Law&Crime Sidebar - Teen Killed High School Sweetheart on Graduation Beach Trip: Cops

Episode Date: March 1, 2025

Ohio teenager Blake Linkous will soon go on trial in the Myrtle Beach, South Carolina area for allegedly strangling his on-again, off-again girlfriend, Natalie Martin, to death during a beach vacation. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber digs into the chilling case and the circumstances surrounding the young woman’s death with criminal defense attorney Tyler Bailey.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Get an exclusive 15% discount on Saily data plans! Use code sidebar at checkout. Download the Saily app or go to https://saily.com/sidebar HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea & Christina FalconeScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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will 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 accused of strangling his on again, off again girlfriend to death while on a beach trip will soon head to trial. We're taking a look at this chilling case and the circumstances surrounding this young woman's death. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by law and crime. I'm Jesse Weber. Now here's a story that you probably heard before.

Two teens decide to go on a big trip with friends after graduation from high school. Right? It is a big milestone. Happens all the time. A lot of people do it. 18-year-old Natalie Martin and her one-time boyfriend, Blake Linkus, packed up, headed off to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. that happened back in June of 2023.

But what sets this apart is that on this particular trip, only one of them would return and more specifically returned to Duncan Falls, Ohio. And that is because authorities say Linkus killed Natalie and then tried to take his own life before he got caught. Now, after nearly two years, his trial date is finally approaching. To talk more about this, what is a very strange and unsettling case, I want to want to bring on friend of the show criminal defense attorney tyler bailey tyler thanks so much for coming on appreciate you taking the time sad case because you have two young people who just

graduated high school should be the start of their lives both 18 at the time they're celebrating a big milestone they're getting ready to start you know the next chapter when both of their lives are now changed forever and what was your reaction when you first heard about this case yeah first It's just a sad case, a tragic case with two young 18-year-olds from Ohio. You know, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina is a place where people visit from all over the country now. And you have two kids with their friends on a senior graduation trip. And usually you don't see this type of domestic violence that's fatal with this type of young people, you know, right out of high school. So that's the first thing that really shocked me was the sheer level of violence with this murder of this beautiful young lady.

And it being a graduation trip at that. It's just a terrible case. Let's get into this a little bit because I have to set the stage so we understand exactly what we're talking about, what the allegations are. So we go back to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina in June of 2023. You have a group of friends from Philo High School traveled around 500 miles to the beach where they were reportedly staying at a rental property. And Brooklyn Farrell, who identified herself as one of Natalie's longtime friends, told Fox News that while she wasn't on the trip, she had been in close contact with other mutual friends who were there, as well as Natalie's mom about. everything that transpired. She apparently tells Fox that Linkus and Natalie, they were high school sweethearts, but they were apparently no longer dating. And they apparently had a fight while they

were on the trip because Natalie had been texting another man. So the night that Natalie died, the friends apparently went out to a club, but Natalie said she wasn't feeling well, so she left early and went back to the rental with Linkus. However, when a few of the other friends apparently got back to the home, they reportedly noticed several strange things. First, Brooklyn says that the friends knocked at the front door, but no one came to let them in, so they had to go through the back of the house. Then one of them said they heard three loud thuds. This is again, according to Brooklyn.

So they went out to the living room to see what was going on, but they didn't see anything. They reportedly tried the door to the room where Linkus and Natalie were allegedly sleeping, but it was reportedly locked. So then they went back to bed, and Brooklyn told Fox News that everyone in the group was home and asleep by 7 a.m. However, two hours later, Linkus allegedly burst out of the room, bleeding and screaming, screams this over and over again, apparently. Natalie's not waking up. Now, according to Brooklyn, Linkus had apparently stabbed himself in the chest, possibly in an attempt to take his own life, and that's why he was bleeding.

At least two of Natalie's friends said they tried to do CPR on her, but that it was way too late. Her body was reportedly cold. It was stiff. It is believed that Linkus, was likely in that room with Natalie's body for hours. Hey, I want to quickly thank today's sponsor that helps make episodes of Cybar like this one possible. Saly. Now, Sailing is an incredible ESIM service app. So I recently went on vacation to Italy.

