the head of the hallway leading to the bedrooms. He was only wearing his boxers and a chain. JC was unresponsive and Alyssa didn't think he was breathing. The front door was slightly open, about three inches, but that didn't make sense. The front door of their home was always locked.

It had two locks, one on the doorknob and a deadbolt. There was also an alarm system, but it was only used when no one was home because it would trigger if someone walked into the living room. So it kind of sounds like maybe they had motion sensors as well. If there was an alarm system that would trigger if someone walked into the living room. Yeah, that would make sense. Some type of motion system, of course. Yeah. So the dispatcher asked Alyssa if anyone else had been in the home with them, and she said no.

As far as she knew, it was just her and her father. When asked where JC had been shot, Alyssa said she couldn't tell because there was so much blood on his body, but later she said it looked like he had been shot in the head. The dispatcher then asked if she could see a gun near JC's body, and Alyssa responded that she couldn't. She explained that JC kept several guns in the house, including a loaded rifle, in a nearby closet for safety, but the closet was closed and there were no guns out in the open at that time. And then things got even stranger. At 6.44 a.m., just three minutes after Alyssa's 911 call began, J.C.'s nephew, Omar Faustin, who lived next door with his mother Pearl, also called 911 and told the dispatcher that his house had just been robbed. The dispatcher recognized the street and told Omar that first responders were already on the way, then asked if the people being robbed were the McGees. That's

when Omar blurted out, quote, they got my mom, they got my mom and my girl, they got my mom and my girl, end quote. His voice was panicked and frantic as he continued saying that there were three men and that they were going to kill them. He didn't say who them was, but I think it's safe to assume he's saying him, his mother, and his girlfriend. So Omar is telling the dispatcher, hey, people are robbing my house. They're still in here. Now, when the dispatcher asked if he knew the attackers, Omar said yes, but then his voice became inaudible. The only words that could be clearly made out were, quote, from California, end quote. Omar also reported seeing a black van with Ohio license plates. He told the dispatcher that the men had held him hostage, but he had managed to escape by jumping a fence.

And then the call abruptly ended. And moments later, a panic alarm went off at Omar's house. And this like already to me sounds a little sketchy because it's like you were being held hostage, but then you were able to escape by jumping a fence. Like how, how do you go from being a hostage one minute and being free enough to jump a fence the next? Yeah, I'm trying not to look too far down the road, but I agree with you at this point. It does seem like, well, there's two things here, it could be that the same three men who ended up robbing Omar knew based on their counter surveillance, based on their reconnaissance that JC was next door, maybe in possession of a gun.

So they figured they have to take him out first before they can rob Omar. So there could be truth here, but there's also a world where I'm sure some of you are already saying it. Oh, Omar's covering his tracks because he's somehow involved with what happened to JC. Now he's trying to make himself look like a victim as well. So I got my head going in multiple directions right now. I think a lot of scenarios are at play here. But let's talk about JC real quick, because that's what we're covering on this podcast. And I want to talk more about his death because there are some things that are a little questionable here. You have, it's 6.41 in the morning. So he's, I'm assuming he was in bed. He's still in his

boxers, just wearing a chain. At this point, Alyssa only hears the screaming. No, she hears a pop. She hears the pop, then the screaming. And then what sounds like something hitting the floor, which most likely was his body. Yeah. So the door's unlocked at this point and slightly ajar. Three inches. She said there were two locks on the door, had to be unlocked from the inside.

It was always kept locked before. So my first assumption is that JC unlocked the door. It was somebody he knew at the door. Or he heard a knock or whatever. I don't know if there's a keyhole there, but for some reason, those two locks, the door wasn't busted open. But here's my question. He's kind of paranoid and suspicious, right? Obviously, he's got security. Obviously, he knows he's not Mr. Popularity with a lot of people. And so don't you think that he would answer the door more cautiously if he was going to open it? Like he,

if he's got guns in the house, he would have a gun when he walks to the door to unlock it. Well, let me, let me throw a scenario where he wouldn't do that. What if he looked through the door of the people and he noticed somebody he recognized, maybe a family member. Someone he trusted, yeah. Then he wouldn't do that, would he? So, like I said, these are all things I'm thinking. I don't want to skew anybody because I don't know. This is an unsolved case, right?

So, I want to remain as objective as we can. But he opens the door after unlocking it. The reasons why he did that without a gun, like you said, we don't know. He clearly had some enemies. So you would think he'd be more cautious. So he opens the door and then he gets shot. I'm assuming unexpectedly he'd probably the person standing there with a gun. And then that's when he yells and that's when he hits the floor.

So that's what we have right now with him. And then obviously you have this separate situation with Omar, which happens only a few seconds later. The difference here is that he's saying he was robbed and that people were held captive. Well, if the three men had also shot JC, wouldn't they go in and rob the place? They just took out the victim. There's really no resistance at that point. Are they going to be scared of the girl with nunchucks? I don't think so. I mean, it depends how deadly she was with those nunchucks. I mean, she might've been surgical.

She might've been like Chuck Norris, but my but, but my point being, if they're going there and JC is just the first line of defense where there's something they're going in there to get, why would they stop after shooting him and just flee the area? When with Omar, they, they had his mother and his, his girl at gunpoint and him and him, and he was able to escape. So it seems like a little bit different of an MO, even though it was in the same building at the same time. Well, based on the crime scene,

it looks maybe like JC did not answer the door. Maybe he heard somebody coming in, made his way from the bedrooms, because remember where he was found, kind of half between the main part of the house and where the bedrooms are located. And then he got taken out. He had made made all the way there. Yes. Interesting. So that would mean someone had a key to the door, right? Or kicked it open. Was there damage? Am I getting ahead here? Am I getting in front of my skis? Was there damage to

the door? So when the police arrived, they responded to both the McGee and the Faustin homes. Now, once JC's house was cleared, first responders confirmed that JC was dead. He'd been shot once in the head. An autopsy later determined that he'd been shot in the left temple with the bullet exiting through the back of his head, but the shot had not been fired at close range. So police examined the scene. Obviously they found brain matter on the carpet, about six feet from the front door and blood was present between the doorway and JC's body. Investigators found blood spatter on the wall and a badly damaged bullet behind the front door. The door itself showed signs of force entry. There were three kick marks on it and both the doorframe trim and the deadbolt had been broken loose the doorknob had

slammed so hard into the wall that it left a hole wow i know so i got ahead of myself then right where we're speculating and this this goes to show you i don't know the script right but that makes more sense right so there was even though alissa only heard the pop of the gunshot she didn't hear the kicking of the door. Obviously JC did something got his attention and he, he was up or was woken up by the kicking of the door. And we've all seen that right where you open a door a little too hard and the doorknob smashes through the drywall. I think everyone's done that once or twice. So it's not hard to believe that the doorknob would cause damage. So clearly this was a attempted robbery home evasion, or they were going there for JC specifically. But I will say if this was just some random robber, that's a hell of a shot and they could have gotten lucky. But a headshot like that from six to eight feet away, that's a distance. And most people wouldn't go for the headshot. Most people would aim for the chest.

