Murder In America - EP. 49 The Top True Crime Stories of 2021 (Our Year In Review!)

Episode Date: January 3, 2022

Join Courtney and Colin as they discuss the biggest true crime stories of 2021. Four unique murder stories, one horrible year. You're listening, to MURDER IN AMERICA. - Get better MENTAL HEALTH help from the comfort of your home with BETTERHELP! betterhelp.com/MIA - Up YOUR Razor Game with ATHENA CLUB RAZORS! Just head to athenaclub.com and use promo code "MIA" for 20% off your order! - Eat healthier AND easier from the comfort of your home using HELLOFRESH! Get 16 free meals and 3 free gifts using our CUSTOM LINK!: hellofresh.com/state16 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hey everybody, it's Colin here. And Courtney. Today we have a very special episode for you all. This is our first ever year wrap-up episode. Yeah, we're excited. It's 22, baby. It's kind of hard to say, 2022. In this episode, we're going to tell you guys four stories from this year, four true crime

stories from 2021. So I guess last year that both Courtney and I thought were particularly interesting. Courtney, you picked two out. Yes, I did. And I also picked two out. And we're going to talk to you all about some stuff that's happened, give you some updates. And, yeah, wrap up the year with a nice little bow and move on to the next one. Yep, let's go.

Well, everybody, let's do this. So, 2021 was a crazy year for everybody, but especially, I think, for us because we started murder in America. Yeah, it was very unexpected. At this time last year, we were kind of doing the finishing touches on our first episode, the Austin Yogurt Shop murders. And we definitely had no idea what was to come for this year. Yeah, it's crazy going back and listening to the old episodes of murder in America, because they really do sound different.

I think we talked about this on one of the old episodes where we were just talking, and I literally cringe so hard when I hear that first episode. Yeah, it's kind of hard to listen to. Even for like my edits and everything, it just, it doesn't flow as well as it does now. I think we've kind of reached our. We figured out our style and kind of how to do it all. And even talking at the beginning, I could not, I had to take like 20 takes per sentence. Like I could not.

I'm a perfectionist. So I would mess up like, I'd be like, oh, I don't like how I said that one thing. Let me start over. And it would take us so long to get episodes out. Yeah, Courtney would, I mean, she's downplaying it a little bit. She would redo a sentence like 10 or 15 times in a row. You'd be like, and then he walked into the room. No.

And then he walked into the room. That's my Enneagram 3 personality coming out. I'm a perfectionist. I want it to be good. And I remember when we finished it, I was. like, oh my gosh, it sounds amazing. And now looking back, I'm like, oh, my God, that sounds so bad. But thank you for everyone that's been here since that first episode. Or if you just recently joined, too, thank you so much for listening. You all have been incredible and we couldn't have done any of

this without you guys. So thank you. And I'm actually going to go back to what we were just talking about because it's funny um when when you would mess up the takes i would literally usually take the first take that you did before the other 12 and you never noticed so you didn't even need to do it you're a little bastard you know but i mean i'm just saying like you sounded great you so you always sounded great it's just funny because like i would listen to like 15 takes and it would just be the same you know Yeah. Another really exciting part of 2021 was at the beginning of this year, I made a goal to hit 1 million downloads on the podcast. And we ended up hitting that goal around June of this year. So we actually hit it six months early. So I made another goal to hit 2 million by the end of the year. And I was really nervous because in January, in December, we were looking at the numbers. And, we were got it looked like we could hit it but it also looked like maybe we weren't going to we were close yeah i was really nervous because i couldn't tell if we were going to hit it so that's why

colin was putting those um what were yeah they were almost like um ads that i was putting in there trying to get everybody to listen and to share the show and then one night i was just sitting up late in bed and i decided to look at the apple podcasts statistics statistics which I had never actually gone into depth looking at. I'd seen the Spotify statistics, but never the Apple Podcasts. And on Apple Podcasts alone, shout out to all of you listening on Apple, we had 2.8 million plays already. And we had 1.6 million on Spotify. Yeah.

So we had been looking at the analytics wrong the entire time. And it turns out, as of right now, we have over 4 million downloads. Four million. That's insane. Yeah, we, it's just crazy to think that our goal for this year was originally one million and now we're at four. So clearly you guys exceeded all of our expectations and we are just so thankful and honestly just shocked. I mean, I definitely would never have expected four million plays. No.

And I mean, I feel like even when we started the podcast, I mean, one million was like just, I thought that was a huge goal. And I was like, I don't know. Unreachable practically. Yeah, I thought I was like, oh, maybe we'll reach it, but who knows? And then, wow, I just, we've just been blown away. So thank you all so much again. Yeah.

I mean, I've been on YouTube for so long that my first year on YouTube, I think I got like 100,000 plays total. And I was like, you know, blown away. Like, damn, my videos are doing so well. And now I fucking come on here and I see we got four million in one year. I'm like, holy shit. I know. And our anniversary is our one year anniversaries on January 5th. That's when we released our Austin Yogurt Shop murder.

