Let's Go To Court! - 176: Disappearance of Kyron Horman & a Suicide Helper

Episode Date: June 2, 2021

Nadia Kajouji was having a rough time. It was her first year of college, and she was suffering from depression. Feeling isolated, Nadia turned to an online forum where she found people struggling with suicidal thoughts. It didn’t take long for Nadia to make a new friend -- someone who understood what she was going through. The woman said her name was Cami. She was 31, a registered nurse, and living in Minneapolis. She claimed that she, too, was having suicidal thoughts. Then she suggested that she and Nadia make a suicide pact.  Then Brandi tells us about the disappearance of Kyron Horman. To this day, what happened to little Kyron Horman remains unknown. What we do know is that on June 4, 2010, his stepmom Terri dropped him off at Skyline Elementary School, just in time for the science fair. She took a photo of Kyron in front of his poster, and then she says she watched him walk down the hall to class. But no one ever saw him in class. And despite the photo, no one remembered seeing him at the science fair, either. It was as if he’d vanished into thin air. And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases. In this episode, Kristin pulled from: The “Killer Chatroom” episode of Web of Lies “Unmasking the Faribault, Minn., suicide nurse” Grand Forks Herald “Inside the tragic death of Nadia Kajouji: A teen pushed to suicide by an online predator,” by Patrick Gomez for People.com “Man who aided Ont. teen’s suicide gets year in jail,” CBC “Former nurse helped instruct man on how to commit suicide, court rules,” Associated Press “William Francis Melchert-Dinkel,” entry on Wikipedia In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “A Betrayal of Trust: Where is Kyron Horman?” by Jenn Baxter, Medium “Kyron Horman, missing 10 years: A timeline” by Lizzy Acker, The Oregonian “Kryron Richard Horman” The Charley Project “Landscaper wore wire, asked Terri Horman for $10,000 in murder-for-hire plot, sources say” by Maxine Bernstein, The Oregonian “10 Years Later: Case of Missing Boy Kyron Horman Featured in TV Special on Investigation Discovery” by People Staff, People “Disappearance of Kyron Horman: wikipedia.org      YOU’RE STILL READING? My, my, my, you skeezy scunch! You must be hungry for more! We’d offer you some sausage brunch, but that gets messy. So how about you head over to our Patreon instead? (patreon.com/lgtcpodcast). At the $5 level, you’ll get 19+ full length bonus episodes, plus access to our 90’s style chat room!  

One semester of law school. One semester of criminal justice. Two experts! I'm Kristen Caruso. I'm Brandi Egan. Let's go to court! On this episode, I'll talk about a suicide helper. And I'll be talking about the disappearance

of Kyron Horman. Well, hello! We are kinda jazzed. We are. We're kinda jazzed. It's kind of like the last day of school. And we just had ice cream. We are. We're kind of jazzed. It's kind of like the last day of school. It does feel. Yeah. And we just had ice cream.

We did. Okay. We went out. We had lunch on a patio. It was like a. I was a little bit worried when they seated us on the patio at first. I know. I'm not going to lie because it's very warm out today.

It's in the 80s. And you sweat like a Trekkie. This face could melt right off. Uh-huh. But then they had the. It was like they knew what the fuck they were doing. Those umbrellas were placed perfectly. We got a wonderful breeze blowing through there. Had an iced tea.

It was delightful. Delightful. Delightful. And this episode right here that you're listening to right this minute, This is our last one for the month. Well, no, for a month. For a month. Yeah, this is it. We're going on break.

Woo! I'm taking a little breaky break. If you haven't heard the last episode where we announced it, I guess this is coming as a shock to you. Try not to cry. Were we not clear how long our break was going to be? Because people are asking.

Oh. We're coming back in July. Yeah, we're coming back. Yeah. Start of July. But, oh, and here's a real teaser-oony for you. If you just can't go a month. It's going to tickle your eye breeze.

Yeah, what? Oh, God. If you just can't go a month without us, join us on Patreon. We're still doing the bonus episode. Mm-hmm. We'll be there, hanging out on Patreon. That's what we're doing for a month. We'll be there hanging out on Patreon. That's what we're doing for a month. We're just going to be on Patreon.

Exclusively on Patreon. I'm not even going to shower. Oh, gosh. Join us there at the $5 level to get the bonus episodes. Also to get into the Discord. Sorry, I, you know, combined some words there. That's okay. Anyway.

I think they get the gist. Yeah. $7 level. Do you know what happens? Oh, my gosh. You. That's okay. Anyway. I think they get the gist. Yeah. $7 level. Do you know what happens? Oh my gosh. You get inducted on this podcast. You get a card with a sticker. You get a monthly bonus.

Okay. Tonight. Hang out. Yeah. So tonight we are switching it up. We normally do a video. Yeah. This time we're doing a hangout.

A live Zoom hangout. I'm super nervous. What if they hate us? What if, you know what I keep thinking? What if I fart and fall over? I don't know. Why would that happen? I don't know why it would happen.

Do you have so little control over your speech that you think a fart is just going to blow out of there? I'm just thinking, like, what would be the most embarrassing thing? That's the most embarrassing thing? Well, it'd be pretty embarrassing if I farted so hard I fell over. Just like snot goes right onto the camera. That'd be way more embarrassing. I think that's way more likely to happen. Well, thanks a lot.

Anyway, that's what we're doing tonight. Just to see what people think of it. Trying it out. And then from there. Oh, wait. You also get inducted if you're at the $7 level. I already said that, I think. I don't know.

Anyway, at the $10 level. $10 level. The Bob Moss level. You also get inducted if you're at the $7 level. I already said that, I think. I don't know. Anyway, at the $10 level. At the $10 level. The Bob Moss level. You get all that stuff we've just rambled on and on and on about. Plus, you get ad-free episodes and you get them a day early. Plus 10% off merch. You have to say it real fast. This is a secret.

Also, maybe joining our Patreon will be so shocking to your system that you'll fart and fall out of your chair. Try it and find out. I don't think that's going to happen. Last time you promised full body orgasm. Well. It's kind of the opposite side of that. Get them while you can. Oh my gosh.

Are you like excited here? I feel like we're buzzing. Are we buzzing? Now you're making me worried about the audio quality. No, not the audio. I know, I know. But we're so excited. Yeah, we've got a lot of energy.

You look mighty cute today. Thank you. An adorable dress on. Is it from Costco? Shut up. I already took a peek at the Discord questions and someone was like, said, as a joke, what Costco outfit will you be modeling for us in the Zoom call? And I was like, oh my God, I am wearing a dress from Costco.

Very cute. Thank you. Thank you. Very, very cute. Spent upwards of $15 on this thing. Whoa. Whoa. Big spender.

Okay. All right. Here we go. Here we go. Are you not at all excited based on? No. Yeah. I mean, my intro was the trigger warning.

So there we go. Yeah. Yeah. It's not going to be. Sorry, trigger warning, so there we go. Yeah. Yeah, it's not going to be. Sorry, everybody. Anyway, here we go. This came from the episode Killer Chat Room from the TV show Web of Lies. Of course it did.

Of course it did. Also reporting from the Grand Forks Herald, People.com, The Guardian, some Wikipedia in there. Why are you making faces? You're just... Just listen. Okay, okay, okay. I feel like I must be feeling insecure today. I guess.

You know what? My feet are sweaty. It's throwing me off. Your feet are sweaty? Yeah. What's your shoe situation? I'm wearing sandals and we were out... What?

Why are your feet sweaty in sandals? I'm sorry. Everyone's feet sweaty in sandals? I'm sorry. Everyone's feet sweat in sandals. That's the name of the game, sister. I don't think it is. Unless you're wearing socks with your sandals. No. In which case, yuck.

No. Aren't they just, you know, aired out so they don't get sweaty? No, there's sweat there. I invite you to take a little touch. I don't want to touch your sweaty toes, Kristen. Thank you for asking. Okay. Well, I tried, everybody.

Okay, here we go. Did I say Wikipedia? Yeah. All right. You hit all the high notes. Picture it. It was 2007 in Ottawa, Canada, specifically Carleton University in Ottawa. I'm sure I don't have to tell you, Brandy, that the mascot of Carleton University is, of course, Rodney the Raven.

Of course it is. I love that. I love a human name on an animal. Love it. Nadia Kajugi was starting off her freshman year of college and, wow, to an outsider. She had it going on. She was beautiful. She was smart.

She wrote poetry. She had plans to become an attorney one day. And she was a little edgy. She had an eyebrow piercing. Oh, yeah. I mean, it looked pretty fucking cool. And very dark eye makeup. And she had what all the cool girls had in 2007.

Big, dangly earrings and just a ton of spaghetti-strapped tank tops. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That was how it was. Yes, that story checks out. But the first semester of Nadia's freshman year of college was really hard. It was a huge adjustment, and she had really high expectations of herself, and she was living far away from home. She kept a handwritten note on her bulletin board to kind of pep herself up.

It said, don't forget to love your life. But it was hard for her to love her life. She was having a rough time. She had a tough course load. And she was starting to date women for the first time. And at some point in that first semester of college, she miscarried an unwanted pregnancy after breaking up with her boyfriend. Yeah, it was just a lot going on.

Yeah. When Nadia went home for winter break, her brother Mark knew something was wrong. Nadia was withdrawn. You know, she seemed sad. She wasn't her usual bubbly self. She spent hours alone in her room. At this point, she spent a lot of time vlogging under an alias.

And in one of those videos her hair is down in her face and the lighting is terrible because you know part of it is it's like 2007 on youtube and she says to the camera i can't stand school i can't even go to class i'm gonna lose this semester and it seems like it would be easy you know to just start going to class and doing your work but I can't. So she was like battling with depression? Yeah I mean does that not sum up depression? Yeah. Holy crap. Yeah. It seems like I should be able to do this and I just can't. Yeah. Nadia thought about not coming back to school, but ultimately she did. She had friends there. I don't know if she was fully able to see that she had friends there. But as the months went on, Nadia felt lower and lower.

In one of her vlogs, she talked about a conversation she'd had with a counselor and how she'd told the counselor that she was thinking about harming herself. She said she had clinical depression and insomnia. At one point, Nadia found an online forum. I don't know the website. All these sites just said an online forum where people were discussing suicide. And that's where she found a friend, a true friend,

someone she could confide in during this very vulnerable time. The woman called herself Cammie D. She said she was 31, she was a nurse, and that she lived in Minneapolis. Cammie was struggling with thoughts of suicide, too. So they opened up to each other. Nadia said, I wonder how it will feel to actually die. And Cammie said, nice. Cammie went on to give Nadia detailed instructions on how she should kill herself.

Cammie wanted Nadia to hang herself. Oh my gosh. And she asked Nadia if she had a webcam. She told Nadia to buy, quote, about eight feet or about three and a half meters of yellow nylon rope and, quote, look around the apartment for somewhere to hang from. I can help you with the camera when you need to. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, so what's your reaction? Well, this is terrible.

Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty much the worst thing ever. Yeah. This sounds like a predator. No. Like it was looking for a vulnerable individual online. No, Cammie is also vulnerable. No.

