Going West: True Crime - Katrina Smith // 242

Episode Date: October 8, 2022

In October of 2012, a 30-year-old woman in Illinois who was being stalked by an unknown male went missing. She had been scared in the weeks leading up to her disappearance, and when her body was found in a river, police looked into numerous people in her circle until damning evidence brought her killer to justice. This is the story of Katrina Smith. BONUS EPISODES patreon.com/goingwestpodcast CASE SOURCES 1. Medium: https://medium.com/@story-teller/grieving-husband-turned-out-to-be-the-evil-murderer-d5a338cba0f0 2. True Crime Daily: https://truecrimedaily.com/2017/05/09/illinois-woman-stalked-murdered-in-midst-of-affair-separation/ 3. Chilling Crimes: https://www.chillingcrimes.com/blogs/news/katrina-smith 4. Find A Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/100540182/katrina-ashley-smith 5. The Central Trend: https://thecentraltrend.com/29894/opinion/columns/my-cousins-made-my-childhood-memorable/ 6. My State Line: https://www.mystateline.com/news/update-defense-rests-its-case-in-todd-smith-murder-trial/ 7. Mirror: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/real-life-stories/woman-stalked-beaten-death-baseball-10498464 8. True Crime Daily: https://truecrimedaily.com/2017/05/09/illinois-woman-stalked-murdered-in-midst-of-affair-separation/ 9. The Central Trend: https://thecentraltrend.com/29894/opinion/columns/my-cousins-made-my-childhood-memorable/ 10. WIFR: https://www.wifr.com/content/news/Jury-selection-in-murder-trial-for-Todd-Smith-begins-410166405.html 11. My State Line: https://www.mystateline.com/news/convicted-killer-todd-smith-wants-conviction-tossed-in-wifes-2012-murder/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on to crime fans? I'm your host Heet. And I'm your host, Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Welcome everybody. Hope you're having a wonderful day. Heath and I are super excited because yesterday we released the first two new episodes of the Dark Parts, which is our other podcasts. It's paranormal, spooky stories, urban legends, and we came out two episodes. One is called In the Walls, and the other is called the Haunted Black Forest of Colorado. Yeah, super excited about those two episodes. and super excited about all of the dark parts episodes that are coming out. I think you guys are really going to dig them.

Yes, in the walls is just a variety of spooky stories about people finding things in their walls, both people and animals, or creatures, if you will. And we put out the second episode, which the Black Forest of Colorado which we just said which is a haunted part of Colorado. Very very creepy stories about ghosts, rainbow vortex, and all sorts of spooky things. Yeah so go check it out everywhere you listen to podcasts wherever you're listening to going west right now. You can go check out the dark parts, subscribe, listen, we're so excited to bring it back and thank you guys so much for checking it out. All

right guys, this is episode 242 of Going West, so let's get into it. 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh In October of 2012, a third-year-old woman in Illinois who was being stalked by an unknown male went missing.

She had been scared in the weeks leading up to her disappearance. And when her body was found in a river, police looked into numerous people in her circle until damning evidence brought her killer to justice. This is the story of Katrina Smith. Katrina Ashley Edland was born on July 16, 1982 in Elcorn, Wisconsin, about a 45-minute drive southwest of Milwaukee. Katrina's family consisted of her mom, Vicki, and her stepfather Bruce, whom she considered a father figure, and then there was also her sister named Miranda and brother named Chad. She loved the outdoors, which included her hobby of gardening, and she loved traveling to

the beach as well. In many ways, she was the light of the family. They all remember her always being the one to rally the family for gatherings and just taking photos together. She's remembered as bubbly, happy, and upbeat, and one thing that everyone remembers about her is her contagious laugh. One friend said, quote, If you were feeling down, she was not going to leave until you were happy again.

