Criminology - The Party of a Lifetime

Episode Date: July 25, 2021

In 2011, Florida teenager Tyler Hadley killed his parents and then held a massive party at his house. Many people, including Tyler, called it the party of a lifetime. What the other partygoers didn't know was that Tyler's parents, Blake and Mary-Jo Hadley, were dead inside their master bedroom at the time. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss this infamous story out of the state of Florida. Tyler had been on a downward spiral, and his mother was so concerned she'd had him involuntarily committed to a mental health facility. His parents thought he was in the process of turning things around, but they were wrong. Tyler had been planning to kill his parents for some time. And, he had told some friends of his plans, including the fact that he would end his life. What went so wrong to cause a teenager to murder the two people who loved him most in the world in cold blood? You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology. An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Podcast. Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 167 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Morford, what's going on with you? Not much.

I'm excited to get this episode out finally. We had a little bit of Gremlins working on us last week trying to get it out, but hopefully it works out better this time. Yeah, a little technical difficulty, which can happen, right? You and I recorded this episode. And when, you know, we went to put it together, we realized that we had some pretty serious audio issues that we could have put it out, but the sound was just so bad that I, I don't think anybody would have wanted to, you know, listen to it. It was just a weird situation. We've never experienced anything like it. Yeah, I think some of our diehard fans probably would have been okay with it, but it just, it didn't feel like it was up to par with what we try and put out. So I think it was just better to be patient and try and do it over and do it the right way. Yeah, and that's the decision that you and I came to and we stuck with it. And then hopefully people can understand that.

When you're recording episodes, you know, sometimes things happen, like as in life. So morph, let's give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Glenda Hernandez, George Lambert, Kelly Dunbar, Shelley Peterson, Shelby Rodman, Carlos Elver, Mark Garrett,

Chris Bach, Jessica McConville, Stephanie, and Crystal Livingston. So, again, a lot of great new support. We really appreciate it.

Yeah, that's some really great support. It goes a long way to putting out the show, and we can't thank you enough. And if there's anyone that would like to help support criminology, you can do so by going

to Patreon.com slash criminology. More if we've been talking about it, but CrimeConn 22 in Vegas is coming up. You know, we've heard from a lot of listeners saying that they want to go, they want to meet up with this in Vegas. And I think the more we hear from people about that, the more exciting Vegas becomes. Yeah, we've mentioned that the tickets are going really fast for this. I think it's going to be pretty epic. So if you're on the fence, don't wait.

go to crimecon.com and use our promo code criminology to get 10% off your standard badges. Yeah, me personally, I just can't wait to see you sit down to the table and a shark come and sit next to you and take all your money. I think that's going to be exciting. That's why I don't play poker. I play the slot. So it's just me against the slot machine. And if I fail, I fail. Man versus the machine.

That's it. And my wife will probably be right next to me because she's excited to go too. she's got her plans already made. So. Well, at least you'll have, yeah, at least you'll have somebody monitoring you.

That's what you need. I need someone to monitor her as well. All right, buddy, it's time to jump into this episode. And this week, we're headed down to your neck of the woods, more sunny Florida.

You know, I think a lot of season true crime fans know that while Florida is a great state, it's got nice beaches, warm sun, great fishing. When it comes to true crime, It also has its fair share of killers and, quite frankly, a lot of cases.

In this episode, we're discussing one of the more shocking cases to come out of Florida. It was just over 10 years ago, around 1 p.m. on July 16, 2011, that Port St. Lucie, Florida teenager, Tyler Hadley, posted a Facebook update. He was having a party and wanted everyone to come. The problem was he had talked about. it a bit and went back and forth about whether he would be able to throw a party due to living with his parents. So no one really believed the status update and whether the party would happen. People asked him about his parents, what they were supposed to do if Blake and Mary Joe Hadley came home and caught them partying. Tyler assured people that his parents were leaving

and wouldn't come home. At 8.15 p.m., he posted again saying, party at my house, hit me up. This time, his post worked and got the the word out. On Facebook, people indicated they wanted to come. They shared his address through text to other teens he didn't even know. Tyler stopped at an ATM and withdrew $400 from his father's account as word spread. People slowly started to show up and around 11.30 p.m. The party really got started. In Tyler's mind, this was going to be the party of a lifetime. I think in Port St. Lucy, This urge to party, even if you didn't know everyone, was pretty common in 2011, and maybe still is today. Teenagers back then were chronically bored in the still underdevelopment retirement town, 113 miles north of Miami,

and about 125 miles southeast of Orlando. In 2011, the city of Port St. Lucy consisted of about 150,000 residents. 10 years later in 2021, the city has swelled to 500,000. Now, if you like golf, club med, or botanical garden, you would probably never run out of fun in Port St. Lucy, but if you're a teenager there, life might not always seem that fun. Teenagers in Port St. Lucy say one of the only things there to do is quite literally party. Partying often, maybe always means smoking marijuana and Port St. Lucie. And over the years, the illegal cannabis industry has heavily encroached into the town as dealers and growers bought cheap houses and set up indoor hydroponic grow farms.