So we're coming up on a year. We're still trying to get the hang of everything. It's still a learning process for sure. I know we say this all the time, but thank you guys so much for being patient with us. and understanding when we have, when we're late on certain episodes or if we need a little extra time for one certain one certain episode, like I said, I can be a perfectionist. So I'd rather get a quality episode out and have it be a little bit late. But luckily, that's not going to be happening anymore. Yeah, we have a team now, which is awesome.

because, I mean, starting this podcast, I was taken on, just on my end, I have already a full-time job with my YouTube, which is I do everything for that. I edit and film, obviously promote, manage all the aspects of that, which is a lot for a channel. And then starting this podcast, I was then helping write, recording my parts, and then, you know, doing all the editing. So, like, that's a lot of times also why things have been delayed. because, I mean, we just had too much on our plates. But now that we have a team that we've hired going into the new year, we're not going to be late anymore. Yeah, I mean, writing an episode, I went into it thinking it would be easy, but it honestly takes so much effort, so much time. It's basically like writing a big research paper every week.

And now we have some people on our team to kind of help us out. So we're very, very excited about that. Also, just kind of weird, I was thinking about some of the timing of some of the episodes we released this year. It was the 30th anniversary of the Austin Yogurt Shaw murders this year, our first episode. 30 years since Jeffrey Dahmer was arrested. We did Dahmer. And what was the one where? We did a few episodes where we didn't even mean for it to happen, but we released it on the day that the murder occurred.

Yeah, I don't remember what I was in Minnesota Oh Dennis Juergens It was Dennis Juergens Yes That was Quite the horrific case I mean

Shout out to all of you online For being able to listen to the show Because we've had even family and friends Tell us that They can't listen Because it's too dark And we're not It's something I've wanted to say for a while

We're not trying to be explicitly dark or anything like that. We're just telling the truth, the true story behind these cases. You have to be able to, you know, talk about it, in my opinion, because that helps prevent it from happening even further. Right. We even had, um, we even had a listener reach out, um, when we released our Las Vegas shooting episode.

And she was actually in the crowd that night, um, when the shots rang out. And she told us like, this. obviously is going to be a hard episode to listen to, but I really, I know y'all are going to do a great job telling the story, which is always nice to hear from our listeners. And I also had somebody reach out on Instagram and tell us that they know Letitia from our Covina episode, the lone survivor of the Ortega family. Wow. And she said, she even said, like, I'm probably not.

I listen to all of your episodes. I'm probably not going to be able to listen to this one, which is totally fine. We obviously don't want to bring up any PTSD or anything with anyone. But that's a reason why we give a lot of warnings in our episodes because we know that they're not always easy to listen to, especially if you've been personally affected by these stories. And, I mean, the most disturbing episode of the year,

hands down has to go to Albert Fish. Yeah. The amount of people that we got messaging us angrily about how disturbing that one was. Yeah, people were mad about that. And yet we warned, I think, three times before most of the really, you know, dark stuff was read. But once again, that's the truth there. That's, I mean, it's what he wrote, you know, and we're telling the story of these crimes. That's like an integral part of the case.

And I think. I think that the warning we give at the beginning where we say this podcast is not for everyone. It's true. It isn't for everyone. And I think the people that are listening here now, y'all are the type of people that can handle that kind of stuff. As hard as it is, Colin and I are also the types of people that can handle stories like that. But not everyone can't please everyone. Not everyone's going to like what you're putting out there in the world.

And there are definitely some people that don't like our episodes, but everyone here listening does, and y'all are what matters. Yeah, I mean, it's funny when, in my opinion, I've had this on YouTube, too. People will leave, like, comments saying, I'm never, Jesus. Jesus, what happened there? I'm never listening to an episode again. I'm literally, this is the worst thing I've ever listened to. And I'm like, this isn't an airplane. You don't need to announce your departure.

Right. You're just, you're one person that wants to come on and make us feel like shit for no reason. Exactly. But I will say the majority of people are so nice, so kind to us. And I mean, you can sit and read the trolls' comments all day long, but they aren't the people that matter. It's all of you. So we just want to, again, thank you. I think this is like my fourth time, I thanked everyone.

Yeah, and I haven't thanked everyone yet. Thank you. Yeah, come on. Give them some things. Thank you all so much. Y'all are the ones that have made this possible. You know, it's not Courtney and I. It's you people listening online. Right. And I saw something the other day that was just really, it kind of just really resonated with me that we are just such a small part of all of your lives, but y'all are our entire lives. We would not be here making this stuff if it wasn't for you and for y'all to give us. Your undivided attention for an hour every single week, it really has changed our lives.

And we've got some big plans for this year, but we're not going to get into those right now. Those are secret, top secret. We should go over our most popular episodes. Okay, well, these are our top episodes taken from audio boom. Number one of the year most listened to was Zach and Addy from New Orleans. I honestly was very surprised by that. I personally love this story, but I did not think it would be our top one. No, me either.