At some point in Katrina's childhood, the family relocated to the neighboring state of Illinois, moving to Machesney Park, which is a town outside of Rockford, Illinois, and Rockford is about an hour and a half away from Chicago just for reference. In 2000, Katrina graduated from Harlem High School and began attending Rock Valley College in Rockford. Katrina then got a job at a plastics company called Cameron Industries, working as a human resources

coordinator. She was very active in her church and loved volunteering and working with people, especially children. When Katrina was 23 years old, she married 37-year-old Todd Smith, an investment and insurance broker who had three daughters from a previous relationship. Page, Devon, and Sydney. Friends and family had reservations about her getting into a relationship with someone older who already had children, but Katrina seemed really happy. Yeah, so he was about 14 years older.

Right, and the couple were ready to start their lives together at this point. Although Todd's daughters were grown, Katrina relished stepping into the role of being their stepmom. In 2012, the couple celebrated seven years of marriage by going on an anniversary trip to Washington, D.C. and everything seemed to be great between the two. They were even talking about adopting a baby in the near future. In the fall of 2012, Katrina had been anxiously awaiting a job interview for a new position. It was set for the morning of Tuesday, October 23,

2012, so she spent the evening prior preparing, using Todd's computer to send out a few emails to her potential employer, and doing a few loads of laundry as well. Now, according to Todd, she decided to head out for the night to pick up a new outfit for the interview and was then going to stop by a friend's condo because she had been house sitting for a friend who was out of town at this point. But whether she was planning to or not, she did not return home that night. Todd texted her that night, quote, sweet dreams, I love you. The next morning, knowing that she was headed into her interview,

Todd texted his wife, quote, good luck at your interview. You're gonna be awesome, but received no response. Neither of those two texts were ever opened. And just, you know, this might seem weird off the bat, like why is he texting her good night? Because instead of like,, oh where are you? But if she had been house sitting it makes sense that he could have potentially thought

that she was just spending the night, that could have been their agreement. And so this seems like a normal couple of texts. Sure. So Todd's co-workers remember him being distracted and tired that morning. But he explained that he and Katrina had just gotten a new puppy, which by the way was not true. So kind of already lying off the bat. Yeah. And that afternoon, he received a call from Katrina's office saying that she hadn't shown up for work that day. Alarmed and confused,

apparently, Todd called 911, telling the dispatcher, quote, My wife is house sitting for somebody who's out of town, and I haven't been able to reach her. Officers met Todd at the condo where Katrina was supposed to have been house sitting, and Katrina stepped at Bruce Edland and a coworker of Katrina's name Guy Gabriel were also there. Immediately, the detectives noted, quote, something didn't seem right. Todd explained that Katrina had been house sitting for a friend at the nearby condo, and

that she had been going back and forth between their house and the condo. And when police asked about her last known whereabouts, Todd told them about her going out shopping, remembered to get an outfit for her interview, and then subsequently missing the interview that she had so been looking forward to, which is really odd because this is something she was excited about, and she just goes missing. She was so excited that she was buying a new outfit.

So her being missing does not seem like a normal thing to be happening right now. Right, it doesn't seem like this is something that she would have a new outfit. So her being missing does not seem like a normal thing to be happening right now. Right, it doesn't seem like this is something that she would have missed at all. Right, so he explained that the night before, they had discussed, quote, normal couple things, and that she hadn't been acting out of the ordinary at all.

Like, everything was fine. According to him, they had a great, stable relationship. Todd was completely cooperative and answered every question that police asked, but Detective Bob Onez, who was assigned to the case, remembered getting a weird feeling from him and said that Todd didn't seem as concerned as he should have been. Granted, hindsight's 2020, and like we've always mentioned, people grieve in different ways, but this police officer, this detective Bob, is having weird feelings about Todd. Which is good to note, like how they are reacting, especially if he's saying our relationship is great, and he's not acting too worried, but still is seemingly worried

enough to call the police. It's just good to take note of. So Katrina's stepfather was also questioned, and when asked if he knew of anyone who had a problem with Katrina, said that he couldn't imagine anyone wanting to harm her. Then they brought in a third person to interview who was Katrina's coworker, Guy Gabriel, who had been with Todd, Bruce, and the officers at the condo the day Katrina was reported missing, and he revealed some explosive information. Katrina had not been house sitting that condo. It was actually her condo. She was living there because she was planning on leaving Todd, and Guy wasn't just her