Weed is so ubiquitous there that many people and even news articles refer to the town as pot St. Lucy. Now, obviously, there are other drugs available there as well, and drinking is common, but there's almost no escaping, what seems like the staple there in the town, marijuana. As people arrived at 357 Grand Jarre Avenue, they walked up the driveway, passing Blake Hadley's Black Toyota Tacoma, as well as Mary Jo Hadley's Red Ford Expedition. Tyler warned people who showed up not to smoke inside, saying it's my parents' house. Soon, there were 60 people at Tyler's party. Once everyone was there, he changed his mind and told everyone it was fine to smoke in the house and actually asked that everyone stay inside. This was a paradise for the teens.

They drank, smoked, and listened to music, all unsupervised. As they rolled blunts using the papers from cigarillas, people didn't even try to find trash cans for the discarded tobacco. They just let it fall to the floor. When ashes fell and burned holes in the sofa, they simply padded it out and kept smoking. Some of the teens were playing beer pong. More industrious teens were taking advantage of the atmosphere, selling pills for a dollar, and selling weed to the partygoers.

I went to some pretty good-sized parties when I was a teenager. We partied hard. After all, it was the 80s. But one rule we all knew and lived by was that you just didn't party in your own home if you could get away with it. And if you were brave enough to host a party, you definitely tried to keep any evidence of the party hidden. Then I would think that most teens would live by that rule now. But as party in 2011, Tyler seemed to not have a care. Yeah, more if I, it was right with you, you know, in the in the late 80s, it was when I was really getting into my kind of party zone, if you want to call it that.

I never held a single party at my house. First of all, my parents never left the house, so it's kind of hard when your parents don't go many places. But even if they had, I would have never taken the chance that, you know, something was going to get broken. Something was going to get spilled. I just, I never wanted to be in that position. But I knew a lot of kids that seemed as though they didn't have a care. And I can remember one party in particular, pretty nice house. We were down in the basement, playing pool, listening to music.

It got out of hand real fast. And the next thing I knew, people were throwing the pool balls through the drywall in this kid's house. I mean, it really escalated quickly. I think anytime you get a bunch of irresponsible teenagers, maybe drinking a little bit, smoking a little bit of pot, those inhibitions and cares sort of go out the window. I know I went to some parties where a lot of that kind of stuff happened. And after seeing it firsthand, I was like, there's no way I'm going to try and have a party at my house and have my parents come after me angry after the house is destroyed. I remember being at a party one time where the damage was so bad.

It was thousands of dollars of damage. And one of the main people that helped cause it since he was underage, his parents actually got sued. by the kid that was having the party by his parents. It was that bad. So you could see how something like this could really get out of hand and be a lot of destruction. Yeah, absolutely. Well, and you use the phrase irresponsible teenagers.

Some people would call that an oxymoron. No. I mean, you know, there are a lot of teenagers that are very responsible. There are a lot that are not responsible. but when you throw in alcohol, weed, ecstasy, pills, other types of drugs, yeah, things can go haywire pretty quickly. By 12.30 a.m., just about an hour after most of the crowd showed up, the party was already low on beer.

So Tyler asked a 21-year-old friend named Mark and Mark's girlfriend to drive him to the Sonoco gas station and buy four cases of bush life. Tyler gave Mark a bunch of $20 bills. It was around this time that people were receiving texts about Tyler's party, texts saying that it was the biggest thing ever. And so what you had was more people deciding to head over to 357 Grandger Street. This was definitely one of those kinds of parties, morph, that was getting out of control. but Tyler was enjoying all of it.

Now people continued to wonder how Tyler had pulled off such a large party. Many of them knowing his parents would never have allowed it as he mingled. He gave different answers to this question telling people his parents were traveling in Orlando or Georgia or telling some that they didn't even live there. and the house belonged to Tyler. Someone at the party joked that Tyler killed his parents and everyone in earshot laughed. The party continued on completely free of any rules until someone returned to the house with a stolen mailbox.

Now, this made Tyler angry. He yelled at them and said that it would cause the cops to show up. Someone put the mailbox back outside. and people kept party. At 1.15 a.m., more people were still showing up at the party. The Hadley's house was unique. While in a very populated residential area, the Hadley's had no direct neighbors.

The four plots of land across the street from the Grandeur Avenue home were undeveloped and were overgrown with bushes and trees. Directly next door on one side was the same situation, a tiny jungle in between homes. and to the other side was a neatly manicured but still empty plot of land. As long as he kept the noise down, Tyler's neighbor shouldn't mind the party and the police wouldn't be called. Around 2 a.m., everyone at the party got when that someone else was throwing a party too. More than 10 cars full of people quickly left the Hadley residence,

and this commotion was too much for some of the neighbors who finally called in noise. complaints. Another neighbor noticed people in her yard, some who were trying to peek into her windows, and she also called the police. When the authorities arrived, less than 20 people were still there. Trying to be quiet in Tyler's bedroom, as he had instructed, police talked to Tyler, but then they left the house without issue. As soon as the police left, people started partying again. By 2.30 a.m., people started coming back to Tyler's house. As it turns out, no one else was throwing a party that night. That rumor was false.

