Criminology - The Brave Survivors

Episode Date: August 15, 2021

We're tackling two different cases in this episode. Both of them deal with men who perpetrated unspeakable violence against people who loved them. Both cases involve young survivors who lived through their attacks and were able to take the stand and testify against the men who tried to kill them and succeeded in killing their family members. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss two very emotional cases. The attacks carried out by Jermain Agee and Ronald O'Neal were vicious and despicable. But, the courage displayed by two of their victims, Alexis Taylor and Ronnie O'Neal, is awe-inspiring. Both of these young children lost members of their families to violence. They both were able to testify in court and help put away the man responsible for the crime. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. For everyone and welcome to episode 170 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mike, what's going on with you, buddy? Not too much. Just dropped off my son for his first day of kindergarten and my daughter started school this week. So we're sort of in shock. We're enjoying a little bit of silence. But at the same time, it feels like something's missing.

Yeah, I remember those days. I mean, I still have one that's in high school, but, you know, it's totally different. When they're little, they're all excited. You take their picture, you get them all dressed up. I miss those days. Yeah, it's that time of year. And I think kids, for the most part, I think want to go back to school. They want to see their friends. And I think those of us parents that have loud homes, those last couple weeks of summer were like, oh, I can't wait for school to start. But with everything we've been through, it's good for everyone. to see their friends and do some stuff to keep them busy. Oh, absolutely. We have some Patreon shoutouts. So let's give those. We had Sarah Moscaratolo, Stacey Maxwell, and Serena. So a short list this week, but we really appreciate that support. Every week those names mean a lot to us because it shows how much people care and want to support the show.

And we can't thank you enough for that. If anyone out there would like to support criminology, you can, you can do so by going to patreon.com slash criminology. Don't forget about CrimeCon. Morph and I will definitely be there in Las Vegas on Podcast Row, April 29th to May 1st, 2022. And just remember to get your tickets now before they're gone. We've talked about it.

Tickets are going fast. So when you go to CrimeCon.com, use our promo code, criminology, to say 10% on your standard badges. All right, buddy. Let's jump into this episode. and we're talking about two different, but very similar cases in which families were brutally attacked by the man they once loved. Both cases have very common elements, including minor children who survived a brutal attack and bravely went on to testify against not only the person who tried to kill them, but the person who killed their family members. These cases are both linked by courageous young survivors. Starting off, we're talking about Alexis Taylor.

Alexis Taylor was just 16 years old when she survived an attack on her life. On October 7, 2019, Alexis woke up to a nightmare when her mother's ex-boyfriend, 38-year-old Jermaine Agee, broke down the door of their home in the Anniak neighborhood of Nashville, Tennessee, and attacked her and her family. He broke into the home by forcing his way into their back door while the family was sleeping just before 2 a.m. He injured his hand during this break-in. Germain headed to the kitchen where he grabbed the butcher knife and started his attack. He first went to 13-year-old Jaden Taylor's room, who was probably asleep in his basement bedroom.

That's when Jermaine Aegee stabbed him. Alexis slept with her door locked. That night, she woke up to A.G. breaking her bedroom door down. As soon as he made it into the room, he attacked Alexis and stabbed her repeatedly. Aege next race towards his ex, Myra, who was horrified by the attack on her children, and asked her for the pen to her debit and credit cards. Myra quickly gave him the codes and begged him to take what he wanted and just leave. He forced Myra and Alexis to walk around the house.

He made them go to the master bedroom, sit on the bed. He interrogated Myra about her fidelity. He hit Myra. and taunted the two about Jaden being dead. He also said he was going to burn down the house when he was finished. Aegee thought he heard something and he forced the mother and daughter to follow him down into the basement to see Jaden, who was critically injured. Aege stabbed at Jaden with the knife, even though it was clear that Jaden was already dying. He also continued to hit Myra as he forced her and Alexis to sit by the basement door.

He yelled at her for not answering his calls. Alexis pleaded to go to the hospital because she was bleeding, but A.G. replied, I don't care. A.G. then made Myra and Alexis both badly injured and Myra's other daughter, eight-year-old Caitlin, who had come out of hiding in the bathroom, sit on the couch. Myra begged A.G. to just talk with her about it instead of hurting everyone. But Jermaine A.G had other twisted plans. He ordered Myra to hurt eight-year-old Caitlin, but she wouldn't do it. Luckily for Caitlin, despite Myra not carrying out his demands, Aege never tried to harm her himself. Jermaine then asked the three of them, who wants to die first?

No one replied. Alexis knew that they were running out of time and believed that Jaden was already dead. She believed that if she didn't act and act soon, they would all be dead as well. So Alexis jumped up and fought back. She went after AG's knife and kicked him until he fell. Myra fled the home through the front door into a driving rainstorm. She made it onto a neighbor's porch across the street. The neighbors woke up in the middle of the night, hearing screaming and thumping.

