Law&Crime Sidebar - Teen Girl Killed by ‘Friends’ After Sleepover Invite: Authorities

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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. A teenager is dead, kidnapped and killed on the way to a sleepover. Now, two other teens have been arrested in connection with her murder. And this case has eerie similarity to another infamous case of friend-on-friend violence. We are breaking down this very chilling story with attorney Matt Hinson. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime.

Starting point is 00:01:12 I'm Jesse Weber. All right, we're going to do something a little different. We focus so much on Sidebar and all the bad stuff that's happening in America. Well, as you'll see, crime spans across borders. So with that, we want to go across the Atlantic, ocean to Sweden. 14-year-old Amelia Schoberg was found dead in the southern part of the country in a town

Starting point is 00:01:38 called Lance Kruna last week. According to Swedish media, Amelia was invited to a sleepover with two of her friends who then supposedly lured her to an industrial site near a train station where they allegedly killed her. The chief investigator said that Amelia's body showed signs of severe violence. However, it should be noted that Amelia's cause of death has not been revealed at this time. Her body was found on July 23rd, with police believing she was killed sometime on the 21st or 22nd. On July 24th, a 15-year-old girl was arrested in connection with the apparent kidnapping and homicide,

Starting point is 00:02:17 and a second 15-year-old girl was taken into custody the day after that. One of the girls allegedly confessed to police that she was involved in this murder. The girl's solicitor, or attorney, confirmed to local media that her client had spoken to police, and the prosecutor added that both girls had made, quote, certain concessions to investigators. So as this is still fresh, and we're trying to understand what happened, I want to bring in attorney Matt Hinson to talk about this. So as Matt has previously said, and as we've talked about here on sidebar, Matt represented the family of 13-year-old Tristan Bailey, who was murdered by her classmate, and a really, really horrific, horrific story. Matt, first, thanks so much for coming on.

Starting point is 00:03:02 What is your reaction to another case like this where you have a young victim and here, maybe allegedly being killed by her young classmates? It's tragic. It is still shocking. If it's not shocking, we have a problem that it doesn't shock you. But it's certainly just an absolute tragedy for the folks in that community, as well as all in Europe, as we saw last night, what happened in Southport, England, with another situation of a 17-year-old going into a dance academy. It's just a horrible pattern that we're seeing, not just in the United States, but unfortunately in Europe as well. So I want to give a little backstory here. Because according to Amelia's mother, Anna, Amelia had been in and out of group homes over the years because Anna herself seemingly struggled with abusive relationships.

Starting point is 00:03:56 Amelia had recently returned home to stay with her mom. They even had plans to order furniture and decorate Amelia's room. Now, Anna, who had Amelia when she was 19, she told local news outlets, I cannot accept that she is dead. We are in shock. Every time it rings, I double check if it's her. I am very much in denial. We haven't accepted it yet.

Starting point is 00:04:18 We won't accept it until we see her. Loved ones say they haven't been able to see Amelia's body yet, and they hope to this week. Police told the family that they had identified this victim as Amelia, but they were still waiting on DNA tests and dental records analysis to confirm that it is, in fact, her. Matt, that feeling for the family, they never recover from something like this, right? What are the emotions they are going through? I think they're going through the stages of grief that anyone deals with when they lose someone, but there's no kid like, there's no pain like kid pain. And I think that families go through this, only they can understand what it's like.

Starting point is 00:05:00 Only they can understand the process of losing a child and how to recover from that. And I don't think that you ever do fully recover. I don't think any child ever fully recovers. I think what happens is, or any parent fully recovers from the death of a child, I think that what happens is they learn to move on and take the next step forward each day. And I think that's something that they're going to have to, as time goes on, deal with. And hopefully they'll get some counseling and some assistance in that process. I always say it's a privilege of ours to be able to bring you these stories. And it is.

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Starting point is 00:06:38 Do you recommend, and obviously the laws are different in Europe, but do you recommend that someone retain an attorney? As we talked about this last time, to have a legal liaison between them and law enforcement during this process? It's certainly helpful to have an attorney, especially someone that's familiar with the process, someone that can help. Part of the Tristan Bailey Foundation is to help with victim advocacy. We work with folks that have lost children and try to help them with not just the prosecution process, but also the media and in a high-profile case like this, kind of understanding how the media is going to interact with them as well. Let's talk about the suspects here because it's believed that Amelia had met at least one of the suspects in the group home that she was most recently staying

Starting point is 00:07:24 in. Amelia's mom says that the motive for the murder was maybe a fight over an insult that was possibly related to a boy. I mean, out of all things, this is what we're talking about. One of the suspects reportedly told police that there had been no plans to kill Amelia and that a fight got out of hand. But the thing with that is, the girls reportedly stole duct tape and a knife, which seems to point to preparation and planning for the attack, premeditation as we talk about. And in a twist that's all too common these days, the girls allegedly filmed part of the attack, showing one of the suspects beating Amelia. One of the teens is in police custody, the other was apparently turned over to social services.

Starting point is 00:08:08 So, Matt, this idea of why this happens, right? It's pretty sickening to talk about teen-on-teen violence, but the idea of, oh, this was a fight that got out of hand versus, no, this was a plot to kill. What's your take on this? I think that we get too focused on the motive of each individual case. Obviously, that's important to the victim and the victim's families and the community. But as a larger society, I think we need to look at why this continues to have.

Starting point is 00:08:36 What are the means to why this end continues to occur? What's happening with our children where they are desensitized to the level in which they think it's okay to do and take these actions? Because I think just like we talked about last time, there is certainly an increase in what we're seeing, not just the United States, but in the world of these types of acts happening from younger people. We need to figure out why and we need to attack that. very importantly, we need to work on that with our younger people. And by the way, from a legal point of view, in the majority of cases that I've seen where you have a young perpetrator, they are not advanced enough to cover it up. They are not advanced enough to avoid detection.