Everyone's a victim here. No, Cammie is also vulnerable. No. Everyone's a victim here. No, I don't think so. Yeah, so Cammie wanted to watch Nadia die. And, of course, Cammie would kill herself, too, because they were in a suicide pact. Of course. They went back and forth talking for a while, and Cammie obviously wanted Nadia to hang herself. But Nadia had another idea she said what if i staged the suicide so that it looks like i just had an accident while i was out skating okay this makes me sad just because i i would imagine what she was thinking was, I don't want my family to know that I died by suicide.

Yeah. And of course, Cammie was supportive. Ultimately, at around 11.30 at night on a March day in 2008, Nadia left her dorm room. She closed the door behind her and left her music playing. But before she left her room, she sent one last email to Cammie. It read, Hi Cammie, I just thought I'd write you a quick note before I go. I'm feeling at peace now and it makes me feel better knowing that I won't die alone now. I'm going through my computer deleting things I don't want people to find after I'm gone. I must say I'm feeling a lot better now I can talk to you. I'm glad that things are going to

end tonight. I'm feeling confident. I want to go now, but there are too many people about. My cell number is, she listed the number. If you try to text me on Monday and it doesn't go through, that means I jumped. The pain will be temporary, then it will be over. Thank you again, Nadia. Then she updated her Facebook status. She wrote, Nadia will someday be loved. Oh. That's so sad.

This case sucks, Kristen. I know know it really does. It's awful. And it just gets worse. I mean, obviously, obviously. Yeah. And then she left. It didn't take long before people noticed that Nadia was missing. The next morning, one of her roommates noticed that her door was locked and that music was playing in her room. And she thought that was kind of weird. So she called a security guard and the security guard got into the room and they discovered that Nadia wasn't there, but her cell phone was. And so was her wallet. And it had cash inside. Eventually, word got out. Nadia's family was notified and her brother Mark raced out to the university, speeding the whole way. And when he got to his sister's dorm room, he immediately noticed that the only things missing from her room,

her student ID, her jacket, and her ice skates. None of it made sense. Yeah. Where was she? Days passed, and Nadia was nowhere to be found. Her family and friends hoped and prayed that she was alive somewhere. Was she? Days passed and Nadia was nowhere to be found. Her family and friends hoped and prayed that she was alive somewhere. Okay, I thought this was an interesting part of the Web of Lies episode where her brother Mark was basically like,

in this situation, you know nothing remotely good has happened. Right. So you're weirdly almost hoping like, well, hopefully she was kidnapped and she's still alive. Right. I mean, I just can't even imagine. The best worst case scenario. Yeah, exactly. Nadia's father spent 18 hours a day out in the freezing cold Ottawa winter, passing out flyers about his missing daughter. By this point, the police had Nadia's computer, and, you know, they hoped they could use it to maybe find some information that might lead to her. And it did. On Nadia's computer, they found evidence of her conversations with Cammie.

It seemed clear that Nadia had died by suicide in the Rodeo River. Is that how you pronounce it? We'll never know until everyone from Canada weighs in. The river was frozen, so they searched and searched for Nadia and didn't find her. Meanwhile, they also traced Cammie's IP address, and her IP address went back to a computer in Rice County, Minnesota. So they sent out Marge to track down Cammie.

And a man answered the door. Yeah, shocking. And they told him the whole story, and he was like, huh? Oh, no. Suicide pact. Well, that must have been my daughter. But she's fine, so, you know, why don't you all go home? Goodbye.

No, it was fucking him. Goodbye. It was him the whole time. Randy, take a hint. He's telling you to so, you know, why don't y'all go home? Goodbye. No, it was fucking him. Goodbye. It was him the whole time. Brandy, take a hint. He's telling you to scoop, you know? Then, on April 20th, about a month after Nadia went missing, a kayaker spotted her body on the riverbank. Nadia's family was devastated.

And on the other side of the Atlantic, a sweet, retired British school teacher was pissed. Her name was Celia Blay, and she'd struggled with depression herself, and now she spent her free time helping people online who were struggling with suicidal thoughts. But there was a fox in the hen house. Is that a thing people say? Okay. I thought it was snake in the hen house. I looked it up online and people were saying fox in the hen house.

Okay. What's the word when a community is trying to do the right thing and there's some big creepy douchebag from Minnesota in there? Is there a word? I think that's what you're saying. and there's some big creepy douchebag from Minnesota in there. Is there a word? I think that's what you're saying.

Fox in the hen house. Yeah, that's a thing. Right. Yes. All right. Yes. Of course, that's what people say. Oh, now you're just backing me up. You don't even know.

I have no idea. Damn it. So, you know, she kind of enters this online world. And at some point, a young teenager reached out to her and confessed that she'd just entered a suicide pact with a nurse. Celia immediately took action. She convinced the teenager not to go through with it. And she gathered all the information she possibly could on this nurse. this nurse. Celia discovered that the nurse, who sometimes went by Lee Dow or Cammy D or Falcon Girl, had entered into a lot of suicide pacts over the years.

Celia was disgusted. This person had to be stopped. She didn't have any technical training in investigations, but that didn't matter she went balls out trying to track this person down celia is the coolest spoiler alert celia is the coolest and man celia collected a bunch of evidence about this person starting suicide packs with people and trying to get them to die in front of webcams. And she went on all these forums to warn people to look out for anyone going by the names Lee Dow or Cammy or Falcon Girl. And she went to her local police and they were like, yeah, goodbye. Thanks for stopping by.

Yeah. Oh, what? What? I hate it. Why do you hate hate it because is it a crime exactly committing a crime exactly we all hear this story and we all know it is sick yeah it's morally wrong yeah but is it illegal right let's find out shall we. You know, I have in here that the police weren't interested. I don't know that that's fair. I feel like anyone who hears this is going to be disgusted.

But the bottom line is they didn't pursue it. But the funny thing is that when Celia posted all these warnings online, a lot of people actually reached out to her to say, hey, I've been contacted by this person. A woman named Kat Lowe was one of those people. Kat was a mother of two and she was feeling suicidal. So she went to these chat rooms and began talking to Lee Dow and felt a strong connection to her. But at the same time, she felt a connection to Celia.

And Celia was like, look, Lee Dow is dangerous. She's lured a bunch of people into making suicide packs. You know, if you're wanting to get better, this is not the way. So Kat said, OK. She stopped talking to Lee. But every time she got online, there was Lee. She was persistent. She would not go away.

Kat was disgusted. This person wanted her to kill herself. So Kat and Celia started talking more and they decided that this person had to be stopped. Yeah. So they decided to do a sting operation. Kat would record her conversations with Lee, maybe even get a photo of her somehow. They needed evidence of what she was doing. So, to build trust, Kat was like, Hey, um, let's take this convo outside of the old chat room.

Why don't you email me on my Hotmail account? So they began emailing, and Kat convinced her to do a video chat. And that's when Kat discovered, oh, this isn't a woman. This is like a real dumpy-looking middle-aged man. Okay. Kat took a photo, surreptitiously. Oh! Kat and Celia's sting operation, if do say seemed pretty legit i mean they traced this

dude's ip address to his home in minnesota and discovered that the person who was encouraging people to kill themselves was william francis melkert dinkle william francis melkert dinkle Dinkle? I know. His face matches this name. What did his friends call him? Bold to assume this guy had friends. Yeah, his friends. Yeah, no kidding. No, his neighbors had nice things to say about him, but don't the neighbors always have a nice thing to say? things to say about him, but don't the neighbors always have nice things to say?

So they got him to talk about how he'd watched via webcam as a man, Birmingham, died by suicide. And Celia eventually figured out that the man he'd watched die was a 32-year-old named Mark Drybrow. Celia talked to Mark's mother, and she explained that Mark had a nervous breakdown and suffered from depression. And that after he died, she went on her son's computer and found the chat logs where this person gave Mark exact instructions on how to take his own life. And Mark had followed these instructions to a T. Okay, once again, it's so clearly fucking wrong. Yeah. By this point, Celia, you know, she knew about Mark, and she knew about Nadia, and she knew that William needed to be stopped.

So she submitted an affidavit to the FBI. Just on her own? She must have not gone through her mayor because they never responded to her. That's exactly right. You've got to get a mayor involved. Celia kept hitting these roadblocks. It seemed like the powers that be either thought this case would be maybe a jurisdictional nightmare. So that's one of my guesses.

Or maybe a legal nightmare, too, because there was so much gray area. This was also unproven territory. In North America and Britain, no one had ever been successfully prosecuted for promoting suicide online. So the authorities in Ottawa maybe could have gone after William for Canada's assisted suicide law, but they opted not to press charges. But Celia refused to give up. Someone had to stop this guy. She knew he lived in Minnesota, so she tried again. And this time she sent an email to Sergeant William Francis Hader, a.k.a. Bill Hader.

Am I right? Yeah. You pronounced the last name a little differently, but still, I was like, I'm sorry, what? What? By the way, please don't confuse William Francis Hader with the bad guy from this story, William Francis Melker Dinkle. Yeah. Two different William Francis's.

Mm-hmm. William Francis side. Sergeant William Francis works with the Minnesota Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Say that three times fast. It's a very specific task force. It sure is. Seems like a worthy one, though. I agree.

There's tons of just bullshit task force. I am here for that task force. So he read through Celia's very thorough email and he was like, you know what? Maybe there's something here. Because Minnesota had a law against aiding suicide. And it was, in my opinion, very broad. Ma'am, is that hair right in front of your eye not driving you crazy? It is driving me a little crazy. I was trying to, I'm trying to be a professional over here, okay? One perfect little wave like very dramatically

across your eye like you were trying to be like, were you emo for a minute? Emu? Emo. Ha ha ha ha ha! I was emo and an emu. And an emu. Very dramatic emu. You know what?

One of us has to be professional. You have taken a bathroom break. Okay, we weren't going to tell the people. Bathroom breaks are my thing in the middle of the podcast. And here you went and took one. I'm very sorry. Hope you feel good. I do.

Feel great. I hope so because we've got a lot of podcasting to do. So the law said that anyone who advises, engages, or assists someone in taking their own life could be guilty of a felony. Okay. So it is illegal. Absolutely. All right. Well, assisted suicide is illegal in a lot of places.

I think it's just this murky thing of like it's online. Yeah. It's just unproven. Well, yeah. And who defines what assisting is? Like, yeah. The courts. Uh-huh.

Uh-huh. And we've not seen how the courts do that. Yeah. Uh-huh. Are you going to show us? Until seen how the courts do that. Yeah. Uh-huh. Until now. Yeah, it's going to be a visual presentation. Good luck, listeners. So, I mean, this is a pretty serious felony.

The person could face up to 15 years in prison or a fine of up to 30 grand. Yeah. So Sergeant Bill started digging. He got the coroner's report on Mark Drybrow and discovered that the coroner had been very thorough. The coroner had detailed the ligature indentations on Mark's neck, and they matched exactly with what Lee Dow had told him to do. Sergeant Bill looked into Nadia's suicide. And once again, Celia was helpful all along the way. She handed over her files on a silver platter, and she was like, here are all the email addresses that I believe belong to this dirtbag. And Sergeant Bill was like, sweet.