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Talk to me about the reliability of this. Well, immediately, you know, if this was in a court of law, it would be hearsay if she was the one testifying as to what she heard. But right here, her talk to the media, she's saying that she heard this from credible people, you know, Natalie's mother and others who were inside a room that day. And it sounds kind of realistically like this could have been possible. The three duds, that could have been the altercation, the strangulation, maybe some sort of tussle. And then the fact that the body of Natalie was cold, it seemed as if she was in there for hours, would kind of corroborate the story from the friends who had to go through the back door. They tried to knock on the door that nobody answered.

And then Linkus eventually comes out of it screaming. So it sounds like this could possibly come up in the actual trial, this case. We may hear this from the prosecution when these others are called as witnesses. and now that she's injected herself into it, she may eventually be a witness in this case as well. And look, Linkus, he was charged with one count of murder. According to arrest warrant from Horry County, South Carolina, it reads on her about June 6, 2023 while in the Myrtle Beach section of Horry County. The defendant, Blake William Lincoln, did with malice of forethought, cause the death of,

and then it's redacted here, but the victim was identified as Natalie Martin. The defendant did so by manually strangling the victim. This was determined by evidence gathered at the. incident location as well as statements made by witnesses. Again, a lot to break down here. First talk to me about what we're saying when we talk about malice of forethought. Yeah, it's saying that this was deliberate. He planned this out. He thought about it before he did this action. They didn't. They could have charged with second degree murder or acting in a heat of passion. But that's not what happened here. They're saying he acted with malice, a depraved heart.

They intentionally took her life and thought about it before he did so. How do they know that? How can they prove that? How can they prove what happened? behind closed doors because based on the evidence that we know right now, it doesn't seem to suggest any, there were any witnesses to the actual alleged killing, right? Just what people observed before and kind of after. How can they determine what actually happened between Natalie and Linkus? Well, they can't charge based off the circumstantial evidence. And given the statement that we know was made to the media about a friend about there being four hours or a long time before they had the opportunity to perform CPR and Natalie, it goes to lead one to believe that

after he killed Natalie that he allowed her body to sit there, he thought about it. If this was a truly heat of passion thing, more than likely after he realized what he was doing, he would have maybe barred out the room, call law enforcement. Unless he was in shock, right? Yeah, but then again, maybe the trying to kill yourself afterwards shows that he was trying to escape responsibility for what he did. I mean, there's a lot of reasons why I think he was charged with murder this situation. And mainly, I think the most damning evidence would be the time frame that we have and there really be probably no evidence of any type of defensive wounds on him that we haven't got there yet. But if there was defensive wounds, I can see that being maybe a cause for second

degree manslaughter or something like that. Do you think that I can't confirm what the defense is going to be arguing, but do you think that's an avenue trying to downgrade it to manslaughter? You know, there was no malice of forethought here. It was a, you know, like you said, it was a passion. a heat of passion kind of situation, you know, because again, I think what might complicate that from the classic law school example where we talk about somebody comes home, sees their spouse cheating, they take a gun and shoot. That's such an instant form of violence. Strangulation, though, in your opinion, have you seen strangulation actually be in a case where it's downgraded from murder to manslaughter? Can strangulation, even though it takes more effort and more time

than shooting somebody, can that be a form of manslaughter? They can try, but, you know, it takes effort, time, strength to actually strangle somebody. I think that goes towards the murder fact. And I'm not sure if the defendant here, Lincoln's actually said that he stabbed himself. Maybe they try to use that and say that he was stabbed by her at some point. I'm pretty sure the evidence is going to reveal itself regarding timeline. But I don't see that being enough for realistically having this be a good argument for, you know, manslaughter, he the passion just because the sheer brutal effort takes to strangle somebody.

of death. In the filing I mentioned, I said, it means evidence gathered at the scene. What does it mean evidence gathered at the scene or evidence gathered at the incident? So not just the witness testimony, but evidence gathered at the incident to prove that this was a strangulation incident and a murder. Yeah, there'll probably be blood splatter evidence on the ground possibly. The stab wound that he stabbed himself, it could be, you know, furniture knocked over. It could be pictures of where her body was when the friends ran in there to do CPR, that's just at the scene. We're still going to probably find out digital evidence, whether there's text messages that were sent by Linkus, by Natalie, and by others leading up to the event.

