Law&Crime Sidebar - 3 New Shocking Details in Kentucky Mom's Alleged Execution of Her Two Kids

Starting point is 00:00:00 Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. View Shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that will

Starting point is 00:00:35 keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. New disturbing details in the case of a Kentucky mother accused of shooting to death her two young sons. We have the latest from her recent court appearance and a possible defense. We bring on retired CIA and FBI agent Tracy Walder to discuss. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by law and crime. I'm Jesse Weber. We have an update for you right now on this really horrible story out of Kentucky, where a 32-year-old mother is accused of shooting to death her own children. Tiffany Ann Catherine Lucas has been charged with the murders of her two boys,

Starting point is 00:01:25 Maurice, who was six years old, and Jaden, who was nine years old, and they were found by authorities in the home shot in the head. Boys were taken by ambulance to a children's hospital with a police escort, but they both died. A bullet county judge set a $2 million bond for Lucas saying that she is a danger to others, and we have learned some new details, and I think a defense, a very weird defense? So during a recent court appearance to determine if there's probable cause for the case to continue to trial, which I'll tell you, yes there is. That's what the judge ruled. During that hearing, Bullet County Sheriff's Detective Richard Beale testified. And he testified that two neighbors, a husband and a wife, called 911 after hearing gunshots. In fact, four gunshots. Four. And they're

Starting point is 00:02:14 heard on ring doorbell camera footage. They were fired within 30 seconds. Again, both boys shot in the head. You might recall that I interviewed Bullitt County Sheriff's Office Chief Deputy Colonel Alex Payne when this first happened, and we didn't know all the details. He told me, remember, they were shot in an area that would not be survivable by anyone. And less than five minutes after the last gunshot is heard, Lucas is observed leaving the home, yelling for help. She reportedly was lying in the neighbor's driveway when authorities arrived. Lucas had allegedly told one of the neighbors that her kids were dying. Now here's where things get really interesting because Lucas allegedly told police that someone had given her the gun

Starting point is 00:02:56 and she left it in the bedroom and that what happened was an accident but she also supposedly said that she was quote in such a bad spot and that she is so stupid and that she would never do anything like this unless someone manipulated her taking that for a minute

Starting point is 00:03:13 according to Detective Beal Lucas quote made statements that she was being manipulated through Facebook, through the internet, or through Wi-Fi, through Facebook, and through a Wi-Fi being manipulated into what she did? Now, it seems that the Sheriff's Office didn't test her for drugs, and the defense got the court to agree to make sure that the evidence will be preserved and reviewed for the case. But I want to talk a little bit more about this. So let me bring back into Sidebar, former CIA and FBI agent, News Nation National Security contributor, and author of The Unexpected Spy, Tracy Walder, Tracy, just a horrifying case. Before we get into the

Starting point is 00:03:47 details of everything that we have just learned. I haven't spoken to you about this. What are your overall thoughts on it? I mean, I'm somewhat speechless, right? As a mom myself, I don't know how someone can do something like this. And her defense, to me, which I was reading about as well, is confusing. Quite frankly, is she arguing insanity? Is she arguing an accident?

Starting point is 00:04:11 I don't know how you could use an accident for shots to all nine non-survivi, places in someone's head. You pointed the gun at their head and you shot them. Period. The end. That's how that is going to work. And so I'm not sure that I fully understand what defense she's trying to employ here. I'm almost getting kind of senses of Lori Valo, right? You know, talking about how she was grading people on these scales and people were talking to her. That's almost what I'm getting here. But even more interesting that I will be interested to hear is that the role that CPS played, because it's my understanding that CPS, was called on her and on on the kids multiple times.

Starting point is 00:04:51 And so I would really want to understand more about those reports. That is very true. And I think that was one of the red flags that people raised in this about how this happened. But I do want to go back to her statements, though. And I was trying to make sense of it because, you know, it seems that the prosecution, based on the details we have, could make an easy case that she murdered them, right? Now I'm thinking about the statements. and I'm wondering if she in fact left a loaded gun in the bedroom and the kids got a hold of it and shot one and I don't I don't think that works that can't work in any way so I don't understand what she said if it was like why she would admit that it was an accident and that she's so stupid and someone to give it to the gun and she left in the bedroom I'm trying to understand how that could ever be an accident do you see anything

Starting point is 00:05:45 that would lead to that? I mean, in short, no, especially if they were both shot, as the sheriff mentioned, in non-survivable places. How would one shoot the other? I don't know how that would work out. It sounds to me, I think she's gravitating more towards this insanity because a lot of what she's saying doesn't seem to make sense, right? Is this going to work?