So people either went home or back to the Hadley residence to keep the party going. The last of the party goers finally left between 3 and 4 a.m. Tyler turned off the lights to try and keep the police and neighbors off his back. One of the last people to leave saw him making a sandwich in the kitchen with all the lights. off. The party was a huge success. Tyler had gotten the attention he had hoped for. People would be talking about his party for ages. Partyguards made it home and thanked Tyler on his Facebook page for such an awesome night. Tyler posted to his Facebook at 4.40 a.m. Party at my house again. Hit me up. Soon after, there was a knock at the door of the Hadley residence. But this time,

it wasn't more partiers. It was the police once again. They had been outside the home since around 4.30 a.m. waiting and watching. The house was quiet. Most of the lights were still off, and police officers could see someone pacing back and forth through the large front window. An officer looked through the blinds and saw Tyler talking to himself as he grabbed books off a shelf near the door and threw them into a bedroom. Tyler did this multiple times before the police knocked on the door. He turned off the lights that were still on and went to the door. His left hand was behind his back, as if he had a weapon. So officers drew their weapons and searched him before trying to enter the home. Authorities asked Tyler where his parents were, and he said

they weren't home, and they couldn't be contacted. He also said he knew he was going to Rock Road, which is the St. Lucie County Jails location. So I think just based off that, Morph, officers knew something was off with this scene and with Tyler. The police made entry into the home, ignored Tyler's insistence that they not go inside, and they saw signs of the large house party. It was mostly empty solo cups, beer cans, and bottles,

tobacco from cigars, and laundry thrown around. When they got to the master bedroom, the door was locked, and they noticed blood on the frame of the door and on the wall near the floor. An officer forced the door open by roughly 12, twisting the knob a few times, and at first, the police weren't sure what they were looking at.

There were items strown about everywhere, dining room chairs, family photos, clothing, spoons, pill bottles, and paperwork. It was like someone had gone through the home and ransacked it and put everything in the master bedroom. An officer moved the dining room chairs onto the bed to be able to get into the room. He made his way to the closet where he found a dog locked inside. It was one of the Hadley family's two dogs. It was only then that the officer discovered the bodies of Mary Jo and Blake Hadley, face down under piles of junk with towels wrapped around their heads. Their bodies were cold to the touch.

As it turned out, Tyler Hadley really had killed his parents. And someone close to Tyler called the police on him. As the party was starting to wind down that night, Tyler had told his close friend, Michael Mandel, what he had done. But Michael didn't believe him. Tyler told him to look around at the signs, saying, all right, you don't believe me? Why are my parents' cars still here? How could I throw such a big party and not worry about cleaning anything up or taking care of anything? What about the blood? Almost 100 teens had partied in a crime scene that hadn't really even been cleaned up very well. The computer, which was used to play music for the party, had blood on the keyboard.

But partygoers dismissed it as beer or soda. Beer pong players had noticed the ball roll into a puddle of dark liquid. But they simply rinsed it off in the sink. And they kept playing. Tyler then invited Michael Mandel into the Lockmaster bedroom, where he saw the thigh of Blake Hadley under all the junk. Michael stayed at the party for another 45 minutes. taking a very tense-looking selfie with Tyler, before leaving and calling crime stoppers,

anonymously reporting that the Hadleys had been murdered by their son. At some point, between seeing the bodies of Mary Jo and Blake Hadley, Michael stole a stash of Perkinset that Tyler told him he was going to use to take his own life after the party. As it turned out, Tyler had seriously thought about murdering his parents for weeks. Reportedly, he had told people around him that he was going to kill his parents from at least the time he was 10 years old. But people thought he was just angry and spouting off.

Two weeks before the murders, Tyler was angry at his mother, Mary Jo, because she wouldn't let him drive because of his drinking. He told a friend, I might kill her, and called her a bunch of vulgar names. Now, the friend laughed it off and simply joked that he shouldn't because he'd end up in jail or prison. the entire week prior to the murders.

Tyler was telling friends that he was planning to throw a party. And I think more if this is part of the reason why no one believed him at first on July 16th. He'd been bragging about throwing a rager when his parents were still alive, home, and concerned with his well-being. There was no way that party could have happened with the Hadley's permission or knowledge. Around 11 a.m. on July 16th, Tyler had a conversation about the party on Facebook. A friend asked him if his parents were gone, and that's the reason why he could have the party. And Tyler responded by saying, well, they're leaving soon. Tyler was arrested, and after being interrogated by police, he helped them piece together what he had done.

At around 5 p.m. on July 16th, Tyler hid both of his parents' cell phones, preventing them from being able to call for help. He also claimed to have taken multiple ecstasy pills because he knew he would not be able to go through with his plan if he was sober. After hyping himself up, he snuck up behind his mother, Mary Jo, as she was on the computer, hitting her in the back of the head with the claw side of a hammer.

Tyler claimed that his mother's last word was why. The dark substance on the computer and keyboard wasn't beer or soda. It was Mary Jo's blood. After hearing Mary Jo's screams, Blake Hadley rushed to his wife, and in what must have been a scene a parent can't imagine, he saw his son Tyler attacking her. He ran from Tyler back into the master bedroom, but Tyler caught up to him from behind and hit him in the back of the head with the claw side of the hammer as well. These head blows were incapacitating on their own, but Blake also suffered multiple fractures in his arms and legs

that would have prevented him from fighting back. Tyler claims that Blake also just asked him, why. And his only reply was, why the fuck not? And more, if you and I both have done a number of cases where children have killed a parent, both parents, it's always a very scary thought. You know, and I go back to Mary Jo. She's sitting at the computer, probably without a care in the world, especially no cares about being attacked from anyone inside her own home, right? The only two people there are her husband and her son, two people that should love her unconditionally. I can't even imagine what these two parents went through, seeing their son coming at them with a hammer, attacking them with the hammer. And, you know, at a certain