coworker, he was her boyfriend. Oh shit, boom. This is super big information. Definitely. So this shifted Guy into suspicions because it was quickly revealed that he had a violent history, a domestic dispute with his current wife on whom he was cheating with Katrina. His wife had been treated for injuries at an area hospital

and the responding officer remembered, quote, the first thing I noticed was that she had a large knot on her forehead. Her face was really red and she looked like she had been crying. Her eyes had also been red. She had a couple of scratches that I could see on her throat and on her chest. And the nurse who treated her said, quote, she said that he had hit her head onto the ground and choked her at one point. Whether or not this had anything to do with Katrina's disappearance, they didn't know yet, but it didn't look great for Guy either way.

The following day, which was Wednesday, October 24, 2012, Katrina's new Chevy Cruise was found about a block from the Rock River Bridge at the intersection of Ventura Boulevard and a Bisbo Road, only about two miles or a little over three kilometers from the home that she shared with her husband. Now police called Todd, alerting him that they had found her car and asking him to bring her keys down to where they had found it. But strangely, the interior of the car was immaculate and looked as if it had been freshly detailed.

They did, however, recover a handwritten card from Todd that read, quote, �I will do whatever it takes. I want to grow old with you. I love you and cherish you, Katrina. Love Todd� So a couple red flags already. Obviously the fact that her car has been cleaned, it makes you wonder if a crime took place inside, right? Yeah, and then just this note, the whole I will do whatever it takes can be looked at in a pretty grim manner,

especially considering she's missing. Yes. So about 20 feet or six meters from the car, detectives found her purse with the wallet inside, discarded along with bloody paper towels. Before this discovery, it was just as likely that she had left on her own volition as it was that she had been met with foul play, but this solidified for investigators that something had gone wrong with Katrina, and that it was either a suicide or it was a homicide. And obviously, you know, the fact that her car was in perfect condition, there's bloody paper towels.

It's probably not looking like a suicide. Yeah, it looked like a cleanup situation. Yeah, absolutely. So police told the vehicle for further testing and using her cell phones GPS, they were able to tell that her phone was still on and it was facing Southwest. A more detailed search of the area revealed Katrina's flip phone in a bush just a short distance away from her car. Around the time that she was last seen by Todd, there were text messages from Guy, remember

her boyfriend, that said quote, what's wrong? And then, have you told him you want to divorce? That there's nothing left in you for him? Nothing. Then later, quote, he wants this his way. Well, newsflash, he has no say. The text insinuated that Guy was, you know, maybe pressuring her to leave her marriage as soon as possible and that it didn't seem like Todd knew. Guy protested this, however,

stating later, quote, I wasn't trying to get her to do anything, I was just encouraging her to be open and honest and let people know how she felt at home. At 9.24 pm, he sent her three texts in a row, but only two were opened. As detectives continued to dig into Katrina's personal life, a strange revelation came about. Just a couple weeks earlier, on October 9, 2012, a coworker of Katrina's name Christina remembers that a strange document

was circling their workplace. Multiple employees had come to Christina, concerned about what they had read. A printed flyer had been strewn around the office parking lot and it said this, around the office parking lot and it said this. Guy fucked Cat, but Cat is spelled with a C instead of a K like for Katrina. It's C-A-T and then here it continues quote, Guy won the bet. He was able to nail Katrina against spelled with a C from HR in record time. It was the easiest challenge spelled incorrectly missing 1L so far. Yeah, she's married with a family, but when I turned on the charm, her legs fell open.

Anybody can do it, even you. All you have to do is let her talk or text. Pretend you were listening as a friend and suddenly you're, wrong form of you, pounding the sweet stuff. She never had a chance. What's next for Gabriel? I'm gonna do the whole H-O-L-E, HR department, maybe even go through corporate as well. The best part of married women is no dinner expense, no annoying hanging around. Once the legs come open, it's slam bam gotta go. Oh God, well this guy, it's the gross poster, whatever. Yeah, whoever this dude is, it's clearly a piece of shit.