Beep boop, beep boop, beep boop. That's the sound of him looking up all the IP addresses. Duh. And all those email addresses, of course, went back to little Dinkle. Yeah. Just for clarity's sake. Lil' Billy Dinkle. Lil' Billy.

That is what he should henceforth be known as. Yeah, Lil' Billy Dinkle. Lil' Billy Dinkle. Walking down the street. So, thanks to information from the Ottawa police and from, you know, Internet sleuths everywhere, they now had enough to go after little Billy Dinkle. He lived in Faribault, Minnesota, which is a very cool looking small historical town with an adorable downtown. And unfortunately, it's also home to this shit bag, little Billy Dinkle. So authorities looked into little billy dinkle they discovered that he had a wife named joyce and they were both nurses so you know in theory either one of them could have

been behind this but i think we all know it was a little billinkle. Obviously, he's like the angel of mercy. Is that his whole... Well, okay. Is that going to be his argument? We need to discuss little Dinkle Doo-Doo. Yeah. Boy, I'm really coming out with a harsh language here today. Little Dinkle Doo-Doo. Oh, don't listen to this around kids. They're going to be walking around saying Dinkle Doo-Doo all the day.

Little Dinkle Doo-Doo. What? Kids song. Okay, I don't know. I don't know. Patty, please cut this. All the live long day. No, that's not even it.

Working on the railroad. I know I sang it incorrectly. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to everyone. Forget this conversation ever happened. Everyone erase this from your minds. There she was just a walking down the street singing Billy

Dinkle is a douche is a douche. Is that where you were going? No, but I like it and I'm willing to go there with you. I'll go anywhere with you, Kristen. Wow. Da na na na na na

na Hey, what if that's what we were doing? We're taking a month off just to walk off into the sunset. That's right. Clothing optional. I'll be fully clothed. Yeah, Brandi will be fully clothed. She doesn't even get naked in a locker room.

That's correct. She has one of those shower swimsuits. You know. Yeah. You know the type. You know the type. The shower swimsuit. Right?

Yeah. So, where was I? Okay. So, they're both nurses. That's true. Dingle one and dingle two are both nurses. No word on whether they get naked in locker rooms. Yeah. But I will pause and look that up. Okay. Great. on whether they get naked in locker rooms. Yeah.

But I will pause and look that up. Great. I'm sure there's a database out there that'll tell you that. There should be. There should be. Like, here are the stall changers. Yeah. So, you know, okay, now they, you know, Celia had done the work.

Now they just needed to go confront the guy. Now they, you know, Celia had done the work. Now they just needed to go confront the guy. So in January of 2009, Sergeant Bill and a commander whose name I did not write down showed up at Billy Dinkle's house. A thousand apologies to the commander whose name I did not write down. Obviously, I'm not too sorry because I guess I could have gone back and looked it up. Anyway, he seemed important. And the officer started to tell him, we're with the Internet Crimes Division.

I'm sorry, can you tell I had senioritis when I was doing this script? It's really obvious, isn't it? It's okay. We're going to get through it. Yeah. Yeah. It's going great. And little Billy Dinkle invited them in. He's like, oh, yes, I know what this is about.

And they're like, really? Yeah, right? Like, hmm. Tell me, Mr. Dinkle. Wait, why do you think we're here? Yeah, yeah. Little Billy Dinkle? And he said, yeah, my wife and I have had some discussions with people

who've been depressed or suicidal online. Yeah, yeah, yeah, my wife and I. And so the guys were like, okay, so should your wife be part of this conversation? And little Billy Dinkle got real embarrassed. He's like, nope, she wasn't involved. Let's keep her out of this. Because it's like, yeah,

oh, you're about to throw your wife under the bus. Fucking Billy Dinkle. Yeah. He's about to be a real billy dinkle now see brandy i just have to stop you right there because you seem to have the impression that he's a bad guy but actually he was a very good guy um because he was just like being a kind professional to these people you know if people had questions about suicide, he'd discourage them from doing it, of course. But he would share

some of his knowledge as a nurse if they needed it. Bullshit. Don't make that face. Bullshit. If being a professional is wrong,

then lock him up, Brandy. I think it's if being a professional is a crime. Lock him up. Well, maybe that was an intentional slip because this case is all about what's wrong versus what's illegal.

It's all brilliant. It's all planned out. Oh, she's thinking ahead. Yep, yep. It's an elaborate scheme. So one of the officers said, so do you consider yourself talking them out of suicide? And Billy Dinkle said, a lot of times, yes. Other times, what can you do?

You know, there's not much you can do. You know how it is, Brandy, when you're trying to talk someone out of suicide and it's hard to do so instead you just give them exact advice rope three meters of nylon yellow nylon rope yeah and get your webcam set up yeah that's so often the case do you think people can hear dotty barking in the background i don't know but just so you all know dotty's protecting us from something evil it's probably your dad. It probably is my dad. Okay. My parents had to move back in with us temporarily.

It's been a real wild time around here. And Dottie's very protective. And she doesn't trust my dad a bit. Sometimes doesn't trust my mom. Mostly doesn't trust my dad. Jury's still out on Brandy. Yes. Yes, very much so.

Kit thinks I'm pretty cool, though. Well, yeah. Kit, you know. Kit's not a very discerning dog. She'll just go to anybody. So later, Sergeant Bill asked, Can you give me a number of how many people you believe you were an accessory to suicide? And William said, honestly, no.

But later, he put the number at five or six. So he said he had had talks about suicide with about 20 people. He had suicide pacts with about 10. And then he'd been a part of like five suicides. I would guess that number is much lower than the actual number. Yeah, absolutely. Because he was doing this for at least a couple years. Wow.

So, you know, he admits to making suicide packs and trying to get people to hang themselves on webcam so that he could watch them die. And then because people in Minnesota are nothing if not cooperative, he gave them his computer. Minnesota are nothing if not cooperative, he gave them his computer. So he hands over his computer, which is filled with pictures of people hanging and all kinds of incriminating chat logs. And that seemed like enough to build a case. So on April 23, 2010, they charged him with aiding and abetting the suicides of Mark Drybrow and Nadia Kajushi. He faced up to 30 years in prison. William waived his right. I'm sorry.

Billy Dinkle. Lil' Billy Dinkle. Lil' Billy Dinkle waived his right to a jury trial, and his defense, which was led by Terry Watkins, was pretty decent. Terry argued that, yes, what William did was awful, but it was not illegal. What he'd done was protected by free speech. That's a pretty good argument. Basically, the argument was that this Minnesota statute wasn't constitutional. Terry told the media,

We are not condoning his actions, and there is no attempt to suggest that anything he did is anything but salacious immoral or depraved but we believe that it was protected by the first amendment of the constitution but it seems like that argument didn't hold much weight in the trial court he was found guilty of assisting the suicide of Mark Drybrow and attempting to assist the suicide of Nadia Kajugi. And he got a really interesting sentence. Judge Thomas Newville sentenced Billy Dinkle to 360 days behind bars, with only 320 of those days being served consecutively. After the 320 were up,

Billy Dinkle would have to come back to prison for two days apiece every year for the next 10 years on the anniversaries of Nadia and Mark's deaths. Have you ever heard anything like that? I knew you would love it. It's so poetic.

That reminds me of my favorite Life Stories Family in Crisis episode. You don't know Life Stories Families in Crisis? No. Oh my gosh. Is it Life Stories colon Families in Crisis? Obviously. All right. All right.

Continue. It was. Is this a Lifetime program? No, it was on HBO. What? Yes. Okay, okay. One of them was about a girl who got an illegal abortion.

These are all based on true cases anyway. They're like a dramatized version. Anyway, and my favorite one. I've actually looked it up to see if there was enough to do an episode on the real story. And there just isn't. So I'll tell you it now. In the show, this man is played by Sam Rockwell. Perhaps you've heard of him.

He's a very famous actor. Kristen, I can tell by your face. I'm sorry. I apologize. And I love him. Anyway, he's drunk driving. He hits and kills somebody. The details I cannot remember.

Okay, I was going to say. He gets sentenced to a fine. He gets like a fine and like community service and whatever. But his fine is that every month he has to write out a check to the family of like the kid that he killed for one dollar and he has to do it for like the next 30 fucking years and so he he hates it every month he writes the check and he puts it in the mail and hates it and so then he writes he pays off the amount he totals it all up and this is how much it is and he writes them a check and they take them to court and they're like, no, this isn't your sentence. You don't just get to write us off and never get to think about us again. And the judge is like, they're right. You have

to write that check every month for the next 30 years or whatever it is. See, honestly, I'm okay. I feel like I would hate that, too. Receiving something. Being the victim's family. Yeah. And receiving something from, you know. OK, I know that's not the point. Yeah.

Well, anyway, it's based on based on a true story, but very loosely, I believe. Ripped from the headlines, as they say. That's right. Anyway, OK, so he has to go. I'm sorry, do you have more episodes of TV shows you'd like to tell us? I could tell you more life stories. Families in Crisis! Was that the best one?

The illegal abortion one is really good. Yeah. Yeah, this girl gets pregnant and she doesn't want her parents to know she's a teenager. So she gets an illegal abortion and then she's afraid her parents are going to find out but she gets super super sick and she won't tell them what has happened until she starts her period when she thinks they won't be able to tell anymore so she's just getting sicker and sicker and finally she

starts her period and so she's like mom mom i can go to the doctor i'm just not feeling well you please take me to the doctor she She fucking collapses. And she fucking dies because she's got a whole body infection. Oh. Yeah. This has all been an ad for the right to choose. Absolutely.

Yes. And abortion is healthcare. Yeah. Oh, yep. Anyway. Coming to our TED Talk. Going out with a bang before the break. So probably what?

Yeah. What? Ending abortions doesn't end abortions. It just ends safe abortions. Just for the, you know, if anybody was curious. Curious. Yeah. That's just the way that goes.

Yep. Okay. Probably goes without saying, but obviously Billy Dinkle was no longer allowed to work in the health care field either. Thought I'd throw that in just in case anyone was concerned. Yeah. Yeah. But his defense team wasn't too worried. They were like, this is unconstitutional.

We're going to fight this. So they appealed. Did they appeal that the conviction was unconstitutional or the sentence was unconstitutional? That the statute was unconstitutional. And so, I mean, if it's unconstitutional, then he didn't do anything illegal. Okay. And then, you know, wham, bam, boom. You see how the dominoes fall.

Thank you. How the cookie crumbles. How the ball bounces. How the brandy turns down my idea to do a YouTube show in her salon where she does ASMR haircuts. No, thank you. Hard pass. Still hurts. has ASMR haircuts.

No, thank you. Hard pass. Still hurts. So they appealed, but in the summer of 2012, the Minnesota Court of Appeals was like, make no bones about it, trial court did not err.

But again, the defense was not deterred. They were like, you know what we're going to do now? We're going to take this thing all the way to the Minnesota Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court sided with the defense.

Sort of. Okay. They were like, yeah, some of that statute is unconstitutional. Merely encouraging or advising on suicide definitely falls under free speech. It's protected under the First Amendment. Not a thing we can do about that. But here's what's not protected by the First Amendment. Speech that actually assists in the suicide.