point knowing that their son, this person that they brought into the world, they raised, they tried to give him everything that they could, was trying to kill them. It's just, it's unimaginable to me, what that must have been like in their final moments. Yeah, and I picture Blake running out to his wife's defense after maybe hearing her call out, maybe expecting to see an intruder or something, and then he sees his own son attacking her, and then coming after him, I think natural instinct is to want to defend yourself, and if it was a stranger, maybe fight back, fight them off. But when you see it's your own child, I wonder if it's possible, if you can process fighting for your life if it means ending theirs, and you've got a

split second to think about that. I wonder if any of that was a... in their last thoughts when this was happening. Well, I definitely think for Blake, that could have been a possibility. You know, you mentioned a stranger, an intruder. Okay, you're going to do whatever you have to do to try to protect your family, to try to protect yourself. But what happens if it's your child that is coming after you? There's got to be a thought in your head that is different from,

defending yourself from a random stranger. There has to be. And in an attack that happens so quickly, you know, even the slightest split second hesitation can mean the difference between life and death. After Tyler killed his father, Blake, he wrapped towels around both of his parents' heads and he dragged the body of his mother into the bedroom. He then cleaned up the house, pretty shoddly for about three hours, he threw anything he thought would be incriminating into the master bedroom, covering his parents' bodies. Instead of wasting time cleaning things like the dining room chairs, he simply hid and locked them away in his parents' bedroom. Then he took a shower. The city of Port St. Lucie was shocked by the murder of two parents at the hands of their own child.

it was a disturbing thing to think about. But I think the big question on most people's minds was, how had things gotten to this point? Blake Hadley, a 54-year-old Florida Power and Lightworker, and Mary Jo Hadley, a 47-year-old teacher, were both well aware that something wasn't quite right with their son, Tyler. He had once been a friendly and kind young boy, who the neighbors watched play.

But as he grew up, they saw changes. in their son. By age 10, he was prescribed Adderall, a stimulant that treats ADHD and narcolepsy, and Prozac antidepressant that's supposed to boost the serotonin in your body. Michael Mandel recalls finding Tyler around this age in the woods with a bungee cord around his neck, a suicide attempt, or a cry for help at least. Michael told him not to be stupid and not to hurt himself. When Tyler was around 15 years old, his parents really started. to notice some trouble. He began to experiment or self-medicate with drugs and started missing school and displaying disruptive behavior. He was arrested and convicted for burglary once. A neighbor tried to tell

Mary Jo that she had caught Tyler smoking marijuana, but Mary Joe simply insisted that, number one, Tyler didn't smoke. And number two, Tyler was going to do what Tyler wanted to do. Soon after this, Tyler even started a fire at River Park Wildlife Preserve after pouring gasoline on a couch and lighting it on fire. The trouble didn't seem to stop. And there were clearly warning signs of something even worse to come. And more if I do think it's somewhat natural for a parent to try to defend their child, their

children, you know, if a neighbor comes up and says, you know, I saw your son doing this, this and this. You've got a decision to make. You know, do you totally discount it because you believe it's so far out of character for your child? Or do you take action? You know, I found this kind of interesting, the approach that Mary Jo took here, number one, saying that, well, it couldn't have been Tyler. You know, he doesn't even smoke. You know, he doesn't even smoke. He couldn't have been smoking marijuana, but then also going on to say that, well, Tyler is going to do what Tyler wants to do. Those two things kind of seem to be at odds.

I found that kind of fascinating. Yeah, I think as parents, we all want to see the best in our kids. And when there's things that are concerning, I think a lot of times parents don't want to admit that and have a hard time coming to terms with it, even if someone else, whether in the family or outside of the family tells them, hey, I think something's going on. It might be hard for them to accept that. And it seems like there's a little bit of this going on with Tyler's parents, but eventually it seems to be clear that they accepted that there was something that they couldn't put their finger on that was going on with him. Well, I'm just kind of going out,

you know, on a limb here. But, you know, to me, Morph, admitting that your child is, doing something wrong or, you know, coming to that conclusion, it's not easy for every parent because your children are a reflection of you. So to admit that they're doing things that they shouldn't be doing, I think to some people means that, all right, I'm not a good parent. We're not good parents. We haven't done what we should have been doing. That's not always the case. I'm just saying that I can imagine a lot of parents feel like. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder which 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 in 2020, blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. That, and that might be part of the reason why it's hard for them to believe when others tell them that their children are doing things that they shouldn't be doing. In June 2010, Tyler hit a pedestrian, a child, while driving a car registered to his father, Blake. Tyler's older brother, 23-year-old Ryan Hadley, who had moved out less than two months before the murders, would later testify that Tyler had started. hanging with a bad crowd, sneaking out and stealing the keys to his dad's truck. After this, his parents put him in rehab, believing he had a substance abuse problem,

causing the behavior. Tyler was angry that his parents put some sort of tracking device or software on his phone. So I think based on that, right, as much as I talked about that they didn't want to believe, obviously at a certain point, they did believe that Tyler had some issues, especially with drugs. In April 2011, Tyler was charged with aggravated battery after he got into a fight at a friend's house. He spent a week in the St. Lucie County Jail and two weeks on house arrest for this aggravated battery charge due to his juvenile record for burglary. Tyler and Blake were both sued for $15,000. in May 2011, just two months before the murders.

