Hidden True Crime - Monster Mom and Step Dad Indicted After 10-Year-Old Found in Plastic Tote | Jayden Spicer Updates

Episode Date: August 20, 2025

A missing child. A shallow grave. And now—murder charges. Ten-year-old Jayden Spicer’s case has taken a shocking turn as both his mother and stepfather are indicted. What really happened inside that home? MINT MOBILE: This year, skip breaking a sweat AND breaking the bank. Get this new customer offer and your 3-month Unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month at Mintmobile.com/HIDDEN About Hidden True Crime: What started as a simple conversation at their dinner table became a captivating podcast. Join the dynamic duo of Dr. John Matthias, a criminal psychologist, and Lauren Matthias, an investigative journalist, as they delve into the psychological facets of unthinkable crimes every week. Their unique perspectives and in-depth analysis offer a fresh take on true crime storytelling. Thank you for your support through sponsorships, subscribing, listening, and becoming a Patreon member at Patreon.com/hiddentruecrime Hatfield McCoy Museum Adventures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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in that home that evening. So to quickly recap on the morning of August 6th, just after 9 a.m., Alicia Gross borrowed a neighbor's phone to call 911. She reported that her son, Jaden, was missing from their home on Pan Bowl Branch Road in Brethick County, Kentucky. Now, Jaden's living situation was already complicated before all of this. He had been living with his great-grandmother, Shirley, for most of his young life. And that's because Felicia, his biological mother, lost custody years earlier due to a history that included drug charges, firearm charges, child endangerment and wanton endangerment. CPS stepped in and Jaden, along with his siblings, went into Shirley's care. Meanwhile, Felicia moved on with her life. She married Joshua

Gross, and together they had three more children. Three children she did. She did. did manage to keep custody of. But when Shirley passed away, this past May, the courts made the decision to reunite Jaden with his biological mom and stepdad. The arrangement wasn't instant. Felicia and Josh first had to complete parenting classes and pass drug tests. Once they did, Jaden was placed back in their home. So by August, he had only been living with them for just a few month. He was grieving the loss of his great-grandmother who had raised him adjusting to a new family dynamic and trying to prepare for school, which was set to start just a week later. When Jaden was reported missing, Felicia and Josh did not speak directly with the media. Instead,

they released a handwritten letter pleading for the community's help in finding their son. Law enforcement, along with volunteers, launched an exhaustive days-long surge of the rugged, wooded area surrounding the family's rural trailer. A reward was even offered with information for any information leading to answers. But sadly, this search didn't end with a reunion. It ended with heartbreak. On August 12th, six days after Jaden was reported missing, a resident on Canoe Road, about 20 minutes from Jaden's home, called in to report about a distinct odor coming from the area. And around that same time, police were speaking with Felicia. And it was during that, that conversation that she confessed,

Felicia admitted to giving Jaden too much sleeping medication, which she says caused him to have a medical emergency and pass away. And so when we say confess, we say confess with air quotes because this is what she confessed to, but

is this the full story? Because instead of calling for help, she admitted, she panicked. She told police she coached her other children on what to say if anyone asked about Jaden, and then she transported his body to Canoe Row. and there she buried him inside a plastic tote in a shallow grave, the same spot where investigators later recovered his remains.

This is a heartbreaking case. Felicia was arrested, and her initial charges included second-degree manslaughter falsely reporting an incident, tampering with physical evidence, abuse of a corpse, and tampering with a witness. So now, again, there are some big updates in this case, those updates, again, that shift things even further and raise even more questions about what really happened in that home. So when news first broke that Felicia was facing a manslaughter charge instead of murder,

the public was furious. How could the death of a nine-year-old child under such disturbing circumstances be reduced to manslaughter? But as we've mentioned before, in cases like this charges often start out lower, and they can be upgraded once investigators gather more evidence, especially after an autopsy sheds light on the true cause of death. And that's exactly what just happened. What was supposed to be a straightforward preliminary hearing for Felicia this Monday ended with a bombshell announcement. The Commonwealth's attorney Miranda King revealed that a grand jury had handed down in indictment, upgrading Felicia's manslaughter charges to murder. She's also still

facing charges of the abuse of a corpse, filing a false police report, and tampering with witnesses and physical evidence. Now, what we don't know and what everyone's wondering is whether these upgraded charges mean the medical examiner discovered something different about Jaden's cause of death. Belicia again claimed she gave him too much sleeping medication. That's her confession. But if the autopsy points to something else, something more deliberate, that would completely change the narrative, and it might explain why prosecutors felt confident in pursuing a murder charge instead of manslaughter. From the very beginning, a lot of people questioned whether Felicia could have carried out everything she admitted to completely on her own. And if you think about it,