Okay. Okay. Okay. So specific instructions like get this rope, find a place to hang it. Maybe. Okay. All right. Maybe. So the Minnesota Supreme Court was like, we're going to kick this one back to you, trial court.

And you need to figure out whether what William said actually assisted in the suicides. Which sport were you picturing? I just made up a sport. I'm very sporty. I'm sporty spice. I'm really the sporty spice of this podcast and the ginger and the posh. How fucking dare you call yourself

the sporty spice of this podcast. Yeah, back in the sixth grade when we dressed up as Spice Girls constantly, you were sporty. Yes, I was. And I was ginger. That's correct. And then I broke up the whole friend group.

Heartbreaking. How dare you claim to be sporty spice. Are they going to reunite? Are they going to do another another tour i think they're doing a thing yeah they were supposed to do a thing and then kovat happened and then i would do terrible things to go to a spice girls concert fucking love you me kyla you're hitting up the spice girls concert kyla this is your formal invitation that's correct you have no choice yep you better have your scary buns on yeah kyla was scary yeah obviously duh yeah all right anyway this time williams defense attorney was like you know what let's do a

jury trial this time i think that's the better way to go. But the judge was like, no, you waived your right to a jury trial in the original trial, and I'm not going to let you withdraw that waiver today. Which I think seems kind of stick up the butt, personally. Yeah, a little bit. I wonder what a jury would have said. I think he would have

had a worse outcome with a jury. See, I think so too. I think it was the smarter move to go with with a judge. Less emotions. Yeah.

Yeah. So they held a retrial with the question of did William assist in Mark and Nadia's suicides? Yes. I believe he did. Do you? In Nadia's?ides. Yes. I believe he did. Do you?

In Nadia's? Yes. Why? Because he said, get this rope. Get this specific rope. But she didn't hang herself. Okay. All right.

I get what you're saying. That does complicate things. It does. It really does. It really does. Yeah. I really dislike little Billy Dinkle. We all do. Believe me.

But did he break the law? Well, let's keep going. Okay. All right. All right. I don't want to. I don't want to. But I will. The judge found that he had assisted in Mark's death, but there wasn't enough evidence to convict him of attempting to assist in Nadia's suicide.

Attempting to assist, yes, there is. Assisting, no. But when you put the word attempting in there, he 100% attempted to assist Nadia. 100% attempted to assist Nadia. But merely advising in a suicide is free speech. I think it goes beyond advising when you are giving them specific ingredients to purchase. Okay. All right.

The only reason he didn't assist is because she didn't go that route. Right. So he didn't assist. He attempted to assist. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty fired up over here. You are fired up. You are fired up.

Pretty fired up. I know. Fucking little Billy Dinkle. Does he get nothing? Okay, okay. I'll get to it. I'll get to it. Like we are tonight.

The judge sentenced William to three years in prison, but suspended it on the condition that he served 360 days in jail and behave like a good boy on probation for 10 years after his release. And so, yeah, he did a little bit of jail time. Yeah, I hate it. I hate it. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah.

Because I hate it. I hate it. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Nadia's brother, Mark, is now an advocate for suicide prevention. Mm-hmm. I just... Okay, so here's where I get... What it all comes down to is I had a very cool professor in college who was very like,

free speech, it's all about free speech, it's all about the First Amendment, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. You got to, you know, even defend the wacky stuff. And I have always wanted to have that opinion, I think, because I really admired that professor and thought he was really smart. But I think when it comes right down to it, I guess I just don't really feel that way. Yeah. Because, yeah, I hear someone is going after vulnerable people and advising them and encouraging them to commit suicide. Yeah. And, nope, sorry, I think you should be locked up.

Yeah. I do. I agree. Yeah, I hate that. I don't think that should be protected. I don't either. And, okay, so this is the other thing I wanted to talk about. This dude's a fucking nurse. Yeah, I'm telling you, he's a fucking

angel of death. He thinks he's an angel of mercy. That's how he spins it. No, he doesn't. And his head. No, he doesn't. This guy... You don't think he thinks he's helping these people? No, he has a kink. Oh, I completely agree. Yeah.

And I think he... So I didn't get into all of it obviously but like yeah his wife stood by him which what wife stood by him they had two kids together anyway yeah don't kink shame worst thing on earth is kink shaming am i right Right? Cool. Yeah, fucking nasty. Oh, my gosh. 320 days. 360 days. Who knows what he actually said.

Because part of it was his sentence was suspended through the appeals. Yeah. And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. So he's just. I hate it. Did they take away his internet? Oh, you know what they did? I didn't mention that.

They did. They did make it so that he couldn't get on the internet for a certain period of time. Okay. That doesn't make it any better. Well, I mean, it's a little better. It's slightly better. It's like, you know, if a guy killed people by throwing Swiss cheese at them and you're like, you know what?

You're done with Swiss cheese, sir. You can no longer have Swiss cheese, sir. Yeah. Yeah. You know, if we were like an episode of a TV show right now, I feel like we'd do that thing where it's like, if you're having suicidal thoughts, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. So, yeah. Here we go.

Be in profesh. Do you want me to pull up the suicide hotline number? Sure. Yeah. Yeah in profesh. Do you want me to pull up the suicide hotline number? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. All right. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. Help is available 24 hours a day in multiple languages.

You can also seek free and confidential support through suicidepreventionlifeline.org. All right. Ooh. Got anything else to say about that? No. What are your thoughts on free speech? Do you think? Yeah, I think free speech is important.

And I get the idea behind, yes, you protect the wacky stuff too. But when it's coming down to costing someone's life, there has to be a line. I agree. to costing someone's life. Yeah. There has to be a line. I agree. So, yeah, if he had been just like,

yeah, you should totally, you should totally do it. You're on the fence. Do it. I think, yeah, that's probably not a crime. But when he's saying, this is how you should do it. And also, you should let me watch. Yeah, fuck off.

Yeah, that's crossing the line. Yeah. That's moved into a crime. Brandi's fired up. She's coming alive. Yeah, I'm sorry. That was a terrible case. I hated it.

I hated it. Loved it. Thank you. All right. I teased. You did. I teased this case. Been teasing.

Bunch of people were like, do it, do it, do it. And so I was like, I don't know. Should I do it? And then I started researching it. And so I did just disclaimer here. There's a lot of different details that I could go into with this. I went just a very broad overview of the whole case. No.

Yes. I want to be here for the next 15 hours just hearing about this. Shout outs to Jen Baxter for Medium. Amazing article on this. Much of this Jen Baxter for Medium. Amazing article on this. Much of this comes directly from her article. Also to Lizzie Acker for the Oregonian.

Were you afraid you were going to trip over that word? I was. I tripped over the instead. Beautifully done. She put together this very comprehensive timeline of this case, which was quite helpful indeed.

And then also I stumbled across this blog called Talk Murder With Me, which I didn't pull directly from, but had a bunch of great links and sources. So, okay. Thank you to Talk Murder With Me.

June 4th, 2010 was not just another day at school for seven-year-old Kyron Horman. No. It was the day of Skyline Elementary School's annual science fair and Kyron had spent weeks

on his project on the red-eyed tree frog. Oh my God. Everyone. What? We're going to have to pause. What? Kristen.

To let you all know that in elementary school, Brandy was obsessed with frogs. I sure was. I had a whole frog collection, had a giant picture of a red-eyed tree frog on my bedroom wall. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Loved fucking frogs. I had a pet frog. Don't say you loved fucking frogs.

Oh, God. You're right. I liked frogs. Just like a normal amount. Don't worry. It was all consensual, everybody. Just calm down. Those frogs loved it.

I had a pet frog. Like a little swimmy frog. His name was Freddy, obviously. Duh. I also liked the little, you know, hello, kitty's buddy. That's the frog. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't remember his name.

I think it was Carapy. He's very cute. Yeah. Yeah, I had a bunch of stuff with that on it. I had frog pillows. Your room was frog themed at your mom's house. Yes. I believe I said there was a giant picture of a frog on the wall.

Well, they needed to know it was a theme. Okay. You know, like I had a Heath Ledger poster in my room, but it wasn't a Heath Ledger theme. You're right. You're right. All right. I see the difference. I see the difference.

If it had been a theme, I would have never left that room. If it had been a theme, I would have never left that room. I was about to make a joke that would take that too far, and I pulled it back. What was it? And we'll cut it. It's something about your fingers being pruney. Brandy's got that. Brandy, this is a family podcast.

It's a family podcast. That morning, Kyron's stepmother, Terry Horman, took Kyron from their Portland, Oregon home to his school. She helped him set up his display. And once that trifold poster board that we all remember so well was perfectly displayed, Terry snapped a picture of Kyron in front of it. In the picture, Kyron smiled, beaming with pride over his project and his little diorama that he had set up. After taking the picture, Terry watched as Kyron walked down the hall towards his second grade classroom. Then she left the school. It was around 8.45 a.m. To this day, almost 11 years to the day later.

So this episode is going to come out on June 3rd. Oh, wow. And he disappeared on June 4th. Yeah. That picture of Kyron smiling in his CSI t-shirt in front of his science project is the last picture ever taken of him. shirt in front of his science project is the last picture ever taken of him. Because despite Terry Horman's claims that she watched Kyron walk toward his classroom that day, Kyron never made it to class. And despite countless searches and an investigation that has spanned more than a decade and remains active to this day, Kyron Horman has never been found.

She watched him go into the classroom? Watched him walk down the hall toward his classroom. Okay. And if it was science fair day, then there were probably a lot of adults. Extra people in the school. Okay. Mm-hmm. of adults. Extra people in the school.

Okay. Kyron's parents, Kane Horman and Desiree Young, divorced before Kyron was born. They shared joint custody of him until 2004 and then Desiree was actually diagnosed

with kidney failure then because she needed a lot of medical care and stuff like that, Cain was given full custody at that time. In 2007, Cain married Terry and they had a daughter together in 2008. And Kyron lived with them full time in Portland, Oregon. Desiree remained a very important part of his life. He saw her regularly. She just didn't have physical custody of him because of her medical issues. Desiree actually remarried as well. She lived six hours away in Medford, Oregon. But like I said, he visited regularly. He had a room at her house. And Kyron had talked to his mom, Desiree, a lot about the science fair.

He was very excited about it. And Desiree had wanted to come, but she hadn't been able to get off work. That weekend, though, Kyron was going to his mom's house in Medford to spend the weekend. And he had promised to tell Desiree all about the red-eyed tree frog when he got there. So they had like an arrangement where like they would each drive halfway. They'd meet at some halfway point and do like a handoff. Obviously, that never happened that day. Kane Horman, Kyron's dad, worked for Intel.

You know, like a little processing chip. I'm familiar. No Intel inside. That's not the right. worked for Intel, you know, like a little processing chip. I'm familiar. No Intel inside. That's not the right voice, but you guys get the idea. Did that thing get hit or did somebody spill some water on it? What happened? So he got home from work that day about 2 o'clock.