Yeah, so I know that was very confusing to hear because of all my, you know, punch ins, but yeah, it's just weird that they're, I mean, they're obviously talking about Katrina, but they're spelling her name wrong, they're spelling a lot of things wrong, like challenge, your, they spelled through wrong, whole,

just lots of mistakes in this flyer. So they're stupid and also a piece of shit. Yeah, and just weird that this flyer is printed and being strewn around the office parking lot, and this is after, or this is before she went missing, sorry. So this is a couple weeks before, which is really strange as well. Yeah, alarming.

So as I just said, alarmed at this, Christina called Katrina into her office to address the rumor which Katrina denied. She also asked Christina not to tell Todd about the incident. Then on October 15, 2012, Christina received an eerie phone call at her desk from an anonymous caller with what she described as a cartoon voice asking, quote, did you see the flyer? She tried to press the caller for details, but they simply said, too bad Katrina went to be with Guy before laughing maniacally and hanging up. And how scary that she described it as a cartoon voice?

Like, yeah, free. I don't even know what to picture, but it's not pleasant. No, not at all. So in the midst of this, Katrina started telling friends and family that she had been feeling like she was being stalked. Three days after Katrina was last seen, police were able to obtain home security footage of a hooded

figure walking away from where her car was found at 11.31pm on the evening of Monday, October 22nd, and assumed that this unknown figure was their target, walking away from having dumped her car. Katrina's Chevy cruise was examined and processed, but they found nothing inside, not even Katrina's fingerprints. This led examiners to believe that it had been thoroughly cleaned before being abandoned, but a more in-depth search did lead them to something disturbing. After spraying the car down with luminal to test for a reaction to leftover blood, there was a large reaction in the trunk, and the DNA matched Katrina's.

There was also blood on the steering wheel, driver's seat, and gear shift, and hair found in the trunk as well. It had been over a week since she disappeared at this point, and Katrina's frustrated family and friends held a vigil still hoping for her safe return. Todd, his daughters, Katrina siblings and parents, and even Todd's ex-wife were all there, praying for Katrina to come home safely. Almost every day since her disappearance, Todd had appeared on news outlets doing interviews and begging for his wife to come back. On one, he said through tears, quote, quote, quote,

quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote,

quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote another he pleaded, quote, I just wanted to come home or call us and let us know she's safe. Katrina, please. On November 9, 2012, about a week after the vigil, an off-duty firefighter placed a 911 call stating that he thought he saw a body caught on the trunk of a tree floating in the rock river, which cuts right through rock ferd and happens to be the tributary of the Mississippi. He had first seen the body on Halloween, which is super eerie, when he had been fishing that evening,

so he was at the river and saw this body, but it was too dark to tell exactly what it was, and he just assumed that it was trash. When he heard that Katrina was missing, he remembered what he saw and went back to investigate further. While the medical examiner needed to pursue identification measures given that there was decomposition involved, detectives began bracing the family, just telling them that it was probably Katrina. And then, dental records confirmed that it was. Of course, this was bittersweet, mostly bitter for her family, who were relieved that they found

her, but of course, devastated to know that there was now no possibility of her coming back. Katrina had ultimately died of blunt force trauma to the head, sustaining multiple very hard blows to the back of her school. Police zeroed in on Guy because of his history with domestic violence, but it turned out that Guy had an alibi. He had worked the night shift on the evening of Monday, October 22. Guy was completely cooperative with authorities, even allowing them to search his phone,

and police confirmed with his workplace what time he had clocked in and out, and taken his breaks that night, and it was consistent with the account that he had given, and the time in which they believe Katrina was killed. So once again, they turned to her phone. On October 9th, Katrina had texted her stepfather, asking about how to get a foid or firearm owner's identification card. So in the state of Illinois, in order to legally own a firearm or purchase ammunition, you have to have a void.