They originally thought the noise was from the storm until they saw the lights from the police cars outside that had responded after calls from another neighbor. when the neighbor went out to see what was going on, he found Myra passed out on his porch. So Morph, let's stop for a minute and just talk about Alexis at 16 years old to be put in this situation and to have that thought that we just can't sit here. I've got to do something. I mean, you know, for me, it gives me the chills a little bit, thinking about. what they all were going through, but the fact that, you know, this 16-year-old girl had the courage to act. And, you know, most likely she saved some of her family members and maybe herself.

I think it was really brave of Alexis to to jump into action and to make a move to save herself and perhaps save her family in the long run. And for a teenager, I don't think they have any kind of training or playbook. It's not like this situation is something they probably ever talked about. So for her to know what to do and to leap into action like that is pretty admirable. Yeah, I would think, Morf, that most people, let alone a 16-year-old girl, would be many times frozen with fear. This is a very fearful situation. And a lot of times people freeze up. I mean, it's, you know, it's tough to react.

So, you know, I really am blown away by what she was able to do. And obviously, it had a major impact on the events of that night. I don't think there's any doubt about that. Yeah, I think it bought just a moment of time. And I think in that situation, even an extra minute to get away, to alert someone, it makes a huge difference in a case like this. And I was also thinking, as we were talking about the neighbors, hearing this chaos and waking up to the scene, I think most of us can't imagine that situation when you wake up in the moonlight. Someone's pounding on the door and screaming and this kind of thing going on. It sounds like something out of a horror movie.

And this driving rainstorm, no doubt, would have masked a lot of sounds, right, especially outside of someone's home. So I can understand why people might not have heard some things or heard some things, but dismissed them as being part of the storm. But when you start seeing the police lights and you're hearing sirens and you walk outside and your neighbor is crumpled up on your porch, Okay, that has changed your night very quickly. And back to your point, I don't know what that would be like, what that neighbor would be thinking in that situation. Because of Alexis's actions, she made it out of the home and ran down the street. At 207 a.m., a.m., a.m., a.m. on 911 call was placed from a neighbor's home. When Alexis looked back as she ran, she saw A.G. standing over Myra, stabbing at her on the

neighbor's porch. Alexis desperately wanted to go back to help her mom, but she knew if she did, they would all die. Germain Agee decided he wasn't going to try and finish what he started, and instead fled in Myra's car. Alexis later recalled him making eye contact with her as he drove down the street. The car was found abandoned just a few hours later on Bell Road in a motel parking line. Not long after the car was found, police received the call from a fast food restaurant, about a man with blood on his clothes. And after initially fleeing, A.G. was found hiding behind a trash can

in what's been called the Hickory Hollow area of Nashville. Looking at a map, it looks like this is toward the southeastern tip of the Anionk neighborhood. Germain A.G. was in custody. Back at the scene of his attack, police surveyed the scene and summoned medical personnel. Thankfully, 8-year-old Caitlin was physically unharmed that night. she had been hiding in the bathroom for most of the attack on Aege's instructions.

She ran out of the home to another neighbor's house and was able to hide before Aegee fled. As for Alexis, she was rushed to Vanderbilt Hospital, where she was listed in critical condition. She remained in the hospital for days, but ultimately did recover. Sadly, Myra Garcia and her son, Jaden, died. As it turned out, Myra Garcia, had filed a restraining order against Germain just one week before he killed her and her son. On September 30th, in that restraining order filing, Myra claimed that Germain had hit her during an argument.

Alexis was able to recount to police that many times, Germain's behavior raised red flags during his relationship with Myra, and that after the relationship was over, he still harassed the family. At the time Germain Aegee attacked, he was already wanted by the police. He had a misdemeanor domestic assault warrant stemming from an incident where he and Myra had been arguing in the office of an elementary school, and Myra had obvious bruises on her face, prompting staff to call police. Before that, there was a night where Alexis woke up to her mother screaming, so she texted to her mom asking she was okay and got a response, yes. The next day, though, her mother told Alexis that the reply wasn't her. It was agey texting her back. On a different night, A.G. came to the house, and Myra wouldn't let him in. So he knocked on Alexis's window until she talked to him.

Agee was no stranger to the law. He had already served almost three years in prison in Arkansas for robbery and theft before he was released in June 2018. During pretrial hearings, Alexis Taylor bravely took the stand and testified against Aegee, pointing directly at him when asked who killed her mother and brother. On October 14, 2020, Jermaine A.G. pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder. He was sentenced to life in prison without a possibility of parole. Following the murder, Alexis and her sister, Caitlin, went to live with relatives and, by all accounts, have adjusted as best as they can, following such a terrible ordeal. Hopefully their long-term outlook remains good. But there's no doubt that they will always remember what happened to them. You know, Alexis is now an adult.

She has plans to go to college and get a good job to honor her mom. And more if this is obviously a very scary story. I think anytime you're talking about domestic violence, abuse, you know, anything like that, that's very scary. And how many times have we heard? where women have taken out a restraining order against an ex or, or, you know, a man in their life. And the men just simply ignored it and came back to perpetrate some type of violence upon the woman, the family. I mean, basically that's what we're looking at in this case.

