Let's Go To Court! - 5: The Ultimate Plot Twist & the Innocent Family Photos

Episode Date: March 16, 2018

WARNING: The audio in this episode is rough. What can we say? We were young(ish), dumb, and thought we’d save a little money by sharing one microphone. Yeah. The audio quality improves drastically after episode 9.  Brandi’s story will blow your mind. It starts with a dead body that has been chopped to pieces, bagged, and dropped along a rural Michigan road. If you can believe it, the story gets even weirder from there. The less you know about this one, the better. Then Kristin tells the story of an Arizona family whose innocent bath time photos were mistaken for child pornography. The parents were put on the sex offender registry. Their children were removed from their home. At the end of that nightmare, they felt their civil rights had been violated. So they took their case to court. Get ready to feel sorry for everyone involved. 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: “Couple’s three girls were taken away after Walmart reported innocent bath time photos,” The Washington Post The United States Court of Appeals Opinion on this case An ABC News interview with Lisa and Anthony Demaree In this episode, Brandi pulled from: The Snapped episode, “Donna Scrivo” “Donna Scrivo guilty of murdering, dismembering son,”  USA Today  

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A proud member of Wayne's Auto Group. One semester of law school. One semester of criminal justice. Two experts. I'm Kristen Pitts. I'm Brandi Egan. Let's go to court. On this episode, I'll talk about what happened when an Arizona family's innocent vacation photos were mistaken for child pornography.

And I'll be talking about Donna and Ramsey Scrivo, a case with so many twists and turns that the less you know going in, the better. Really exciting things are happening for us on social media. First of all, Zach has a Facebook page. He is friends with one person, his wife. He has no photo. And yet, the other day, I saw that he liked our page, and I was like, man, this is support. He liked our page, and he

shared our episode. And I text him and said, what the fuck are you doing? I'm your only friend and clearly I know about the podcast already. And he said, hey, I'm just trying to be supportive.

So if you would also like to be supportive like my darling husband, head on over to our Facebook page, give us a like. And tell one other person just only one and preferably not one of us believe it or not we actually

contrary to popular belief already know about the podcast alright Donna and Ramsey Scrivo I don't know anything about this good I'm excited okay okay on the afternoon of january 30th 2014 so exactly four years ago yesterday which people are going to figure out like wow they really recorded a ton of shit should i not say that no it's fine

we were really eager to return not so eager to put them yes exactly so two women were driving through rural that's a i shouldn't i think i say that in here like five times like what the fuck am i doing to myself rural is a hard word to say did you ever see the 30 rock episode the world okay so they're driving through rural saint claire county michigan when they notice several garbage garbage bags littering the snow covered streets so it's january it's michigan there's fucking snow everywhere and then they see these big black garbage bags kind of like dotting the side of the street there's like one in the middle of the street and it goes on for a ways and this is a rural road correct okay so they initially

thought that it was just you know garbage bags or whatever and then they saw like in the snow next to the bag what they thought was maybe blood oh no and so they pulled over because they thought maybe it's a hunter dumping deer parts but which is you know still illegal but not uncommon yeah and so they pull over and they kind of open the door and look out and there's a severed human head sticking out of one of the bags yes sticking out sticking out of one of the bags i would think of all the things you'd want to get into the bag right so the women of course call 9-1-1 and the st claire county sheriff's deputies come to the scene in all they locate seven large black trash bags spread over an area of nearly half a mile so there oh it's over two roads like like it comes to an intersection and the person who's dumping them obviously turned one

way because it just continues on for nearly half a mile seven bags and it was really windy that day so like one bag has like kind of blown in the wind and the shit that was inside of it just left in the road. Yes. So was it seven bodies in seven bags or seven? Ma'am, if you could hold on to your pants, I'll get to that. Yes. I feel so ashamed. So spread out over half a mile. One bag contained a lower abdomen, pelvic area,

and the attached buttocks. Sorry, that was so immature. Buttocks? Are you 12? That was so mature of me. We're talking about someone who's dead. I'm like, oh, she had a butt. She said butt. Another contained a left arm, right leg, and left thigh. The third had a bisected chest, while the fourth had a head, the right arm, I'm sorry, a head, the right thigh, and left leg. The fifth and sixth contained various organs, plastic material, five jigsaw blades, and nine unused matchsticks. What the fuck? The final bag held two towels, clothing, and a jigsaw caked in blood and tissue. Ew. Yeah.

Oh, my God. yeah oh my god the contents of the bags made up an entire human body with the exception of the right arm to this day the right arm's never been found word of the gruesome discovery quickly hit the news and even made national news like of course like you know you find this body chopped up into all these pieces yeah so to understand how these bags made it to the middle of the road in this rural area we need to know our key players donna and ramsay scruvo okay donna was born in 1954 in the close-knit community of seagoville texas her father like many people in town worked at at the federal prison. So there's a federal prison right near Segoville. Lots of people in that town worked at the prison. Her mother was a Sunday

school teacher. Donna was said to be very popular in school. She was a cheerleader, but she was described as being just nice to everyone. She was friends with everyone, had a very large social circle, and was just very well liked. after graduating high school donna followed in her father's footsteps and began working at the prison it was there that she met daniel scrivo unlike donna though dan wasn't a guard oh dan was an inmate the two fell in love and when he'd finished serving his three-year sentence the two married and moved back to dan's hometown of detroit michigan so um donna's family was shocked by the fact that she fell in love with an inmate they were even more shocked by the fact that she married him and moved across the country to be near his family so

dan's family was still in detroit and so that's they moved there to kind of get on their feet and be near his family and i have a very important question yes what was he in for i don't know i wish i knew but three years it couldn't it couldn't have been something yeah yeah okay so that was the one thing i couldn't find and i was like oh i need to know this information so donna's family not on board with her life decisions yeah but she like she knew what she wanted and she set about making a life this life with her new husband in detroit so dan quickly took to married life and he worked hard to provide for

his new wife he started a small painting company and they were soon able to buy a nice home in the middle class suburb of saint claire shores which is a suburb of detroit it's um i think close to an hour north of detroit okay kind of sits between detroit and Canadian border. Cool. Okay. It's like there's a lake there. And so it's like everybody has a boat in that area. There's a big marina and just very solidly in the middle class. Okay. It was here in St. Clair Shores where they welcomed two sons, Jason in 1978 and then ramsey in 1981 donna was a stay-at-home mom

until both boys entered school full-time then she went to nursing school and she really excelled at her newfound career she um became like a nursing supervisor she worked at a hospital she worked i think at a surgery center she worked in the nursing field for several years but she still you know made time to make sure that her family was her like number one priority right she said that being a wife and mother was her number one job and she worked hard to make them a comfortable family life the scrivo home was like the house to hang out at when the boys were growing up and don Donna was super proud of that. She loved that it was the place where her kids came, where their friends came. And she made sure that it was like the most comfortable place.