Her text to Bruce said quote, so I want to get a void card. If I go to that place, can I complete application there and will they take my picture or do I need to get my own picture? I was looking at online application. Now 10 days later she texted him, quote, do I have to have my Floyd card first before going to the shooting range? Given that she had confided in her family that she had been feeling unsafe and as if she was being followed, police believed that she was frightened and wanted to protect herself. Her sister Miranda said quote, she knew she was being stalked and she was

scared for her life. Before that quick break, we just learned that Katrina was planning on getting a gun to protect herself because she had been feeling like she was being stalked. But who was following her? Police obtained a search warrant for Todd and Katrina's house, hoping that this would turn up something concrete. One officer found what they recognized as a GPS clip or holder with a hole that had been drilled into it, leading investigators to believe that Katrina had indeed been followed. Interesting. to believe that Katrina had indeed been followed.

Interesting. So in her car, they had found a thick piece of wire hanging from a pipe on the underbelly of the vehicle, and it looked as if it had been like a clothes hanger twisted into a homemade zip tie. Although they had not yet found a tracking device, they matched the hole on the GPS clip with the wire, and it fit perfectly. Leading police to believe that the wire had secured the GPS tracker and clip beneath her car in order for someone to be able to keep tabs on her, which is so scary to know

that people can do that, especially underneath her car where she's not gonna be looking. Yeah. Terrifying. Why would you be looking for something like that? Anybody could just like, put a tracker on anyone's car. Right, but that would just so scary, because she probably had no idea that she was being tracked that closely.

She knew she was being followed, but probably not tracked. Yeah. And when they checked the garage, they found another disturbing discovery. Blood. While, like her car, the area had been thoroughly cleaned, detectives again sprayed with luminal to see if there was a reaction with blood residue

and found a significant amount of blood on the floor of the garage as well. And so, they zeroed in on Todd. Of course. Of course, because it's in his house. Yeah, who else would you be looking at at this point? Exactly. And her siblings were an absolute shock. Chad, who is Katrina's brother, said, quote, this is a person that I love and know. I've been hugging him and crying with him. I stood up for him. I was kind of like in shock, but we said, hey, you

know, this happens. The husband's always a suspect. So we're staying together as a family, which is fair because, you know, especially we know what it's like to have siblings with husbands and significant others and they are a part of your family. Yeah, exactly. So to know that he's being looked at, they're like, oh, well, that's normal. This is Todd. We love Todd. We know him. He's not behind this.

So we're gonna stand together and they're gonna investigate him. It's fine. Yeah, and I'm sure Todd is on the other end saying, you know, I don't know why they're looking at me. Why would they be looking at me trying to like comfort them and tell them, hey, it's not me or whatever because there's just not enough information quite yet.

Right. Well, let's see how he acts when police talk about the blood in the garage. Yes. So when police brought Todd in for questioning again in relation to the blood residue found in the garage, he became agitated and his whole demeanor changed from grieving widower to someone being accused of murder. from grieving widower to someone being accused of murder. The detective questioning him, who again was Bob Onez, remembers quote, He got a little bit louder with me, read in the face, he started rubbing his head again, he put his head down trying to make up for what he had said. A friend of Todd's came forward and remembered that on the very day of Katrina's funeral, Todd had asked this friend to come over to the house to help him look for something.

They scoured the garage looking for an aluminum Louisville slugger brand softball bat, and when they found no sign of it, Todd grew increasingly angry and frustrated. It turns out that the police had already taken it from the garage and into evidence because they had found Katrina's blood on it. And how terrifying knowing that he was looking for it, like is this what you use to murder her? Yeah, and this motherfucker knows that he's going down at this point because obviously he's getting super heated that his murder weapon is now gone.

So they now believe this to be, of course, the murder weapon. So on November 24, 2012, Todd was arrested and charged with his 30-year-old wife's murder, along with aggravated battery, aggravated domestic battery, and concealment of a homicidal death. So this was just over a month, like a month and two days after she went missing. So this happened very quickly. Yeah, it seemed like kind of a snowball effect. Once they got the ball rolling with Todd, it's like he was going down. Yeah, they had all they needed. So after his arrest, detectives, of course, obtained his computer and found the original copy of the flyer that was distributed around Katrina's workplace,

as well as hundreds of past GPS coordinates of Katrina's whereabouts. So it was Todd that was passing this flyer around. Yeah, which is so creepy because he probably misspelled things on purpose and knew that Katrina was having an affair with Guy and wanted to make it known, but not point fingers at himself because nobody would expect her husband to have these flyers. I put these flyers up. Right, and maybe he was thinking, oh, well, I'm just gonna humiliate her to begin with.