But a lot of people said that they loved it. Then second most listened to was the Austin Yogurt Shop murders. Oh, yeah. I guess people just starting the show from the beginning. And then third, this climbed up out of nowhere is the son of Sam, the conspiracy episode. Yeah, the part two, which that was interesting to me because I would think more people would listen to part one just so they can get kind of the background story. But I guess the conspiracy part is more intriguing to people.

And I mean, it's funny because the first part of that episode where we explained kind of like the murders and everything, that's not even in the top 10. It's just the conspiracy part, which is interesting. The next one is my personal, I think this one's my favorite episode. The Rhode Island, from Rhode Island, it's American. his youngest serial killer Craig Price. Craig Price. That one was one of my favorites.

Very dark one. And then, yeah, we could go read through all these all day, but we're going to get into our 2021 true crime stories right after this brief ad break. This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp Online Therapy. We talk about BetterHelp a lot on the show, and this month we're discussing some of the stigmas around mental health. Some people think you should wait until things are unbearable to go to therapy. but that just simply isn't true.

Therapy is more like a tool that you can use before things get worse, and it can help you avoid those lows. We've been taught our entire lives that there's this taboo around mental health, that it shouldn't be a part of normal life. But that's wrong, too. We take care of our bodies with the gym, the doctor, and nutrition, and we should be focusing on our minds just as frequently. BetterHelp is customized online therapy that offers video,

phone, and even live chat sessions with your therapist, so you don't have to see anyone on camera if you don't want to. And another great thing about BetterHelp is that, it's much more affordable than in-person therapy, and you can be matched with a therapist in under 48 hours. Go ahead, just give it a try and see why over 2 million people have used BetterHelp online therapy. Courtney and I have both used BetterHelp. It is an amazing service with amazing people. And seriously, if you're struggling, if you need help, if listening to this podcast gets you in a dark place, you can use Better Help to help you get out of that low.

People think that therapy's for crazy people. But therapy doesn't mean that something's wrong with you. It means that you recognize that all humans have emotions and we need to learn how to control them, not avoid them. This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp and Murder in America listeners get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com slash M-I-A. That's B-E-T-T-E-R-H-E-L-P dot com slash M-I-A. The link to BetterHelp is in our show notes. Now let's get back to today's story. 2021 was a strange year.

Obviously, I think that most people thought that COVID-E, COVID was going to be at least better by the end of this year. And in fact, at the very end, it got a lot worse, which was just shocking. A lot of our family members, friends, got the Omicron just randomly over Christmas. We had to cancel a ton of stuff. It was really sad. But I feel like with the coronavirus raging throughout the U.S., a lot of crimes and things that happened kind of fell to the side. and there wasn't much follow-up reporting done on so many of these crimes.

Like, for example, the first story that I'm going to kind of cover briefly was the FedEx shooting that happened on April 15th, 2021. This was in Indiana, in Indianapolis, Indiana at a FedEx ground facility. And it was a large-scale shooting. I mean, a lot of casualties. Nine people were killed, including the gunman. That's so many people. And I feel like normally when you have a lot of people die like that, a story like that's covered for months and months. And I, I mean, I heard a little bit about it here and there, but I feel like it kind of just got brushed aside a little bit. But that's a lot of people that died. Yeah. I mean, even reading about it and doing some research for this episode, I learned a lot about the case that I had never even heard on. the news or anywhere, which was just shocking to me. But basically what happened was a 19-year-old

former employee, his name was Brandon Scott Hole. He drove to this FedEx facility in Indianapolis, Indiana, late at night at around 11 p.m. during a shift change and parked his car in the parking lot, started firing at people in the parking lot where I think half of the casualties occurred. Then he walked up to the entrance of the building, entered the building, and continued the shooting spree. It lasted for about four minutes. And in that four minutes, eight people were killed. He ultimately took his own life and seven others were injured. So, I mean, that's four minutes, but that's a lot of casualties and injuries.

Four minutes doesn't seem like a long time. But when you think about someone shooting at a group of people, I feel like that felt like it could have lasted eternity. Yeah. And most of the people that were killed were workers, right? Yeah, they were. And four of the victims ended up being Sikhs, which are a religious community that comes from India, mostly. And according to the local police chief, about 90% of the workers at this facility were members of the community, the Sikh community in Indianapolis. Which they had a problem identifying if this was a hate crime or if this was just a random person that snapped.

but with that seek angle, they found some extremist propaganda on Brandon's computer after the shooting. So they still don't know officially if he was targeting people from this community or not. But either way, lots of lives lost. It was interesting to me because the FedEx facility is supposed to be very secure. They have metal detectors, security turnstiles. You have to scan a badge to get inside. into the FedEx facility. And yet they have a policy where you can't have cell phones when you're in the building

unless I believe you're an authorized person to have a phone. So when this shooting was occurring, a lot of the employees that were trapped inside of the building couldn't use their cell phones to call for help. They had no way to call 911. And then I was reading even afterwards, they were all carted off to a hotel to, you know, get information and to find a safe place after the shooting had ended, but none of them had their cell phones because they were in their cars, so they couldn't reach family members or friends and tell them that they were okay, which is weird.