And everybody always felt welcome. I know. It's like this was your like your house when we were growing up. Yes. Mom, while we've been interrupting, does anyone need anything? Yes. Can I get you something to drink? Who wants brownies?

Donna was super proud of her sons. Jason had grown up to become a firefighter, and that was a fact that Donna just bragged about. She was very proud that her son, you know, had done that. But she really doted on her younger son, Ramsey. Ramsey struggled with mental health issues growing up. And after graduating high school, he kind of floated around to different colleges, didn't have a real good grasp on what he wanted to do. But finally, he ended up receiving a degree in accounting from I think it was Wayne State

University. So I'm guessing that's somewhere in Michigan. Yeah, maybe. That sounds right. Should have Googled that. No that no no you shouldn't have go with it you know her sons are grown and they're kind of doing their thing um Donna meanwhile her job as a nurse has become a bit too stressful for her and she ends up having a heart attack while she's working as a nurse and she ends up having to leave the field and she basically retires she retires pretty young but it's too much stress for her body and so

yeah she leaves the field okay now ramsey despite his battles with depression and anxiety he was making a pretty good life for himself he was selling insurance for all state and it was going really well he had his own condo that he was living in and he was just you know living his life until tragedy struck in 2013 when his father passed away after a long battle with hepatitis c so this made me kind of wonder if maybe he was in prison for a drug charge because commonly hepatitis c can be contracted from that way i'm not trying to make any judgments on dan's life you know or if you got a prison tattoo could be either way yeah so yeah so he battled with hepatitis c for a long time and he ended up losing his battle in 2013 ramsey was extremely close to his father and he did not handle his dad's death well at all um he actually was admitted to a

psychiatric facility the day after his father passed away after his family this is a little bit unclear they either suspected he was attempting suicide by ingesting his father's morphine or he threatened to commit suicide either way yeah they admitted him to a psychiatric facility and he agreed to go in and he sought some treatment. Donna also did not handle her husband's death well. Really, really not. I mean, she, you know, described Dan as her soulmate and they, you know, spent all these years together. And she really did not adjust well to him.

I mean, it'd be horrible for anybody. Yeah. Losing your partner is terrible. But neither of them were handling the situation well at all. did not adjust well to him i mean it'd be horrible for anybody i can't losing your partners terrible but neither of them were handling the situation well at all okay so following um his father's death ramsey's behavior continued to spiral donna eventually petitioned the court to become his legal guardian so he's 32 at this point oh my and she petitions the court and says that he is a danger to himself and others and that his anger has escalated to the point where he is threatening family members he had

been self-medicating with alcohol and had gotten into some bar fights which actually led to some legal problems he was on probation for getting in bar fights so the court agreed that Ramsey needed to be in the care of a guardian and appointed donna in may of 2013 oh no ramsey told the court that he would petition to end the guardianship in six months but during that time he would take it seriously he would take his medication he'd cooperate with treatment and he would follow his mother's rules and this is 2013 2013 yes gotcha yes things were going well with this guardianship until september roughly what what's that four months go by that was quick math five five and nine we didn't major in yes roughly four months go by so september 2013 ramsey removes the crown on one of his teeth

believing that it was a speaker that somebody had planted on him yes following that incident doctors diagnosed him with paranoia and psychosis um feeling ramsey needed round the clock care and supervision donna decided she would move into his condo with him. Also, at the same time, wherever Donna was living, I'm unclear if it was a house or a townhouse or apartment, some kind of fire had happened and she needed some repairs done to her place. So while the repairs are being done, she takes the opportunity to move in with Ramsey, kind of kill two birds with one stone. She can be there, she she can supervise him and her home can be repaired from whatever fire took place there family members were deeply concerned about this proposed

arrangement because they thought ramsey and donna while they were close they butted heads a lot and so they were very concerned that the situation would become volatile well yeah and if he's threatening to harm family members absolutely yikes yeah so ramsey's aunt donna's sister-in-law so her husband's her husband's sister even offered for ramsey to come stay with her while donna stayed at his place and you know wow uh this she felt like that would be a better situation despite their concerns though donna 110 pound 60 year old woman moved in with her 32 year old 230 pound mentally ill son the events that followed inside that condo will probably never fully be known and will certainly never be understood. So this brings us back to January 30th, 2014.

Where the medical examiner, who happens to be our friend Dr. Daniel Spitz. You remember him? Yes. You remember him from the Robert Newlander case that I did? So he happens to be the medical examiner in this part of Michigan. Isn't that crazy? Man, that guy. It almost makes me think of like a tv show right exactly so he is attempting to put together a human puzzle oh gross to determine who the remains belong to and what happened to that person.

Now, I'm guessing that at this time you have an idea of who those remains are. Yeah. And I'm also guessing that you're wrong. What? Because at this same time, a witness came forward who saw someone driving a silver SUV and dumping bags of garbage in the area. A check of cameras in the area show this same car and footage of its driver at a gas station just down the road from where the remains were dumped. The footage shows the driver of that vehicle to be a petite white woman in her late 50s to early 60s.

No, no, no, no. Oh, my God. Yes. What the fuck? Yes. Are you serious? Yes, ma'am. So if you thought those remains were Donna's freebo.

Oh, my gosh. That is not the case. Holy shit. I can't believe it. I thought it was not the case oh my god so just about the same time this person of interest is made public so the news kind of do um they release pictures of these closed circuit tvs that were you know have the footage of this woman going to the gas station. So they release those on the news. Right about that same time, the police receive a call from Donna Scrivo. She told the police that she had seen coverage of the recovered remains on TV and she wanted to see if she could possibly identify them as her son, Ramsey, whom she'd reported missing three days earlier.

She claimed that he'd left the house to buy cigarettes and had never returned. So the police encouraged her to come down to the station and discuss her missing son further. And upon

positively identifying her as the woman in the surveillance videos they placed her under arrest well oh why the hell like she just had to come forward she just had to right yeah yeah and the remains were in fact those of her son ramsey yeah so then is this like when the murderer just has to show up to the right like I think that there had to be something in her mind that was like well if I come forward first then that'll show him that I'm not the person that did it I'm just concerned about my missing son uh-huh I'm guessing is kind of how but she had what was happening those photos were out in the media right okay

so on february 3rd 2014 donna scrivo was arraigned on charges of disinterment and mutilation of a dead body and removal of a dead body without medical examiner permission so these this is the reason for these charges at this time the cause of death had not yet been determined so they couldn't say so they couldn't say exactly but they from the time that they arrested her they had 72 hours to charge her with something yeah or she had to be released so these were the things they could prove at that time yep um do what you gotta do yes so the charges were later amended to add first degree premeditated murder. Donna was deemed a flight risk and was denied bond.