Yeah, I think a lot of times there are warning signs. a lot of this stuff when it happens and it comes to a head like this and there's a murder or double murder in this case, looking back, it's not often that there were no warning signs. There's usually something there that people can go back to and point it and say, oh, here was something that happened or there was a history of that. And I think recognizing those signs might be able to help people ward off future trouble. Yeah, I get what you're saying. the one thing I definitely want to put out there is that I don't think there's any doubt more if that Myra Garcia knew that Jermaine was toxic.

The relationship was toxic, he was toxic, she wanted to distance herself from him, but you and I have both heard from victims of domestic violence, just how hard that actually is. You know, they recognize what's going on. But the actual part of, you know, getting out of the relationship, distancing, that's where things get really tough. And I feel extremely bad for, you know, these women who enter into a relationship. And I'm sure it was good at first, right? All relationships are good at first.

And then, you know, you start to see the signs. You start to experience domestic violence and abuse. Okay, how do I get out of this? And I don't think it's just as simple as walking away. I mean, we've heard that time and time again. Yeah, I think we really have to applaud Alexis too, because not only did she survive all of this, but she faced him down in court and pointed her finger at him

and wasn't afraid to say it was you that took my mom and my brother from me. Yeah, there's no doubt. I mean, she was obviously, even at that young age, a very brave girl. And, you know, now an adult, she's going to go on with her life. And I have no doubt that she'll be extremely successful. It won't be easy because that memory and the loss of her loved ones, it's always going to be with her. But, and I don't know this girl personally, but just from the story. And, in the research, I feel as though she's going to go on to do great things because she's determined and we even said it, right? She wants to honor her mom. I expect that she'll do amazing things with her life. The second case we're going to discuss today actually happened the year before Alexis Taylor and her family were attacked.

Despite being older than the case we just talked about, this case has only recently gone through trial due to competency issues and the COVID-19 shutdowns as well. There were also complications of who the main witness in this case was. Ronnie O'Neill was just eight years old when his 32-year-old father attacked him in the Riverview, Florida home close to Tampa. Just a quick note about this case. Ronnie and his father both named Ronnie O'Neill, with the older being the third and the younger being the fourth.

So we'll call the younger Ronnie by his first name and his father by his last name. On March 19th, 2018, just after midnight, O'Neill attacked 33-year-old Kenyatta Barron, his girlfriend and the mother of his children in their home. O'Neill shot Kenyatta in the shoulder with a shotgun, but she still managed to call 911 on her cell phone. Much of the attack was recorded on this open line, thanks to Kenyatta's quick thinking. O'Neill verbally berated Kenyatta and Ronnie as he threatened them. He called Kenyatta a bitch and said,

The kids are now mine before he threatened to kill Ronnie. O'Neill also told Ronnie to go get a night. They're screaming and crying heard on the 911 call as Kenyatta made a break for it. She made it out of the front door and into a neighbor's yard before O'Neill caught her from behind and beat her to death with the butt of the shotgun. This is also something that can be heard on the recorded 911 call. As the neighbor opened the door, obviously more if they were stunned, seeing O'Neill beating Kenyatta with a shotgun so forcefully that he broke it, O'Neill yelled out,

you don't understand. She killed me. O'Neill headed back to his house where he turned his attention to his, his nine-year-old daughter, Ranivia. Ranivia was autistic and also had cerebral palsy. She couldn't talk and was not always able to walk on her own. O'Neill attacked her with a hatchet, hitting her head and neck multiple times. He then attacked Ronnie with a butcher knife, stabbing him and basically disembowing him.

He went on to pour gasoline throughout the home, trying to light the house and the bodies of his family on fire. First responders were able to put the fire out and take O'Neill and. into custody. Somehow, little Ronnie survived the attack and was rushed to the hospital. Sadly, his little sister was not so lucky. And around the time Ronnie was being whisked to the hospital, firefighters carried Rognivia's lifeless body from the home. Hearing these details, it's just heartbreaking. Anytime you have a family incident like this, and especially there's kids involved, it's just tough to talk about and tough to research and read about the details.

And then Ronnie was severely attacked and he wound up surviving barely. But just to hear the details of his little sister, she couldn't talk. She had autism. So she had to be so frightened. And it's just heartbreaking to go over these details and to realize the fear that these kids must have experienced. It's just, it's sickening. No, it is. But I also think it's important to talk about that.

the details as nasty as they are because without them, without all of the details, more if I think it's hard for people to get the true sense of what type of carnage O'Neill dealt. You know, it's just as much as some of these things are things that we really don't want to talk about, I feel like you have to. You have to give the entire school. of what this man did. O'Neill was arrested on May 20th, 2018,

in charge with the murders of Kenyatta Barron and Ron Nivia O'Neill, as well as the attempted murder of Ronnie. After disagreeing with his attorneys, he decided to represent himself during trial. So, you know, right off the bat, you know, this is something that I talk about a lot. I get it, right? A defendant has that right.

that right to represent themselves, but more of how many times have you seen it go well? Not often. And it's like that saying that I think a lot of people have heard someone that represents themselves at trial has a fool for a client. Well, I mean, if you think about it, attorneys go to school for, you know, X amount of time. They learn all of these different things. And then they practice it, right, over years and years and years. As much as a lot of us think we know about the law and a lot of us do, right? When you're researching true crime and you're listening to True Crime podcast as much as most of us do, you do pick up a lot of things.