This lawsuit stemmed from the injury of the child pedestrian who was hit while Tyler was driving Blake's car. In June 2011, a year after he hit the child, Tyler came home very drunk after he had reportedly urinated on a female friend's bed. And I think to the Hadleys, this was. was the last draw. If things were spiraling downward for Tyler, quickly, Mary Joe Hadley used the Baker Act, a Florida law that allows people to be involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility if they're in immediate danger to themselves or others to admit Tyler to the mental health clinic New Horizons. Mary Joe was afraid that it wasn't just a substance. abuse problem, she herself suffered from depression and was afraid she had passed it on to Tyler.

He had been counseled for depression and an eating disorder, bulimia, before. And she allowed human growth hormone treatment for him as a preteen so that he wouldn't be made fun of for his slim build. Tyler was still self-conscious, though. By early July, Mary Jo thought Tyler was drastically improving and even told friends that he was over a hurdle. Just a week before he killed his parents. Tyler had gone on a trip to Georgia with his father and grandparents to visit family. During this trip, his grandfather, Maurice, recalled that he didn't see any indication there were any problems between Tyler and his parents. Friends and classmates of Tyler's later recalled that he was always kind of strange and

that he started getting stranger as they got older. The night of the party, people recall that Tyler was quiet. nervous, anxious, and he was clearly intoxicated. At one point, his eyes rolled back heavily due to the ecstasy. Now, no one really thought that this was out of the ordinary for Tyler. Obviously, they had seen him in similar states before. And even though he was hosting a party, he seemed to withdraw. He seemed quiet. It's not in any of the report. that any of the people at the party, most of whom he didn't even know, ever asked him what was wrong that night. The selfie that Michael Mandel and Tyler took at the party after Michael had

seen the bodies of Mary Jo and Blake Hadley show both boys looking uncomfortable with Tyler looking pained, almost scared. He told multiple people that night at the party that he was planning to take his own life or told some that he was drawing a big party before he went away. He said things like he was going away for 60 years. And when people questioned him on this, asking him where he was going, was he moving, was he going on a trip, Tyler just admitted that he had done something bad. He had told people that he was going to kill himself before. Some of the chats containing these messages were entered into evidence at his trial, but no one took him seriously.

One party goer recalled that Tyler kept rubbing his hands together, nervously clenching his fist. But I think, you know, even with all of that, most people thought, hey, that's just Tyler being Tyler. It's interesting to think about the times that Tyler likely thought he had been found out. He showed Michael Mandel the master bedroom just after 1 a.m. When the police came by at 1.30 a.m., he must have thought he was done for. Even earlier than that, when people were joking about him having killed his parents to be able to throw the party, he must have been pretty paranoid. It was also reported that early on in the party, someone came in and darkly,

upon smelling cigarette smoke inside the house, said, It smells like dead bodies in here. This was supposed to be a joke about how smoking kills. but it seemed to cause Tyler to be apprehensive and tense. It must have made Tyler wonder if anyone could smell what was in the master bedroom, at least before the joke was explained to him. And to me, it's no wonder that Tyler was paranoid. You know, he had just killed his parents.

And on top of that, he was drinking, he was doing drugs. We know more if that a lot of drugs make you, paranoid, even when you haven't done anything. So, you know, if you're taking ecstasy, you're smoking marijuana, you're drinking, and you know you've killed your parents and they're in the master bedroom and you've got a hundred people in your house, the paranoia at some point has to be running rampant. Yeah, you have to wonder what was going through his mind while his parents are in that next room. If any of those partygoers had made their way in there, they certainly would have been shocked to see his parents' bodies in there. And then the party

would have been over pretty quickly, I imagine. Yeah. And the other thing that really jumped out at me is that it doesn't sound as though Tyler had any thoughts or illusions that he was going to get away with this. Right. He had told people that he was going to end his life. He had told people that he was going away for a long time. If you put those two together, to me, that hints at the thought that he knew he was going to get caught. It was just a matter of time. And it was a matter of, you know, how was it going to end for him, either with a suicide or with being arrested and going to jail. Tyler was tried for the first. He was tried for the degree murders of his parents, Blake and Mary Jo Hadley, since he was a teenager at the time.

He wasn't able to face the punishment of the death penalty, even though he was tried as an adult. Life in prison without the possibility of parole was the harshest sentence possible for Tyler to receive for murdering his parents in cold blood. He first pleaded not guilty to both charges. But then in February of 2014, he pleaded no contest to each charge of first-degree murder. On March 20, 2014, he received two life sentences with no possibility of parole for the murder of his parents. In prison, Tyler Hadley wasn't some type of remorseful, scared kid. He instead fancied himself somewhat of a celebrity behind bars.