But so you're saying it's somebody who's pretty skilled with a gun. Probably shot a gun once or twice in their life. Yeah. Well, during a search of the yard, police found a black flashlight. And Alyssa said she didn't recognize it. She knew that her father, JC, had a flashlight, but it was a big yellow one. So maybe we're kind of looking at the fact that this was not just somebody walking up to the house at like 640 a.m. Maybe they've been there a little earlier since it was dark, or maybe they had been there earlier at

night kind of casing it out using a flashlight. Now, why they would leave the flashlight, I don't know, but that's what we got. The flashlight could also just be a random flashlight that was left there, you know, from someone else who's not involved with it. We just have to put that out there as well. Doesn't automatically mean it was in the possession of the offenders prior to the incident. But as we know, JC's house wasn't the only crime scene, and police still had to investigate what had happened next door at Omar's house. So when officers arrived, the door to the Faustin home was wide open. Omar's girlfriend, Kim Smith, ran up to them. Her wrists were deeply marked, and she had a phone cord wrapped around one of them. She had a bump on her head where she'd been hit with a gun,

and a nail was embedded in her foot. Inside the house, police found Omar's mother, Pearl, on the floor asking for help to get up, and like Kim, she also had marks on her wrists. Moments later, Omar walked into the house. He started yelling that he was going to get the people who did this. He had visible injuries to his head and hands, and Kim confirmed that he, too, had been pistol whipped. Police cleared the home, but no one else was inside. The house had been ransacked, a ripped phone cord,

and another phone wire were found lying on a chair and on the floor, and the strong scent of rubbing alcohol lingered in the air. Police removed Omar, Pearl, and Kim from the house, as well as Alyssa from J.C.'s home. Alyssa and her mother, Barbara, were interviewed by investigators, and Alyssa was asked to walk them through what happened in the hours leading up to her father's murder. She said that on the evening of July 10th, so the night before, JC went to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. At 7.50 p.m., he called to let her know that he was heading to the hospital to see a friend's baby

and then planned to meet up with friends at the riverfront. And he also mentioned picking up Chinese food. Later that night, at around 10.10 p.m., Alyssa called JC asking where he was. She wanted this food that he was supposed to bring home. Sometime later JC finally returned. That night Alyssa didn't sleep well and JC came into her room twice. The first time was around 2 a.m. Alyssa asked if everything was okay and JC said yes. He just wanted to make sure she was still there. The second time was around 3 50 a.m.,

and this time he didn't say anything. They just looked at each other before Alyssa rolled over and fell back asleep. Alyssa said that to her knowledge, JC slept in his bed that night. She wasn't sure what time he woke up, but lately he had been sleeping until 8 a.m., though sometimes he did wake up as early as 6 a. So then at around 6.40am everything changed. Alyssa said that after hearing the pop she ran out of her bedroom, saw her father covered in blood. In shock she looked out the window looking for any sign of someone fleeing the scene but she said there was no people, no cars, nothing. Okay so what do you think about Alyssa waking up twice and JC kind of being there two o'clock and then 3.50 a.m? Well, so first of all, I don't know if he was going to a hospital to see a friend's baby. I don't know if he was going to meet up with friends. I don't know if he was getting, you know, Chinese food. Obviously, if his daughter's calling him at 1010, like, where's the Chinese food? Most restaurants are closed by Ben.

Yeah. Did he bring the Chinese food home? That's what I want to know. Did he bring the Chinese food home? I wouldn't say so because it didn't say that he did. I'm sure the police reports would say whether or not Chinese food was found in the home or Chinese food packaging, things like that. Also, they could look at cameras and everything like that to see his whereabouts. What restaurant did he go to? All those things. Yeah. Like what friend's baby was he visiting the hospital? So if he didn't go to do all of these things that he said he was going to do, what was he doing and what did he do or what did he find out during whatever he was doing that sort of seemed to make him a little

paranoid and nervous where he's going to walk into his daughter's bedroom a few times during the night to just quote unquote check to make sure she's still there. Like maybe check to make sure she's okay and nothing's going on. Yeah. So as far as Alyssa coming out of the room after hearing the pop and seeing her father and not seeing any people or cars outside, it could be something, it might be nothing. Because if you've ever been woken up like that, we all have that moment where everything's kind of moving in slow motion when you're abruptly woken up. And so when you first come out there, seconds could be the difference here, where if you come out, you're looking down, you see your father, I'm assuming she's going over to him to

maybe shake him, see if he's okay, see what's going on. Then she looks up, doesn't see the cars. If there were people there, they could have already fled the area at that point. Those seconds would be the difference. It wouldn't, uh, that could be why she didn't see anyone. Now, I don't think I'm going out on a limb here saying that to me, two houses in close proximity like that, in that amount of time, having those incidents occur, it's highly likely that they're connected. They're related. They're connected. We don't know how. That's why we're here. But I think it's highly unlikely that you had a premeditated murder happening at one house

and next door you had this robbery slash home invasion. It just doesn't seem likely that they're not connected. So how they're connected is the real question here. Do you have the same offenders carrying out two different crimes? Or do you have someone not being honest with us and the two crimes are actually not happening simultaneously but consecutively? One crime happened and then the other one was staged to happen that way. Okay, so check this out. What if this, okay, what if it's the same offenders, but they break up into two separate groups, they send one group over to Omar's house. They're like, tie these people up so they can't interfere. And almost simultaneously,

once those three people are secured in the house, Omar, his mother and his girlfriend, now they give word to the other people who are standing ready outside of JC's house. And they say, OK, go in quick. Boom, boom, boom. Kicks to the door. It opens. JC comes towards them. They shoot him once in the head and they're out of there.

Yeah. So it could have even been one person, right? Like three people in Omar's house. It could have been technically, yeah. But just one, the best shot going into the other place. But then we just got to think about motive. What's the reason behind it? That would be a seriously well-trained assassin, though,

to go into a house, take three people, and tie them up without being stopped, then to go boom, boom, kick, shoot one, and then they'd have to go and, you know, at some point, you know, escape somehow. And then the question is, why didn't the other offenders just shoot Omar, Pearl, and Kim? If that's what you're going to do, you're going to open the door, you get in,

you got the drop on them, kill everybody, and then you can do whatever you want to do. Make sure there's no witnesses, yeah. So why keep Kim, Pearl, and Omar alive, but shoot John without any type of... Because Alyssa would have heard the conversation. If there was a conversation happening between John and the offender slash offenders, she would have heard something, a voice, a struggle, anything. Doesn't seem like anything was said. Door got popped open. John's standing there. He gets shot.

So a lot of questions. Omar told the 911 operator that he knew the people who had come into his house. But, you know, then it was inaudible. They could only hear him say something about California. So why? I want to see how that call kind of develops because I'm sure that it was not going to be the last time we hear about Omar.