It doesn't mean that you're going to be able to go into a courtroom and battle up against a seasoned prosecutor. It's just not going to happen. They're going to tear you to shreds. And I just, I don't understand, you know, why some of these people think that they can duke it out, head to head against people who really know what they're doing. Now, maybe more if they just think they've got me, you know, I'll mess around. I'll try to represent myself. maybe it'll cause something to be appealable later on. I don't know what they're thinking, but it can't be, well, maybe it could be in their mind that I'm going to outdule

this seasoned prosecutor. It just, I just don't, I never understand it. Yeah, we've seen it before, obviously in high profile cases where someone like Ted Bundy, maybe it's some kind of narcissism that I'm. superior to you, I'm going to be successful and they're just not in touch with the reality. And maybe part of that can sometimes be attributed to mental illness, which I think we're going to talk a little bit about O'Neill may have had some issues with competency as far as his mental evaluation.

Well, and I almost put Bundy in a different category. Bundy was extremely intelligent. He had studied the law. And I think, you know, even the judge at his sentencing said, you know, brother, you would have made a great attorney. I'm paraphrasing here. But you chose to go another way. I mean, I think even the judge recognized that, you know, this guy had the smarts. He had some skills. And if he had actually been an attorney, he probably would have been a pretty good one. But I think that's an outlier, right? Most of the people who represent themselves really have no. legal training at all and it just doesn't end up well. The lawyers explain that Florida Stand Your Ground Law would not apply. And that's something that O'Neill tried to claim that he was doing when he committed the murders. O'Neill was unhappy with the advice of his attorneys, their decisions, and ultimately that's why he decided to fire them. In 2018, he had been deemed

incompetent to stand trial, but after time and some more evaluations, he was determined to be fit to stand trial. And I think that's when he made the decision that he would represent himself. And to me more, if what stands out here is that, you know, O'Neill thought that he would be able to base his defense on the stand your ground law. And I have no idea why he thought that. I mean, obviously, you know, this comes into play, you know, if somebody is attacking you, if somebody breaks into your house. I mean, there's all kinds of things. Obviously, this came up huge in the George Zimmerman trial. But the incident that we're talking about here, I mean, it's not even close to being a case of standing your ground. I just didn't understand it at all.

Yeah, the law gives people in Florida the right to protect themselves, their person, their family. I don't see how attacking out of the blue your family has anything to do with that law. Hi, my name is Jules, and I'm the host of Riddle Me That True Crime, which focuses on unsolved murders and disappearances, where I often do so with the help of family members, where they come on and tell their stories, and oftentimes with experts. I'll usually present the story over a multi-episode story arc. Sometimes I'll do one-off episodes like one I covered recently, which was a tragic and very suspicious death of 14-year-old Noah Donahoe in Belfast, Northern Ireland. So Noah went off on his bike one day.

It was Father's Day, the 21st of June 2020, amidst lockdown. He rides his bike, and he's going to Cave Hill Park to meet friends, and something along the route causes him to get derailed. He ends up in an area that he's unfamiliar with and has no business being in, given that he's a Catholic schoolboy and this is a loyalist area. So it takes just under a week until Noah's body is discovered. He's discovered unclothed in a storm drain. And the PSNI comes out with a preliminary conclusion of accident.

Mind you, this is before an autopsy has been done to determine manner of death or cause of death. And also before the forensics has been run, the family is screaming. screaming out for justice. I really hope you will join me on Riddle Me That True Crime, which you can listen to anywhere you get your podcast. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency.

We just walked in the door, and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio and Twitter, 20, blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. If you love chilling mysteries, unsolved cases, and a touch of mom-style humor, moms and mysteries is the podcast you've been searching for.

Hey guys, I'm Mandy. And I'm Melissa. Join us every Tuesday for moms and mysteries, your gateway to gripping, well-researched true crime stories. Each week, we deep dive into a variety of mind-boggling cases as we shed light on everything from heist to who done it, where you're a go-to-euvre. two podcast for Mysteries with a Motherly Touch. Subscribe now to Moms and Mysteries wherever you get your podcast. Many people question the judge's decision to allow O'Neill to defend himself at trial, especially after seeing his opening statement. In this opening statement, O'Neill shouted his words to the jury in between very long and drawn out pauses, and he actually admitted that he did

commit murder, while also telling the court, you will see who is the mass murderers in Tampa Bay and the state of Florida. He blamed what he called the fictitious and fabricating government. O'Neill did not really deny much in his opening statement. He justified Ronnie's PTSD diagnosis, recognizing the trauma that he went through. He told the jury that the evidence will show his son did not see him murder his mom, and that the evidence is going to show his son did not see him viciously beat his mom to death. His main point was that his son didn't witness much of anything at all.