His wife, Terry, was there, their daughter, who I think at this point was like a year and a half. Why are you saying it like that? I believe she was like 18 months. Okay, that's fine. They were at the house. You know, they all hung out and they waited until about 3.30 when they were going to walk down to the bus stop to get Kyron. So they're at the bus stop. It's like 3.3535 the bus doesn't come

finally it gets there about 345 but Kyron wasn't on it their first reaction was that maybe Kyron was confused because Terry had taken him to school that day usually he rode the

bus to and from school but she had taken him because he had his project you you know, and everything. And so maybe he was like expecting her to come back and pick him up. So they called the school to see if he was still there. But they were told that Kyron hadn't been in class that day. No one were called seeing him at school. No one? No one. But there is that picture of him in there is a OK, so there is a picture of him in front of his science project and the spoiler alert, the FBI gets brought in. Obviously, the mayor's very involved. Of course.

And they do like a GPS tracking on this picture and they're able to confirm that it was taken at the time and the place where they claim it was taken. So, yes, he was at the school at that science fair, but nobody else saw him at any other point at that school that day. at that school that day. The reason the Hormans never got a call that day about Kyron not being in class was because Kyron's teacher recalled having a conversation with Terry that Kyron had a doctor's appointment. Oh. And wouldn't be in class. Well, OK. Terry says that this was a misunderstanding and that Kyron did have a doctor's appointment the following week and that she had told the

teacher about that. But then that day when they'd spoken at the science fair because the teacher's like, I spoke to her like that day about the doctor's appointment. She said that she, the teacher was confused. She had mentioned that her younger daughter had a doctor's appointment that day. Not Kyron.

Hmm. So the teacher thought Kyron has a doctor's appointment They brought a science project Took out the science fair and then he went So this is totally normal he was not at school Marked him absent, didn't think anything of it So when they find out

That Kyron has not been at school all day Kane and Terry Freaked the fuck out Of course He should have been there Kane and Terry, like, freaked the fuck out. Of course. He should have been there. They were convinced from that moment that Kyron had been abducted. Kane knew that this was the only explanation. So he called the police right then and there, and he reported Kyron missing.

he called the police right then and there, and he reported Kyron missing. A search of the area surrounding Skyline Elementary School began almost immediately. Police were very hopeful that maybe Kyron had just wandered off of school property. This school is like positioned near the downtown area of Portland, and it's also like surrounded by dense brush and steep inclines. And so they were like, maybe he just wandered off and he fell or he got lost or whatever. Surely we'll find him. No big deal. So they're searching like immediately. But Kane's like, no, you won't find him there.

Okay. Could we pause? Yes. won't find him there. Okay. Could we pause? Yes. So if this situation were applied to Jack, would you immediately think someone had abducted him? No. Well, okay. What, what would your mind jump to? Yeah. Yeah. Something, my mind would jump to, yeah, maybe he wandered off. Maybe he got lost. Maybe he got confused. You know, something. Maybe the other set of parents picked him up.

Yeah, I think that would be my first reaction. Let's call the other set of parents, see if somebody got wires crossed and accidentally, you know. I think that would be a stretch. But, yeah, my first instinct would not be, oh, he's been abducted. Right. Okay. Okay. Continue. Kane's reasoning for thinking that, though, is he said from the beginning that Kyron was just not the wandering off type of kid. He was super timid. He was shy. He was not an adventurer. He was super timid. He was shy. He was not an adventurer.

And then the terrain around the school would have scared him. That makes perfect sense to me. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I know my kid. Yes. And there's certain things we can just rule out right now. Yes.

And he was, like, deathly allergic to bees. So he was very afraid of, like, adventuring into any area where he didn't really know. Right. Yes. And he was like deathly allergic to bees. So he was very afraid of like adventuring into any area where he didn't really know. Right. Yeah. He was like this. He's not the kid. He's not the kid that wanders off. It's just not who he is. Okay. So they start doing this search

and it's really difficult because of the terrain around the school. And then a fucking rainstorm moves in and makes it even harder. The initial search went on for hours and yielded not a single clue as to what might have happened to Kyron. They found nothing surrounding the school, nothing at all, which is what Kane told them they would find. surrounding the school.

Nothing at all. Which is what Kane told them they would find. Yeah. The Multnomah County Sheriff's Office. Okay, I never pronounce anything in Oregon right, and we have lots of listeners in Oregon, and they're going to be like, excuse me, Multnomah. Sure, that's exactly how it's pronounced. Remember when you called it Portland?

At this point, they weren't even really sure what they were dealing with at the sheriff's office. Was this an abduction or a lost child? They didn't know, but they weren't taking any chances. So they called the mayor and the mayor called the FBI. Naturally. And they immediately dispatched the Child Abduction Rapid Deployment Team. What? Yeah.

Cool. Yeah. CARD. Okay. So CARD comes on in. They're assisting the search. And by the next day, they have, like, a huge, large-scale physical search, like, setup. physical search like set up.

So they've got like 60 like expert searchers brought in and then they have hundreds and hundreds of volunteers. And they start searching

and searching and searching through all the brush and everything and all, you know, whatever. They find nothing. The next day,

so they use the school's like alert system, like, you know, the snow day alert system or whatever. I don't know if it's like a message system or a text message system.

It's 2000, what is it, 2010. So it could be a, it could be a text. Anyway, they let, they let all of the parents know that they and their children,

anybody who was at the school, any child who was at the school on Friday, plus their parents, has to come to the school on Sunday to be questioned by police about anything they may have seen. And so on Sunday, they set up this massive interrogation, essentially, where everybody is just piling through the school, every student and their parents. Like, what did you see? Did you see anything? Were you at the science fair?

Blah, blah, blah. Every single child who was at the school that day is questioned. Wow. But nobody saw Kyron that day. This is weird. Yeah. Yeah.

This is weird. Yeah. Very quickly, this made front page national news. This is a very cute seven-year-old boy who went missing. I know it doesn't matter that he's cute, but it does. No, it absolutely does. Yes. Race matters, too. Absolutely.

He's a white boy. Yes. He's a very cute little white kid yeah 100 he's on the front page of every of every newspaper his face is all over every news program nationwide yes he's like you know he's got one of those there's a bunch of pictures of him where he's smiling with no teeth. Very cute. Yeah. Yeah. As word spread about Kyron going missing, tips started flooding in. Within 72 hours, they received 1,200 tips.

1,200 tips! Whoa. Most of them came from the Portland area, but there were possible sightings all over the entire state of Oregon, up into parts of Washington. On Monday, so at this point he went missing on Friday. It's now Monday. They set up a checkpoint at Kyron's school where they stopped every car that drove through the area. They gave a flyer with Kyron's picture on it, asked every single person if they'd seen anything unusual. And no one recalled seeing anything.

This investigation was turning up nothing. At one point, Desiree says it's as if a void opened up in the school and Kyron fell into it and was never seen again. That's what I don't understand. How did no one see anything? Or even just see him that day. Yeah. So a couple of years into this investigation, a couple of people come forward or it comes out that during the early stages of the investigation, a couple of people say that they saw Kyron walking out of the school with his stepmom Terry. Oh.

But there's only like two people that say that. Yeah. And it never leads anywhere. As far as anybody seeing him in the school there's nothing. And nobody saw anybody grab him and take him out like. Yeah.

Nobody saw anything. Jeez. I think that's fucking terrifying yeah it is they brought in just hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of volunteer searchers but again remember the terrain is rocky and dense brush and whatever. And so actually, these untrained searchers, multiple of them like got multiple of them. That's terrible. No, it's great. No, multiple of them. Many of them. Multiple of them. A few of them. A couple of them. Listen to this podcast. A couple of them actually were injured because of the terrain. They fell and like

somebody had to be rushed to the hospital. And so they actually kind of asked those volunteer searchers to kind of back off and they went a different way.

They asked people to search their personal property. Look at your own property. Look around. See if there's anything. See if there's any sign. Check, you know,

if you've got land, check out on the back. You know, check in any ditches check in any of those like tunnel thingies somebody actually called in a tip like a week after Kyron went missing that there was like one of those big you know one of those big drain things

cement drain things that she was like, you know the cement, yeah damn it, did I say that? Yeah, you said cement. Anyway, the cement pond. She said there's one of those near the back of, you know, so-and-so's property, and kids play in there all the time. Has it been checked?

But it had, and there was nothing. There was nothing. And there was nothing. There was nothing. Kyron had been missing a week when his parents made their first statement to the public. Presenting a united front and wearing matching T-shirts with Kyron's face on them, they thanked the searchers for all of their hard work and asked for anybody who knew anything, anybody who had seen anything, no matter how small it was, please call. You never know the smallest thing could be the thing that, you know,

sends this investigation in the right direction. And at that press conference, Desiree noted that Kyron was timid. He was shy in new situations. He didn't stray into areas he didn't know. He wasn't the sort of child who would just go off somewhere. And he was practically blind without his glasses. Wow.

That was one of the reasons they were so adamant from the beginning that someone must have taken him. Because he would have never. Never. Walked off or done this willingly. Okay. No. So in that press conference, his parents were like, we know someone did this. This is not, you know, he didn't walk off on his own.

But the police hadn't labeled this an abduction or anything at this point. It's just a missing child investigation. But just a couple days after this press conference, they did upgrade this investigation to a criminal investigation. But they wouldn't say why. They didn't say what led them that direction, just that it had been reclassified as a criminal investigation. Yeah. They wouldn't say if there was any particular person of interest. They said that they had no suspects at that time. And they said that they believed that this was an isolated case.

There was no reason for other parents to be worried about their children at this time. Why? I know, right? So they had to suspect a family member? That's what I think. I thought the exact same thing. It's like, why would you say that unless you do have a specific person in mind or a specific scenario that you have some evidence of. Yeah, I would hope you would be pretty damn certain if you're telling people, oh, don't worry. Yeah. Okay.

On Tuesday, June 15th, which happened to be the final day of classes for students at Skyline Elementary, classes for students at Skyline Elementary, the sheriff's office released a picture of glasses like the ones that Kyron wore. And then they also released an edited version of that picture of Kyron from the science fair showing what he would look like without glasses. This led to a lot of speculation that searchers had found Kyron's glasses. Yeah. But it doesn't seem that that's the case. That was never confirmed and no more was ever said about that.

But that really fired people up. They were like, oh, my gosh, they found his glasses. Shortly after this, there was like a big rumor that his body had been found. But the sheriff had to go on TV and be like, we have not found anything. Yeah. We have heard that there's a lot of speculation that there has been a body found in this case and there has not been.

So that same day when they released that new picture, 30 billboards went up around the Portland metropolitan area. They featured Kyron's picture, descriptive information about him, you know, his height, his weight, his hair color, whatever. And then the number to call him with tips. So I thought this was kind of interesting. 10 of the billboards were in English. 10 of the billboards were in Spanish.

And 10 of the billboards were in Russian. Is there a big Russian population in Portland? There must be. There must be. Yeah. were in Russian. Is there a big Russian population in Portland? There must be. There must be, yeah. These were actually donated

by some company, donated the billboards, and so those went up and the search continued but again, like Yeah, they weren't finding anything. They weren't finding anything. Lots of people were following this case very closely, obviously.

Brandy included. Yes. I remember exactly when he went missing. Like, I, yeah. And from the minute he went missing, I had my theory. Uh-huh. Of course I did. So those who were following the case closely may or may not have been shocked when 24 days after Kyron went missing, Kane Horman filed for divorce.