Yeah. And then it progressed to murder. So on Todd's laptop, detectives found a folder named Super Track Stick, a brand of GPS systems that you can buy on Amazon. It also turned out that Todd had removed the GPS the night of the murder after ditching her car, but he then walked home with it, and the GPS tracked his location the entire time. What a dumbass! Truly, I'm like, Jesus! I'm so stupid. So based on what they knew,

police surmised that they got into a heated argument that night and Todd snapped, grabbed the baseball bat, and then killed her. On the night of October 22nd, Katrina had come by the house to do some laundry and speak with Todd about what she had hoped was their impending divorce. And again, I mean that letter to her really helped prove that he was willing to do whatever

he could to keep her from leaving him. Yeah, I mean, Todd honestly did everything wrong in this case to get himself caught. So true. So Todd's trial began in January of 2016, and remember this murder occurred in October of 2012. The details of what he did to Katrina were gruesome. I mean, she had been struck 24 times, including seven times to her head with the aluminum softball bat that Todd had tried to find and conceal after the murder.

But that's not all, there were more horrifying details to be revealed, so it turns out that Todd Smith wasn't Todd Smith after all, but Todd Rapprager. He had changed his name years prior to avoid being connected to his past crimes. Oh my God, it just goes deeper and deeper with this guy. Well, so in fact, the very first Google result when you search his real name is a lawsuit against him. So Todd, working in investments and insurance, presented himself as a wealthy and successful businessman

when in reality, Katrina had been supporting them and his daughters financially for years. In a separate legal battle from the murder trial of his wife, Todd has been accused of embezzling almost a million dollars from elderly clients alongside a co-conspirator in California. So this dude students ripping off old people. Yeah, really messed up. He's the worst of the worst. Tony Oliver, his partner in crime, was sentenced to 51 months in prison and ordered to pay

back over $983,000. But what was more alarming and what had been the force behind changing his name, Todd had tried to burn down his family's house when he was just 17 years old while his family was inside. So this guy has just been a monster for years. His whole life. But despite these revelations and all the evidence against him, Todd continued, of course, to proclaim his innocence, calling the crime evil and senseless and saying in his statement, quote,

"'King Solomon said, who so find it a wife, find it a good thing and obtain it the favor of the Lord. In closing, although I am not guilty of the acts the State portrayed, I harbored no ill will towards anyone. I'm sorry for failing in my role as husband and protector. He's such a bullshitter, like he's just so good at doing that. It's a silly thing to say. But the judge protested calling the crime unfathomable and Todd making pleas to the public via news outlets and searching alongside her family and friends was

news outlets and searching alongside her family and friends was, quote, a slap in the face to all those who loved her, which of course we agree. Todd's defense team relied heavily on the domestic violence charges against Guy, painting him as the true murderer. His attorneys even asked the police officer who took Guy's wife's statement to testify in court. But when he did, the Illinois State Prosecutor serving on behalf of Katrina, Marilyn Heit Ross, asked Point Blank if Katrina had been involved in the incident, to which, of course, the officer responded, no.

Coincidentally, a local teenager had broken into the Smith's house shortly before Katrina's death, and the defense tried to point to that as a potential avenue having led to Katrina's murder as well. Which is so dumb. I mean, like you said, there's so much evidence against him, the fact that he's the one behind the flyer, the fact that he was the one tracking her. This note that was found by her car. I mean, even the fact that he had the GPS

and it showed that he had gone from her car home. Like, this is a lot. Yeah, it must have been really hard to be, you know, a defense attorney for this guy. Oh, I can't imagine. But ultimately, they were grasping at straws. So everyone knew Todd had been involved. And on January 25th, 2017, Todd Smith was found guilty of murder in the first degree and sentenced to 59 years in prison,

55 years for the murder, and 4 for the concealment of a body. The court also ruled that he will serve 100% of that sentence, meaning that he can't get out early for good behavior. For Todd, who was 49 years old at the time, this was basically a life sentence. In the statement she read aloud to the courtroom and to Todd, Katrina's mom Vicki said, quote, "'Certain people, including my family, felt that you had everything to do with the disappearance of Katrina, but I kept telling everyone there's no way that you'd hurt Katrina. There was so much tension.