O'Neill also claimed that law enforcement fabricated the audio of the 911 call, adding multiple strikes and several statements that he didn't make. O'Neill said, anything that I may have said, they exacerbated it and made me say it consecutively. O'Neill believed the motive for the fabricated evidence against him was that authorities wanted to make him look like a terrorist and a menaced society. Yeah, I don't know, Morph.

It seems like he did a pretty good job of, making himself look like a menace to society. He was a minister to society. But, you know, I get it. This guy is acting on his own behalf. He's going to throw out anything and everything. And I think that's what you often see when people represent themselves. They just make all kinds of different claims because, again, they don't really know what they're supposed to be doing. And what's easier than trying to say that the state law enforcement officials, they had it out for me, right? That's very easy to say. Yeah. And I think to start off talking to the jury, admitting that you committed murder, I think it's hard to come back from that and try and take

that picture out of their minds, even though he tried to lay the blame on the state and make them look like they had set him up. You know, he admitted freely that he had, had committed these murders. O'Neill promised the jury that he wouldn't waste their time if he knew he did something like this and mentioned that most people don't even go to trial if they know they've killed somebody, but he then qualified it with unjustly. When O'Neill finally got around to explaining his actual plea of not guilty to all charges, first degree murder, attempted murder, child abuse, battery, arson, and resumed.

resisting arrest, he stated, I am asserting justifiable homicide because I acted in self-defense and moved to protect myself and my children from Kenyatta Barron. He also said very loudly, I responded out of pure instinct and heat of passion eliminating any kind of premeditated design. After this, O'Neill stated that the state of Florida was premeditating his own murder if he was found guilty, referring to the death penalty as a possible sentence before he brought his statement to a close. He shouted that he was, quote, backed by a mighty God. And then all of a sudden he returned to a normal tone of voice. So, Morph, the one thing I will say is that I think O'Neill in court, he did use some, you know, some pretty big words, kind of legalese.

in some instances. So I'm not trying to give this guy any credit. Don't get me wrong. But it's still hard for me to wrap my mind around the justifiable homicide and saying that you acted in self-defense by killing Kenyatta Barron. It's almost as if he's saying that if I didn't kill her, she was going to kill me and or my children. I think that's what he was trying to get across to the jury.

I think the problem with that is, you know, I just don't know that there was any evidence whatsoever, not even an inkling, that that was a possibility. Even if somehow he killed Kenyatta in self-defense, it still doesn't explain why he would then kill one of his children in attempt to kill the other one, unless he was going to somehow claim that they all tried to attack him and he was defending himself from all of them. Yeah, that's a great point. He seems to be putting all of the blame on Kenyatta, that I have to do this to protect myself, my children.

So the fact that, you know, he killed one of his children kind of flies in the face of all of it. It just doesn't make sense. O'Neill's son Ronnie, who had recovered from his wounds, was brave enough to face his father in court. Ronnie testified that Kenyatta and O'Neill had been arguing. And when Ronnie went in to see why, O'Neill was already holding the shotgun. Cynata ran into Renivia's closet to hide, and Renovia was on her bed. O'Neill called Ronnie into the room and told Ronnie he had to help him kill Kenyatta. It's unthinkable, but O'Neill then forced Ronnie to hold his shotgun. He

pointed it at Kenyatta and he pulled the trigger. We don't know if this shot hit Kenyatta or not. there's no doubt that moment is going to haunt Ronnie for the rest of his life. If he actually shot his mother, that's something else altogether. Kenyatta must have dialed 911 from the closet while she was hiding. During the unusual opening statement, O'Neill admitted that he didn't know that Kenyatta had dialed 911. O'Neill told Ronnie to go to the garage and get a hunting knife. It was during the search that Kenyatta ran outside.

with O'Neill right behind her. Ronnie testified that he didn't see O'Neill kill his mother, but that he heard it. This was a very violent attack. Not only did the shotgun break, the butt splintered, and the stock separated from the barrel. All of this from the force of O'Neill

hitting Kenyatta with it. The metal barrel was actually bent. So think about that for a moment. What happened to this shotgun and the fact that it occurred in the process of O'Neill hitting Kenyatta with it, it just shows you what type of force was involved, how brutal this attack really was. Yeah, the steel on their shotgun is designed to hold, you know, hot, strong loads of buckshot coming out of it and designed not to bend or change shape. So the strength he must have been using when swinging that as a weapon, you can only imagine how brutal that was. While O'Neill claims that Kenyatta killed Ron Nivia, Ronnie testified that after O'Neill killed Kenyatta, he went into Ron Nivia's room and actually dragged her from her bed to the master bedroom where he killed her with a hatchet. Ronnie testified that his father spread gasoline throughout the house and started fires.