So I'm pretty sure that Horry County has a lot of evidence on their hands to move forward with this prosecution. Can you determine from either fingerprint impressions, fingernail evidence, DNA, whether somebody had their hands around somebody's neck? Assuming that's what happened. You can easily. assuming that's what's happened yeah they will be able to determine that and then you know these strangulations are brutal a lot of times there's as you know jesse fractures of cervical spine in the

neck i'm not a pathologist but how you breathe in and out all that evidence is highly documented coroner's office would have been a thorough investigation of this so there's probably going to be a lot of fortunately tragic evidence to read about how this murder occurred now we always say you know alleged murder right he's innocent until proven guilty i will say there was one thing i haven't yet. And that is that during a bond hearing, so several days after Lincoln's arrest, the prosecutor said that Linkus confessed to police that he strangled Natalie after that argument the night before. And he also allegedly confessed to trying to take his own life. Now, Tyler, if that is true, how does a defense attorney work with that?

You know, that's going to be hard evidence to overcome, right? It sounds, you could try to chief can keep it out. I highly doubt they'll be able to keep that out. How would they keep it out? How could defense attorneys try to keep that out? You could try to say that he wasn't properly Mirandized before. It could have been elicited in a wrongful way by the officers. Maybe he actually requested the presence of a lawyer before he gave the statement. That's what I would try to do. If there's any way that these statements could be kept out, hopefully they're kept out. It being referenced on the bond hearings already on the record. I mean, jurors, it'll be hard to screen jurors out. This is a high profile case down there. He's going to have to look for

mitigation, whether it's state of mind, maybe suffering some mental illness. He's young. Maybe he can get a good plea here, given his age and his possibly admission. There's two thoughts. He can even be looking to mitigate this for purposes of a plea or figuring out how he can defend this before a jury and possibly either get a acquittal on one charge or a reduction to another. If this really was a statement that was made and it's going to come into evidence, is there going to be a video of this statement? Is there going to be an audio of this statement? How many times do, I mean, are there circumstances where some a defendant would admit this to law enforcement and it wasn't captured on some sort of electronic medium? Given the facts of this case where there's a bunch of friends who were there as well, who probably would have to call law enforcement and then he was eventually arrested later on, I would think that the Horry County Police Department would really be methodical on how they conducted any interview of the alleged murderer.

And that would have been recaptured either in interrogation room, body camera footage, or even in the video cameras that are inside the police vehicles while transporting him to the station. Obviously, it's the defendant's choice to take the stand, but in a case like this, and we don't have the full details, obviously, there's limited information. You think there would be a benefit for him to explain his side of the story? No, absolutely not. Not on this case. I just think there's nothing good that can probably come out from him. In a case like this, I mean, she's a young woman. who lost her life. You know, jurors are looking for somebody who could be held accountable for

this. And one small mistake on the stand would almost certainly result in the conviction. I'm glad you mentioned this because that leads me to the next point. So the defense wanted Linkus to be placed under house arrest with his parents back in Ohio. Now, Natalie's family wasn't at the bond hearing, but they sent a statement to the court that said he should never, ever be free again, let alone alive to taste and feel freedom after three weeks when he took our beautiful daughter from this world. Anyone who feels different should truly feel ashamed of themselves. With right and wrong, so undefined in the times we all lived in, this should be an easy choice. Now, the judge determined that Lincoln should get a $150,000 surety bond, noting his lack of

criminal history. And so Link has signed a waiver of extradition. He's had to wear a GPS monitor since his release. Tyler, why not listen to the family here? I think they should have listened to the family here. And I'm all, I'm a defense lawyer, as you know. all about, you know, people, they're innocent until they're proving guilty, all right, and people should be given a reasonable bond. Here's why I think they should have denied bond in this case, is that he attempted to kill himself before. And so there's different parts of the criminal justice system, the punishment of the defendant,