Oh. A lot of people claim to have been shocked by this, but from the beginning, Terry was people's main suspect in this case. She was the last person to see him. Like, that's just kind of the natural. And she seems to be the main person that the police looked into. There were no, there's no evidence that she did anything to Kyron, had anything to do with his disappearance. What there is some evidence of is that five months before Kyron disappeared, she tried to hire a hitman to kill her husband. Well, okay.

Okay. Okay. So. What? As this search for Kyron is going on, this man comes forward. He's this guy who's done, like, landscaping for the Hormans. And he's like, yeah, like six months ago, Terry offered me $10,000 to kill her husband. Shut up. And so, OK, there's a lot of people who don't believe that this guy's story is true, that he completely made it up.

The police found it credible enough that they told Kane about it. And they tried to get this guy to do like a sting operation on Terry. He wore a wire and he went and met with her and tried to get her to admit to what she'd done on the recording, but it wasn't successful. He also claimed that they'd been having an affair. Any evidence of that? No, and here's the thing that makes a lot of people not believe his story.

Okay. So he claims they were having an affair. He also claims that they went out to lunch at a restaurant. I don't know which restaurant. I'm very sorry. You know me so well. And that it was at that restaurant that she offered him the $10,000 to kill Cain. So people who don't believe his story said that

that's a big hole because if they're having an affair, why would she wait until they're in public to offer him the money to try and arrange the hit? Yeah. Doesn't make sense. Whatever version he told the police, though, they found credible enough that they alerted Kane about it and Kane immediately filed for divorce and immediately filed for a restraining order against Terry and was granted one

and was granted custody of their daughter. Oh, wow. Do you believe this? I don't know. I don't think I believe it. I don't know. The thing that people are saying about, you know, why would he have waited until they were out in a restaurant?

Or why would she have waited until they were out in a restaurant to try and arrange a hit? I agree. That doesn't make any sense. What does she stand to gain from Kyron going missing? Okay, so here's the theory. And I think this is a stretch. Okay, Terry had a teenage son from her previous marriage. There had been a situation at the house.

Kane and the teenage son were not getting along. And Kane had told Terry he had to go. And so she sent him to live with her ex-husband, which was several hours away. And so then the theory is that she was really resentful that Cain's son got to live in the house while her son was sent away. And so to retaliate, she did something to Kyron when she couldn't successfully pull off a hit on Kane. I think it's a pretty weak theory. Yeah.

Yeah, I think it's a pretty weak theory. And there's no evidence at all of her doing anything to Kyron. None at all. Oh, God, this is weird. Okay. This completely ruined her life, though. I'm sure it did. Yeah.

Yeah. She was painted by the media to be the number one suspect, though she was never named as a suspect by the police. And they said, you know, we have no suspects in this case. You know, we've. But that doesn't change the way the public sees her. And to this day, people believe that she was very involved. People including Kane and Desiree.

Kane and Desiree, they both believe that Terry was either involved or knows exactly what happened and knows where Kyron is. What do you think? I think that would be the easiest thing to believe as a parent. As opposed to? Some stranger took my kid and I have no idea where he is or I think it'd be easier to be able to focus your anger on one person than some mystical, you know, nefarious character that you can't put a face to. Hmm. Okay. I don't know. I don't know either. I don't know. I don't know either. I don't either.

So people are like fucking losing their minds when Cain files for divorce and files for a restraining order. But now hold on. The thing about getting a divorce, a lot of people, a lot of marriages. Oh, of course. Yeah. Don't survive this. Can't withstand stuff like this. Yeah.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Of course. Yeah. Don't survive this. Can't withstand stuff like this. Yeah. Absolutely. But when it comes out because somebody leaks the restraining order and the reasons for

it and all of that. And so this actually was. So, OK. Oh, oh, let me gather my thoughts here for a second. I'm getting very fired up. Yes. I've got a complete tangent that I did not include. OK.

Great. OK. So when Cain files tangent that I did not include. Okay. Great. Okay. So when Cain files for divorce, Terry refuses to leave the house. So he has to get a court order to remove her from the home. And so he gets that. A judge grants him, like, basically he gets to stay in the house and she has to leave. And so she actually goes and starts, like, shacking up with Cain's, like, best friend from high school. Oh, rude. Yeah. Okay. actually goes and starts like shacking up with Kane's like best friend from high school.

Oh, rude. Yeah. Okay. And it's that guy who leaks the restraining order. So when that happens, Kane goes back to court and asked them to hold Terry in contempt of court for leaking the sealed restraining order. Because he's like, this is taking the focus off the investigation off the search for my son this can only do bad things yeah yeah yeah and the the court did not hold her in contempt yeah oh my god yeah so shortly after all of this happens kane and desiree held a press conference where they

talked about the murder for hire scheme and desiree at that press conference was like i suspected terry from the beginning from the, I knew she had to be behind this. Kane had said at a different point that he believed that he and Terry had a good relationship and he had not suspected her of any wrongdoing, but learning that she'd maybe done this murder for hire plot against him

made him question things. But that all comes down to if you believe that guy's story or not. Yeah. Which Kane obviously did believe. Yeah. The whole story is that Kane was abusive and that this is this guy's story.

That Terry came to him and said, my husband's abusive, you know, blah, blah, blah. He carries $10,000 cash on him at all times. All you have to do is kill him and then that $10,000 cash on him at all times. All you have to do is kill him, and then that $10,000 cash is yours. That sounds like, hey, I don't have the money for a hitman, but I want someone to murder someone for me. Yeah, it'll just be right there in his pocket. Uh-huh. Bullshit. $10,000 on him.

No one carries $10,000 on their person. No. No one carries $10,000 on their person. No. No. And if they do, they have a briefcase in their hand. That's right. Just like the movies. So at this press conference, Desiree and Kane said that they both believed that Kyron was alive and that Terry had put him somewhere. For what purpose?

Right? Wow. Yeah. So this press coverage goes on and the public's like, I don't know, man. Don't you think he's dead? Like, there's been no sign of him. Yeah. For all this time now.

And at that time, it came out that Terry had actually taken two polygraph tests and failed them both. Which, you know, we know polygraph tests are bullshit. Mm-hmm. Polygraph tests are bullshit. At that same time, Desiree made this very public plea for Terry just to come forward. It's like a plea directly to Terry on whatever news program they were on. And just tell the truth about what had happened. At that point, she told reporters that Terry had stopped cooperating with the investigation.

And that she had hired a lawyer. And that she was refusing to speak to detectives. None of that looks great. But also, isn't that what you do? That's what I would do if I was clearly a suspect. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My God, what if this woman really didn't do anything?

I think it's very possible that this woman didn't do anything. Oh, my gosh. And this completely, like, ruined her life. Yeah. It's also possible she did something. Well, sure. But, yeah, I think it's very possible that she didn't. Yeah. How could she have committed the perfect crime where there's no evidence of, there's no evidence that anything happened to Kyron other than he disappeared.

Yeah. There's no evidence anywhere, at least that the police has given to the public, that Kyron is dead. Yeah. There's no evidence anywhere, at least that the police has given to the public that Kyron is dead. Yeah. There's also no evidence that he's still alive. There's not like... I don't fucking know. I don't buy

this hitman thing. I don't... I really don't think I buy the hitman thing. So, that guy was the one who said, oh, she told me... Yeah, the $10,000 thing makes no sense at all. No sense at all. But surely not just anybody can show up at the police and be like, hey, she tried to hire me to kill her husband. Like, you have to be able to show some kind of something, right, for the police to believe you. God, I hope so.

Brandi, are you new here? I think if the police really want to solve a case, and of course they do, especially when a cute young white child goes missing, like, yeah, maybe there's a tendency to believe or want to believe when someone comes forward with a story. I think, trying to put myself in their shoes, I would want to believe when someone comes forward with a story? I think, trying to put myself in their shoes, I would want to believe. So, it is completely that hitman story that turned

the whole investigation to looking at Terry and turned Cain from believing that Terry was searching for Kyron with him

into thinking that she had done something to Kyron. Oh, my God. Yeah. What happened next? Okay, so news of this all breaks. You know, the divorce proceedings are going on. Terry asks for the divorce proceedings to be held because she's like, this is just going to

interfere with the investigation of Kyron. And then like, I can't say certain things without incriminating myself. And like, this is just a whole messy situation. And so they actually delay the divorce proceedings at this point. And the investigation into Kyron's disappearance continues. But it becomes very clear that Terry Horman is the focus of the investigation at this point. Though the police are still saying publicly, we have no suspects. We have no person of interest.

And at this point, they narrow in on those couple of mentions that I had said earlier where a couple of people were like, oh yeah, I saw Terry Horman in the parking lot with Kyron. They were walking away from the school. So like of all the people that they talked to in that like, you know, that thing they did.

The interrogation parade. That's exactly what they call it. Two people had mentioned that they thought they saw Terry's car in the parking lot of the school that day and that someone else, another adult, had been sitting in it while Terry was in the school helping Kyron set up his science fair project. Wow. Uh-huh. And so then police start talking to Terry's, like, friends, and they kind of narrow in on her friend, D.D. Spiker? S-P-I-C-H-E-R. Okay.

Mm-hmm. So she lived, like, in that area where, like, within, like, I think it was, like, four miles of the school. And she worked at, like, a nursery. And she, like, abruptly left her job that morning. Shut up. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Terry denies this.

Dee Dee denies this. Dee Dee. I don't know. Where does she say she was? She said she never left work that day. Well, there's like two and a half hours when she was supposed to be at work that she's unaccounted for. And there's like a two and a half hour period in Terry's day where she can't say where she was. She was driving around because her daughter had an earache and she was trying to soothe it

by getting her to fall asleep in the car. And then she was shopping. She can't say exactly where. Oh, okay. Well, I'm back on the Terry train again. Sorry, excuse me. So they ask Dee Dee to do a polygraph and she does it and she passes. Polygraphs don't mean shit to me. So they ask Dee Dee to do a polygraph, and she does it, and she passes.

Polygraphs don't mean shit to me. I know. I know. So now people are sure. Terry had something to do with this. Dee Dee helped her out. They stuck Kyron somewhere. They sold him to somebody.

I don't know. They did something to him. They are the only ones. They killed him and buried him in a somewhere. But there's no physical evidence to support any of that. There's no physical evidence to support

that Terry and Dee Dee were together at any point on that day. And there's certainly no evidence to support that they did anything to Kyron that day. And there's certainly no evidence to support that they did anything to Kyron that day. Yeah. Well, but OK, that's just too weird

that they both have. I know. They both have gaps in their days they can't account for. But that's not enough. It's not. You're killing me.

It's not. You're killing me with this. So police are like, well, I mean, that's kind of fucking it with Terry. We can't like go anywhere else with this. And so they're like, well, I mean, that's kind of fucking it with Terry. We can't like go anywhere else with this.

And so they're like, OK, let's look into other possibilities. They interviewed every registered sex offender in the area. They pulled all of the visitor logs from the school that whole week. They talked to every single person on either of those lists. They followed up on every possible sighting. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. They even pulled the phone logs and followed up with anybody whose cell phone had pinged on the tower closest to Kyron's school that day around the time when he disappeared.