And then put him on his stomach in the garage and stepped on his back and tried to light him on fire too. During this part of the attack, O'Neill stabbed Ronnie. So more much like we talked about, you know, in the previous case, a lot of guts, right, on the part of Ronnie to get up on the stand, face his father in court and, you know, tell what happened. But then the details of it, you know, this is not a stranger. This is not an intruder that you don't know. This is your father who, you know, has already doled out an unbelievable amount of carnage. And then he tries to light you on fire while stabbing you. Try to process that as, you know, a young person. Fathers aren't supposed to do that. Let's just say, let's just get that out of the way. They do. It's sick. It's twisted and it's sad,

but they're not supposed to. The job of a father is to protect, right? Your children, your family. All too often, though, we see them doing the exact opposite. Yeah, and it's how brutal the attack was on as kids that is really hard to fathom. You know, I don't know how a human being does this to another human being, but especially for to be your own child the way that he hacked his little girl with a hatchet. And as we mentioned, he basically disembowed his son. So you have to ask what kind of person does all of this. It's just, it's beyond comprehension. Firefighters who responded to the burning home testified that they rushed inside to try and find anyone in need of aid, and slipped on what they later realized was blood.

Hillsborough firefighter Donald Foster saw countless knives on the floor. He described it as like someone had taken the knife drawer out and poured it onto the floor. Foster also found Ranivia under a pile of something on fire. He thought it may have been clothes or a mattress. He couldn't tell, and he carried her out to the front lawn. When he realized Ranivia was dead and not from the smoke or flames, he cried and hugged his partner at the scene. This is when Ronnie and O'Neill came out of the garage. First responders were already on scene and tended immediately to Ronnie, who had suffered second and third degree

burns to 30% of his body, and had severe stab wounds to his abdomen, neck, arms, and legs. He also had a collapsed lung and had to be intubated so that he could breathe. O'Neill cooperated at first, but then stood up and said, shoot me as he walked around. Officers tased him instead. O'Neill had what investigators called flashback burns. This is caused when vapor ignites. The gasoline fumes in the air had burned O'Neill. Investigators found that the fire actually had three sources, the living room and two of the bedrooms.

So we have first responders on the scene. I specifically want to talk about the firefighter who found Ron Nivia. He found her under a pile of something. He was on fire. He couldn't tell what it was. which obviously tells you what the fire had done to that point. And then when he realized she was dead, but it wasn't from the smoker of the flames,

this guy cried and hugged his partner. You know, I think that's important to point out, you know, these people, these first responders, police, firefighters,

EMS, what they see at some of these scenes, Morf, is so now. so heinous that it doesn't surprise me that they would break down seeing something like this. And then you got to think about what are the consequences of, you know, seeing that stuff day in and day out. You got to go home to your family. And, you know, that's got to be tough. And I never want to kind of lose that perspective of what these people do, what they go through.

and what a tough job it really is, all of it. I don't care how tough you are or what kind of training you've had. I don't think there's anything that can prepare you for carrying out a lifeless child and then seeing what was done to that child. You know, I think these guys, these firefighters are human and it's going to get to them no matter what, no matter how tough they are. Yeah, I would say, you know, if you didn't have that reaction, well, okay. then you're not human, right? Because I don't know how you don't react to something like that.

If you have any emotions inside you at all, they're going to come out. At trial, O'Neill tried to put on kind of a show for the jury. He said, I did kill Kenyatta Barron, but I want to tell you it like it is. What he wanted the jury to know was that he called 911, within 10 minutes of Kenyatta's 911 call, he told the dispatcher that he had been attacked and stated, she tried to kill me. It's also been reported that he said something about white demons in this 911 call. O'Neill claimed that Kenyatta had tried to kill him with a knife weeks before her murder.

When the trial was over, the shocked jury had to consider all of the disturbing facts and, evidence. The jury deliberated for just four and a half hours. On June 21st, 2021, Ronnie O'Neill III, was found guilty on all charges, two counts of murder, one count of attempted murder, one count of arson, and two counts of aggravated child abuse. On July 23rd, O'Neill was sentenced to three consecutive life terms plus 60 years. During his July's sentencing hearing, he hammed it up for the cameras and the spectators in the courtroom. O'Neill held up different signs that read things like,

Love you, and only no sin cast first stone. When O'Neill got to make a statement, he said to the victim's families and Judge Sisko, I'm not sorry for the things I did not do, and I'm not sorry for the things I did do. Judge Sisko said this was the worst case she had ever seen as far as the facts go, in her 19 years on the bench. She mentioned it took every ounce of her strength not to sob when firefighter Donald Foster was testifying about finding Ronivia's body and crying with his fellow firefighter. Her sentencing remarks were very emotional, citing a theory that souls choose their lives and

deaths before coming into this world. And when they do, they know how hard it will be at the end. If that theory is true, it makes Rodneyio O'Neill one of the bravest souls she has ever come across her 54 years on earth because she suffered so dramatically. Spectators and friends and family of the victims were relieved at the guilty verdict and sentencing. So morph, now we have more people, right? Additional people who are moved by what happened in this case. The judge said that it took every ounce of strength she had not to start crying when the firefighter talked about taking Ron Nivia's body outside of the home.