but also you've got to think about the victim's rights here, that they want to see some sort of justice and vindication through the courts. God forbid this young man attempt to take his life again or he's successful in doing it, I'm pretty sure that I'll be a pick that the family's already dealing with, knowing that there's nothing that comes out of it, that is a legitimate risk that could happen. And there's no way to really prevent it, right, in the sense that if you're locked up, he's monitored. GPS, he's monitored, but in a different way. He's monitored his movements, not his actions inside of a home or not. So that's a problem. I did want to ask you about this

because you brought it up before. So according to Brooklyn, this wasn't the first time that Linkus have reportedly gotten violent with Natalie because she told Fox News that in February before graduation, several friends were present when Linkus allegedly assaulted Natalie at a party. Brooklyn described it as him, quote, throwing her across the room. He's a wrestler, football player, apparently known for his temper. Natalie had broken up with him and Brooklyn said Linkus had apologized several times and was trying to win Natalie back. Now, Tyler, another allegation of domestic violence clearly would be good evidence for the

prosecution. My question is, does it actually come in a trial or is it prejudicial? I think it's prejudicial. I don't see it coming in at a trial unless he gets on the stand or unless the defense opens the door for some sort of character evidence of blankets. If he, for example, somehow said something about him being a peaceful young man, immediately for impeachment testimony purposes, that could come in if there is a way to get it in without being hearsay. How can they get it in? It would be something that the prosecution will have to figure out. But I do think if he took the stand and the doors open and the prosecution has an opportunity to get that statement and information before a jury, it will certainly do so.

So his trial is expected to start next week and hopefully we'll get a lot more information about it from local reporting. What do you look for in jury selection, both for the prosecution and the defense here? This is for the prosecution, I think that a, I would love to have, if I was prosecuting this case, a woman who were on the jury, fathers, who are on the jury, you know, parents on the jury. It could cut both ways because, you know, you could have some parents thinking out there like this could be their son and hopefully looking for a way that their son would not be in situations like this. But usually the protector in people, I think, would really lean towards more towards a conviction. Now, on the defense side,

I would try to look for people who may be distrustful or a background that may not be as trustful, a law enforcement. Mind you here, there are no witnesses that actually saw the murder that happened. Everything's based off a circumstantial evidence and the testimony of the defendant. If they can keep some evidence out, there's really no evidence of who saw this. And if the defense has a theory of how this occurred and it may be with self-defense or it should be reduced to a less included offense is something that the defense should try to do. But it's really a difficult case of defense. Mitigation is probably what I would assume that they're looking at. It's been about two years since this happened. So we'll see what happens next week if they actually strike a jury and go forward

with this trial. It's our understanding that he faces at least 30 years in prison if he's convicted all the way up to a life sentence. If he's convicted for a crime like this, given this fact pattern, given these circumstances, what do you think a potential punishment could be for him? I think he has the potential of doing the max with this. He's young. That's one thing he has to benefit him. He's a young man. He's maybe 20 years old now. I was 18 when it happened. But I do think if he's convicted. If he goes to trial, he's convicted, I think that the judge would give him the maximum penalty. Let me end it a little bit back on Natalie here because we talk so much about linguists and the legal issues. So according to her obituary, Natalie had been working as a

child care provider at a local daycare when she was killed, taken away from her family and friends. She had formed special bonds with the little ones that she cared for. Her obituary also stated she had a free, pure and wild spirit with a contagious laugh, personality out of of this world that could bring anyone out of their darkest of days. Natalie enjoyed all of nature's beauty. She loved to hunt, shoot guns, fish, wrangle snakes, plant and nurture flowers, and could gut and skin a deer better than most grown men. It's just a really sad case. Talk about a young life taken way too soon. Tyler Bailey, thank you so much for coming on. Appreciate you taking the time. Thank you. Thank you. All right, everybody. Really, really sad case there. Thank you so much for

joining us here on Sidebar. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. Thank you.