He signed letters as Hambo, short for Hammer Boy, and signed autographs for other inmates as Hammer Time. His letters to family don't reflect this cocky personality, though. He wrote to his grandparents that he cried often because of how guilty he felt and that he was afraid he was going to go to hell when he died. Mental health evaluations played a huge role in Tyler's trial. The police found bottles of satalopram, another antidepressant. which is supposed to balance out your serotonin levels, as well as hydroxazine and antihistamine like Benadryl that is used to ease anxiety. Both of these were prescribed to Tyler. He also wrote to his grandparents saying,

I wish I never started taking that damn pill and stated that none of this would ever have happened if he hadn't. But he doesn't ever say exactly which pill he's talking about. He had multiple prescriptions and by his own admission or claims, he took ecstasy and had access to Percocet. Tyler may have been grasping at straws, looking for anyone or anything else to blame for what he did. If he truly felt guilty, maybe he didn't want to own up to the fact that he was a person who could kill his closest family members. And if he didn't feel any remorse, maybe he just wanted to try and set up a an insanity defense. If he could prove he didn't know right from wrong at the time of the murders, he would have had his shot at being sentenced to a psychiatric facility rather than the prison time.

The very obvious premeditation and the resentment he was openly feeling toward his parents threw that defense right out of the window. Tyler had even admitted to Michael that he waited to attack his parents until after his older brother Ryan had moved out of the house, almost two months prior to the murders. Inmates claim Tyler talked about planning the murders and the party for three weeks, and that he bragged about how awesome his party was. Two weeks before the murders, Tyler was hanging out with a friend when he suddenly blurted out that he wanted to kill his parents and to have a big party after, because it had never been done before. During his trial, it was agreed upon by psychiatric experts that Tyler Hadley was not a

psychopath. When asked by a fellow inmate if his parents tried to stop him during the attack, Tyler replied, No, that's how I knew that they were. loved me, a realization that came to him far too late. And Morph, this is a statement that just absolutely blew me away. You know, it seems as though Tyler didn't believe that his parents loved him, but at a certain point during the attack, when he realized that they weren't really trying to stop him, he said, that's how I know that they really loved me. I mean, it's just, it's such a strange part of this case, you know, a kid who probably didn't feel

as though his parents loved him, cared about him, even though I'm sure they did. I mean, this is what he was feeling, but then later to come to that realization, but to only come to it during the course of killing his parents. It's mind-boggling. That's pretty tragic all around. Obviously what he did to his parents was horrible, but the fact he was obviously ill in some capacity and had these feelings of not being loved, I think that's pretty sad too. In 2014, U.S. Bank bought the Hadley's Grand Jure Avenue House for $72,600. Its market value on paper was over $103,000. But, with its history, it may have been unsellable. If not for the fact that Florida laws don't require

real estate agents to disclose, that someone was killed inside the home. And, Morph, this is something that I didn't know. I thought that this was a thing that kind of went across the board, that it was required by homeowners, agents to disclose the fact that someone was killed inside a home when selling it. Apparently, it goes state by state because Florida doesn't have that law. And I was kind of blown away by that. That's pretty scary. I think most people would want to know that something like that happened in the home that they were buying. It might not affect everyone's decision to buy that house, but other people, I think it certainly could. I get it not having to disclose if someone died in the home. People die in homes all the time. But to me, someone being murdered inside a

home, it's a much different thing. And like you said, okay, some people might not be bothered by that. It might not change their decision on whether to buy the home or not. then in some cases you might get a better deal. But I know for a fact, if my wife and I went to look at a home and we found out that someone was murdered there, my wife's not buying that home. I know that for certain. Yeah, and I think that could be for different reasons for people. One, because it's just creepy and, you know, if you're into a whole ghost thing,

that kind of thing, that's one issue. but I think the other issue is just it could affect the home's value because anyone else finding out about a murder in a home may not be willing to pay as much down the road. So in the long run, it's not fair to you as a homeowner that you could be buying something that's future value could be harmed. Yeah, no, I absolutely agree. Now, in this case, it didn't matter because, you know, probably partly due to the high profile of the case and the address of the home, it was demolished.

in early 2015. The lot still sits empty on Google Maps Street View. So I think that tells you something right there, right? It's been what, six years, six plus years since the house was demolished. Nobody's even bought the lot and decided to build a new home there. I think that tells you what many people think about not wanting to either buy a house or even build a house on a spot where a tragedy along these lines has occurred. It's just something that many people don't want to deal with and can't get past. Well, and then I think there's the other aspect of it, you know, a high profile case. Do you really want to own a home and or even build a new home at the address where a fairly

infamous case happened? Because you and I both know more if you're always going to have people who are going to drive by, they're going to want to see where this or that occurred. It happens. That curiosity. factor with some is always there. Yeah, I think the Amityville house is a good example where those infamous murders happened. And to this day, there's people that go there showing up and pestering the owners and they probably want to be left alone. Yeah, absolutely to the,

to the point where I think didn't they completely change the way that the house sat, they changed the address. They tried to do everything. I think, you know, subsequent owners, of that house. They had to try to do a lot of different things to keep people from coming by. Now, that was a very infamous case, and you had the movies and everything that went along with it, but I think to a lesser extent, it happens in a lot of cases. In April 2016, Tyler received a resentencing because a judge found that the court did not consider the correct alternative to a life sentence. And since he was a juvenile, he was entitled to the chance at rehabilitation. When trying the case, Chief Assistant State Attorney Tom Bakedall stated that their focus was on

punishment, not rehabilitation. In interviews with a clinical psychiatrist, Tyler stated he was dreading, the resentencing hearing because it was hard to be in the same room as his family, and he didn't want to have to put them all through another trial. In December 2018, Tyler Hadley was sentenced to life in prison, this time with the possibility of parole. He is serving his sentence at Okachobee Correctional Institution. He has passed the GED test and scored very high, actually above average on the SATs, 2100. At the time he took the SATs, the maximum score was 2400. So, I mean, I think that in and of itself gives you some insight that, you know, he was fairly intelligent.