Okay, that's pretty amazing work. Yeah. One year into this investigation, 3,500 people had spent more than 26,000 hours working this case. And they had nothing. Yeah. It was as if he had vanished into thin air.

Like Desiree said, like a void opened up in the school and he slipped into it, never to be seen again. This is like one of my favorite cases you've ever covered. I mean, there's just no evidence of anything. Yeah. There's no evidence that he was abducted. There's no evidence that he was abducted. There's no evidence that he was killed. The only thing there is is that he's not there anymore. Yeah.

This is why this case is so fascinating to me, because it's as if he just disappeared into thin air. Yeah. In June of 2012, two years after Kyron disappeared, Desiree filed a civil suit against Terry Horman. She asked for monetary damages to the tune of $10 million. Okay. And she asked that the court order Kyron's former stepmother to either return him or give up the information as to where his remains were. Okay, well, I mean. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

I mean, what do you do with that? Oh, oh, you want to know the information? I was just waiting for a judge to force me to tell you. Exactly. I mean, I just imagine being a judge and, like, looking at that lawsuit and being like, what the fuck am I supposed to do? Yeah. It would just be, it would be terrible to be the mom.

Oh, yeah. It would be be, it would be terrible to be the mom. Oh, yeah. It would be terrible. Because what can you do? It's like your son is missing and there's nothing you can do. Nothing you can do. So during this whole investigation, like the whole 10 years this investigation is going on, a secret grand jury is being convened every now and again. And they're just feeding more information to them, and they can never return an indictment. Oh, my God.

Yeah. Okay. So in this particular lawsuit, she files this civil suit. Initially, Terry just files a motion to delay the lawsuit because she's like, this is an ongoing investigation. Obviously, even though the police are saying I am not, I am a person of interest. And, you know, this is just going to hinder the whole thing. So much like she did with the divorce proceeding. She's like, please, let's just delay this for now. In the meantime, they do depositions on a bunch of people, including Didi Spiker.

on a bunch of people, including Dee Dee Spiker. And during her deposition, Dee Dee refused to answer 142 questions. Among those questions were, what were your whereabouts on June 4th? Had you had any contact with Terry that day? She also refused to identify a picture of Kyron. She refused to say whether or not she'd met him before. And she refused to answer whether or not she knew Kane Horman. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.

Nope, all DDs are terrible. We established this many episodes ago. We have established that. What is the reason for refusing to answer those questions? Not wanting to incriminate herself. Right? Yeah. What the fuck? What the fuck is right?

This story is beyond bizarre. Obviously, there was nowhere for this lawsuit to go. Yeah. It was eventually dropped. Desiree dropped it in July of 2013. I was going to assume it got dismissed. So she actually dropped it before it was dismissed. And she said she felt like it was just hindering the investigation.

And it was taking focus off of Kyron, which is where the focus needed to be. And so she dropped the lawsuit. In the meantime, the divorce is still trucking along through the court system. Sure. Eventually the divorce was granted. Kane got full custody of their daughter.

Eventually Terry was able to get supervised visitation rights. But that was it. That kind of kills me. I mean, if they don't have anything on her. I know. I know.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. At some point, Terry also went to court and requested. But her name was so well known. Of course. She said it was keeping her from getting a job. It was keeping her from being able to live a life of any kind. And she hadn't been charged with anything. Yeah. Yeah.

Her name had just been. Her name was garbage. Yeah. Yep. A judge denied her request. Really? To change her name. Yeah.

Saying he was afraid it would impact the investigation. How? I don't know. Yeah, her request to change her name was denied. Wow. Mm-hmm. That really surprises me. Yeah.

Okay. me. Yeah. Okay. She also, in that filing to get her name changed, she specifically wanted to change her name to Claire Stella Sullivan. Claire Stella Sullivan? Yes. Like hyphenated? No.

Claire Stella Sullivan. Oh, Sullivan. Okay, well, just calm down Brittany. You've got to slow these things down a bit. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm very excited. I told you I have followed this case for a long time. Uh-huh. Claire and Stella don't really go together. Yeah, I don't think it does. It doesn't flow well.

Claire Sullivan is very nice. Claire Sullivan sounds great. Stella Sullivan sounds great. I like it. Claire Stella Sullivan, I don't think it flows. Claire Sullivan sounds like a rich lady in a book that I would love to read. Uh-huh. Absolutely. Absolutely. Claire Sullivan appeared to have the perfect life. So she had actually, in this filing for this, she was like, she had an example of how being named Terry Horman had affected her life.

She had finally been able to get a job. She was working as like a mental health support specialist. She had finally been able to get a job. She was working as like a mental health support specialist. But just two months in, someone had figured out who she was and began harassing her and stalking her. She was like she was like some kind of like home health aid. Like she'd go into people's houses. Someone started following her.

She so when they wouldn't grant her name change, she actually asked to try and get a restraining order against that person. And again, that was denied. The judge said that he found no basis for her claims. Wow. Yeah. Did it seem like she was really being stalked? I don't know. I don't know. I couldn't find much on that.

Okay. Yeah. Evidently, the judge couldn't either. All right. Mm-hmm. For the 10th anniversary of this case, which happened last year in June, June 2020, the Multnomah County Sheriff, Mike Reese, released this statement. Kyron Horman's disappearance continues to have a profound impact on our community. We remain just as dedicated to this investigation as we did 10 years ago.

In collaboration with our major crimes team partners, the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office and the FBI, we are pursuing all investigative leads and will continue to do so until Kyron is located. This case remains open and active. You can help us by sharing information pertaining to Kyron's disappearance by calling the MCSO tip line at 503-988-0560. On the 10-year anniversary, Desiree said when she was asked by the Oregonian, they were talking about, so Kyron would have graduated high school last year. Oh, gosh. They're asking her how that feels, you know, gone by. And she said, all of the markers are really hard.

The fact that I don't get to be a part of that, it makes me angry. Someone took that away from us. And it's not right. Yeah, I saw something that said so I saw two conflicting things. One site said that Kane and Desiree now believe that Kyron is dead and that their hope is just to find his remains. But another thing I read that was like an interview with them from last year was like, we still believe we'll bring him home. Bring him home as in? leave will bring him home bring him home as in specifically said like phrased it like he is still alive and okay or somewhere okay on the 10-year anniversary desiree said i hope we're not in this same place next year here we are yeah and that's the story of the disappearance of Kyron Horman. Terry went on Dr. Phil in 2016.

Oh, my God. I bet you've lost your shit. Uh-huh. And she said, I was advised from the beginning by law enforcement, by my husband at the time, by attorneys in the beginning, not to say anything. I've always wanted to. I've asked multiple times to speak out and have not been allowed. No. I don't buy that. I don't buy it either.

No, because people, that's what people get in trouble for. They say too much stuff. Law enforcement didn't advise you to stop talking. I know. On that episode, she denied having any involvement in Kyron's disappearance. And she stated that her belief is that he was kidnapped. She has this whole theory. She said there was a man in a white pickup truck parked on Highway 30 at the 7-Eleven, which is not near the school. But she said he was acting very strangely and that he was addressed by one of the employees because he was pacing back and forth in front of the 7-Eleven for about an hour.

So I don't know where her claims are coming from. I believe she picked this to say because there was a focus on a white pickup truck. Her white pickup truck. They specifically asked people to call in about sightings of her truck around town that day. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what I think here. I think there's a solid argument for either way, for Terry having something to do with this

and for her having nothing to do with it. Yeah. This is a true mystery. It's so sad. Yeah. I mean, it's terrible either way. Yeah. Yeah, Kyron would have been the class of 2020.

He would have graduated high school last year. Yeah. What do you think happened? I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. My initial thought, before I did this coverage of it, I was like, 100% Terry Horman did it. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. But there's just no evidence of that happening. And how could there be no evidence? Yeah. And what I learned, so that was something that I learned that I didn't know. That kind of the whole focus on Terry kind of came after that murder for hire plot claim. I don't think I believe in murder for hire plot. I don't think I believe it. No, that sounds like such

bullshit to me. But Terry and Dee Dee, they do seem a little sus. I know. And I'm sorry, 142 questions you won't answer during a civil suit deposition? Well, out of how many is what I want.

I don't know. Well. I don't know. Really screwed the pooch there, didn't you? If it's out of 150, I'm with you. Right. Out of 10,000. All right.

It's not that impressive. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Well, okay, that was very intriguing. I knew nothing about that. You know what I think we ought to do?

Take questions from our Discord? Oh, you're reading my mind, friend. How do people get in the Discord? Well, you see, Brandy, they get onto our Patreon at the $5 level or higher. That gets them into the Discord and gets them all those sweet, sweet bonus episodes. The meaty boys, if you will. You know, we just dropped a bonus episode yesterday. We sure did.

We sure did. I covered the Greenbrier ghost, which excited you greatly because you love a spooky story. Yeah, I covered just, you know, like a super normal brandy case. Yeah, thanks a lot. You're welcome. You lured me into thinking that it was about something else and then it turned out to be a real brandy case. I sure did. Yeah.

Oh. Bluey podcast patron says, which one of you would do the big sweep and supermarket sweep? Okay, here's the real story. You and I would not compete together on supermarket sweep because you are not competitive enough. No. You would be so frustrated with me. It would be me and Norm.

We would fucking kill at it. And Norm would 100% run the big sweep at the end. And I would stand there and have the carts ready and I'd be like, inflatable 906, inflatable 906, get the inflatable. Don't forget the coffee cup.

Don't forget the coffee cup. Hey, that grill over there, get the grill. Yeah, I'd be the best cheerleader but I'd be the one back behind the line for sure. You and I could never do it together. I mean,

it would be a disaster, possibly the end of our friendship because I would not take it seriously enough at all. Yes, and I would get very frustrated. I know, you would be, disaster, possibly the end of our friendship, because I would not take it seriously enough at all. Yes, and I would get very frustrated. I know. You would be, if I blew your shot at supermarket sweep, it'd be the end.

I'd go through the aisles and pick up like a four-pound bag of flour, and you'd just lose your mind. Patrick Starr, the truck clit, wants to know, Brandi, are you finally leaving the Johnson County bubble? Oh, hell no. No, we are moving but still within the Johnson County bubble. I am telling you that if I tried to take my dad's precious

grandbaby outside of the Johnson County bubble, he would take me to court and fight for custody. And a Johnson County judge would grant him custody. You're trying to take her where? To Missouri? Okay. No icing in the Oreos wants to know, have you ever used earwax candles?

Besides the fact I almost caught my couch on fire, a bunch of stuff did come out. Dot, dot, dot. And I am an avid Q-tip user. Okay, have you ever used one of those ear candles? No, have you? Yes. Did stuff come out? Okay, so here's the thing.

So, first of all, Kyla used one and also burned a hole in her couch. Oh, good. Why are you doing it next to your couch? I mean, I know you've got to lay your head down, but put it on a non-flammable surface. Well, it's a little harder than you would expect, and you really need a buddy there. Yeah, it's a two-person job. It sure is. I mean, just looking at that, you can tell it's a two-person job.