That's horrible. That's so horrible. And get this, after this happened, FedEx said that they're not going to change the policy, which is kind of... What policy? The no cell phones policy. What? When employees were coming on the record saying, if I had a cell phone, this would have, like,

you know, helped so much. So they only had like phones inside of the store, but you obviously can't call if they're connected to like a line or something. Yeah, I mean, I don't know how that. I mean, I'm sure they had like company phones, like landlines, but almost none of the workers that were in there had cell phones. It was just those few authorized people. And so they couldn't reach their friends, family, anything. That's so sad. Now, one detail that I thought was particularly interesting about this guy, Brandon,

Scott Hull, the 19-year-old, who actually carried out this shooting. After this happened, authorities went through his deleted Facebook accounts. They couldn't find motives. They couldn't find anything that really pointed to why he had done this. But it was revealed that he was a brony, which means that you are a fan, a male fan, of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic, which, yeah, like the bronies are mega fans of the My Little Pony series. I've never heard of this.

They have like My Little Pony costumes and art everywhere and they just religiously watched the show and everything. I mean, to each their own. I was going to say, yeah, if you like My Little Pony, you like My Little Pony. Go to town. Yeah, but what was interesting is that just less than an hour before Brandon actually went to the FedEx facility to murder those eight people, he... I thought it was nine.

Well, nine including him. Oh, yeah, yeah. You're right. He went to, he took to Facebook and he wrote this post, I hope that I can be with Applejack in the afterlife. My life has no meaning without her. If there's no afterlife and she isn't real, then my life never mattered anyways. Who's Applejack? Applejack is a character from My Little Pony. He wants to be with her in the afterlife? Yeah. So I thought that was, I mean, you can't ever explain why somebody, you know, wants to kill.

It's like just something that we'll never really have a full explanation on. But I've never heard of a My Little Pony. Motivation. Yeah, something that's so innocent driving somebody to kill people, you know? That's a really crazy case. And like I said, I heard about this, but I did not know the My Little Pony aspect of it. Yeah, and that's, I mean, it's just one of those weird little details that are interesting. but once again doesn't explain anything.

There's no real answers because he took his life after taking eight other lives. Right. All those answers go with him. That's always so tragic when we can't. I mean, we never really get full answers. I mean, even with the Parkland shooting, we don't know why he did all of that, you know? No. So, I mean, even when they don't kill themselves, it still leaves so many unanswered questions.

And they usually never talk. No, exactly. Okay, so I'm going to tell my story now. The story that I have for you today is the suspected Chicago strangler. Ooh. Yes. So this didn't specifically happen in 2021. It actually has been going on since 2002.

So, but there are still murders happening in Chicago to this day. and experts believe there are at least one, maybe more serial killers operating in Chicago right now. I had no idea. Yeah, and I didn't either. The reason why a lot of people don't know about this is because the people that are getting murdered are sex workers. And specifically, black sex workers. And as we've known throughout all the stories we've covered, black sex workers, are not given the attention that they deserve.

And it has to do with society. It has to do with law enforcement. Unfortunately, they just don't give them the attention that they need. And a lot of times when these women are found murdered or missing, they're just kind of swept under the rug. So the first murder that came on the radar of this suspected serial killer happened in 2002 with a woman named Gwendolyn Williams. 2002?

Yeah, it's been going on for nearly 20 years now, and you've never heard of it. I've never heard of it. And that's why it's so tragic, and that's really why I wanted to tell it today because these stories need to be told. So it all started with Gwendolyn Williams. She was born in 1957 in Montgomery, Alabama,

but she eventually moved to Chicago. And her friends and family described her as sweet, compassionate. She always stood up for the people she loved. But it was said that she never said a mean word to anyone. She was so sweet and everyone really loved her. But despite her being very kind, she also would not put up with anyone's shit. I mean, growing up as a black woman in Montgomery, Alabama in the 1950s, she had to have thick skin.

She was put through a lot. And especially after moving to Chicago, Gwendolyn didn't have the easiest life. And she always told her friends and family, her sisters, go to college and make something of yourself because she wanted them to learn from her mistakes and to not go down a bad path.

Her family had absolutely no idea that Gwen was in danger. But on June 12th, 2002, her half-naked body would be found behind a dollar store, beaten and strangled to death. Wow. Yeah. In Chicago? Yeah, in Chicago behind a dollar store. And it was clear that she had been dumped there. She wasn't killed there.