Starting point is 00:09:21 They get arrested, and most of the time they get not only prosecuted, they get convicted unless they take some sort of deal. I don't see, and look, I don't know the laws in Sweden, but what I would suggest is I don't see how you can really mount a defense unless it's some sort of mental health defense. And we'll get to that in a little bit. But don't you see that a lot of these cases that it's while trying to understand the motive is one thing, proving who did it and understanding what happened is relatively straightforward when you have these youth crimes, right? It usually happens because their brain is not developed enough to plan out a sophisticated crime

Starting point is 00:09:58 for the in the majority of cases. I think that's a very important point to make, Because we generally look at the law and the punishment for a violation of law as a deterrent to breaking the law. These children, it appears, don't quite understand or comprehend or able to get the idea that there's a punishment behind this. I think a lot of times I think they're going to get away with it. They plan it out. They think they're going to. But I think we need to stop looking at the law as a deterrent in these types of situations for children. and we need to be looking more at how are we raising our children?

Starting point is 00:10:37 How are we educating them? What are we allowing them to have access to that may be causing these types of lack of sensitivity to human life? And as far as I talk about the idea of the sloppiness of it, right? I think that's a fair way to say, right? Sloppiness that sometimes you see in these kinds of cases. As far as the evidence that was found at the crime scene, investigators found a knife nearby. Police haven't said if it was the murder weapon, but then another knife was seized, It's unclear where that was found.

Starting point is 00:11:05 Police also searched the harbor next to the industrial site and found a bag with Amelia's bank cards and other belongings in the water. So, again, if you were trying to dispose of these materials, again, not great. But we talk about the children here or the minors, but sometimes they have help. And there has been a report that an adult is being questioned in connection with this case. But they haven't been arrested. They haven't been detained.

Starting point is 00:11:30 Police didn't release any more information about who they are. But, Matt, again, not sure what this adult did or did not do, but as you saw in Tristan's case with Aiden Fucci, sometimes an adult will come in to cover up a crime, right? And it's not uncommon for adults, particularly parents or others that are involved in minor's life to be interviewed by police. So I think it is important that we look at those types of reports to say it doesn't mean the adult did anything wrong. It could just be a part of the interview process to get to.

Starting point is 00:12:03 the bottom line of the crime. But you are correct. There are times where adults get involved and they are either assisting before or after, it's after the fact, someone trying to cover up a crime. And it's unfortunate. That's another thing that we could probably get into and talk about for quite a while. Well, it happened in Aden Fucci's case. Right, right. Where Aden's mother was videotaped in her home by home security washing jeans that had blood on them. And with washing the blood out. And she was charged and ultimately there was a deal that was reached and she's now searched her time in terms of her her jail time. It is out on probation. But it happens. It does, unfortunately. By the way, talking about comparisons of this case

Starting point is 00:12:53 to other ones, when we decided to cover this story, it reminded me, maybe it's going to remind you all there of this case here in the United States, the slender man. stabbing. So 10 years ago, 12-year-old Peyton Lautner was playing hide-and-seek in a park in Waukeshire, Wisconsin with two classmates, Anisa Wire and Morgan Geiser. Again, 12 years old. Geyser stabbed Peyton 19 times while Wire urged her on. They left her for dead in the woods, but Peyton was able to miraculously survive. She crawled to safety, and she flagged down a cyclist who called 911. He came upon a 12-year-old female. She appears to be stabbed. She appears to be what? Stabbed? Okay. So are you still there? Yes. Hi, sir. So is, are you with this

Starting point is 00:13:40 12-year-of-female? Yes, she says she's having trouble breathing. She said she was stabbed multiple times. And when police confronted guys are in wire, they admitted to attacking Peyton Lautner, saying they did it to appease Slender Man. This is a fictional character that was featured on various websites and stories online. They believed if they failed their mission, their families would be killed. We did a whole prime crime on that as well. Now both girls pleaded not guilty to mental illness. They ended up taking plea deals to avoid regular prison instead being remanded to mental health institutions. Anisa Wire got 25 years, Morgan Geiser got 40 years. Wire was granted conditional release in 2021, was allowed to live with her father. She's required to undergo outpatient psychiatric

Starting point is 00:14:23 treatment. In 2020, Morgan Geiser petitioned to be retried as a juvenile. That was denied. Her attorney took her petition to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. They declined to hear the appeal, and in January of this year, Geiser petitioned the court for release, wanting the same setup that Wire had, but the request was denied in April. So, Matt, even though we talk about how the laws are different here than they would be in Sweden, mental illness, particularly when you're dealing with young people like this, that's something that can't be ignored, right? It can't. I mean, a lot of these crimes that we see, once the minor is arrested, we find out that they suffer from some type of mental illness, whether it's some form of sociopathie, whether it's some form of depression or anxiety. And a lot of those are comorbid together. We do learn that majority of time there's some type of mental illness involved here. Really, really heartbreaking situation. We'll see what happens. But again, just an eerie, eerie case. on the other side of the world and crime as I said across his borders I wish we didn't see it but unfortunately we do Matt Hinson thank you so much for coming on

Starting point is 00:15:34 appreciate taking the time and also send our best to the Bailey family as always absolutely and they said it's to send their best to you as well as your listeners today I spoke with him this morning so oh that's so kind Matt thank you so much again really appreciate it all right everybody that's all we have for you right now here on sidebar thank you so much for joining us and as always please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time.

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Law&Crime Sidebar - Teen Girl Killed by ‘Friends’ After Sleepover Invite: Authorities

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