Starting point is 00:06:11 No. But I don't see any way in which this could be an accident. And even if it was, I think we just saw out of Virginia, the mom of the six-year-old that shot the teacher, she was actually just convicted of that. So she's just as liable. So I don't think that that's going to work. Hey there, everybody. I want to talk to you right now about Palm, which is the next generation of pepper spray.

Starting point is 00:06:36 You see, Palm's formula provides you with the necessary range and capacity that can give you and your loved ones some peace of mind. Now, if you're like, look, I don't want to mistakenly fire this. here's the thing. Palm's patented flip top safety, it prevents accidental misfires. So whether you're carrying the unit on your keys or keychain or snapping the unit on your backpack or even just carrying it in your pocket, palm is really the perfect everyday carry accessory. And I'll tell you what, my wife carries palm and absolutely loves it. You can learn more at palmpeper spray.com and use code law crime 10% for 10% off. Talk to me about when she says that she was

Starting point is 00:07:15 being manipulated through Facebook and the internet and Wi-Fi, Tsar comments. What did you make of that? You know, I have to wonder if she's hearing voices, right? When you mentioned the Wi-Fi, first when I was hearing about Facebook, those kinds of things, part of me was wondering because I've seen things like this before where you have, and teens have been held accountable for this, telling someone to kill themselves, right? Telling someone to do harm to others, you see that really sadly on social media, and it's horrific. And so that's where my brain was maybe going first.

Starting point is 00:07:45 But then when she started to talk about like Wi-Fi interference and hearing things on the Wi-Fi, I'm thinking that I think she was thinking more that videos on Facebook were speaking to her rather than being targeted towards her. In general, though, cases that you've covered where you see a mother killing her children, there's a number of different reasons. What are some of the reasons, though, that you see? I don't know here. Part of it, and I have, again, I'm not sure about the CPS reports, but it's also my understanding that she had drug issues as well. So part of me wonders that a lot of times what I see, too, is when mothers are developing, you know, new relationships with other men, other women, and don't want their children in the way. I see that sometimes happening. That's what we saw in the case of Lori Valo.

Starting point is 00:08:33 I also see, too, in cases of severe drug abuse, neglect, engaging in those kinds of behaviors with children. Those are really two reasons that I see women killing their children. Based upon the reporting, as I mentioned, if it's true that the sheriff's office didn't immediately test her for drugs, is that a problem? In my opinion, that's a big problem. It probably, and you may disagree, I believe that that should have been one of the first things that they did upon arrest and booking. I mean, it's just part of booking procedure.

Starting point is 00:09:08 It's what I've always done. I do find that to be highly problematic. I don't understand why that wasn't done. Whether they thought she was on drugs or not, it still is a pretty standard thing to do. She can even refuse it. It doesn't matter. They will still compel her to do a drug test.

Starting point is 00:09:27 And so I'm very surprised that they didn't do that. I do think it's going to be an issue. I think the reporting also indicates that she had once served a month in jail in a drug possession case. The gun as well, right? So the fact that she was outside without the gun, that the gun was on the bed, and she didn't wave it around. She didn't try to shoot the officers. She goes outside and lays on the driveway of her neighbor's car. The fact that she left the weapon in the house and on the bed, does that tell you?

Starting point is 00:10:01 you something? I mean, what that tells me is her target was her children and nothing else, right? This is what she was targeting. That's what that tells me. She got in there. She fired off those four shots. When she was done, she dropped the gun and walked out and didn't want to cause harm to anyone else. That tells me that her target, number one, was her children. When she was successful in doing that, she turned herself in. It's, I mean, it's, look, I'm trying to make sense of it. I'm trying to understand. It doesn't make sense. It's absolutely horrifying to think about. I mentioned that the defense got the court to agree that the evidence will be preserved.

Starting point is 00:10:35 From their perspective, I mean, it's very, very tough case to argue for them moving forward. I mentioned the ring doorbell footage, right, that captures the sounds, the shots, the succession of the shots. Walk me through how important that's going to be for the prosecution's case. I think that's going to be important in regards to placing her at the scene, right, and to placing her inside the house. So I think that's going to be very important because obviously a prosecutor would love to have evidence that puts the accused right at the scene of the crime. And I think that the ring doorbell camera obviously is not directed right at her, but that coupled with her fleeing the house at that particular moment in time is going to be very, very effective in putting her at the scene of the crime. I also think how she obtained a gun. You know, we have to look at that.

Starting point is 00:11:26 I don't know what the state laws are in regards to that. And if she was convicted of a crime, I think that's going to come into play as well. We've covered another case on sidebar where there was a young woman who's accused of stabbing to death her boyfriend. And she claimed that she had this psychotic vision based on smoking wheat. And the prosecutors in that case actually reduced the charge from murder to manslaughter. This feels like an unexplainable crime. It's hard to make sense of it. If in fact, they can show that her state of mind was altered.