So. They do some preliminary hearings to determine her competency because it's a crazy situation. What mother chops her son up. Right? Well, and especially when she seemed like the one who had it all together. Correct. Exactly. So she's deemed competent to stand trial.

And the trial begins in May of 2015. During opening statements, Assistant Prosecutor William Cataldo told the jury that the crime was unspeakable planned premeditated and carried out by the victim's own mother Cataldo told the jury that when a child dies before a parent it's a tragedy as he said in this case Ramsey Scrivo literally died at the hands of his mother and the facts in the case are atrocious Donna Donna Scrivo's attorney, however, Mark Haddad, told jurors that his client was a caring and doting mother who was dealing with a psychotic suicidal son. He said that there were no skin cells or drops of blood linking her to the killing and no reason the prosecution had for the crime. No big life insurance policy or evidence that the victim abused his mother he said it's a murder case that's full of holes what reason on earth would

she have to kill him he asked the jurors before asking them that they find her not guilty okay so first to testify is our friend dr daniel sp, the medical examiner. He testified that Ramsey had three medications in his body at the time of his death, including a near fatal level of Xanax. He said that the intoxication from that drug was a contributing factor in the death, but that the cause of death was determined to be asphyxiation due to strangulation. Dr. Spitz testified that it was unclear exactly how the asphyxiation due to strangulation dr spitz testified that it was unclear exactly how the asphyxiation occurred due to the condition of the remains but that there were ligature marks present on the neck and that the adam's apple was fractured okay um he also testified that there

were charring on parts of the body where it looked like someone had attempted to burn the remains yes um the next to testify was saint claire shore's police detective sergeant jay coho um he testified about a search warrant executed on the scrivos residence so he said as soon as the investigators opened the door of the condo they were just hit in the face with the overwhelming aroma of bleach they smelled bleach at the front door in the bathroom in the bedroom they found blue tarps around the kitchen table and found charring in the bathtub and on the shower wall nope nope nope no yeah they saw noticeable discoloration on the bedroom carpet and the vacuum had quote a lot of cleaning stuff caked up on the bottom uh coho said there were blood and there was blood in

various areas including spattered on the walls on the banister on some doors so it looked like somebody had attempted to clean up this crime scene but they haven't been super thorough there was just a shit ton of blood well she didn't have a ton of time oh my so he also testified that donna had access to a silver suv the suv was her late husband's and she had donated it to charity the day after the remains were found oh gross yes so they were able to track down this suv to an auto like an auto salvage auction they open it up looking blood all over the inside of this car what the hell yes yeah and she just thought she could get away with just i mean if she if it's just donated nobody can find it right well and yeah this won't raise any eyebrows right oh yes what the hell

yeah two of ramsay's neighbors also testified during the trial so the first one to testify was so he this was like a condo more like a like what we would call a townhouse where there's, you know, units on each side. And so Ramsey's unit was kind of in the middle. So first to testify was his neighbor on one side. And she said that for two or three days, the week that the remains were found, she heard strange noises coming from Ramsey's condo. She said she heard pounding and cutting and sawing but she described the sounds as sneaky and when asked by the prosecutors what she meant by sneaky yeah she said it sounded as if someone was trying to like cover up the noises or make sure no one was hearing them so she said it would be like they

were like cut cut cut and then they'd stop and wait and then they'd cut cut cut again like trying to see if any is this getting the attention of anybody is anybody gonna come see what's happening here yeah so she said it was very odd because ramsey was pretty handy and he often did projects around the house but the fact that like this was done in the middle of the day and like the the way that the noises sound it just seemed very sneaky to her okay yeah she also said that she smelled something strange around that same time she said initially she thought maybe there was some kind of gas leak because she couldn't really tell what the smell was she thought maybe it was something burning but it wasn't like the building

was on fire it was a smell she'd never smelled before she said she looked out of her windows to see if maybe there were utility work like they were repaving the road or something outside no utility work oh my god um she said that she was so concerned about the smell that she wanted to call somebody to have it checked out but she couldn't decide who she was supposed to call yeah she could didn't know what it was so she you know do i call the fire department do i call the police do i call the utility company she didn't know who she should call and so she thought well if it lasts you know more today, I'll go next door and see, you know, see what Ramsey says about it. The smell didn't continue on.

And so she never she never looked into it further. Thank God she never went over there. No shit. OK, so that's the one neighbor on the one side okay the second neighbor on the other side testified that she had seen donna scrivo loading several large black garbage bags into her silver suv she said she'd taken special notice because like donna was carrying these bags down the driveway into the back of the car and she was clearly struggling with them they were very heavy she was having trouble manipulating them and she wondered why isn't Ramsey helping her with that

turns out it's because he was in the bags sorry I mean so just terrible yeah Yeah. So, yeah. So she, the other, so the one neighbor smells and hears things. The other neighbor sees Donna loading these bags into the SUV. It's not looking good for Donna. I feel like both of those neighbors were really lucky. I mean, the one for not going over and checking on the same. Yeah.

The other one for not being like, I should go help her. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Ugh. So now it's Donna's time to kind of put on the same. Yeah. For not being like, I should go help her. Yeah. You know? Yeah. So now it's Donna's time to kind of put on their defense. So first they argue, look,

Donna is 110 pounds. Ramsey was 230 pounds. She could never have possibly done this. Unless he was Unless he's cut up into pieces, drugged out of his mind and cut up into pieces right yeah so the final person to testify at donna scrivo's murder trial was donna herself oh no oh bad idea yeah so i listened i listened to this thing that an expert was saying that um

in criminal cases i think specifically murder cases they might have been talking about like less than 10 of the time does the defendant take the stand. Yeah, you really shouldn't in general. Right, because it just opens you up to so much. Yeah. So she took the stand in her own defense and painted a very different picture of events that took place in January of 2013. Okay. picture of events that took place in january of 2013. donna testified that she had come home that week to interrupt a masked intruder in the process of assaulting and murdering ramsey

and that the man had held her hostage in the home for five days. Donna, you've had all this time to come up with a good story and that's what you came up with? She testified that the man held her at gunpoint for five days and forced her to assist him in the dismemberment and disposal of her son.