She was dumped. And they said that her autopsy was able to determine that she did have semen on her body. And she also had the attacker's skin under her name. But despite all of this DNA, they were never able to find her killer. And still to this day, it's unsolved. Wow. Yeah. And they have multiple forms of DNA.

Yeah. Seamen and skin. And Gwendolyn died. She was only 44 years old. But her murder would only be the start of a long 20 years for Chicago, especially for the black women in Chicago. Because over the past 20 years, years, at least 55 women have been murdered and their bodies have been found naked, strangled,

and dumped around Chicago's south and west sides. So 55 women in 20 years is insane. That is a very, very high number. I mean, that puts this, this unknown killer up, you know, high in the in the body counts of killers. Right. And they were able to find similarities and connections within all of these cases. They believe that this is the work of at least one, maybe more serial killers working in Chicago. I wonder if it could be a ring of people that's doing this, you know? See, I don't know. I think from what they're able to determine based on all of the victims and the evidence at the scene, from what I could read they don't think it's people working together it seems like it's just these men working on their own so interesting yeah now chicago PD has denied that all of these

cases are connected um which in part is probably because they don't want to um elicit fear throughout their community obviously as soon as you acknowledge the fact that there's a serial killer on the lose, people are going to lose their minds. So they've been very cautious to label this a serial killer. But many experts think otherwise. And some of the most damning evidence, the reason why a lot of people think this is a serial killer, is because in 2007, two women were found murdered within 48 hours of each other. And that in itself wasn't enough for connection, but their deaths were very serious.

similar. So the first incident happened when a pregnant woman named Teresa Bunn went missing. No one could find her anywhere and she was eight months pregnant so people were obviously concerned about where she was and the following day her body was found in a dumpster. When investigators got there it was clear that Teresa had been strangled and whoever killed her doused her body in accelerant and then lit her on fire. She and her unborn child were killed that day. Now, the next day, another woman named Hazel Lewis, she went missing too, and her body was found in a dumpster as well.

Firefighters actually got to the scene and they were putting out the fire in the dumpster when they realized that there was a woman in the dumpster. and she was killed too. So two women found murdered the exact same way in 48 hours and they don't make a connection? And they lived just a few miles away from each other too. So, I mean, it was pretty clear to everyone that the same person killed these people. And escalating pretty quickly for you to kill one woman, usually they have, serial killers have a long space in between killing. but this guy had two and within just 48 hours so.

So they think that this killer is responsible for 55 victims? Yes, or they think he's responsible for at least more. Because of the similarities between the cases, it's pretty much clear to everyone that they were killed by the same person, but investigators were never able to find out who killed them. Now, like we said, there are at least 50. victims, but there could be as many as 75. Whoa.

I know. And this story really reminds me of like the Sean Vincent Gillis case that we covered, the Baton Rouge serial killer. He also targeted sex workers. A number of them were African American. And like we mentioned, authorities just don't give those cases as much time as they do. upper class white women, you know. So it's just really sad to think that there could be 75 women murdered by a few people out there.

And because their cases just aren't as important to law enforcement, they just don't get solved. Well, I mean, there's 75 is a lot of people. It is. That should be looked at immediately. It's horrible. And 75% of the victims were African American. and 47 of the at least 50 were sex workers. So, and that's what's crazy to me that the cops aren't calling this.

They, they, the cops are saying that they aren't connected, but 50 sex workers within the last 20 years have been found strangled and dumped in Chicago. And to me, that's pretty, that's a huge connection. Definitely. So the reason that people have come to this conclusion, that serial killers are operating in Chicago is all thanks to the murder accountability project. Its leader is a man named Thomas Hargrove, and he created this.

It's kind of like an algorithm that you put all of these murders in, all of the evidence found, all of the characteristics of the victim, and it kind of has an algorithm that finds similarities between these cases. And this guy is the real deal. He was actually a part of the reason that Gary, Gary Ridgeway was captured, the Green River killer. Yeah. He helped capture him back in 2010. And he also targeted sex workers.

So he knows what he's doing, this Thomas guy. So even though Chicago PD is still denying the fact that it's a serial killer, this guy, this guy is pretty credible and he is confident that there are serial killers out there and that we're just overlooking them. And the last victim was in 2021? I believe so. And it's crazy because a very interesting piece of evidence that Thomas has uncovered within this look at all these murder victims was that there are barely any evidence. There's barely any DNA at a lot of the crime scenes. That's so bizarre.