So for those who don't know, oh, I just bumped the mic. For those who don't know, you stick this candle-looking thing in your ear, and you light it on fire, and then it's supposed to draw the earwax out. I have looked it up online, and I see stuff that says it's bullshit, so I haven't done it again. But I did find it entertaining. It's kind of entertaining to me the way a Biore pore strip is entertaining. Okay, all right. So you really do it for more entertainment purposes. Are you a Q-tip user? Do you regularly Q-tip? Yeah, all right. So you really do it for more entertainment purposes than... Are you a Q-tip user?

Do you regularly... Yeah, me too. I mean, what... I think lots of people don't do Q-tips. It says specifically on the thing that you're not supposed

to put them in your ears. Well, I'm sorry. What the hell am I supposed to do? Put it up my butt? I mean... How are you supposed to clean your ears?

Well, that's what I'm saying. They're not supposed to... Like, it's not intended to clean your ear, but that is... Oh, become what they are used universally for. Yeah. Okay.

And the Hitachi magic wand is supposed to be a back massager. Okay. I'm very alarmed at how quickly you rolled the name of that off your tongue. I'm just saying there's a lot of stuff that the manufacturers are like, it's not intended for this use. I think they say that to protect themselves because it can very easily burst your eardrums taking that puppy in there. But we all know what Q-tips are for. We're all adults here. Fucking love getting in there right after you get out of the shower.

Is that when you do it? I, you know, I'm kind of like with pizza rolls. In the evening. That's bagel bites. Bagel bites. Oh, yeah. I, you know, I'm kind of like with pizza rolls in the evening. That's bagel bites. Bagel bites. Oh, yeah. In the morning, in the evening, at supper time. Whenever.

Damn it, Brandy would like to know what Costco outfit you will be modeling for the Zoom hangout. How do you feel about that? That's the one that I saw and I was like, oh, God, so embarrassing. Would people believe it if I was like, well, actually, you know, I'm really wearing Gucci, but I just want to seem relatable. No, no one would believe that. Oh, Chicken Tindy wants to know, there are a handful of episodes where your cases coordinate like Amber Alerts and, you know, we had the wrongful convictions.

Is that planned or are they happy accidents? Always happy accidents. Yeah, always an accident. Very little planning goes into this show. Exactly right. Oh, Ian Scott wants to know, Brandy, have you guys thought about having your dad on the podcast? Okay, so I think this is very funny because of the text my dad sent me today. Yes, yes.

Do you think I should read it? I think you should absolutely read it. Tim Pounds has thoughts. Yes, yes. Do you think I should read it? I think you should absolutely read it. Tim Pounds has thoughts. Yes, the Tim Pounds. Okay, so everybody get out your Tim Pounds fun fact journals. Okay, my dad loves conspiracy theories. He's not like a conspiracy theorist. He just really likes conspiracy theories.

And he really loves the show Ancient Aliens, which has lots of conspiracy theories on it. So he sent me a text today when the new episode came out. And what did you cover? I covered the lizard cult. Oh. Yeah. Yeah.

The lizard people cult. As we all know, there are lizard people among us. He said, so very disappointed that you missed the opportunity to educate the masses on reptilian hierarchy and the Anunnaki subjugating the low human race and transforming us into what we are today or about their impending return. So many are going to be unprepared. And so I said, I'm sorry to have let you down. And he said, I'll never get a guest

shot. I can't even convince my family. Honestly, though, I don't think my dad's that interested in coming on the podcast. Is your dad kind of like my mom where it's like, nope. He likes the podcast. He listens. He's happy to support us from afar. Yeah.

I don't know. Maybe you could bait him to come on by continuing to talk about subjects he's fascinated by steamy creamy bullshit wants to know which is more likely kristen will come back from the break with another dog or brandy will come back pregnant again okay i saw that one i wondered if you were gonna okay here's the deal okay so i i told, I think, on the podcast about how we got Dottie and Kit. And, you know, Dottie we got. And then like a month later, we were like, oh, my gosh, we wish we would have also adopted another one of her siblings while we were there. But they, of course, had all gotten adopted by that point.

So I called the shelter. I was like, hey, I know it's a long shot, but if any of our dog's siblings get returned, we would like to be notified. We'd like to come adopt it. Sure enough, weirdly, Kit got returned. Kit's a return dog. She's so great. I know. She's a great dog.

Oh, my God. Love her to death. Yeah. So glad she got returned. Yeah. her to death yeah so glad she got returned yeah but i have talked to norm about like okay what happens if another one of their siblings get gets returned and norm acts like that's not a hard question he's like we cannot have three dogs and two cats that is ridiculous i think you absolutely can i think it would be a blast it would be yeah so i think it's way more likely

that we come back from break and you have gotten another dog. I'm not getting pregnant again. See, I disagree. You think it's more likely that I'll get pregnant again? Yeah! Absolutely! What are you doing to prevent pregnancy? Yeah, there you go.

There you go. Abstinence works every time, Kristen. Good for you. good for you good for you poopoo butter says i had my heart broken two weeks ago and i'm trying to process this what helped you guys get past your dark times oh oh first of all that that sucks. And I'm so sorry. Yeah. Like, that's a terrible feeling. Mm-hmm. We've, I've been there for sure. Well, yeah.

Yeah. You guys heard about it. You know what I do when I'm having a really hard time? And I don't know, I don't know why this always helps. I put on a feel-good show that I have seen a million times before I think it's something about like usually when something

bad happens you're surprised by it and it's like I can't be surprised by anything right now I don't want to be surprised by a joke and so

it's like did you know that's a sign of anxiety really re-watching a show you have seen a bunch of times yeah no I didn't know that

yeah oh my god yeah it's because you find comfort in it because there are no surprises you know exactly what's going to happen you have seen a bunch of times. Yeah. No, I didn't know that. Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah. It's because you find comfort in it because there are no surprises. You know exactly what's going to happen. Fuck. Oh, my God. I need to work on myself.

That's your takeaway from that? No. It's great that you have something that you find comfort in. Well, yeah, but I mean, it's just so funny to me. I'm sorry. I'm taking this and making it all about me. But it's so funny to me how long I went without acknowledging my anxiety as a problem and getting help for it and all that stuff. That's all been so recent.

so recent yeah and it's i need to get past this but it makes me really sad to look back and think oh gosh when should i have started medication right right right and the answer is a long ass time ago yeah and you know just now i'm starting to like look into different ways like what else should i be doing and i'm gonna use this break to, you know, figure all that shit. Don't worry. I'll be totally figured out in a month. But yeah, like I didn't even know that. But that makes so much sense. Wow.

Where did you learn that? I read it in an article somewhere. The old handbook of anxiety. I wish there was such a thing. Yes. I think that the biggest thing that helped me get over my heartbreak was to focus on, like, well, that's somebody else's fucking loss not to have me in their life. And, like, focus on what makes you great. And because you are 100%, you know, worth it and a great person and have amazing qualities i can guarantee it

yeah yeah yeah i i do think that's that's one of the hard parts is just seeing that like that person not wanting to be with you that's their thing yeah that's it's not about you yeah now go re-watch the office for the millionth time oh fish tacos yay or nay yay what what kind of question is that do you like them crispy or grilled i like them always yeah yeah fish fish tacos, good. Always, all the ways. Crispy fish tacos, good. Grilled fish tacos, good. I like a mango salsa.

You don't like a chipotle mayo. We know how you feel about mayo, Brandy. You know, I hate to cut this a little short, but we kind of got to get going to this. It's time to wrap this up. We got to do inductions and we got to get on the road for our Zoom call on the road means downstairs but you know you know we're doing it downstairs yeah we should do it downstairs okay where do you want to do it do you want to do it here in the sex dungeon well i mean i don't know i was thinking about doing it here in the sex dungeon but if we do it downstairs my dad might pop in i know and i think that people would love it and he would love

it yes my mom is also downstairs and she will just hide. She's very worried that your dad is uninvited. And overstepping. Interestingly, he is not worried about that at all. Am I the least bit? All right, so let's read some names and favorite cookies here. All right. Caroline Jenkins.

The chocolate loft house cookies from the grocery store. Holy shit. I don't think I've had those. Are they like no-bake cookies? I don't know, but now I feel like I have to try them because she said holy shit. It was the holy shit that took it over the edge. Exactly. Alex Elizabeth. Peanut butter with

chocolate chips. Lizard? There's a lizard person. Her favorite cookie is steak tartare. No. Mom's chocolate chip using Crisco instead of butter. Okay. Madison Fusco. Sugar cookies.

Rachel Waugh. Double chocolate chip. Joy. Chunky chocolate chip and walnut. Patricia Hobson. Biscoff cookies. Hobson. Hobson.

Are you related to the murderer? Are you related to the murderer? Please reach out. Are you related to Sue Ann Hobson, the murderer related to the murderer? Are you related to the murderer? Please reach out. Are you related to Sue Ann Hobson, the murderer who lives in Prairie Village? I mean, Hobson seems like a fairly common last name. No. All right. Emily Rommelmeyer.

Tollhouse Chocolate Chip. Lauren Broom. Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip. Faith Ann. White Chocolate Macadamia. Cassie King. Samoas or Ginger Snaps. Denise Hunley.

Lemon Lavender Shortbread. Lex Triskinis. Oatmeal Chocolate Chip. Michelle Shuey. Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip. Nicole Law. My mom's Orange Creamsicle Cookie. And then she trademarked it and then wrote, just kidding, not trademarked.

Amy Leonard. Oreos dipped in milk. Hear me out, Amy. You ever tried just putting an Oreo in your mouth and then you take a little sip of milk? It's a no mess way of dipping. Amy's got a real mess on her hands. It's a hot tip for me. I've always seen those things where you're supposed to put it on a fork.

That just sounds like a fucking disaster. That's a mess. Just put the cookie in your mouth and take a little sip of milk. It's the same fucking thing. Take it from me. Take it from me. I've eaten a lot of Oreos in my day. Emily Dawson.

Kitchen sink cookies from Panera. Brie Courdeshou. My homemade Oreo white chocolate chip Chip Cream Cheese Cookies. Whoa. Andrea Fennell. M&M Chocolate Chip. Alexis Schaefer. Mint Oreos.

Welcome to the Supreme Court. I feel like we need an Oreo sponsorship after this. No kidding. Thank you for all of your support. If you're looking for other ways to support us, please find us on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Patreon. Please remember to subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen and head on over to Apple Podcasts. Leave us a five-star rating and review.

And then, oh, we can't say be sure to join us next week. We can't. Oh, my God. Be sure to join us after our break. Yeah. Don't go away. Don't go away. We will be back in July, and we'll be experts.

On two whole new topics. Podcast adjourned. And now for a note about our process. I read a bunch of stuff, then regurgitate it all back up in my very limited vocabulary. And I copy and paste from the best sources on the web, and sometimes Wikipedia. So we owe a huge thank you to the real experts. I got my info from the Killer Chat Room episode of Web of Lies, as well as reporting from the Grand Forks Herald, People.com, The Guardian, CBC, and Wikipedia.

I got my info from an article for Medium by Jen Baxter, an article for The Oregonian by Lizzie Acker, People.com, The Charlie Project, and Wikipedia. For a full list of our sources, visit lgtcpodcast.com. Any errors are, of course, ours. Please don't take our word for it. Go read their stuff.