The kid could have done a lot with his life. Unfortunately, he chose to go a different way. He reads a lot of books at one time being hooked on the Harry Potter series, as well as James Patterson thrillers and murder mysteries, which, you know, is a little scary because his reading habits seem to be very similar to mine. At one point, I was hooked on the Harry Potter series. I read James Patterson and I read a lot of murder mysteries. You could be a pen pal with him, it sounds like. Yeah, you know, my thought on that is I have enough friends. And I'm not looking for any pen pals, especially those of the variety who killed their parents. I'll just stay out of that one.

Yeah, I don't blame me for that. As far back, his 2014, Michael Mandel publicly stated that Tyre Hadley ruined his life, making it impossible for him to go anywhere without people knowing who he was and associating him with the murders. He was no longer Tyler Hadley's former best friend. He was the guy who was best friends with the murderer. He also caught a lot of flack for staying at the party after knowing what Tyler did, but he explained that he took the selfie because he knew he would never see Tyler again, and that he didn't run from Tyler, because he wasn't afraid of him. He had known him for so long and was comfortable around him.

And more of I think this is one of the other things that jumped out at me about this case, Michael Mandel and the amount of flack that this guy received over the years, it seems as though, you know, especially online, he gets blasted a lot for his actions that night. And to be honest with you, I don't completely understand it. You know, at the end of the day, Michael Mandel did the right thing. He called crime stoppers and he told them what had happened.

Now, I think what people take issue with is the fact that he didn't leave right away. He ended up taking the selfie. But, you know, my thought is, okay, your friend has just clued you in to the fact that he murdered his parents. What was the kid supposed to do? Was he supposed to run out the door right then and there? Or, you know, maybe did he think in his mind, hey, I'm going to get out of here, but I'm going to ease my way out of here. I'm not going to just up and run right after I find this out. Tyler's going to know. Yeah. Plus, I think you have to imagine he was in some kind of shock and maybe trying to process everything. You know, he's a teenager.

if this happened to an adult, they'd probably have a hard time processing it. So for him, as a teenager, I can imagine it was even more difficult. And it probably took a while to get through to him that, hey, I've got to get out of here and report this. Yeah, I guess to my way of thinking, people probably need to cut the kid a little bit of slack, right? He was most likely intoxicated. He was a teenager. as you said, trying to wrap his head around something unimaginable. Unimaginable being in the state he was probably in, and it would have been so even if he was

sober. Like I said, he did the right thing calling police on Tyler. He even took the drugs away from Tyler so that he couldn't end his life. Tyler later wrote to Michael that he forgives him for making the call to crime stoppers that early morning, but he also said, I'm in prison because of you. But it turns out that Michael was not the only one to call authorities after the party when the 911 call tapes were released. It was revealed that there were two other callers as well. One caller, a young woman, stated that there's no emergency, but that someone had a party tonight. And it was being reported that, you know, that, was being reported

that this kid had killed his parents. Another caller, a young man stated that he felt he had to call because a friend told him that Tyler had killed his parents. And even though that friend had already called and told everything to crime stoppers, he felt as though he needed to report it as well. So I think based off that, it's pretty easy morph to figure out that this guy's friend was Michael. Michael had already called crime stoppers anonymously, but he had told a friend about it as well. And the friend felt as though he needed to report it also.

Apparently, Michael's friend later said that when Michael told him, he replied, I don't want to know any details. As for the other kids at Tyler's party, many don't talk about that night. And a few who claimed to speak out online are horrified, bummed out that. that they were partying just feet from murder victims. Others, well, still creeped out, welcomed the attention the party's infamy brought. Mike Young, who had been at the party since around 1130 that night, recalled getting dozens of friend requests on Facebook,

after speaking to the local news, which he described as awesome. Anthony Snook, who showed up to the Hadley's residence to party around 1245 a.m. after the beer run, seems only mildly affected, if at all. though he acknowledges that Tyler did something awful while discussing the fact that it was wrong and shocking. He's quoted as saying, I just went to the party of a lifetime. So again, I think you have to talk about, you know, young kids saying things, doing things.

I often wonder more what these kids think, you know, 10, 15, 20 years later about their actions that night. or in the period of time after it was discovered that the murders occurred, are they happy with statements that they made or do they look back on it and say, man, I was, you know, I was just a dumb kid at the time. I wish I hadn't have said this or that. I'm thinking it's probably the latter, but again, they were kids. I mean, how much can you really hold against them for the one kid saying it was awesome that he got so much attention on Facebook or, you know, the other kid saying, you know, that it was the party of a lifetime. As shocking as this case is, Tyler is not the young person to have killed their parents over very superficial things or the only person to have

gone on to party directly after the murders. In 1996, 18 year old Robert Dingman and 15-year-old Jeffrey Dingman killed their parents due to greed and because they didn't like how strict their parents were. They also held a party after they killed their parents. In 2001, 18-year-old Patrick Scarpatchi killed his mother after she told him he had to move out if he didn't get a job. In 2005, 16-year-old Adam Sapikowski was arrested in North Carolina for murder during his parents, sometime after which he hosted an after-prong party. In 2006, Jeff Pelley was found guilty for the 1989 murders of his father, stepmother, and siblings, which authorities believe resulted from not being able to go to the prom.