Yeah, so why would you leave Omar and his girlfriend and mother alive if they're able to potentially identify you? Identify you, exactly. If you're going there and he knows who you are, you got to kill him or there's going to be retaliation. The question for me as we go into this next break is going to be, okay, if your scenario is right

and this was a collaborative effort, right? This was a premeditated setup where there's a small group of people who are targeting two specific houses at the exact same time. Well, that means that Omar and JC are somehow being connected by this group. And the question is how? Well, they're related. Well, they're related, but it's more than just being related. What is Omar and JC involved in where this group is taking them out? Absolutely. Well, we know that when JC testified against those 75 people, one of them was his own nephew. Rico. Rico, right? So obviously he's not adverse to working with family in these legal matters. So is Omar involved in something or was Omar involved in that before? And now maybe he and JC have a new sort of thing going on that people became aware of.

So many questions. Yeah. I can see why Madison is doing what she's doing because already we're only halfway through this episode and I have so many questions. So we'll take our second break. We'll be right back. All right, so we're back. Now, Alyssa and her mother, Barbara, were asked about JC's life leading up to his murder. And according to them, he'd been under a lot of stress, mostly due to an ongoing custody battle over his youngest child, Shane. Now,

Shane was born to a woman named Deneen, who was a sex worker. And though Madison isn't sure if Deneen and JC were in a relationship or if their encounter was transactional, we know that when Deneen got pregnant, there was uncertainty about whether JC was the father. But regardless, Deneen decided she wanted to keep the baby. So she went to a house in Philadelphia known as Madame Marie's, a place where the owner, Madame Marie, took in pregnant women who wanted to give up their babies. She arranged illegal adoptions, charging $20,000 per child. Of that amount, the mother would receive $5,000, while Madame Marie, the doctor, and the lawyer involved each took a cut of the remaining money. So it sounds like this is a whole kind of elaborate operation, a legal scheme on its own, where we've got this illegal adoption happening, this adoption for money, basically, which adoptions should never be a for-profit sort of business.

And there's what appears to be a legitimate doctor and a legitimate lawyer involved, and they're benefiting financially from this, as well as Madame Marie, who's out here just selling babies. Brokering deals. Selling babies, basically, right? Yeah, brokering deals. And the mother who has to carry the child for nine months and has to actually go through the labor, she gets $5,000. So obviously not the biggest cut of this $20,000. And are the adopted parents being vetted properly?

Are we sure that these children, these babies are going to safe places or because it's illegal and it's not really on the up and up, is that background check process not as thorough as it should be? Yeah, are they looking the other way? Right. So you could be selling babies to- Sex traffickers. Traffickers, yeah. That's, you know, I hate to say it, but that's the truth, yeah.

Yeah, it's awful. Or you could be selling them to just pedophiles. Yeah, just people who are like, oh yeah, we want babies. And yeah, they're grooming. Yeah, it's pretty, pretty scary. Absolutely terrifying. And I mean, this kind of stuff does happen with legit legal adoptions as well. You can only background check someone so much you don't know what secrets they have hidden

in their closet, but probably more likely to happen if you're doing an adoption under the table for a financial problem. And if you're doing it under the table, the question is why? What's in your background that you wouldn't pass a normal adoption process? Yeah. Why are you going this route? There's usually a reason behind it. Well, Madison isn't sure what changed.

But after giving birth, Deneen ultimately decided to keep her baby. Thank God. In a way, thank God. So she took Shane back to Ohio with her, backing out of that adoption, despite already having cashed the $5,000 check she was given. Because the process was illegal, the couple who had planned to adopt Shane had no legal recourse. So when Shane was born, he was born addicted to heroin because Deneen had relapsed during her pregnancy. It's so sad. JC fought for custody, but despite Shane's condition, Deneen was allowed to have him most of the time while waiting for a final court hearing scheduled for July 12, 2002, which happened to be just one day after JC was murdered, right? So once again, suspect list is growing. We've got JC involved in testifying against these 75 dangerous people. We've got him maybe not being the most well-liked person amongst his family, friends, and community.

And now we have this weird illegal adoption where he's trying to get custody of his son. Obviously, the person he had this son with does not want to give him this child. And a day before, there's supposed to be a hearing to talk about this custody issue. JC's dead. Yeah. I still have the question of how Omar ties into all this, though. Like, yeah, it all makes sense to me on the surface for that. But why would they go after Omar and his family? So we'll let it keep going. But that is the question. All this makes sense until you add Omar's predicament into the scenario. Well, while things were still unfolding in court, JC, because remember, he'd bend over backwards for people, he let Deneen and Shane stay on his property for a time and he helped care for his son.

Prior to JC's murder, Deneen moved into her boyfriend's place. His name was Dwayne Butchie Griffin, right? So is Dwayne involved in this, right? Is Dwayne seeing like, oh, this guy might come and take Shane because Deneen has a drug problem. Shane was born addicted to heroin, so this drug problem is pretty relevant. It's also showing how it negatively affects this child already before he even gets a start in life. But Deneen doesn't want to lose Shane because if she had wanted to lose Shane, she would have given him up for adoption as she had planned. She clearly bonded with this child during the birth process. So what's happening here now is she tells her boyfriend, hey, we got to take this guy out because I don't

want to lose my child. I mean, we've seen that. Yeah. I think it's a strong motive. I think a few of the scenarios you've laid out are strong motives. And I don't want to sound like a broken record. I'm trying to think if I'm, okay, let's play it out. Dwayne. I'm Dwayne Butchie Griffins here. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to go kill JC because he's coming after my girlfriend's son and I want her to be happy. I want us to be a good family and he's in the way. Okay. I see it. So why would Dwayne gather up his buddies and go to a separate house that belongs to JC's nephew and his sister and tie them up, abduct them and pistol whip them just to go over there and kill JC. To stop them from interfering. But then why, but why wouldn't you kill them then?

Because now they are going to be able to identify you. Right. Yeah. That's a good question. So it's like you're, you're at, you're adding more eyes to the, to the actual crime. You're creating a higher probability that you're going to get caught. Well, what do you always say, Derek? If criminals were smart, they would never get caught. Yeah. I mean, that's true. I just, I feel like at least in theory, what they wanted to do would make sense, even though they don't execute it correctly, which is why we catch them. But in theory, it's like, even if they're sitting at their little, you know, meet up beforehand going, okay, this is what we're going to do.

We're going to hit JC's house and we're going to hit Omar's house or Pearl's house, whoever it is, because there's a potential that when we go to JC's house, they could hear us and come over and try to help him. But they were in and out so fast. Or see the person, like maybe if they heard a gunshot, maybe Omar, his girlfriend, his mom rushed to the window, They see the person who did it. I don't know. It doesn't seem like even when they would be saying it out loud beforehand, it would make a lot of sense where they'd go, yeah, that's how we should do it. That would line up. I also, I guess, would want to know,

I guess, the feet between the two houses. I'm assuming they were close together. I'm just not seeing how going into Omar's house, tying him up, tying Kim up, tying Pearl up, not killing them, going over and killing JC and then fleeing the area would be the best way to carry out this crime. My point being, even if they were close together, Stephanie, not close enough where you'd have to take them both out.