And that also obviously means that someone knows that they might have a tail and they're trying to cover stuff up. Well, he thinks that the fact that there isn't evidence is evidence in itself. Exactly. He thinks that whoever's doing this is intelligent. And he knows that Chicago is a city where murders happen all the time. So it's a perfect hunting ground for, a serial killer, especially when you're going after victims who aren't looked into in the police department. So far, this is a very typical serial killer story. People don't want to

admit that it's happening, and that just allows the crimes to happen more frequently and for a longer period of time. And I want to end this story by quoting a U.S. Congressman Bobby Rush, who said, quote, we almost continue to think that there is a possible serial killer or killers that's living among us." And then Thomas Hargrove, the leader of the Murder Accountability Project, said, quote, These 51 women were not killed by 51 separate men. Many of these women, probably most, were killed by men who have killed before. Women in Chicago should be warned that they are being targeted, that sex workers,

women who habitually use illegal drugs, there's a target on them, end quote. So the unsolved Chicago strangler serial killer. Yeah, I'm really interested to see if something comes about this. Well, it's a brand new year, and hopefully they can get some answers on that case. I'd definitely like to see some justice served there because they need it badly. In Chicago, it's such a big city, you know, so many murders that a lot of them are forgotten. Right. And I saw this the other day that there are 250,000 unsolved murder cases in the U.S. And I mean, it just makes you wonder how many of those murders are connected.

Very true. That's a lot of murders too. I know. It's really horrible. Well, with that, we're going to go to a commercial break and then we'll be back with our second stories. So if you all online don't know what I look like, I have a large beard. I have a lot. of hair on my body. And many times in my past, I've cut myself and it just, the cut will not stop bleeding. It's terrible. It's terrifying. And sometimes when you shave right before you have to go out and then you cut yourself in your bloody, it's not a good look. That's why I was kind of nervous to try Athena Club's razors, but honestly, I've been shaving with them for the last month, and I cannot recommend Athena Club enough. Athena Club's razor is designed with built-in skin

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The link is in the show notes, everybody. Go support our sponsors so they support us and we can make more stuff for you. Okay, so for my second story and my final story, I am once again, oh, weird. I'm covering a shooting that happened in April. Actually, it was almost a week before the first one I was talking about. Weird. I had no idea. This one was very shocking to me when I heard that this had happened.

I'm because it was just so random. April 7th, 2021, six people were shot. and killed in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Now, you'll probably remember this shooting because it was carried out by a man named Philip Adams, who was a former NFL player, which was shocking. Like, he was a guy who had a promising career in the NFL. At one point, he was respected.

He was on TV playing in front of millions of people. And then out of the blue one day, he kind of just snaps and murders six people. That's so crazy. I feel like there's a pattern between NFL players. Oh, we're going to talk about that in a second. Oh, okay. But basically what happened that day on April 7th of last year, people started placing 911 calls in the afternoon at around 4.45.

Neighbors of Philip Adams called the police after they heard gunshots and other strange noises coming from their neighborhood. the manager of a repair company also called 911 and claimed that one of his employees had been shot. So the police showed out, they came out to the neighborhood, and they found two repairmen in front of this house. One of the men was dead already from gunshot wounds. And immediately the police found evidence there at the house that tied Philip Adams, the NFL player, to the shooting. Now, what? I was just going to say it's such a random shooting because the victims were neighbors of Philip Adams,

which I actually didn't know until I started researching for this episode. But the victims included 70-year-old Dr. Robert Leslie, his wife, Barbara, two of their grandchildren, and then the repairman who was working outside of the home when the shooting began. Now, that is just, I mean, it's just hard to even comprehend because Dr. Robert Leslie, he was a prominent, a famous local doctor. He had founded two urgent care centers. He was a fixture in the local community. He even wrote medical columns almost every week for the Charlotte Observer. He even, in his career, he wrote medical advice books.

So he was like a very successful doctor. He didn't have any known enemies. Um, Robert. An upstanding citizen. Yeah, an upstanding citizen. And Robert and his wife Barbara were well known throughout the city that they lived in because they were very charitable. And they often gave their time to charity work and stuff like that. I feel like it's always the, the nicest victims that these killers pick, you know?

Yeah. And I mean, I mean, there's still, there's still very few real details about how it all went down. But I mean, basically. basically, Philip Adams, this NFL player, just, I guess, walked over to his neighbor's house, killed the guy outside, just walked in and shot dead the two grandchildren and their grandparents inside of their own home, completely randomly. And that was at, you know, around 4.45 p.m. Let's zoom forward to 9 p.m. that night. The police are there. They surround Philip Adams' his parents' house where Philip Adams was.

The police spent several hours negotiating with him. They even sent in a... robot to check out the house to see what the scene looked like inside. Philip Adams' parents were quickly escorted from the house. And at one point when the police stopped hearing from Philip, they went in and they found him dead inside from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. They recovered a 45 caliber handgun and a 9mm gun from the inside of the house. So he basically slaughtered these grandparents and their grandkids, the random repair guy. he shot another guy who was airlifted to a hospital and then he went back to his house

basically locked himself in the home barricaded it had like a almost standoff with the police and then just took his own life for no no real reason so he didn't leave a suicide note or no anything no there was nothing from what i can find i mean if someone can find something that's i mean that's all that i i could you know research about this case is that it's just the basically the facts of what happened and that's it that's so sad and to think about like think about having children and dropping them off at your parents house i mean he's a doctor you think that your kids are in good hands and then to hear that all of that happened it's like you really just never know what can happen you know no and so this is what you were talking about where this comes into it

just last month though in December it was revealed um after they examined examined Philip Adams' body that he struggled heavily with chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Oh. What's that? Encephalopathy. I hope I'm saying that right. CTE, basically. It's a neurodegenerative disease linked to repeated blows to the head.