In 2012, 26-year-old Dwayne Flourney was arrested for killing his father and grandmother, who had adopted him, after which he also threw apart. party and invited people over to the home they shared in New Jersey. And obviously, more, these are just a handful of cases. I mean, we could talk probably for hours about cases where children have killed their parents and many cases where they partied or did this or that afterwards. We just picked a handful just to kind of emphasize that this is, not unheard of in any respect. No matter how many cases there are of children doing the unthinkable and killing a parent

or parents, it doesn't get any less disturbing. The murders of Blake and Mary Jo Hadley at the hands of their son, Tyler, is both shocking and frustrating. There were warning signs, signs that even Tyler's parents recognized and tried to act on, but by the time they did, it seems as if Tyler was too far gone. And so many of Tyler's friends had heard Tyler brag that he would one day kill his parents. But none of them did anything. If they had, perhaps the Hadleys would still be alive today.

So Morph, as we wrap up this case, I think a couple of things to talk about. You know, Tyler's parents recognized that something was going on with him. They tried to get him held. And at one point, especially his mother, thought that he had turned the corner. and that his life was heading in the right direction. So, you know, you have to wonder, was that the case, but he had already made up his mind to kill his parents, or was that some type of smokescreen? Was he play acting as though he had turned the corner when in reality his plan was still

to kill his parents and he wasn't going to deviate from that no matter what? And then the second part is, you know, around him telling a number of friends, bragging almost that, you know, he was going to kill his parents. He had told many people that he was going to end his life. And this is something that you and I have talked about before, but what do you think as a 16, 17, 18 year old kid when one of your friends, says something like this. Now, I think to you and I, going back to the 80s, when, you know, kind of you and I would have been this age, we probably would not have thought a lot about it.

You know, this is somebody blowing off steam. They don't mean this. They're just, you know, lashing out. I almost feel like in the last, you know, whatever, 10, 15 years, things have changed dramatically. No longer can you take these type of what you may consider idle threats or, you know, things like that and just dismiss them because there's too much going on. We have too many school shootings. We have, you know, too many things that are happening. These comments made by kids, you know, they're often precursors to something bad. That is a bad. That is a ready to happen. But, you know, even in this day and age, as a kid, what do you think when one of your friends says something that seems morbid or, you know, threatening or something like that?

I just don't know. Do you run immediately and tell your parents? Do you call the police? I don't think a lot of kids think that way. Maybe more due today than did when you and I were younger. But, you know, I still think a lot of kids believe that, oh, they're just blowing off steam. They don't really mean what they're saying. The problem is a lot of them do. We talked a little bit about it that the way teenagers might react to something is different from the way adults might react to something. As adults, we know how we're supposed to respond to certain things, or at least I

would think most adults do anyhow. But as a teenager, it's a kid. got to be shocking to hear that kind of stuff and then to know, as you mentioned, is this just a grab at attention? Does this person just want me to think he's cool? Or is there something there? And again, kids today have to live in a different world, I think, than we lived in back in the 80s, where they're taught to, if you see something, if you hear something, bring it to an adult's attention. And we've seen multiple instances over the years of where this could have saved lives.

Unfortunately, it didn't save the lives of the Hadley's here. But no matter what decade you're talking about, a kid still has to balance that kind of, okay, I'm going to tell somebody, but it could wreck my friendship. Do I really want to lose my best friend? And I think that is tough for kids. You know, they're in a very tough position, I guess, is what I'm trying to get across.

And this is a really tough case just all the way around. It's very sad to parents here that obviously seemed like good parents that tried to provide for their son and wound up dead. Obviously, we can't go back in time and change what happened. But in a perfect scenario, you know, with hindsight, it's easy to sit here and say, oh, this could have been done, that could have been done. But when life is unfolding in real time, you can't make decisions, spur of the moment, and the right decisions aren't always come to. And we don't know if there's any other decisions that could have been made here that would have

prevented this from happening. Yeah, I really don't know because, you know, it would be different if Tyler's parents hadn't done a thing. But we know that's not the case. they did try to get him help. And they thought the help that they had gotten him was actually working in that he was turning the corner. So, yeah, it would be a different scenario if they had seen the signs and they just had done nothing.

Now, it wouldn't have meant that they should have been killed, but we, the conversation would have been, would be a little different, I think. This is just tough. I think, you know, you have. have an individual who at some point made the decision that he was going to kill his parents. And I can't help but go back to that moment in time where both of his parents realized that their son was about to kill them. And, you know, we talked about their last words, you know, both of them. It was just why? Why, Tyler, are you doing this to us?

And, you know, that's kind of a haunting thought. It should scare all of us. Thanks goes out to Sunny Landon for writing and research assistants in this episode. As always, if you love the show and you haven't done so yet, go out, give us a five-star rating. You can leave a review as well. But 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 is it for our episode on Tyler Hadley. But we'll be back with everyone next Saturday night with a brand new episode of Criminology. So until then, for Mike. And Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.