You could go into JC's house, kill him and get out of there without anybody knowing. If the houses are close together, how quiet can you be with a gunshot? The gunshot, yes. But man, I'm still at, you know, we're, you know, a little ways through here, almost an hour in. I still think that if anything, this was a coordinated attack. There were targets in both houses.

Why Omar wasn't killed? Maybe because he escaped before they did. So that's the only explanation I can come to. Or Omar, Pearl, and Kim are not being truthful. That's where I'm at right now. Well, let's see what the relationship between JC and Dineen was like. Yeah. And maybe was Dwayne involved with their tensions between Dwayne? Let's see that. Yes. Would Dwayne have enough reason to do this? So during their interview,

it was clear that Alyssa and Barbara, who are JC's daughter and ex-partner, right? Because Barbara's Alyssa's mother, they didn't like Deneen. They said JC had repeatedly called children's services to report that his son Shane was in danger. He told CPS that Deneen had been using drugs throughout her pregnancy and even after Shane was born. And Barbara told the police that J.C. had made at least five or six reports. Alyssa and Barbara also said the tensions between J.C.

and Dwayne, who's Deneen's boyfriend, they'd been escalating for a while. They got into verbal altercations and on several occasions, they almost got into physical fights. But there was something they didn't mention, maybe because they didn't know. Because JC was a confidential informant, the police were already aware that JC had been involved in getting an indictment against Dwayne. So the issues between JC and Dwayne may have gone much deeper than just custody and relationship problems. Investigators then asked if JC owed money to anyone, and Barbara said no,

but he wasn't doing well financially. He had tenants who weren't paying rent. A lot of people owed him money. He's not rolling in the dough here. Now, at this point, things were not looking great for Dwayne and Deneen. JC was murdered just one day before his custody hearing with Deneen. They had a clear motive to want him dead, but there was still the issue of what happened at Omar's house. So the police separated Pearl,

Kim, and Omar and asked each of them to explain separately what happened, which is good police work. Yes. Good police work. And it does give you a little bit of insight because if it's clear cut that they're telling the truth, you still should separate them. But I can tell you from experience, it doesn't always happen. Like if it's clear that there's nothing that needs to be questioned there, police can sometimes forget to separate them when asking questions. Cause it's such a traumatic situation. The fact that they did tells me one of two things, either these are just very thorough police officers and they're doing everything by the book, which unfortunately doesn't always happen, or based on what they observed initially, they felt the need to question them separately. Yeah. Kind of like what you're saying, which is like, this is not. Something's not adding up here. Yeah. It's not a coincidence

that these two houses that hold people who are related to each other, that they just get hit simultaneously without it not being connected somehow. Yep. And they take out JC without even sharing a word, but they let you three live. Yeah. And they let Omar get away. Something, something. And how, and how did he get away? At gunpoint, they're tied up. There's a lot of questions as a detective I would have here.

Something's not passing the smell test. So we're going to go through these three separate stories, see how well they match up. But first, we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. So we're back. So we are going to talk about what Pearl said. So Pearl's Omar's mother.

Now, Pearl told the police that she was asleep when she heard a thump. Moments later, Omar, her son, shook her awake, and that's when she saw a black man standing over Omar with a shotgun pointed at his face. She said the shotgun was black and didn't look normal. It was unlike any she had seen before. Pearl said the man was wearing a gray sweatshirt with the hood pulled up over his head, and he looked to be in his 20s. He ordered her to get out of bed, and he demanded money. She told him there was money in her purse, but he responded, that's not enough. Now, it's important to note that in a follow-up interview, Pearl told police there was actually two men by her bed when Omar woke her up. So we've already got a divergence of stories

and it's still the same story, the coming from the same person. Pearl tells the police one thing and then later on she's adding things to her story. And listen, we have people and witnesses, especially witnesses in a traumatic situation that they may mess up a hair color, description of a gun, clothing. They don't normally forget to mention a second offender. I agree. I agree. So that is a red flag for me. I'll say that much.

And again, we're talking about a group of people who had this premeditated plan, and yet they forgot to wear masks. Yes. But we'll continue on. Let's take everything at face value. All right. They have hoodies. They got hoodies up.

Just not covering. They're covering their ears, but not their faces. Their faces are in shadows. Yes. Hooded shadows. Okay. Now we got two men standing by her bed when her son wakes her up. One of them put a gun to her head and asked if she had a safe.

She admitted that she did and she told them where to find it. But when they checked inside, there was no money. Pearl told police she had around $2,000 in a suitcase from a recent vacation, but the men didn't touch it. But when they checked inside, there was no money. Pearl told police she had around $2,000 in a suitcase from a recent vacation, but the men didn't touch it. Now tell me what kind of men are going to be here. Like we got the money out of your purse. It's not enough. You have a safe. She's like, yes, here, open it. They open it. There's no money. And they're just going to be like, well, guess you don't have money. They're not going to keep pushing and be like, where's the money that was in the safe lady. And also them going there. Let's pretend that this story is accurate.

Them going there for money. What made them think there was money in there? They went there knowing something. 100% wasn't random. So there's a reason they're choosing this house. There's a reason she has a safe in there, which is not abnormal. A lot of people have safes. I will say that to keep $2,000, I just got back from a cruise

yesterday. We were just talking about this. I brought some money on the cruise with me as anybody would when they're leaving the country. Yeah. Cash you get, you also want tips and stuff like that. Yeah. When I unpacked last night, I took the money out of the suitcase and put it back, you know, where I was going to put it in my safe or whatever. I wouldn't normally leave the money in a suitcase for the recent vacation. How long ago was that vacation? How long was that money sitting in the safe? How long ago did they go on that vacation? How long was that $2,000 sitting in this briefcase? Because she said it was from a recent vacation, but was it really? So here's the thing. I, as you know, have ADHD and I'm very prone to coming home from a vacation and my packed

suitcase will stay on my floor in the bedroom for two months. Okay, that's fair. However, first of all, I'm not going to put cash in my suitcase. I'm not putting cash in my suitcase because I'm either checking that suitcase or I'm storing it in the overhead compartment. It just doesn't feel safe to have $2,000 of cash in your suitcase. I would put that in my purse or in my little like bag that I have around me. That cash is always going to be on my person always. And when I get home, I'm putting that cash in the safe. It's going to be one of the first things I do because my ADHD isn't that bad where

I don't realize $2,000 is a lot of money. And I'm not even thinking about someone stealing it. I'm thinking about my, my dumb self losing it. So it's going right in the safe. Yeah. And listen, let's call it what it is. $2,000 absolutely is a lot of money. It is. And from what we can tell, Pearl wasn't a millionaire. This $2,000 would be a significant amount of cash. And the fact that it was just flippantly put in this briefcase or suitcase, as she described it, nearby, is a little sketchy. Now, I don't want to sit here. Unless the money is from something that's not. She's hiding it for a reason.