Now, yeah, CTE is a disease that a lot of football players suffer from, and it's known to kind of spark bizarre and oftentimes violent behavior in people that suffer from it. Yeah, I've heard of that before. I mean, Aaron Hernandez. Oh, well. Are you getting to that? Mike Webster, for example, was a famous football player. He played from 1974 to 1990.

He suffered from a particularly acute case of CTE. Mike Webster was nicknamed Iron Mike. He was considered by many people to be one of the best centers in football history. He was a highly regarded player. He is in the Football Hall of Fame. After he retired from the NFL, however, he couldn't stay in one place for too long, and he lived out of his pickup truck or in train stations. Other players and football team owners regularly covered expenses for Mike and his family,

but the CTE that he was suffering from would never allow his life to return back to normal. He allegedly had to use electroshock weapons at night just to get himself to fall asleep. And doctors were only able to diagnose him with CTE after his sudden death at age 50. So they can't see that these players have this disease until they go into your brain? Yeah. Interesting. Because they found the CTE and Iron Mike after. death, Philip Adams, and then this is Aaron Hernandez, obviously.

I think a lot of you guys are going to know online, Aaron Hernandez's story. He was the infamous tight end who played for the New England Patriots NFL team, and he was found guilty of murder. He's suspected in a number of shootings in violent incidents, and he committed suicide in prison back in 2017. But after his death, Aaron Hernandez was also discovered to have been suffering from CTE. That's crazy, too. seen that in a lot of stories with like serial killers where when they're young they'll get

into these accidents and they'll have frontal lobe injuries and they end up they end up being very violent later in their life and it's a lot of doctors say that repeated blows to your head can cause violence which is really crazy I mean it's very obvious looking at these three cases I mean, Iron Mike didn't, you know, kill anybody, but his behavior was definitely changed far from, like his family said, who he used to be. Aaron Hernandez and Philip Adams are both now NFL killers, but they were suffering from CTE. Which that's really interesting because obviously there's no excuse for why you would kill someone, obviously. But even my dad, he had a traumatic brain injury. And he isn't violent, but his personality, like I remember after the accident, he was different for a while there.

And it's, I mean, we already know that the brain is so important and who we are and how we handle things. But it's crazy to think that like even my dad, he was different for a while there after his accident. And then all of these people who, this is their career. to play this sport and it can end up forever changing who they are as a person because of the injuries they get. And a lot of families have sued the NFL and stuff, even Iron Mikes, but a lot of these lawsuits are unresolved. But yeah, that's a story that I thought was really interesting, kind of shocked me when I

heard about it initially. Yeah. Just like, what? I remember you telling me about that. Colin, he like, I don't know if you have like an app or something, but he's always very up on the recent true crime updates and he'll always come in the room and be like you have to listen to this one and i remember you telling me about that one that was crazy but now it's courtney's turn to share her story so Courtney take it away all right the last story i have for you today

happened on august ninth of this year last year oh yeah last year 2021 um so it didn't happen in America, but the family that it happened to lived here in America. So on August 9th of this past year, a farmer in Rosarito, Mexico, sees blood on his property, so he and his dog go to check it out. When they follow the blood trail, it leads them to the bodies of two small children, two-year-old Kaleo and 10-month-old Roxy. The farmer said that he immediately knew that the kids were Americans, because they had blonde hair. They had bruises on their faces. They were lying on their sides and their diapers,

and they had their backs together. And it wouldn't be long until the entire story unfolded about these kids' father, a man named Matthew Taylor Coleman. I remember this, actually. This is such a sad story. So a little bit about Matthew, he was born in 1981,

and he lived in Santa Barbara. Barbara, California. Matthew loved the outdoors, specifically surfing, and he loved it so much that he actually became a surfing instructor when he got older. And from everything I could find, Matthew was very well-liked. He was a typical teenager that kind of pushed the limits here and there, gotten to a little bit of trouble, but when he got to high school, he found a love for God in Christianity. and he really started to immerse himself into religion.

And when he got to college, he even went to an evangelical college in San Diego. Interesting. I didn't know that. Yeah. And it was around this time, too, he would go on missionary trips around the world. He went to church regularly. And at one of these church events, he met named Abby Droogsma. Drogs, I think I'm saying that right. But anyways, they met at a church event.