Again, I don't want to lose sight of. obviously this is very tough on the victims, the victims families. We talk about that quite a bit. What we don't always talk about is how hard some of these cases are on first responders. And then you've got, you know, the prosecutor, the judge, the bailiff, the court reporter. I mean, they have to sit and listen to all this too. It can't be easy day in and day out. Now, obviously you're not hearing this type of case every single day, but unfortunately, you're probably hearing a lot of them. I think there's no doubt they hear some shocking stuff. And for this to be the worst thing that judge has ever heard of, I think it speaks volumes about just how bad and how tragic this case is.

O'Neill could still appeal this sentence or the verdict by raising issues of his competency or finding some sort of technicality, the appeal has to be reviewed before it can be denied. And a request for an appeal does not mean that any circumstances will change. But some people feel that O'Neill will try for a new trial just to be able to put his son through the rigorous, nasty testimony again. But this time, he would do it. it with an experienced defense attorney doing the work. And that's sad, man. You're talking about

a guy who's already terrorized, murdered, but in, you know, just in the context of what he did to a son, he tried to kill him, both by stabbing him and setting him on fire. And a lot of people think that, you know, he just wants to make him experience all of this again. That's just evil, man. You are just pure evil. And I think more if one of the things about it is that, you know, Ronnie's testimony was almost unnecessary when it came to the murder charge for Kenyatta's death. They had the 911 call recording and O'Neill admitted that he killed her. Whether Ronnie saw O'Neill beat or shoot his mother, both of which he testified he didn't. I mean, ultimately, it really made no difference at all. O'Neill was trying to claim self-defense and a justified homicide.

But Ronnie didn't see any of it, which he did say in his opening statement, O'Neill didn't even try to argue that he didn't stab Ronny. He only argued that he didn't murder Kenyatta. He said he killed her in self-defense after she killed Ron Nivya. In fact, O'Neill asked Ronnie, did I hurt you that night of this incident? And when Ronnie said yes, he asked him, I did? How did I hurt you? After a pause, Ronnie stated, you stabbed me. So, Ken, you know, I think more if we're talking about representing yourself, this is what you walk into, right? An experienced defense attorney wouldn't ask these type of questions because they would already know what the answer is going to be and that the answer is going to make

their client look bad. But a layperson would just start asking questions and kind of run themselves into a really bad incriminating answer. And it sounds like that's exactly what happened. Yeah, it's, I think that's another one of the sayings that a good attorney never ask a question that they don't already know the answer to. And it sort of reminds me of OJ trying on the gloves at trial. You don't want to have him try them on unless you already know, that they're going to fit perfectly. Yeah, obviously, that was a huge blunder in that case. And, you know, Christopher Darden has talked about it a bunch of times.

Marsha Clark has talked about it a bunch of times. I think if they could go back and change it, obviously they would. O'Neill didn't ask anything about the sequence of events, whether Kniata tried to hurt Ronnie or for more details like where in the house they were or where he was stabbed. Instead, O'Neill pointed to an interview with eight-year-old Ronnie soon after the murders, where Ronnie apparently stated to a detective who asked him, When did your dad stab you?

That was on a different night. O'Neill then went on to have Ronnie clarify that Ronevia was hurt after the shotgun blast he hurt, so after Kinyatta had been injured. O'Neill's reasoning for bringing this up seems to be an inconsistency in the interview with eight-year-old Ronnie. O'Neill asked Ronnie, You said after hurting your sister, Ronivya, then I hurt your mom and ran outside. Do you remember that? Here it seems like the version of events was O'Neill hurting Ronivia and then Kinyana. It's unknown why O'Neill would have pursued this line of questioning, whether he truly thought that would help him or not. Yeah, it's unknown why he would do it because it makes no sense more. Again, this is what happens when you have someone with very little under, of trial procedure the way things should go defending themselves. It's just, it's a horrible

idea. But there's no doubt Ronnie absolutely helped the prosecution's case. Many people online speculate that questioning his own son on the stand was just a way for O'Neill to re-victimize Ronnie and to torture him again by putting him through the trauma of of reliving the ordeal. Ronnie was only 11 years old when he testified against his father. He was able to appear via video chat rather than having to sit in the same room with his attacker again. O'Neill started his cross-examination by asking Ronnie how he was and saying, it's good to see you, man. And I think, you know, the way it was reported more was that everyone in the courtroom was just speechless. You know, it was like father catching up with son or at least father trying to catch up

