Law&Crime Sidebar - Texas Teen Allegedly Kills Entire Family Over Fears of Being Cannibalized by Them

Episode Date: May 31, 2023

A Texas teen is behind bars after allegedly massacring his entire family on May 24 over fears that they were going to eat him. Authorities arrested 18-year-old Cesar Olalde at his family's home in Nash, Texas, after a brief standoff. Police said they discovered the bodies of his deceased sister, brother, and parents in a bathroom. The Law&Crime Network’s Angenette Levy breaks down this disturbing story with Dr. Louis Schlesinger, the Professor of Psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.LAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergWriting & Video Editing - Michael DeiningerGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa Bein & Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaDevil In The DormThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&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.

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 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. An 18-year-old accused of murdering his family because he believed they were cannibals who would eat him. It's a disturbing case out of Texas. Welcome to Law and Crime Sidebar Podcast. I'm Angenet Levy. Prosecutors in Texas have filed capital murder charges against 18-year-old Caesar Allul. A week ago, police in Nash, Texas, just outside of Texarkana, went to the house where Alald lived with his parents and siblings. They'd received a call from a co-worker of Caesar's

mother who said that he was in the house with a gun and claimed that he killed his family because he thought they were going to eat him there was a standoff a lulled eventually surrendered police found his mother ada garcia mendoza his father reuben and his siblings lisbet who was an adult and oliver who was just five years old they were all dead their bodies were found in a bathroom all had been shot in other locations in the house and dragged into the bathroom according to an arrest affidavit a judge set Caesar's bail at $10 million. He could face the possibility of the death penalty if convicted. His older sister has set up a go-fund me to pay for funeral expenses for her family. Joining me to discuss this incredibly disturbing case is Dr. Lewis Schlesinger. He is a longtime

forensic psychologist and also a professor of psychology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Dr. Schlesinger, welcome to Sidebar. When you first read about this case, what were you thinking? Well, initially, it's obviously a very disturbing case. It's a group of young offenders who rarely commit family mass murder. The vast majority of family mass murders are committed by adults. There is a small group, however, of youthful familicidal offenders, and Caesar would fall into this category. One thing that struck me about this case, and you may have noticed this too, is this claim that he said his family was going to eat him. That to me says there's some. some pretty significant mental illness here.

He could be feigning that, but I don't know. What are your thoughts? Well, as soon as I hear something like that, my immediate inclination is to think that it's just not true. However, in this particular case, it does seem to be credible because he didn't say this to the police during an interrogation. He said it spontaneously and immediately to an individual who came onto the crime scene. is actually a friend of one of the deceased family members.

That's basically the first thing that he said. So it does seem somewhat credible. Now, we did a study. I have a long-term research project with the FBI behavioral analysis unit, the folks down in Quantico, on extraordinary crime. And we did a study and published the results a few years ago on youthful familicidal offenders. It's a very rare study because it's a very small group of individuals. we looked at 16 familicides and 19 offenders because some of these people brought an assistant

in to help them kill their whole family. Familicide is basically a family mass murder. The vast majority of offenders killed their families because of anger and they don't want to be controlled by them. But we had two cases where there was delusional ideation. And so is it rare? Yes, but it's not unheard of. So this does ring true. When I was reading a little bit about this as we were preparing for this episode, it seemed to me, too, in my reading of it, that a lot of times when people do something like this, where they kill their entire families, they then turn the weapon on themselves. That didn't happen in this case. So does, and I know you haven't examined Caesar, but does that tell you anything about him and his condition? Well, in all of the cases we studied, they did not turn the weapon on themselves.

And what I've found over the years is not only just in familicide, but generally in murder, if an individual kills, for example, is wife or no longer loved one with multiple gunshot wounds, they often say that they wanted to commit suicide, but they don't because the emotion is discharged with the murder itself. But if they shoot the victim with one gunshot wound, very often it is a murder suicide. So in all of our cases, for example, all of the offenders lived. So what do you expect to happen next in this case? I would assume that any attorney representing him would ask for some type of mental health evaluation, a competency exam, something like that.

Without a doubt, both of those will happen. In a case like this, from a defense attorney's perspective, this is not a whodunit case. I mean, as soon as it happened, a Caesar called 911 and basically turned himself in. So yes, they're going to have an evaluation with respect to his competency to stand trial and his mental state at the time of the offense. But because he's delusional, for example, let's assume that this wasn't a credible delusion. It doesn't mean that he's going to be found insane legally because there's a couple things already that make that a very difficult argument. For example, he called 911, one, which shows consciousness of guilt and an awareness of the wrongfulness of his behavior. And that's the legal standard in most jurisdictions for insanity.

Did he know the nature and quality of his acts? Did he know what he was doing here? Obviously, he did. So it's not going to be easy. It sounds like, too, that one of a coworker of his mother went to the home, she was concerned that, or he was concerned, I guess, that she hadn't shown up for work. And this person encounters him in the house and he's pointing a firearm at him. What does that say to you, if anything? It says to me that basically he did what he wanted to do was to kill the targeted victims.

It was probably planned out. And the individual that came to the house, he really had no issue with him at all. There was also, the law enforcement said that there was some indication that he wanted to commit suicide by cop. In other words, have the police come there, point the gun, police officer, and have them shoot them. But that didn't happen as well. Because in a case like this, when they discharge everything onto the victim, there's very little emotional energy left to turn the gun on themselves, even though they very often say that they wanted to. The thing I just don't understand about this, too, I mean, there was a five-year-old child.

I don't understand anything about this. And we don't really have enough information about the family background or Caesar's background. you know, a five-year-old boy, his little brother was killed. Obviously, there's a big age difference there. But to me, I just, I see that and I just shake my head. Well, that's for sure. A couple of points with respect to that. First of all, in our study, we found that almost half of the individuals, the offenders, told somebody in the coming days and weeks what they were going to do. A number of them called friends and so on afterwards. So that's one important point. And during the investigation, they're certainly going to speak to people that Caesar was involved with.

If any of this leaked out, if it was just considered, you know, a joke or not taken seriously. The other thing is when you look at a case like this from a logical perspective, like it doesn't make sense to you, of course it doesn't make sense to you because you're looking at this logically, but this was delusional behavior, for example, it wouldn't make logical sense because it's not based in reality. A delusion is a false belief not based in reality, and it's intractable, and it can't be dissuaded by facts of reality because it doesn't stem from facts of reality. Very interesting, Dr. Schlesinger. We really appreciate you coming on to talk about this. It's a disturbing case. We're going to keep a close eye on it, and we just hope that family rests in peace. It's an awful, awful case. Thank you again. Thank you. That's it for this edition of Law and Crimes Sidebar podcast.

You can listen to and download Sidebar on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your podcast. And of course, you can always watch it on Law and Crimes YouTube channel. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy, and we will see you next time. You can binge all episodes of this Law and Crime series, ad for you. free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.