Starting point is 00:11:59 because of substances. Obviously, that won't alleviate responsibility because she ingested the substances. Having said that, could that be a situation where a charge could be reduced from murder to manslaughter here, or is that just not the same thing in your experience with what we're dealing with? Again, we mentioned the idea of drugs. We don't know. We're speculating a lot about what could it be.

Starting point is 00:12:20 But if drugs did play a role in this, how could that affect the prosecution of Lucas? Well, and I think, too, just not to kind of get off on a tangent, but we are speculating about the role of drugs because I think it's hard for us to think that anyone of a sound mind, not under the influence of drugs, would do something like this, right? And I think that that's really hard. I think the problem is, is because she wasn't drug tested immediately after, I'm not sure that that's going to be able to come into play here because they couldn't take that evidence and then prove that she was under the influence of something. You mentioned child protective services. So Michelle Rice, who is Maurice's stepmother, says that the family had reached out to child protective services several times. She believes that drugs, drug abuse played a role. They're completely devastated over what happened to the family. And she said, quote, nobody can manipulate you to do such a thing. This is in reference to what Lucas said or allegedly said.

Starting point is 00:13:19 Nobody can manipulate you to do such a horrific thing. Nobody can manipulate you to do that. We love them so much. So many other people really love them and could have been there to help them, but she wouldn't allow that. She was too selfish and now they're gone. It's my understanding at this point in time. We haven't heard a statement from Child Protective Services.

Starting point is 00:13:40 What role will they play in this and what response could they give here? Do they need to explain every interaction that they had with Lucas? Yes, they do. in this situation. CPS is going to have a lot to answer for. It's going to depend why where the children left in her custody, particularly if she had spent time in jail in the past and was dealing with substance abuse issues.

Starting point is 00:14:06 That would have most likely been enough to get the kids taken away from her. Were the kids ordered to be taken away from her and she just hadn't given them back and they were going through court proceedings to do that? I don't know that. However, I do think that CPS is going to come under a massive, massive microscope in this, in this investigation, because if contact was made with them

Starting point is 00:14:27 multiple times, not just once or twice, then they will need to provide some kind of information as to why those kids were left in her care. There's another part of this, too, and I kind of got the sense of it when I interviewed Deputy Payne, is the law enforcement response. Every kind of crime scene is horrific. When you deal with victims who are children, and just to let everybody know, law and crime reported that the Bullock County Sheriff's Office responded after 11 a.m. So right in the morning on November 8th to this home, they found the victims in a bedroom shot,

Starting point is 00:15:06 covered in blood. There was a rush to try to rescue them. From a law enforcement perspective, how difficult is it to come upon a crime scene like this when it's involving two young children? It's incredibly difficult. My assumption is that all of these officers will have counseling made available to them, if not be told, that they might need to go to counseling if they haven't reached out. It's incredibly difficult, particularly obviously any death is awful, but to see two innocent children, most likely, I'm assuming, in their beds, you know, killed with bullet wounds to their heads. I think coming across a crime scene like that is something that will impact them for the rest of their lives.

Starting point is 00:15:49 And they probably will need counseling to work through that and to hopefully, it's never going to go away, obviously, what they saw, but to help them move forward from what they saw. I'm glad you keep reiterating that the boys were shot in the head because that shows an intent to kill. Not shooting. I mean, again, as we said with pain, it was in a place where they couldn't survive. And that's really clear from where they were shot. You know what's one of the strangest things about this, Tracy? There is a video of Tiffany Lucas years back. I think in 2016, she had been interviewed by local media because she had opened up a convenience store that was called like a one-stop shop place. And again, completely looks completely different from the person that she is now and what she's accused of. But in your experience, it's not like you have a criminal who just woke up as a baby, like was a baby and committed crimes all the time and, you know, there's a history sometimes. It's those people who can live a rather law-abiding life that commit the most heinous crime imaginable. I mean, every serial killer starts somewhere. So the idea here is that you're dealing with somebody who may have been completely rational, normal, lived a normal life, was a perfect person. And then just

Starting point is 00:17:07 one day snaps or one day changes and commits one of the most horrific crimes possible? It sounds to me that drug abuse is most likely what contributed to a lot of that change in her persona and in who she was. I think, again, we want to think that normal people don't do things like this, but the reality is, is I don't think anyone is born saying I'm going to kill my two kids, you know, when I have them. And so I think that deviance, when did that start? Yes, I think For her, it probably started with drug addiction. All right. Well, we're going to try to make more sense of this and learn more information as it comes

Starting point is 00:17:43 through. Tracy Walder, thank you so much for coming on. Thanks for having me. And that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. Please subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time.

Starting point is 00:18:06 You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

Your Ad Here

Law&Crime Sidebar - 3 New Shocking Details in Kentucky Mom's Alleged Execution of Her Two Kids

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.