Maybe a cash business. Yeah, she's hiding it for a reason. And I know what we're doing here. I can see it. You know, we're already going down that path where we have this extreme skepticism about Pearl, Omar, and Kim, right? You guys can feel it. You can see it. We don't know if they're telling the truth yet.

We're only reacting to what we're hearing. So maybe that will change. I am quite skeptical, I will say. Okay. Well, you have more info about this, so that's concerning for me. But as I'm sitting here right now, just kind of digesting what you guys are hearing as well, I'm apprehensive to completely buy into what is being initially told to law enforcement. And to be honest, it's not even about having more information. It's just one of the like, I don't believe in coincidences in general. I don't. This is one of those coincidences that's just like, come on, guys, what's going on here?

We're missing something. We're not getting all the pieces of the puzzle here. And so that's why it seems so, so suspicious because there's definitely things that are being left out, right? The one gunman to two gunman is very concerning. Yes. Because the second gunman had the gun in her face. So that's concerning. Exactly, right? Because the first gunman had the gun in her face so that that's concerning exactly right because the first gunman has his gun to omar this weird looking shotgun she's never seen before

probably a sawed-off shotgun if we're to believe it or maybe a silencer or something i don't know something even even if it was a shotgun but now you've got the second gunman and in pearl's second retelling of the story that gun is being held to her face. How would you forget that? That's something you would remember, I would think. So the men, because there's two of them now, they forced Pearl into the living room and they kicked her to the floor

where Kim was already lying face down with a gun pointed at her. Now, I don't know who's got the gun pointed at Kim, right? Because we've got Pearl in her bed. Omar's in the room with Pearl. There's two men. One's got the gun on Pearl. One's got the gun on Omar. Who's with Kim in the living room? Well, they said there was three gunmen. Oh, there's three now? There was three gunmen. If you remember the initial part of the story, three gunmen were

seen fleeing into the van. Okay. Okay. So there's a gun on Kim, a gun on Pearl, a gun on Omar. There's enough people to cover them all, which is, once again, I'm going to wonder how did Omar get away. So Pearl remembered that one of the guns was a silver handgun, and they were repeatedly kicked and called names. One of the men said, burn them, and then sheets were thrown over their bodies while rubbing alcohol was poured on them. Then Pearl says she heard someone messing with a lighter. She wasn't sure if Omar, her son, had been tied up or not, but she knew that he wasn't staying quiet. Pearl told police that Omar hadn't taken his medication, and he was running off his mouth and being smart, which made both her and Kim fear that the men were going to kill him. Now, what medicine is Omar taking for what kind of condition that makes him not run his mouth in a situation like this? I mean, damn. I don't know what it is, but I want some of that fearless medication.

Well, he's he's fearless without the medication, right? But what is the medication he takes, which makes him not have this sort of impulsivity? Maybe is it ADHD medication? I don't know. When I'm on my ADHD medication, I feel like I run my mouth even more. I feel like if you had a gun to the back of your head, even if you hadn't taken it, you'd probably realize I shouldn't be mouthing off to these guys. However, we do know that Pearl and Kim are on the floor and then they have sheets put over them and they can only hear Omar. So maybe Pearl and Kim aren't in on this, but Omar is, which is why he wants them hidden so he can run his mouth and act like he's trying

to stop this. Potentially, that's something we haven't explored yet, a potential setup where Omar's in on this and Omar sets up JC and this whole home invasion is a distraction, is just basically a ruse to make law enforcement believe they're all involved. Yeah. And to also maybe give him an alibi. So he's like, well, how could I be doing anything to JC or be involved with what was happening to JC when I was all tied up and had guns to my head? And my mother and my girlfriend will tell you the same thing. However, during a good portion of this, Kim and Pearl, they're under the sheets. So they can only hear what's happening. Correct.

Why wouldn't they have put him under the sheets as well? Why wasn't he under the sheet? Right. Yeah. Good question. Throughout the attack, the men kept demanding money and drugs. When Pearl asked who they were, they claimed they were the Midwest Task Force. Pearl said she heard three voices but assumed there were four men in total because they were communicating with someone on a radio or a Nextel phone.

To her, their voices sounded frustrated and immature, and one of the attackers was referred to as Tone, T-O-N-E. She also got the sense that the men were following a schedule as if they had planned everything down to the minute. So Pearl said the men eventually ordered Omar to come with them and asked how many people were next door. Shortly after, she heard a gunshot. Then a moment later, she heard Omar yell, you didn't get me. Pearl told police she had no idea why her house was targeted. They didn't have a lot of money and their neighborhood wasn't wealthy. None of it made sense. Now in Kim's interview, she explained that the night before, she and Omar had been babysitting in St. Clairsville until 4 a.m. And when they got home, she laid down on the couch while Omar

sat on the floor. The two of them stayed up watching Matlock on TV while Kim's dog was curled up next to her on the couch. Sometime before 5.30 a.m., the dog started barking, so Kim got up and put it in the kitchen. She laid back down, but within moments, she heard a loud bang. She and Omar jumped up and ran to the kitchen, pulling back the curtain to look out the front door, and that's when they saw shadows moving and men with guns. Then Kim saw three black men, all dressed in black, forcing their way inside. The men stormed in, ordered Kim to the ground, and they tied her hands with a phone cord. Then they dragged Pearl out of the bedroom and tied her up next to Kim. Sheets were placed over them so they couldn't see anything, but Kim had already gotten a good look at the attacker's faces and she

was actually able to give the police detailed descriptions of two of the men. At this point, Pearl's story and Kim's story seems to be lining up as far as what Kim experienced. It definitely feels like it's lining up now. That could be for a few reasons. It could be because they're describing what had happened and they're just regurgitating what they remember. Or there was some conversation beforehand, but that would mean that Pearl and Kim are in on it as well. The jury's out for me. I don't know what to believe here. It doesn't make a ton of sense to me. But when we break down more of what pearl was saying about some of the details them using the next tell slash radio that would align with what you had said earlier about this you know kind of collaborative effort

where they're doing it groups from the same group you know working together to carry out it this these incidents simultaneously but then that again would mean that they knew about JC next door, which means that they also had a connection with Omar. What are Omar and JC involved in? Well, remember Pearl said that the men asked Omar how many people were next door. How many people were next door? So Pearl is either relating events as they happened, as she remembered them happening, which means that whatever happened at Omar's was connected to what happened at JC's.