She testified that he forced her to travel to Lowe's and purchase the saw i always yes so she says that not only did she do this under his insistence that during the trip he was actually in the car with her hiding in the floorboards oh yes so they call this kid at lowe's like they call him to testify and he's like she seemed totally fine to me like she even this is crazy she even exchanged the saw for a different one like two different times she bought three different saws and took one back and exchanged it another one back and exchanged it and like the kid that helped her at lowe's was like oh what kind of project are you doing and she's like you know just

just a project around the house and so the prosecution's like is cutting up your son a project around the house so if this were a bad movie she would have had some weird pun yes um she testified that this man was hiding in her car when she was on video at the gas station and that he had been in the car when she dumped the bags of remains she even testified that he had been in the car when she'd gone to the police station to file a missing persons report on Ramsey. She said that this man knew Ramsey and that he specifically mentioned some person that Ramsey had some kind of beef with and that this was like in being done like because of the Ramsey's interaction with this person. He said that she said that the guy told her that she she didn't know him but that he knew her family and that if she didn't do

everything that he said that he would kill her family sure okay so when asked why she didn't say anything to any of the dozens of people she came in contact with right during these few days she said she was scared she said she didn't know what to do she didn't trust anybody she only trusted the man that had the gun on her head and she didn't even trust the police to take her seriously if she said something to them. I'm sorry, you're in the fucking police department and you're not going to tell them there's a man holding you hostage and that he's in your car? And I understand worrying that people won't take you seriously, but if he's literally out in the parking lot in your car, you can just say go to the car. Yes, exactly. You'll find him huddled down in the floorboards yeah so during cross examination the prosecutor just fucking tears her apart yeah of course he asked her if she

really expected the jury to believe this story and she said yes this is horrible you're right i'm not mother of the year i have multiple problems but i think i did everything i could to protect the rest of my family oh god in a very heated exchange the prosecutor disagreed with her yelling if i were in your shoes i would have done anything i could have to save my family if this man had already killed one son and was threatening to kill the other i would have stopped him by any means necessary even if that meant ramming my car into a wall at full speed you didn't do that i mean i have trouble disagreeing with him like if it's as a mother you've already lost one son. If this, if, if the first scenario is the truth,

don't you do anything to protect the rest of your family? See, it's hard for me because I'm like, okay, for, if there ever was, you know, I do not buy this at all. I don't either. But if there was a situation, I would really hesitate to be like, this is how I would handle it. Yeah. Who knows? Who knows exactly when you're in a situation, I would really hesitate to be like, this is how I would handle it. Yeah. Who knows?

Who knows exactly when you're in a situation how you would handle it. But yeah. No. No. No fucking way. No. She was alone with too many people. Yes.

For too long. For too long. Yes. No. Yeah. Something I missed, and I wish I would have written this down. It just popped in my head here. Somebody came to the house during this supposed time and Donna testified that during that time that the man was standing

just behind the door and had a gun on her while she was having an interaction with whoever this person I think it was a friend of Ramsey's right she's having an interaction with this person that person testified and said the door wasn't hiding anything she was standing there she was just fine she seemed like her normal self there was nothing there was no man hiding behind the door she didn't have it open just correct yes yeah okay um perhaps the most shocking part of donna's intruder story. Okay. Is the fact that the first time she told this version of events to anyone other than her lawyer, apparently, was on the stand. No.

No. Yes. During all of her interactions with police and investigators leading up to the trial, she once mentioned this masked intruder come on yes so what was the explanation for that or was there there wasn't one she said that she did tell police but police were like yeah no don't you think we'd be fucking looking for that guy if you we would have remembered yes believe me we would have remembered that oh my god in all donna testified for about three hours before the defense rested don't you wonder about her attorney like surely that attorney was like are you sure so i didn't include this in here because i it was a it's a little bit weird but at one point during when she's being questioned by her

own attorney she goes off on this tangent about how it was such a stressful time and that there were little men everywhere with glowing eyes oh my and he just like like like audibly sighs and then quickly changes the subject so i am guessing that this was probably his nightmare of a of a client and that he was probably just trying to do the best he could and i'm guessing that she probably didn't listen to a lot of his advice maybe about not testifying i wonder if there was an opportunity to do an insanity thing. So they, in the beginning, remember, they deemed her competent to stand trial. So, yeah, so no, and no big point was made out of that statement. It was really just kind of, I just kind of came to it kind of as in yeah and like you know passing it was not

but it was like clearly the like the defense attorney was like fuck let's get away from that oh yeah so i i think that probably the defense attorney probably did the best that he could do under the circumstances. Yeah, you're probably right. So, in his closing arguments, Prosecutor Cataldo told the jury that Donna's intruder story was fake and that she was clearly the murderer. Yeah. He said, you either believe that crap or you believe the physical evidence. Was I the attorney? Exactly. physical evidence was i the attorney exactly he finished by saying mother of the year i don't think so well that's just rude so defense attorney haddad told jurors in his closing argument that they can't vote guilty based on a suspicion a possibility

or a probability he said scrivo would have had to have been quote the stupidest murderer in the world unless she was forced at gunpoint to do these seemingly stupid things um some people are just stupid yes sorry dude yes their jury deliberated for only one hour and 40 minutes oh my god before returning a guilty verdict on all counts donna scrivo was sentenced to the mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole yeah her son jason her older son reportedly has no contact with his mother now i think it'd be hard to uh yeah yeah um just a little note i'd like to say sword and scale which is a podcast that i love they have an amazing two-part episode on this case and it includes a lot of the audio from the trial so you can hear donna what's her testifying it so this is actually it's

interesting that you ask that because she is so soft-spoken that they kept having to ask her to speak up because they're mic'd you know yeah they're only mic'd to be recorded that doesn't amplify their voice yeah and so even her attorney kept having to be like you need to speak up the jury can't hear you oh my gosh yeah so she's very soft-spoken just very kind of meek and little she's a she was a 110 pound little 60 year old woman oh my god yeah doesn't make you wonder what she was like as a nurse yeah right yes like surely this wasn't the first yeah crazy thing she did right there's also an episode of snapped about her that's actually where i first heard of this case so i definitely recommend that you check both those things out because this case

is fucking nuts it is crazy yes absolutely crazy yes yeah she just sounds really stupid yeah so you know the prosecution really never put forth a motive and that was kind of the defense's big thing is that um there was no motive behind it there was no life insurance what did she gain from killing her son it was kind of rumored around town like through friends and stuff that she had recently well this part wasn't remember this part's true that she had recently gone back to texas for a reunion and had met up with old friends and that there was kind of a former flame there and that she was really interested in moving back to texas but ramsey wouldn't and she was his guardian and so oh she god that might have been the reason what an awful awful reason yes yeah i mean really is there any good reason to murder and chop up your son kristen well if there's a man in your floorboard making you

do it then what are you gonna do right forcing you to go to low that's right i mean i have to be forced at gunpoint to go to lowe's this episode is not brought to you by lowe's clearly it's brought to you by home people jk we hate them both home projects are the worst that's the story of donna and ramsay scrivo that was awesome and man that so many plot twists yes including i man i felt so sorry for her i was like this poor little lady was chopped up right yes no no she was not oh my god okay you ready for mine i am I'm so excited for your expertise on this one. I'm really excited about it, too. Okay.

