Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - This Teen Actor Got Murdered - The Tara Correa-McMullen story

Episode Date: February 3, 2025

This is the story of Tara Correa-McMullen, the young actress from Rebound and Judging Amy.

This is your fix. I am your host, Stasi Schroeder. Welcome to Tell Me Lies, the official podcast. What's the most unhinged thing of season three? Stephen, because he's so evil. I do think he is misunderstood. You see everyone base consequences. It's intoxicating.

The writers just know how to trick you. There's always a twist in this show. Tell Me Lies, the official podcast, January 6th, and stream the new season of Tell Me Lies, January 13, on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus. So in the early 2000s, there was this Martin Lawrence comedy called Rebound. You might have seen it. And in that movie, you may have noticed this girl. Well, unfortunately, she's been unalived in a really brutal way. Now the girl, her name's Tara. She's 14, and she's a normal kid, and her family's kind of poor.

But Tara's mom works at a casting office in Los Angeles. And one day, in that office, they're having trouble finding a teen actress to fill this role. And Tara's mom is like, hey, maybe Tara could do it. And so she comes to Tara and she's like, hey, you want to audition for a movie? And Tara's like, alright. So Tara goes in to audition and she's never professionally acted before, but whatever, she gives it a shot. And bam, they're like, she's perfect. And suddenly Tara is cast in the movie Rebound with Martin Lawrence.

Not bad for her first gig. And Tara ends up doing a good job and she enjoys it a lot. She loves being on set and learning everything she can. about the process. So then Tara gets an agent and her career starts to take off. And as soon as she's finished filming rebound, she gets cast in her next role in the Emmy Award-winning TV drama, Judging Amy. This time she plays a teen gang member. And Tara does such a good job in judging Amy. The producers, they decide to give her character an extended arc that spans many episodes. It means there's hope. You just give me my peanut butter cups. She then also gets cast in an episode of

Zoe 101, so she's out there killing it. She is about to be a star. Until. Around this time, Tara turns 16. And that is when she meets this guy, Christopher. And she thinks Christopher is fine. Here's the thing about Christopher, though. He's quite literally 10 years older than her. And most importantly, he's gang affiliated. I guess he's a blood or something. But regardless, pretty quickly they start dating. And soon, Tara is spending all her free time with Christopher and his gang-affiliated friends. But when she starts bringing Christopher around her mom, mom takes one look at his gang colors and she's like, absolutely not.

And she tells Tara, Christopher is not allowed in her house. And she and Tara, they start fighting about this all the time. And the mom starts calling the police on the regular, hoping to get Christopher arrested and out of Tara's life for good. But unfortunately, it doesn't work. Because they can't prove he's committed any actual crimes. So there's nothing they can do. And eventually, Tara and Christopher move in together.

And they get their own apartment. Meanwhile, at work, on the set of judging Amy, Tara suddenly isn't taking her job seriously anymore. She keeps showing up to set late or just not showing up at all. So her agency gets worried, and they start babysitting her, Picking her up and dropping her off at set every day to make sure that she shows up on time and finishes shooting the season. But then, one day, Tara shows up to set looking all tired. Like, maybe she's hung over.

And she's got some fresh bruises on her face and a new tattoo on her chest. And clearly, she's been wrapped up with her boyfriend in that gang life. And the director, she sees what's going on and she's like, you know, Tara, we've written more episodes for you. And Tara's just like, I don't want to do them. So the producers are just like, damn, all right. So they write her out of the show, and they kill off her character. And then, after she finishes filming her last bit of judging Amy, bam, suddenly her agency drops her.

So her acting career is ruined. And for some reason, this seems to be a wake-up call for Tara. I guess she really didn't think her acting career would fall apart after she quit a really good gig on an award-winning series. But it did. So Tara thinks long and hard. about it and she decides she's gonna get her life back on track. And she pulls herself together and she starts going to church every Sunday and she goes back to her agent and she explains that,

no, I'm really serious about acting and I'll do better from here on out. And luckily her agency, they agree to take her back. But then, I guess Tara just can't divorce herself from her whack-ass boyfriend and that gang life he's brought her into. Because she goes ahead and she misses an important audition. And that is when her agency is like, okay, we're done with you, and they drop her again. And if that isn't bad enough, it gets worse. Because one evening, she's hanging out with Christopher

and some other turds in his gang, and they're just chilling outside of an apartment complex, doing whatever it is that turds do. And that is when a suspicious car pulls up, and a man gets out, and he's from a rival gang, the Crips. And this guy, he walks up to them and he's got a pew-poo, a semi-automatic pu-poo. And he points it at them and he starts blasting. And suddenly a spray of bullets just rains all over them as the whole crew tries to run away.

And bam, one guy has hit. And then bam, another guy has hit. And then bam, Tara's hit five times. And she falls to the ground. And the gunman, he gets back in the car and they speed away. So then police come and Tara and the two other guys are rushed to the hospital. hospital, and the two guys, they survive. And Christopher, he didn't actually get hit at all. But Tara, unfortunately, she doesn't make it. So then police, they investigate and they do actually

find the shooter. And kapow, they arrest him. Here's his mugshot. And he goes to trial, and he's found guilty, and they sentence him to life in prison. Yeah, that's a sad one. She could have been a star.