with son when in reality father tried to kill son. So, you know, kind of starting it off with just a little light banter, a light chat seems so out of whack. Ronnie's adoptive mother and his now needed therapy dog were with him as he testified. Ronnie was adopted by a former detective who had responded to the scene, but never actually met him that night. Ronnie now has five siblings. Some worry that this adoption could be grounds for an appeal, saying an argument could be made that Ronnie's adoptive father swayed him or planted memories. Ronnie is not the first young crime victim to be adopted by someone involved in their case. In 1983, Diane Downs tried to kill her three children by shooting them and claiming someone

tried to carjack her. One daughter died, but another daughter and her son survived, but were disabled. Her daughter suffered a stroke, and her son was paralyzed from the waist down. And in 1986, two years after their mother was found guilty of their attempted murder and the murder of their sibling, the pair were officially adopted by the prosecutor on the case and his wife. So there was already precedent here. More if many people believe that O'Neill represented himself so that jurors would feel conflicted, trying to sentence him to death because he so clearly should not have represented himself. There's thinking that O'Neill knew he would be found guilty either way and only wanted to try to avoid the death penalty, not really try to actually be found not

guilty. Some also questioned Judge Sisko's comments to O'Neill, complimenting him for doing well in his own defense and controlling his behavior in the courtroom. But others see this as protection from an appeal because he should never have defended himself in the first place. For now, the trial proceedings involving O'Neill are over. According to WFLA and Tampa, whenever Ronnie is overwhelmed, he says a phrase, a mantra that his adoptive parents taught him, which is, I am safe, I am loved, and I am part of this family. As in the case of Alexis, who we talked about early in this episode, Ronnie had to deal with a lot,

and there's no doubt the memories of what happened to his mother and sister will always be with him. More of these two cases have unique aspects, and they both have incredible survivors. In so many of our episodes, the victims and survivors never have the opportunity to see justice done, even when they do have their day in court. Most of the cases we cover have to do with people who were murdered, meaning it's their families who give victim impact statements and see the justice or lack thereof happen.

While the circumstances of both of their testimonies were extraordinary, it's also extraordinary that Ronnie and Alexis survived their attacks and were able to face their attacker in court. We're talking about children here who have gone. through tremendous trauma. And I kind of touched on a little bit earlier, Morp, but, you know, I think once you find that strength, you can really take on anything. And in the case of Alexis, who believes she survived for a reason, and like I said, I think she'll use that strength to make the most of her second chance and, you know, try to make the world a better place. Yeah, you never know, maybe Alexis and Ronnie will go into some kind of law enforcement or criminal justice

and find ways to protect other victims or become victims advocates tell protect people who need restraining orders through community and resources. The important thing is that they still have their lives to live. Yeah, amazing stories. You know, obviously we wish the best for them. It's not going to be easy because, you know, dealing with that trauma, dealing with with those memories and all of that, that's going to be hard. And it's something that I'm assuming they're both going to have to work through for a very long time. But I did more find both of these cases to be inspirational, right, in certain aspects,

especially when it came to Ronnie and Alexis. You're talking about two young people in the case of Ronnie, very young, who were able to do what I think is extremely tough for adults, which is sit there in court, face your attacker and tell the courtroom what happened. That's not easy for 30, 40, 50 year olds. Ronnie was 11 years old at the time that he had to do this. So, you know, incredible strength. And, you know, I really take a lot from both of, uh,

them in the fact that, okay, if they can do that, I can do more, right? There are things that that I should be doing right now that aren't near as difficult as what they've had to go through. Yeah, I think their stories are very inspirational. And I think you sort of touched on it that if these were older victims and survivors that lived through this, it would be very tough on them. But here we have these kids that are proven to be resilient. And maybe there's something to be said for their age that they can move past this and grow and never forget it, obviously, because it's impossible to forget. But to somehow learn and grow from that and just move forward in their lives and use this somehow as a experience that helps take them to the next step.

that they want to go to. Yeah, I mean, really, it's hard not to. You almost have to do that, right? You have to move forward. What happened happened. You have to deal with it. And in a lot of cases, I think people maybe use it as fuel to help propel them forward into doing other things. Like you said, you know, maybe becoming victims, advocates or, you know, using, you know, their experiences to help other people. We've seen that in a lot of cases. I think the scary thing, the big reminder here is that a lot of times when bad things happen to kids, it's not some stranger under the bridge, the troll under the bridge,

so to speak, the creepy guy in the neighborhood that's doing it. A lot of times the people that are doing this kind of thing are the people closest to these young victims and the people that. that should be protecting them. And that's perhaps one of the scariest takeaways for me. Yeah, no, I'm right with you. I think it is very scary because to be victimized by the people that you trust to protect you, it's heartbreaking.

Thanks goes out to Sunny Landon for writing and research assistants in this episode. If you love the show, but haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, give us a five-star rating. Keep telling your friends, that word of mouth about the criminology podcast. really goes a long way. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for Criminology Podcast or by joining our Facebook discussion group, Criminology Podcast, Discussion and Fans.

So, Morph, that's it for another episode of Criminology. But we'll be back with everyone next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then, for Mike. And Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone. Thank you.