moving a child's body inside a plastic tote, a 10-year-old's body, transporting it, digging a grave, it all takes time, strength, and planning. And remember, there were at least three other young children. children in that household. How could she have managed all of that without anyone else noticing? That's why so many in the community suspected that her husband Josh, Josh Gross, had to have known something. After all, Felicia admitted that she coached the other children about what to say regarding Jaden. So the question everyone kept asking was, how could Josh possibly have been kept in the dark? And if he didn't know, why hadn't he been charged? Well, now we have our answer, or at least part of our answer, during Monday's hearing, the Commonwealth's attorney revealed

that Joshua Gross had also been indicted. His charges are heavy. Complicity to murder. Complicity to falsely report an incident tampering with physical evidence, abuse of a corpse, and complicity to tamper with witnesses. What this means legally is that the state doesn't necessarily believe Josh was the one who caused Jaden's death at this time, but prosecutors do believe he was involved afterward, helping cover it up, helping dispose of Jaden's body, and participating in the coaching of the other children. In other words, they're alleging that Josh wasn't just a bystander. He was an active participant in keeping the truth hidden. Here is the official statement that was released by attorney Miranda King in the Commonwealth's Facebook page. It says, quote,

Bad investigations are short and stationary. Officers go in, draw in interference, make a rash decision, close it, and never look back. Good investigations are fluid in that they evolve with the benefit of hard work and time. This is one of the latter. Having said that, I want to reiterate my thanks to Kentucky State Police Post 13 for their hard and professional work. They have done and continued to do in their pursuit of justice for Jaden. On Tuesday afternoon, they did a job that no one should have ever to do. And there's just no way we can ever adequately thank them for that service, but we can try. On Tuesday night, I told you that Jaden was in good hands now, and we were going to take care of him. Today was the next phase in that

promise. This morning, we convened a grand jury. And with the foundation of the initial investigative work and the benefit of another week of knowledge, work and evolution, Detective Nathan Rourke presented Jaden's case to the grand jury. As a result, the Brethethe County grand jury took the following action. Felicia Gross has been indicted for the following. Number one, murder. Number two, falsely reporting incident, which generates an emergency response. Number three, tampering with physical evidence, four, abuse of corpse. Five, tampering with a witness. Six, tampering with a witness. Joshua Gross has been indicted for the following. Number one, complicity to murder. Two, complicity to falsely reporting incident, which generates an emergency response. Number three, tampering with

physical evidence for abuse of corpse. Five, complicity to tamper with a witness. Six, complicity to tampering with a witness. On a personal note, as a mom of two that are in my life, even the idea of this event seems unfathomable. But here we are in this unimaginable place. In Jaden's short life, he got less than he deserved, so we are going to give him everything we have got in ours. Both defendants are being held at the Kentucky River Regional Jail under a $1 million bond each, end quote. A quick word from this episode's sponsor. You know what doesn't belong in your back-to-school plans getting robbed by your old wireless bill? While you're planning schedules, driving kids to their sports practices, and prepping for your holiday, your phone plan shouldn't be the suspect draining your bank

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join the search for Jaden. And during a recorded conversation with the couple, Josh could be heard saying that he and Felicia were cooperating with police. They even allowed the McCoys to search their property, fully aware that Jaden was already dead and buried miles away, according to police. And in that same conversation, Josh brought up that Jaden wasn't going to school at the time. Initially, the McCoys chose not to disclose those details on their YouTube channel

to protect Jaden's privacy, but after the truth about the case came out, they released what was said in part of the conversation, which we can now listen. too. Take a listen. Josh said Jaden couldn't go to school because he tried to stab a child with a pencil. That's what was on that video that we didn't go over the other day, but we've since, we did another video where we were talking between Sheila and I about who we thought

and what we thought had happened. And this was not on YouTube channel. It was not on the, it was just on our drive. and we talked about how we thought Felicia and Josh you know now Josh is innocent till proven guilty or charged or whatever

Felicia's been charged and arrested but now I don't think he has but now Josh told us that he was there the night that to the early morning hours when Jaden come up missing

so he told us that's on tape yeah we asked him yeah you ask was there anybody else here that was one of our questions we wanted to ask was there anybody else here when you and felicia was here that night and he come up missing that morning was there anybody else that can confirm that jaden was in that that trailer that night they said yes both of them said yes and like she said she said her head say yes. Felicia kept shaking her head. Just, yeah.

And that was the children. There was other children there. No adults. But he was telling us this story that Sheila, one of us asked, is Jaden in school because we noticed school buses at the school when we drove by. And we thought, well, if he run off, if he's run away, maybe he's been bullied at school. We asked. They said, no, he don't go to school.