It all hurt so much, Todd, and all you had to do was walk away and let Katrina live the life that she deserved, but out of greed and jealousy and rage, you chose to take her precious life. Ending on a hopeful note, she said, quote, Death leaves a heartache, no one can heal, but love leaves memories that not even you can steal. Defense attorney Marilyn Hight Ross left the courtroom with these chilling words. The defendant wrote the epitaph for Katrina.

You are my wife, you will be my wife, and you will die my wife. We can't offer many updates on Todd's daughters or how they took the news that their father had murdered their stepmother, but we did find a blog post written by their cousin for her high school newspaper, ironically published the same year that Todd was convicted of killing Katrina. And it read, quote, Now I am 16 years old and my older cousins are grown up. One of them page has her own two kids.

The other, Devon, lives an adventurous life that I long for. And the last, Sydney, is expecting her first child. She also fondly remembers baking cookies at her aunt Katrina's house, but neither Todd nor the murder are mentioned. Vicki told a local rockford publication at the trial that the girls had stayed in touch and she hoped that they continued to do so. Vicki said, quote,

I feel sorry for them just as I felt sorry for us. It's not their fault and I can't imagine what they're going through and it's going to be tough and I'm here if they need me. Now almost exactly 10 years since the murder took place, Todd has been filing appeals to overturn his conviction since he was sentenced, arguing among other things that the trial shouldn't have taken place locally as the coverage sensationalized the case and created a biased jury. No that's just evidence.

Yeah that's just the evidence there. A rockford reporter who sat through his initial trial said in an interview with a news anchor quote, Well it's going to be very difficult for him. I mean he filed some appeals after his conviction that were actually upheld by the Illinois court, so in order to prove to a higher court or to that court, depending on what he has in his post-conviction motion if he files one, he's going to have to prove that he didn't get a fair trial or prove some evidence that he didn't commit the crime, but it's going

to be very difficult for him. When asked by the anchor if Todd would continue to file motions for a new trial, the reporter said, quote, well, the short answer to that is yes. But the family is just eager to put the whole ordeal behind them as we can all imagine, and Katrina Sister Miranda said after the trial concluded, quote, we want to just be able to move forward and just always remember Katrina and just celebrate the person that she was. Katrina was a beautiful person inside and out and she really made the world a better place just by being in it. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode and on Tuesday we'll have an all new case for you guys to dive into.

And sorry to plug it again, but we have a second podcast hosted by Heath and I. It is called The Dark Parts and it is now out. We have two new episodes and we're really excited for you guys to take a listen if you wouldn't mind heading over there. If you're interested in spooky stories or paranormal stuff or urban legends, you're going to love it. Yes, it would mean a lot to us. If you went over there and checked it out and if you dig it, please subscribe and also share the show with your friends and family. Yes, please. And thank you for tuning into this episode and all the other going West episodes we love

having you guys around. It's crazy that Todd still thinks that he's going to win some sort of appeal when there is just like a mound of damning evidence against him. A mound, I mean really, so... A mountain. Yeah, and it's always so disappointing when this happens, and when we see this, when people don't take responsibility for something that they did,

and maybe he doesn't feel responsible because maybe it was in the heat of the moment. You still murdered somebody though, so you need to take the fall for it. Yeah, and we also know a lot of things about Todd and his history with just being a criminal in general. So true, this is not a good guy, so of course he's trying to get away with it

because it just seems like a very Todd thing to do. Yeah, it's in his Todd nature. It is. All right, guys, so for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger. Thank you. you