Or Omar, Kim, and Pearl are all trying to at least give the impression that the same people that attacked them were the people that attacked and killed JC. Yeah. Now, I'm going to say something, and is, we'll be listening to this. And this is about me being candid and being honest because I want the truth. That's what I want. I want answers for JC. I will tell you that just from my past working in this, this, this field, when you see home invasions like this, especially if there's a coordinated attack on multiple houses. I've said it before, I believe on Crime Weekly, but in the drug game, a lot of times,

especially if there's friends or family connected and involved together, one house will be the drug house, one house would be the money house. They do that intentionally, not only for law enforcement purposes, because if we go into the drug house, we find all the drugs,

we can only seize what's in that house. We can't take we go into the drug house, we find all the drugs, we can only seize what's in that house. We can't take the money from the other house unless we can draw a direct line to it. It's more of an involved investigation. So usually they'll separate the two. The fact that their houses were invaded like that at that morning, and the fact that if this is true, that they were asking how many people were next door. It reminds me of crimes that I investigated where, whether it's true or not, these individuals who came to these two houses believed that there was some type of activity going on between the two homes, whether that was drug related or not. I don't know, but I will say based on the fact that they're looking for money, it's

being hidden in suitcases, JC's past being involved with drugs and narcotics, which I will tell you, I've had multiple CIs who were working for me. It didn't mean they weren't dealing on the side behind my back. So there could be a lot going on here. And this is very similar to crimes that I've worked in the past where the victims are also involved in some type of illegal activity. And this is a competing group that's attacking them. I'm only putting it out there because it's what I've experienced. It doesn't mean that that's what's happening here. And I think it's important to note that obviously Madison finds all of this suspicious as well. And she'll be the first to admit, like, listen, my dad used drugs. Obviously, he's an N.A., so he used drugs. He sold drugs. And, you know, he didn't do everything above board all the time. But that doesn't mean that we don't deserve to

know what happened to him. Of course. Because what we do know is that he didn't sit there and, you know, plan his own death. Somebody else did that. And she also says it's all very suspicious. She believes that this whole Omar thing is very suspicious too. Like why wasn't he covered up with sheets? Why wasn't he tied up? Why was he able to get away? She says none of it made sense. And then at her dad's house, right? They're over there at Omar's house asking about money and trying to get into the safe. And then at her dad's house, right? They're over there at Omar's house asking about money and trying to get into the safe. But then at her dad's house, he's just shot. No money was taken.

It wasn't ransacked. It didn't look like he could have possibly had a safe there too. That's what I'm saying. If this is a collaborative effort where they're going in, they're looking for the drugs and money, why did they shoot JC and not rob the place? They shot him and left immediately. It doesn't, it's not adding up to me. And also we haven't even talked about it yet. Nobody else heard anything. Nobody else heard gun pops. Nobody else saw these cars peeling off this van, taking off these guys running out. I don't know if you're going to get there eventually,

but there just seems like there would be other witnesses that would have heard or saw something to corroborate what Omar is saying, what Pearl is saying, what Kim is saying. Alyssa, on the other hand, who's in the other house, doesn't see a single person. Odd. I can understand why Madison is so suspicious. Of course she is. And I mean, at the end of the day, Madison, it wasn't as if she was super close with her father's side of the family. I believe she was living in Charleston at the time.

She was, I think, seven years old, very young. She's not superly involved with JC's side of the family. She's living with her mother. But after this happened, and I think it was 10 years after the murder that she started kind of looking into it and talking to people. Now she's starting to meet these people,

her father's side of the family. And she's seeing certain things, like the fact that when Omar called the police, he didn't say that JC had been shot, even though it appears that he knew. And he also- Yeah, because he was taken out of the house. I think it's important. We didn't talk about that too much, but you're right. He was taken out of the house. And he also doesn't say, hey, that's my uncle, right? He says my neighbor. He's sort of trying

to create distance. And remember, Pearl did say she heard a gunshot, but then she heard Omar yell, you didn't get me, which would suggest that they had tried to shoot Omar. As well. But I don't think that that happened. So is what she heard, the gunshot coming from JC's house, and Omar is sort of acting as if it was towards him. So she won't think like, oh, somebody's over there shooting my brother, or I hear gunshots coming from a different house. She's going to think that they're trying to attack Omar, which is going to even solidify the fact that Omar has nothing to do with this if they're shooting at him. Yeah. You know, as I sit here right now, there's probably a little truth to what's being said here. I think you mentioned earlier that there were some visible injuries to

Kim specifically. She had a nail. To Kim and Pearl, yes. But Kim had a nail through her foot, right? Kim did, yes. Yeah, had a nail through her foot. So there does appear to be something going on here. And if Kim had a nail through her foot, I don't know if Kim would have put that nail through her foot herself or allowed Omar to do it. So there might be some players involved here. Or Pearl and Omar could be in on it, but they don't trust Kim enough yet. Like we don't know

how long have Kim and Omar been together? What kind of relationship do they have? How deep does it run? But also it could be just as simple as they're going after JC, Omar's in on it and he's helping set it up. Yeah. Which is kind of where I'm tending to lean personally. Right now, it could be just as simple as, hey, man, come over here. I don't want my mom knowing that I helped kill her brother. Of course. Or I don't want my girlfriend to know because then she could turn on me because maybe we've

only been together eight months. Interesting. Madison, I get it. I get it. So like I said, Kim actually got a good look at these men and she's able to give the cops a description of them, which we're going to talk about after we take our last break. So the descriptions of these attackers that Kim gave the police, the first guy, he was between 5'10 and 6 feet tall. He was very thin, had dark skin, and spoke with a heavy, deep voice. The hood of his sweatshirt was pulled up, but Kim thought he might have had dreadlocks. She said he had a wide nose and pursed lips.

The second attacker was between 5'9 and 5'11. This was the man who was called Tone, T-O-N-E. He had a lighter voice and was clearly the one in charge. One of the men was wearing red Nike shoes with black socks. Kim said the men asked who she was, and she told them her name, that it was Kim and that she didn't live there. They asked where she did live, and she said Bel Air. Kim said the men didn't seem to know anyone in the house because they kept asking what their names were. She also didn't think they were from the area because they used slang that was different from what she was used to hearing. Throughout the attack, the men kept yelling, where's the money? We came all this way. Do you know we are the West Side Task Force? They threatened to cut off fingers and toes before dousing them in alcohol.

At one point, Kim heard one of the men speak into a radio saying, we ain't got no money yet. And this made her think that there was someone outside acting as a lookout. She also heard another man say twice, we're taking too long in here. And this is kind of what Pearl said too, is it seemed like they were there for a reason and that they were on a time schedule and they had things planned out minute by minute. Yeah. Why would they pick this house, Stephanie? And also we haven't really mentioned it, but if you're going to go into a house like this,

you're going to carry out a home invasion. Are you going to do it at seven o'clock in the morning when everyone's getting up, getting ready to go, ready to get ready for work? Probably the worst time to do it. Yeah. Why didn't they do it when it was still dark out? One, two o'clock in the morning under the cover of night. I'm sure it was still a little dark out at that time, 640, 644, but still like just a horrible time to do it and to pick this house. And let's just say we believe what they're saying. They came from a far distance. Why? Why this house? Why JC's house? Why would you come all this way? How did you know there let's just say we believe what they're saying. They came from a far distance. Why, why this house?

Why JC's house? Why would you come all this way? How did you know there was going to be money inside? Why Omar's house? Yeah, that's it. It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense. Unless they knew where they had information that led them to believe there was a

large amount of money inside. And what is this West side task force? That would be my next question for law enforcement. Does the West Side Task Force actually exist? Is this a competing gang from a community nearby? These are all things that have to be- Have you ever heard of a gang named the Task Force? It sounds more law enforcement, right?