I can't wait to drop some knowledge on you. All right, here we go. So, in 2008, Lisa and A.J. Demery took their three daughters on a family vacation to San Diego. The girls were five, four, and one and a half. The girls were five, four, and one and a half. After vacation, they got home to Peoria, Arizona, and AJ dropped off the memory stick for their camera at Walmart to develop the photos. Okay.

Going to need your expertise in a minute here. Okay, so there were 144 photos, and most of them I think were just kind of normal vacation photos, and eight of them were just of the girls playing during bath time. A little bit about these eight photos. The girls were, like, some of them were the girls in towels with their arms around one another. Some of them just kind of in towels hanging out. There was one where all three girls were laying down on a towel with their bare butts showing and i guess a little bit of their genitals were showing but nothing no front genitalia and the girls were not

involved in any sexual activity right in these photos but you know the walmart employee who was developing the photos saw these and flagged them as pornographic, got kind of concerned, and notified the police. Which was, it's my understanding that that was kind of Walmart's policy at the time. Like, if you see anything inappropriate, we just hand it over to the police. If it's a question, you know, you let the police be the experts. Right. So my question to you. Okay.

So you used to work at Walgreens in the photo center. I was a photo tech at Walgreens. walgreens in the photo center i was i was a photo tech at walgreens and so these were kind of the rules on on explicit pictures okay nudity you could print um any kind of sexual activity you could not that was deemed pornography and you could not print it anything that we deemed like questionable nature um if it seemed the possibility like that like this that it was child pornography we were instructed as photo techs to not print the pictures turn cut the negative so at that time we didn't use digital like yeah it was kind of when i you know many moons ago when i was a photo tech, we developed actual film. So we actually had to cut the negatives out of those suspected pictures.

We put a notice in the pictures that they got back that some photos had been flagged. Okay. And that their negatives had been removed. And then I was just instructed to turn that information over to store management. store management would make the call on and i actually had to do this one time right yeah i had one time i had a man he was an older man he had photos of bath time but it was like landscape pictures right and then like four photos of a little girl at bath time laying in the bathtub like sprawled out and then she had like a washcloth over like her chest and then there was like a bath toy like across her body they were so suggestive it made me so uncomfortable yeah it's the only time i've ever had anything

you know remotely close to child pornography there was no act being taken but the pictures were so suggestive and inappropriate that i did i followed the policy turned into my manager and yeah the man never said anything about his pictures being flagged when he picked them up so that leads me to believe that probably he yeah because if they were totally innocent you'd be like yeah you'd be like what do you mean where are my pictures yeah so do you know if your store manager i don't i don't know whatever happened with it if they ever turned anything over to anybody or yeah. I'm not glad you had that experience, but, um, I, it's interesting that you had that experience where kind of the same deal. You, you didn't see any sexual activity. Correct. And it sounds like some, some private areas were covered, but it was just like, it just like,

though the picture made you uncomfortable. Yes. It seemed weird. Absolutely. It seemed suggestive. Yes. Very suggestive. That's kind of what the Walmart photo. Absolutely. Yeah.

Okay. AJ dropped that memory stick off at Walmart on a Friday. Next day, police arrived at his home. I mean, it was fast. So two detectives arrived at the home with photocopies of the photos, and they interviewed the couple separately. Detective John Krause showed AJ the photo of the girls laying naked on the towel, which was kind of a close shot of their butts with, again, some genitals visible.

And here was their exchange. Detective, what are you going to do with that one? AJ, I'm not going to do anything with that one. That's not going into a photo album. That's just one we have. Detective, obviously you're not going to share that with somebody, I would hope. AJ, no, absolutely not. Detective, why would you take a photo like this in the first place aj so when we look back on them years later look at their cute little butts that sounds so innocent to me yes and i mean i'll just tell you because i don't want for even a second for these people to go through anything worse than they've already got through like they they weren't doing anything wrong yeah these were truly innocent photos yeah which like i'm pretty sure we

have bath time photos of music absolutely like who doesn't have a picture of their kids bare butt yeah yeah i mean were the kids 13 because then yes it's inappropriate but i don't think this this is crazy to me yeah yeah so the couple was completely shocked and they were like you know they they were just stunned that police were at their home and they were like you've got to be kidding me these are just photos of us and the kids just goofing around it's bath time there's nothing gross or perverted going on here but police investigated them for sexual abuse so they raided the family home they seized all electronics and undeveloped film they put the children in protective custody they interviewed the children did medical exams on all of them

they interviewed about 30 family members and friends to determine whether lisa and aj had sexually abused their children lisa and aj underwent a psychological evaluation i mean oh my yes yes and so during during the interview you know the three children were interviewed separately one of the girls said that her mother quote tickled around her private so but that could be like the inside of her leg yeah okay like going back to my childhood i was a very ticklish child i'm still fucking ticklish now but don't you dare fucking touch me but i was specifically very ticklish on my like the inside of my leg and so like my dad and my mom would tickle me there because they knew it was my most ticklish spot in no way was it inappropriate or the police

we're coming for you what's hard about this is like i can see how maybe in that moment hearing that when you're all it's already in your head that maybe these people are abusing these children that could be alarming but i i completely agree with you tickled around her private like that could mean yeah yeah i mean that that just uh especially knowing what we know now it's like oh god well let me tell you about the abuse i suffered when i was a kid one time when my mom was tickling me she knocked out my front teeth wait are you for real she was like she was tickling me uh-huh and she like i was you know

trying to get away from it and I think her knee came up and it hit me in the mouth and it knocked out my front tooth was already loose but it knocked my tooth out but I could have complained and my mom beat me and knocked my teeth out and real missed opportunity that's correct hindsight and this case is all about hindsight so you know luckily the children's interview and medical examinations didn't turn up anything everything seemed fine but you know in in the detective's defense medical exams can turn up normal but there still might be something. Absolutely. But still, everything looked fine, so the girls were allowed to go back to their parents. But just as the search was about to wrap up, Child Protective Services employee Laura Peterson showed up and started talking to police. So, based on her conversation with Detective John Krause, Peterson assumed that there would be felony

child exploitation charges brought against both parents. She reviewed the photos. She really didn't like what she saw. And the detective seemed to have a bad gut feeling too. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Laura Peterson thought that the kids might be in danger. Wow. Here's the catch. You know, she's feeling like the kids are in danger. Yeah. She didn't have a court order or a warrant to keep them from going back to the home. Plus, they were at the start of a three-day weekend, so it would have taken longer than usual to get a court order or a warrant to remove the kids from the home.