And Josh couldn't answer fast. enough that he had tried to stab another little boy with a pencil. Now, whether that's true or not, who knows? But we were, we left it. The text wasn't on there, but if you listen to that tape, you'll hear him say that. And we left that so in case there was a teacher, a principal, or somebody else out there that heard that, they could say, that's a lie. That's not true.

Or they could say, yeah, I remember. They can confirm or deny that. What if he was, What if that's not true? And he just made that up. And somebody, a teacher or somebody heard that, and they say, that's not. Because, see, we like a lot of other people felt school was just starting back. Yeah.

He could have been gone for a week, a month, two weeks. Maybe when school was starting back, they knew they had to account for this child. This raises the question of whether Jaden truly wasn't being allowed to go to school because of that allegation or if that was just another cover. story. Who knows how many cover stories there are. And if you remember from our last video, there were already rumors that Felicia and Josh had attended an open house for the school without Jaden. So it's possible Josh was trying to come up with a reason why Jaden wouldn't be seen at school. And once they realized they'd eventually need to explain his absence when classes started back that may have been when they decided to spin the story of him disappearing. Only time will tell.

The McCoys also took the time to go out to the scene where Jaden was eventually recovered. You can find a link to this full video that the McCoys took in the description of this episode. In our first video, we also mentioned that Father Jim Sitchko had contributed money toward the reward fund for information about Jaden's whereabouts. Now that the case has taken a tragic turn, he's chosen to redirect that support to ensure Jaden is laid to rest with dignity. Father Jim explained that from the beginning, he had a heavy feeling that this case would not have a hopeful ending. As a missionary of mercy, he sees one of his responsibilities as honoring the dad, and he said, quote, It's another young life gone far too soon, end quote, while emphasizing that caring for someone after death is just as meaningful as caring for them in life. He stressed the importance of Jaden receiving a burial that reflects both respect and love.

that means providing a high-quality casket, a proper headstone, and covering the cost so that Jaden's extended family doesn't have to worry. Father Jim explained, quote, we want him to know as he looks down on us that everything was done to take care of him, end quote. To celebrate Jaden's personality, Father Jim is collaborating with Sol Shine Industries, a Texas nonprofit known for creating custom caskets that honor individuals' lives. Co-owner Trey Ganim said, quote, It's not just about decorating a casket, it's about capturing who that person was, end quote. For Jaden, the design will feature a Spider-Man theme, reflecting something he absolutely loved.

Although Solshine typically provides these custom caskets at no cost, Father Jim said he intends to pay them for their work so they can continue offering the service to grieving families. He will also cover the expense of the vault and contribute to the headstone, ensuring Jaden's final resting place truly honors his memory. Jeff Hamilton, who owns Breath at Funeral Home, has offered to take care of the expenses for Jaden's service as well. Others in the community have also come together to make sure he is remembered with honor. Hamilton said, quote, seeing Jaden's photo just breaks your heart and makes you think about the

life he should have had. It's something that touches everyone, end quote. Visitation will take place at 10 a.m. on Thursday at breathed funeral home with the funeral beginning at 2 p.m. Since Jaden was found and Felicia and Josh have been charged, his aunt Samantha Brunty said, quote, It's a nightmare. I just feel like I can't wake up from it. It doesn't seem real. And quote. And in regard to Felicia and Josh, she wrote on Facebook, quote, the devil will have his time with you. God himself wouldn't even turn his head. And quote, well, his aunt shy had some harsher words writing, and I'm going to quote here,

let these two dumbfucks suffer every single day for the next 50 years. I pray that our family gets all our answers and everyone responsible gets justice serviced on their ass. Sorry for the language, but no one knows how our family truly feels about this situation. Yes, Everyone knows we are in pain, but there are so many more emotions that come along. There is so many details that have not been released that will actually give everyone the answers. Everything is coming to light. Just wait for it, end quote. It's an nightmare.

I just feel like I can't wake up from. It doesn't just seem real. Jaden's mother, Felicia Gross, initially reported him missing on August 6th, begging for his safe return. State police used every resource to find him. And family members helped. We spent hours up until 2, 3 o'clock in the morning out looking for Jaden. We was very dedicated.

And to know that she knew where he was, that just we can't stomach it. Whether it be throwing rocks in the creek, walking through the creek, playing with his cousins or sisters, he was always right there in the midst of all of it. Though his life was cut short, family members say the love Jaden shared will live in their hearts forever. He was full of light, always smiling, and he just loved being around his family and friends. So that is all of the information I have on Jaden's case for now. Of course, Hidden True Crime will continue keeping a close eye on this story and will bring you the latest updates as soon as new details come out. Until then, rest in peace, Jaden.

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