Yeah, I guess. I've heard some stupid names. I'm going to do a Crime Weekly News just on that. I've heard some dumb names where I've gone, I go, really guys? That's the best you came up with? Well, there's a West Side Task Force, which is a drug task force in Chicago. And I guess that would mean they were from a different place. But were they trying to make these people think they were law enforcement and kind of doing

like a sting operation? Like what was the point here? What is the West Side Task Force? Your guess is as good as mine. So Kim said that at one point she could hear the men beating Omar and eventually taking him outside. She worked to free herself from the phone cord around her wrists. And then that's when she heard a gunshot. Now, I'm going to stop here and I'm going to say something else. If these men are so well, they're like a well-oiled machine, right? They're on a time schedule. They got walkies or they're talking, communicating with somebody else with Nextel.

They get, they know what they're doing. They know what they're there for. They're like, we came all this way for money. Wouldn't they have come with their own restraints, you know, like zip ties or something, a phone cord. Like how easy is it to wiggle out of a phone cord? It's stretchy. It is a stretchy thing. It's stretchy. It's stretchy, man. So you're just going to go in and be like, oh, let me find the stretchiest Gumby-esque thing I can to tie these people. I'm going to use the phone cord. Why wouldn't you have come if you knew what you were going there to do with your own restraints, like zip ties, which is impossible to get out of. Well, like you said, if we're to believe what they're saying, they may not have expected

other people because as Kim had mentioned, they asked multiple times, like, who are you guys? They didn't expect them to be there. So in my opinion, them continually repeating like, oh, what's your names? What's your names? Who are you? That's just further trying to prove that like, we don't know Omar. We've never been here before. But you know enough to know there's money there. You came all

this way, right? All this way. It's not like you're just living in the neighborhood and you're like, hey, we're driving by. Let's hit up this house. You came all this way for money. This was planned. You knew. So you're going to do some research and know that there's Omar and at least his mother Pearl in the house. You might not have expected Kim, but you'd still come with restraints enough for two people. I can tell you another thing that I wouldn't do is if I'm going to this house for money and I'm trying to beat the answers out of Omar and I'm also trying to do it without being detected. The last thing I'm going to do is take him out of the house and bring him outside where one, he can escape or two people can see what's going on and intervene or call the police. Yeah. That doesn't,

that doesn't add up to me either. Especially if he's allegedly being beat because he's going to be bloody. It's going to look weird. Unless they're taking him next door thinking it will lower JC's guard. I don't know. It just, it doesn't. Or they're taking him next door telling him, Hey, you knock on the door. You call out for him. But why would that matter? Because they ended up kicking the door down anyways. Maybe JC looks through the peephole. If there's a peephole, I don't even know if there is. That's something we'd have to find out from Madison. But he wasn't by the door. He was by the bedrooms and he wasn't, his back wasn't to the door. Like he was running away. He was facing it. So he heard somebody trying to get in.

He got out of bed, walked towards the door. By the time he got to that area, they had kicked the door open, had the gun out. Boom, one shot. They're gone. They're gone. What do they need Omar for? Yeah. It doesn't make sense.

Yeah. So Kim works herself free from the phone cord. And that's when she heard a gunshot. And about five minutes later, she did manage to break free completely. She immediately jumped up and hit the panic button in the kitchen. Here's another thing. Why you got a panic button in your kitchen? Yeah.

Right. It kind of seems like JC had some serious security at his house to the point where they couldn't even arm it when people were home, because if you walked into the living room, it would go off. We had a SimpliSafe ad in this episode, and I have similar things. There's motion detectors in my house in specific rooms where I cannot have those armed while I'm home because I might walk in or the kids might go down to get a drink of water or the dogs might run through. And that alarm would be going off all the time. I also have two panic buttons, one upstairs, one downstairs. Now, that's because of what I do.

And I'm very afraid of crime. And I'm afraid of becoming a victim. And I'm a public figure. And I want to protect myself and my family. But why did JC and Pearl have such crazy kind of security where she, Pearl said herself, we don't live in a wealthy neighborhood. We don't have money. I don't have a lot of money. Exactly. Why do you have a panic button in your kitchen? Yeah. It's not adding up. It's not adding up. And I don't want to, I don't want to say this as if I know it to be true,

but there does appear to be something more going on that we're unaware of. And it may have been something that was known by people in the community that maybe there was some type of business dealing going on between Omar or Pearl's house and JC's house. And that would explain the need for security. Listen, we're not sitting here condemning people for wanting to be protected or being secure in your life is enough to have those devices, but it does seem like a little bit overkill to have all of that. I don't have a panic alarm in my house. You know, I have like a digital keypad or whatever.

But so it just seems like a lot. So here's my thing. It's also going to seem like a lot because we're in 2025. So these kinds of things are more common to have. The technology makes it easier to have. 2011, 2000. No, it was 2002. I'm sorry. yeah, 2002.

2002, that was not common. And it would be quite expensive to have something like that. They didn't have SimpliSafe. You would have to have like this serious security company come in and install these things. I agree. Yeah, that's a great point that you bring up because these are things we have to consider at the time when it occurred. And you're absolutely right. The simple, hey, we'll deliver your cameras and your alarm to your house and you can install it in 30 minutes.

That wasn't a thing back then. That you had to have, like you said, an alarm company come out and install it. And to do all that, usually it's to protect something. It also wouldn't have been so financially like. Reasonable. No, it's expensive. So to do all that, you would have to probably have something you want to be protected. So it does raise a lot of questions for me.

Now it could be for JC, he could be like, well, I might have people after me of what I did. So I understand that for him, but for Omar and Pearl panic button in the kitchen. Why? Yeah. It's, it's a lot. It seems like a lot. It seems like a lot. Maybe because you got $2,000 in a suitcase somewhere, and how many suitcases do you have in your house with cash sitting in them, right? I can tell you that I've seized a lot of money out of suitcases, and it wasn't because they just got back from vacation. No, it's where they keep it. It's to hide it, right? So Kim gets loose, hits the panic button. On her way back to the living room, she stepped on a loose board that the intruders had knocked free when breaking in.

And that's when she ended up stepping on a nail. So Kim did not have a nail pushed into her foot by these intruders. She stepped on it accidentally. I got it. But still in her foot. I mean, listen. It is still in her foot by these intruders. She stepped on it accidentally. I got it. But still in her foot. I mean, listen, it is still in her foot. Yes, it does. It does sound like there is some truth and a reality to what Kim and Pearl experienced.

I'm not as sure about Omar at this point. Now, I know I did say earlier, Pearl switching up later and saying there were two gunmen in the room. I say it all the time to you. It's not likely that you would forget that second gunman. However, everybody responds to trauma differently. Could she be an outlier where she just got confused and didn't mention it? I don't know.