So what she did, she asked her supervisor for permission to put the kids from the home so what she did she asked her supervisor for permission to put the kids in emergency temporary custody and the supervisor agreed what yeah so oh my gosh i'm like devastated for these parents i know oh i know it gets a little worse okay so the five and four year old went to one foster home. The infant went to another. Oh my gosh. Now, luckily, two days later, the kids were all allowed to go to their grandparents' house. Oh, thank God. Yeah.

But they were there for a month. Oh my gosh. This was not some quick thing, which, I don't know. I feel really conflicted on this. So I'm just going to keep going and we'll talk. conflicted on this so i i'm just gonna keep going and we'll yeah but um well i mean you definitely you hear so often about social services not following yes not doing enough to protect kids uh-huh and we come down really hard on them absolutely so don't you want them to err on the side of caution yeah yes yeah right ultimately i think that's my my yeah i was thinking about this last night

i feel like this is one of those rare weird situations that sucks for everyone involved but no one's wrong right which maybe you'll feel differently but i just well i'll be sure to tell you don't you worry keep that to yourself. So like I said, the investigation didn't turn up anything. So one month after the girls were taken away, Lisa and AJ regained custody of their daughters. Authorities didn't bring any charges against them. They were pretty much cleared.

A judge reviewed the pictures and decided, no, these are just normal family photos. They're nothing to be alarmed about but lisa and aj had been put on the sex offender registry holy shit and i'm not sure for how how does that work if you don't have charges i don't know i don't know if that was like a precautionary thing or oh my gosh yeah and lisa was suspended from her job for a year because she worked at a school holy shit yes oh my gosh and she was completely innocent yeah she didn't do anything wrong but at the same time i'm glad that that school had a policy

what if she had yeah i wouldn't want to be like, holy crap. Yeah. You're right. This is awful on all sides. Yes. I mean, I feel for everybody. I feel terrible for everyone. Probably everyone followed procedure and it still is awful.

Yeah. I mean, everyone down to the Walmart employee. Yeah. They were just kind of like, my assumption is I'm going to I'm going to do my job. The police can do their job. Yes. They'll be the ones to decide. Yes. Yeah. They were just kind of like, my assumption is, I'm going to do my job. The police can do their job. Yes. They'll be the ones to decide. Yes.

Yeah. So looking back, Lisa said, it was a nightmare. It was unbelievable. I was in so much disbelief. I started to hyperventilate. I tried to breathe it out. So that was kind of her initial reaction. Yeah.

Lisa and AJ were angry. Probably. So they looked at each other and said let's go to court i want to work that into every podcast now when i write that out i'm like I'm so hilarious. I can't wait for like one where it's just one person so I can be like, and then he looked in the mirror and said, let's go to court. Anxiously awaiting that one. Oh yeah, it's coming. Don't you worry. So they sued the two Child Protective Services employees, plus the detective in the case,

saying that their constitutional rights had been violated. They also sued the state attorney general and the town of Peoria, Arizona for defamation. And then they sued Walmart for their unsuitable print policy, which allowed Walmart to give photos to police without the customer's knowledge. Mm-hmm. I wondered about that policy. Okay. Because that does seem like an extreme step to me,

to go directly to police without having the customer have knowledge. I don't know. See, I disagree with you. I feel like if there's a chance that there's child pornography involved or something like that then like fuck the customer i just i and i get that but i feel like there this is such a like i feel like there has to be levels yeah of you know impropriety that like okay maybe this is a level one where you don't print it and you tell the customer maybe a level two is you know it goes i don't know this just seems like a it seems like a very extreme interpretation of the policy see in my fear and maybe this is just me being like way

too scared of this stuff my fear is if you get someone on a level one and you just go to that customer and you say hey we can't print this yeah if they really are into child pornography then they know okay i just can't have this i guess you're right yeah i mean that is one way whereas if you just send it to the police and the police investigate then now there's a chance that someone's life gets really turned upside down and horrible for a while and they might be innocent like the fresh prince his life got flipped, turned upside down. So I'm going to take a moment to sit right here.

Wow. That was the worst unintentional plagiarism. I said to the candy, go home, smell you later. But you know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. Let me tell you a quick anecdote. Anecdote. I said do the candy go home smell you later but you know what I mean like yeah absolutely let me tell you a quick sure and anecdote not an antidote just to clarify yes about a time I worked at Walgreens and had to follow another policy so we also had a no print policy if it was suspected to be a a um professional photo because the person doesn't necessarily own the rights to it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So if somebody brings in a digital copy of a professional photo, we have to tell them, sorry, we can't print it. They've got like a Van Gogh thing. Yeah, unless you have, or just like a photo taken at a, like at a photo studio. So the photo studio owns the rights to those pictures. So unless the person has a release for them signed by the photographer, then we couldn't print them so this guy comes in and he's got these clearly professional pictures of his wife like they're

in a photo studio and so i'm like i tell him you know i give him his pictures and i'm like oh i'm sorry unfortunately we weren't able to print these you know these three and he's like i don't understand why and i was like well they're professional pictures and he's like well that's that's very nice of you to think that. But no, these are just pictures I took. I'm like, these are posed pictures in a photo studio. And like, due to copyright laws, we can't print them unless you have a release. And he goes, shit, you're not.

I don't know who you think you are, if you think you're some photo god. But you don't get to decide what you print and what you don't print. I was like, actually, I do. Actually, I am the photo god. I am the photo god. Thank you. Bow down, bitches. I can't believe you said that.

Photo god, yeah. What if you think you're some kind of photo god? Sorry to take you away from this. How dare you. I just popped my head. So, you know, all these lawsuits, and again, I feel like suing Walmart was a bit extreme. Yeah. And a judge agreed.

So a judge dismissed the cases against Peoria, the state attorney general, and Walmart. She was like, nah. Yeah. And here's a statement from Walmart after the case against them was dismissed. We recognize that this, did you just sigh like, oh, God. No. Oh, God. Here we go.

She's going to read a statement. She's going to mess it up. We have to do it three times. Which is true every time I have to read from the script. No. I did not sigh, I promise. Okay. I have all the confidence in the world in you.