Matthew was 36 years old at the time, and the two were just ready to start a family. So they moved back to Santa Barbara, and they opened up a surfing shop that Matthew owned. And the last thing they were missing from their life were children. So in 2019, they had their first baby, a son named Callio, and before long they had another baby on the way in 2020, and they named her Roxy. And from everything I could find, the family was happy. But then, as we all know, in 2020, coronavirus hit the world. Of course. And that was a scary time for everyone in the world.

I mean, it's still a scary time. But I think one thing we can all agree on is that the pandemic really separated a lot of people in America. I mean, you have the Democrats and Republicans, you have people that. are four vaccinations, we have anti-vaxxers, and then with all of this uncertainty came a lot of conspiracies. And Matthew Coleman really, really resonated with these groups, specifically a group called QAnon. Colin, do you want to explain to people what Q&ON is just in case they don't know? Q&ONN is basically a widespread theory that the, like the U.S. government, is filled with pedophiles and people that need to be rectified,

and there are certain people that are going to step in and kind of save America from the elite, I don't know if you want to call it satanic, but pedophile cabal. I mean, yeah, it kind of takes a lot of old conspiracy theories, even the Luminati type stuff, and blends it into one modern conspiracy theory. But a lot of people really got into that rabbit hole in 2020. Yeah, and the Coleman's were definitely one of,

of those people that really, really got into Q&N stuff. Abby, the wife, this isn't really that big of a deal, but she followed a bunch of anti-vaccine Facebook pages. But Matthew was very much so more explicit with his views. And like we said, they had a daughter in 2021, and a big motivation for the Q&N people is that they don't want to raise their children. in a world of pedophiles. And in one Facebook post, Matthew wrote, quote,

while waiting for her to come, I kept feeling the sense that she was going to be born at a very pivotal time in history and that she would represent a dawn or even awakening to years of great blessings for our family and nation, end quote. Interesting. Yeah, so, I mean, no one really knows when Matthew started to kind of spiral out of control,

but at some point in 2020, he did. And on August 7th, Abby would call the police to let them know that she was worried about her children. Matthew had left their home with both of the children, but Abby was concerned because he only had one car seat. And he didn't have another one for the other child, which you clearly need when you're traveling. He also didn't tell her where he was going. He just left. This was clearly concerning to Abby, but from what I could read, it didn't seem like she was worried about their safety. She just wanted to make sure they were okay.

And when she called the police, they came over and they tracked Matthew's iPhone to a mall in Rosarito, Mexico. Uh-oh. Yeah. So that's clearly far away from Santa Barbara. And not long after that, Callio and Roxy's bodies would be found. by the farmer on August 9th. According to the Attorney General in Baja, California, the children had bruises on their faces. Roxy was stabbed 12 times in the chest, and Cleo was stabbed 17 times, and they were

killed by a spear fishing gun. That's so dark. Right. A few hours later, Matthew was arrested for the murder of his children at the U.S.-Mexico border, and he would later tell the FBI that his reasoning for murdering his children was because he had become enlightened by QAnon and that his children had serpent DNA passed down by their mother Abby. And he said he needed to kill them so he could rid the world of monsters. Your own kids. Yeah.

And his reasoning behind it is just crazy. A lot of people that are in QAnon have kind of, um, said that he's not a part of our group. He just used that to kind of as an excuse to why he killed his children. That's so interesting though because Q&N is a very extreme group. Exactly. And that's like what, too extreme for them? Well, I mean, I think that they're just saying he used that as like a scapegoat.

But now apparently he's in jail. He's writing letters to his friends apologizing for everything. He did plead not guilty. but it's pretty clear to everyone that he is, which these stories like this are just so crazy because how could you do that to your own children? A two-year-old and a 10-month-old and killed him for such a strange reason.

Seriously? The farmer that found the kids said that he hasn't been able to stop thinking about them since, and he even created a little memorial on his property for them, but overall just such a sad story. We're definitely going to be following this story when the trial comes out and everything, so we will keep you guys updated.

Wow. But that's the story of Matthew Taylor Coleman and his kids, Callio and Roxy. And with that, we're going to head to one final commercial break and then come back to wrap this thing up. Well, we're back to working with one of our favorite sponsors of all time, Hello Fresh. With Hello Fresh, you get Farm Fresh, pre-Portioned ingredients

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episode of Murder in America. I know this was kind of a weird episode, but Courtney and I have just been doing so much lately. The YouTube work has increased tenfold. The murder in America work has increased tenfold. We have a team now, though. We're going to be on top of the uploads this whole year. And like I said at the beginning of this show, we have some really, really big things coming for this show this year. I'm so excited about some of the stuff we're working on. But for all of you out there. Thank you for listening. Thank you for making our dreams come true. We're going to be back later this week with our first official episode of the new year. We're going to be covering the McDonald's Massacre in San Ysidro, California. One of my choices for the podcast of story,

it is such a horrific and shocking crime. I can't believe it, even though I've heard the story a hundred times. But we're going to be back with that episode later this week from Courtney and I, We love every one of you online. Thank you so much for making last year such a great year. And we'll see you all soon.