Again, I've never seen that happen where a victim has later come back and told me, yeah, there was actually two people in our bedroom with a gun, not just one, but maybe she's a first. So I believe Kim, I'm on the fence about Pearl because of that switching it up. Yeah, that's troubling. And I also feel like this is Pearl's house. Omar lives there. If Omar is doing something illegal out of there, like let's say JC's house was where the drugs were kept and Omar and Pearl's house was where the money was kept, right? It would explain the security measure. It would explain $2,000 in a suitcase. It would. And it would also, I don't think that Omar could be doing things out of there like that without Pearl knowing. Yeah, I have to agree with you. And I will say this, I've talked to Madison a little bit about this case, the general overview,

like I said, but these specifics I wasn't aware of and I haven't discussed them with her, which I guess is a good thing. She wants to hear her honest opinion. And I just want to say it again, by no way does it justify what happened, but I do have a lot of questions. I do have a lot of questions as to why this house was targeted over two houses down. There's a reason for that. Yeah. Well, I think that we know the reason. I think it's leaning that way. Yeah. So, okay. Kim gets up, hits the panic button. That's going to call law enforcement. She runs back to the living room, steps on the nail. Then she saw a dark figure running up the driveway. She got scared. She panicked. She ducked back under

the alcohol-soaked sheet. But moments later, Kim realized the figure wasn't one of the intruders. It was a sheriff's deputy. Now, unfortunately, you are going to have to wait until next time to hear about Omar's interview because we talked about Pearl, what she said.

We talked about Kim, what she said. Now we're going to talk about Omar. But spoiler alert, there's a lot of holes in his story. Surprise, surprise. And he would go on to change that story time and time again,

which I believe is one of the reasons that Madison is so like, kind of like, I'm kind of suspicious. This doesn't add up. This doesn't make sense. So as we kind of wrap up this episode, I want to give two scenarios. And now that'll be my final words. So we talked a little bit about, I guess we talked a lot about the idea that maybe potentially

Omar, JC and Pearl are involved in some type of illegal activity. That would explain the potential to have drugs in one house, even though from what we know, there were no drugs found in JC's home. I think it's important to mention that, but that could be why the drugs would potentially be in JC's house, the money in Pearl's house. They both have strong alarm systems. And that would explain why these guys, this group of people would show up and rob these two specific houses looking for specific items, money being one of them. There is another world, and we kind of hit on it a little bit, where this is all a ruse. As you mentioned at the top of the show, JC definitely

had some enemies, including his own nephew, Rico. I'm sure they were not happy with him. There's a lot of people who could have been pissed off at JC, and there may have even been some people from that community where he was now a CI who have also figured out what he was doing and wanted to take him out before he took them out in a court of law. There's a world where they got to Omar and said, you're either with us or against us, but if you're against us, you're going to end up like him. And Omar, due to self-preservation said, yep, I'll tell you when to do it, how to do it. All I ask is that you do something here too, because if you don't, it's going to come back on me. And there's a world that these guys went in there and they

were not offenders, but they were co-conspirators of Omar. And Omar's the one who set JC up and maybe Pearl knew about it or maybe she didn't. But that's where I'm leaning right now. There is a world where JC and Omar and all them were not involved in drugs, but because of what JC was involved in, in his prior life and also now, there was a group of people who wanted him dead, and Omar helped facilitate that. Yes, absolutely. I think that's all. And I mean, we could have, you know, Deneen and her boyfriend, Butchie. That's also a possibility. It just seems like a stretch for them, though, to be honest. And a day before the court hearing? Well, it could have been intentional. If it wasn't Deneen and Butchie, it could have been

intentional on behalf of whoever it was to make it kind of look like them to muddy the waters. Yeah, great point. Anything that you think that I'm missing from this, I mean, that's where I'm at right now in the scenarios. The motive behind this is troubling to me because if you're having two sets of people, it could explain why one person had an itchy trigger finger and shot JC right away and the others were more methodical about it. Or it could mean that the three people, Kim, Omar, and Pearl, were never the intended targets. They were just basically a distraction for law enforcement to say, hey, you got two crimes going on here. This is all connected. This is a big undertaking that you have to figure out

when in reality, all of the first part was just smoke and mirrors and the nail in the foot just happened to be icing on the cake for something that wasn't even true. And the real target of this whole thing was JC and that's why he was killed so quickly. Now, tell me something before we finish for today, because the police are going to come to the conclusion that J.C.'s murder is a home invasion gone wrong. I don't possibly see how you could look at what happened here and not understand and know based on his past, based on who he was, his CI status, based on the whole weird Omar thing, that this didn't go deeper, that there

wasn't more to this. Well, law enforcement wouldn't want that to be the case because that's a lot for them. You are responsible for your CI's well-being to a certain degree, and you have to do your best to make sure they're protected, specifically their identity. And so when law enforcement's looking into this, I don't know how they get to the conclusion that this was a home invasion gone wrong when it doesn't appear that the offenders ever entered the house. They kicked open the door. They had to expect that someone was going to be inside. So seeing JC there was probably not the biggest surprise to them. They kicked the frigging door in. What did they think was going to happen? So killing him maybe wasn't part of the plan,

but it doesn't appear that JC had a gun in his hand where they would be like, oh shit, we got to kill him. So they just shot him. He's in his boxers and they shot him. That's what they were there to do. That's, it sounds to me like that's what they were there to do. And is law enforcement blinded by the home invasion that happened next door? And they're, they're basically putting them together.

Maybe. Or do they know that he was targeted because of his CI duties? by the home invasion that happened next door and they're basically putting them together, maybe? Or do they know that he was targeted because of his CI duties? And obviously they're not going to be like, yeah, he got killed because he was our CI. So, okay, are we good to close this now? You know, they're not going to want to, it's embarrassing. It's bad. As a narcotics division, that's terrible and it's bad for business. Why? Because guess what? All the other CIs out there that we're trying to flip, they're going to remember that, hey, you got JC killed. They're not going to want to work with you. Exactly. of my CI and we've dropped the case instead of going forward because I knew if I exposed my CI that that was going to get back to the city where I worked and nobody would work with me in the future. So having one of your CIs get killed, that's not good. So were they, did they have some

type of, you know, filtered glasses on when they're looking at this one? Absolutely possible. Absolutely possible. Any final words from you? No, but I'm excited to come back next week and wrap this up. It's going to be in two parts, so we're not going to leave you hanging for weeks and weeks. This is important, but we want to make sure that obviously everybody who's listening is from all over the country, all over the world even. You might be in Ohio. You might be in this area. You might know something. And hearing this might trigger something for you. And that's kind of the goal. Raise awareness, get the story out, get JC's name out there. And that's exactly what

Madison's trying to do. And we're here to help her. So pay close attention. At minimum, put pressure on the people that can do something about it, whether it's from a political standpoint or officers working for that specific department now who can go back and look at the case. That would be helpful too. Yeah, that would be great because right now it is considered a cold case, even though it's not solved. That's right. We will be back next week with part two. Until then, everyone stay safe out there. Have a good night. Thank you. Bye.