Thank you. I believe in you. Okay, so this is the statement from Walmart. We recognize this has been emotional for everyone involved. It's a sensitive situation that we have taken seriously from the beginning. Given state law, we believe our associates acted appropriately in notifying authorities who then decided whether to investigate and the trial court agreed in dismissing this case.

Yeah, I completely agree. Yeah. Their associates did what they had to do. They followed policy. Yeah. Yeah. They're not the ones who went and raided the home and did all this. No, exactly.

You know. Exactly. That would be crazy. While their photo tech shows up at the door. I mean, take all your undeveloped scenes. Yes. The detective settled with the family out of court. So that just left the two social workers.

In 2014, the district judge made quick work of this thing. The judge gave a summary judgment in favor of the social workers. And that's when a judge basically sides with one party without going for the full trial. So it's a judicial quickie a judicial quickie which it's weird they don't include that with the definition but that's clearly what it is so the judge said that since the social workers were employees of the arizona government they had qualified immunity so what does qualified immunity mean i bet you'll tell us i'm about to and this is the real definition not just one i made up qualified immunity shields public officials from damages

for civil liability you know what i i didn't even read it wrong that time. I just was nervous. Okay. Qualified immunity shields public officials from damages for civil liability so long as they did not violate an individual's clearly established statutory or constitutional rights. Okay. In other words, this judge thought the social workers were working within their rights and no one's constitutional rights had been violated. Yes. Lisa and AJ.

I disagree. Clearly. Because that was their whole. Yeah. Yeah. They were like, uh, no, pretty sure our constitutional rights were violated. Yeah. Yes.

Okay. Here's my question. Sure. When the detectives show up to question them, did they go in like swat style and like bust through the windows like in christmas vacation you know since there were only two of them that would have been like really like they'd have to have a really small house lisa and aj appealed and here's what they wanted first they wanted the summary judgment from the lower court sealed they felt that the documents could be used for improper purposes and they

wanted to protect the privacy of their children what does that mean improper purposes um the court interprets that one way and I interpreted the same. I'm going to tell you what the court said and maybe that'll explain. Okay. The court was like, no. The district court did a good job keeping your children's names and all other identifying information private. The court also used clinical anatomically correct language. So no one's going to get titillated reading these documents right i gotcha that's what i wanted if that's what that meant okay that's what they meant okay which did the judge really say titillated they used some kind of word let me let me look it up but but it was

maybe they did use titillated but they basically were like nobody's gonna be like there are better ways to get turned on folks yeah yeah you heard it from me first the other thing they mentioned and this this i totally agree with too they were like lisa and aj you both have done interviews in which you go into way more detail than these court documents do and like those are available for everyone to see um a hair just went down my shirt and it's tickling my boobs are you getting titillated that is the true titillated okay i've got i've got the court opinion pulled up let me search for titillated huh it seems to say that no in fact let me try to find exactly what okay oh i found the exact paragraph here's what they said finally the district court ordered order employed clinical anatomically correct

language to briefly describe the nudity depicted in the photographs at issue the unquantifiable odds that an unsavory individual might find this language titillating oh you know what i spelled titillating wrong that's why i couldn't find it so it says the unquantifiable odds that an unsavory individual might find this language titillating does not create a compelling reason for removing it from the public record especially since the demorees did not file their complaint under seal and in fact gave public interviews in which they themselves described the photos and the nudity depicted yeah yeah yeah i agree with that um titillating has two l's oh okay thank you for let me make a note of that it's a word you use all the time i've been misspelling it this whole time

i get that tattoo fix secondly lisa and aj's and this is the one they really cared about lisa and aj's council argued no the social workers should not have been given qualified immunity because the social workers violated their constitutional rights to family unity and companionship boom yeah mic drop yes so here's the deal since the social workers didn't have a warrant or a court order they needed a damn good reason to remove the kids from the home and basically they needed an emergency situation. And by a two-to-one vote, you know, it's this three-judge panel.

Three-judge panel, yes. Two of the judges. Wait, two plus one is three. Yes, that's correct. Let's not be wrong. Let's not be wrong. So they basically needed an emergency situation, and the court found you did not have one. Yeah. Again, by a two to one split, the court said the two social workers did not have qualified immunity in the case. And here's what they said. They said the social workers didn't have reasonable

cause to believe that the children were at risk of bodily harm or molestation because the kids were never harmed or molested in the first place yeah so you know that takes that off the table absolutely you can't argue oh she thought maybe they'd be molested or hurt some way physically because you know why would she be thinking that that hadn't right happened in the first place further there was no risk that lisa and aj would take photos of their children engaging in sex acts because they'd never done that yeah so you know that risk is off the table so the court's basically saying so what the hell was the risk yeah exactly that they'd see their own children naked because i bet they do that and they were like basically said given the children's ages, five, four, and one and a half, that's pretty normal for parents to see the kids naked.

Yes. I don't agree with this opinion. Uh-huh. Um, I agree with the guy who dissented. Uh-huh. But I'm wondering how, how do you feel about this? Purely on the basis of, were their constitutional rights violated i think yes yeah and i think that yeah if if the definition says that there has to be emergency situation for the social workers to get the

immunity what what did you call it immunity i have no idea qualified qualified immunity qualified immunity i don't think it was there i agree with the two okay yeah i um it's funny i can't tell if it's like but at the same time i think that social workers do hard work and you want them to be protected that's exactly how i feel yeah i mean it's one of those things where like yeah if we're looking at the strict legal definition then yeah maybe they didn't have qualified immunity at that time yes yeah in hindsight you can look back and go what was the risk exactly and yeah but i just i'm trying to put myself in that social worker's shoes absolutely and they do work i would never know and for i have to make calls that i would never want to make and what if you make the wrong call and so yes you always i feel like you would always want to err

on the side of caution i'd be like everyone's a child yeah lock lock them up save the babies yeah yeah i mean really yeah so anyway the majority rules and they found that the social workers violated the family's constitutional rights they were out of line there was no emergency situation here one of the judges who wasn't on that opinion judge marcia berson went a step further she added a separate statement and she wrote it is essential that the courts scrupulously guard a child's constitutional right to remain at home absent a court order or true exigency taking a child from his or her home family and community constitutes a separate trauma in and of itself which i agree with yeah yeah i live out of there. I mean, their life was flipped,

turned upside down for a whole month. I want to play that. Like I was saying, not all the judges agreed on this one on the issue of whether the social workers had qualified immunity. Two of the three said they didn't. One sided with the social workers. And that was Judge Jack Zowery. I have no idea how to pronounce his last name. That's the one you like. That's your boy, your boy Jack.

My boy Jack disagreed with the two other judges. He said the situation did present an emergency situation. And I liked what he said when he wrote about the type of danger that the kids might have been facing. So I'm going to pull up his part. I had to look up titillating for you, sir. I lost my place. You know, the other two judges had kind of gone on this thing about what was the real risk here. It wasn't this.

It wasn't that. What was the risk? That they'd see their own children naked yeah so he writes disagreeing with them in other words the potential danger was not that the demorees would take more naked pictures of the girls rather the risk was that the parents were sexually exploiting their children as peterson the social worker explained inherent in this allegation is the concern that there is more to the situation than meets the eye. For example, that the parents may oppose the children or that the children may have adopted provocative poses based on behavior observed in the home. Without the benefit of clearer guidance defining the usual case, a reasonable social worker could be unsure how to proceed under these circumstances. I mean, I do agree with that.

I agree with your boy, Jack. And he basically goes on to say, like, she faced a really tough judgment call because of this three-day holiday weekend. You know, it would have taken a lot longer than usual. And he also wrote, all involved in the child welfare system would be well served by clear legal standards from this court to assist social workers in making these difficult decisions. Which I agree with that, too. Like, I hate that now this woman is being told she did the wrong thing.

I mean, obviously she did. Well, yeah. And then, I mean, that's going to impact how she handles every situation for the rest of her career. And how every other social worker is going to think about how they handle each situation and how they make a call. Yeah. So it is. It is a big thing. And so I agree with this judge. Like, there needs to be something very clear that they can follow so that they're not going to be tied up in lawsuits and all this. You know what would be good?

can follow so that they're not going to be tied up in lawsuits and all this you know what would be good is if they had one of those charts where you're like okay is it this and then they follow the arrow down you know and then do you this and then they follow that and it's all the you know the box and then you become yes take the kids at the bottom or no i hope they thought about doing something like that i like the idea of just like going up to someone and like making them be honest. Like, are you a child molester? You tell me the truth. Don't you lie. Don't you lie to me.

And they're like, you got me. See, just honesty or a good flow chart. That's right. Excellent flow chart. So this is from ArizonaCentral.com. It says, because this is a fresh one this like this just happened although we're recording i mean can you not call it a fresh one that sounds like a steaming pile this is a fresh turd you're gonna love it but it's like like we just said we've recorded a million of these. Yeah.

And none of them are online yet. So it'll be real stale. Yeah. It's going to be stale by then. It's going to be dried out, maybe white from the sun by then. Ew. God. So anyway, in this article I found it said, lawmakers and the State Department of Child

Safety are still working on language to define what constitutes an emergency that would allow a removal without a court order. A bill is expected in the coming week. So, I mean, hopefully this will happen. I want to close out with something from Lisa. She said in an ABC News interview, as crazy as it may seem, what you may think are the most beautiful, innocent pictures of your children may be seen as something completely different and completely perverted yeah i feel so sorry for everyone i do too that's exactly that's the thing about this case it's like policies were followed but yeah there was wrong done on all sides but not like you know each person i feel like could say that wrong was done to them oh yeah yeah i think everyone's kind of a victim and

absolutely but i and to me it does seem like people overreacted i mean just hearing the description of those photos yes i haven't seen the photos. They released a few of the photos, but not the ones, um, makes me so uncomfortable. The ones they released are truly not anything. Yeah. I mean, they really are very innocent. They're just kids wrapped in towels. I mean, it's not anything, but they didn't share the ones that like people are talking about them on the towels. But, so knowing what little I know, it seems like people kind of overreacted. Yeah. I agree.

But at the same time, do you want them to underreact? Exactly. Do you want three children being abused or pictures being sold? Yeah. Yeah, because maybe the kids weren't being abused, but maybe their parents were. Yeah. Oh, selling exploited pictures of them. I mean, you don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I can't I can't pick a side on this one. I can't either. Because I do. I feel terrible for the family. I feel terrible for the social workers. Yeah. You know who I don't feel terrible for? I feel terrible for the social workers.

Yeah. You know who I don't feel terrible for? Who? Walmart. Yeah, yeah. I do feel terrible for the photo tech, though. Yeah, you would feel a lot of guilt. Yeah. Like, oh, how did this affect somebody?

But that person, I think they were just doing their job. Yeah, I agree. This episode's also not brought to you by Walmart. Clearly not. We have been dogging on some major retailers yeah only really big ones maybe hey think local let's shit on a local business what should people do people should like our page on facebook absolutely they should follow us on twitter yep uh. Uh-huh. That's a thing. I have a Twitter.

You sound like you're 60. I have not tweeted. Is that what the kids are calling it? In probably two years. I'm the same way. So if this thing takes off. I better get on Twitter. I don't even have the app on my phone.

Neither do I. Shit. Yeah, I know. We better get our shit together I don't even have the app on my phone. Neither do I. Shit. Yeah, I know. We better get our shit together. Well, I did start... This podcast brought to you by 60-year-old women trapped in 30-year-old bodies. Yeah, that's true. I will tell you, bringing this back in, I Facebook stalked Donna and Ramsey Scribo.

Both of their Facebooks are still active. No way. And public. No. Yes. For real? For real. Oh my God.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Well, now I want to look it up. I know, right? You better wrap this up. Okay, so yes. Like us. Subscribe.

Leave us a review. But only if you liked it. If you fucking hate it i guess tell people no publicity no publicity is bad publicity as they say easy for you to say listen if you've been titillated by the show today tell a friend that's right tell a friend and maybe they'll tell a friend it spreads like herpes that's all we're asking is for us to be like herpes can you imagine if someone was like i just listened to a really titillating podcast

and then they came and listened to this they would be so disappointed it's like do you ever see on netflix when they're like they've got some documentary like hot girls wanted or something yeah and like the cover you you can just picture some guy being like this is gonna be good and then it's a serious documentary about exploitation and it gets downvoted by everyone like yeah yeah people would be really disappointed they would be this is not a titillating podcast unless you are turned on by poorly pronounced legal terms and zero legal expertise that is a weird fetish there's one dude out there and he loves it and this is the podcast for him. All right. And I, oh, um, join us next week. Yes, when we will be experts on completely 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 most of my info from the Court of Appeals opinion, an ABC News interview, and an article from the Washington Post. And I got my info from a USA Today article by Christina Hall and an amazing episode of Snapped. For a full list of our sources, visit lgtcpodcast.com. Any errors are of course ours, but please don't take

our word for it. Go read their stuff. Journalism is a dying art and it's all your fucking fault for not reading it. I feel terrible.