Rotten Mango - #335: Starved Teen Forced To Drink Hot Sauce - Killer Threw Up In Court Seeing Victim’s Final Photos

Episode Date: February 12, 2024

The surveillance footage that captured the limp body of a young boy getting dragged into a closet was surprisingly clear. “You’re pathetic, but I already knew that.” The person talking came into view and positioned the boy in front of the camera. His body was completely nude except for a sagging diaper. To be alive - seemed agonizing. The little boy’s breathing sounded like a fish out of water - they bent over and pinched the little boy’s lips together. “See? You don’t need to breathe through your mouth like that - dummy.” Those would be the last words he ever hears. The boy would die in that closet. After enduring endless torture- starvation, ice baths, and being forced to drink hot sauce. But who was behind the camera watching? Full Source Notes: rottenmangopodcast.com To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rambles. Barabin Baraboo. Some houses have a small storage closet underneath the stairs. It's like a little Harry Potter room. It slopes down on one end. You can't properly stand up, especially if you're tall. You could probably just walk in, stake your elbows out, spin around without touching anything. But that's about it.

There's not even enough room to lay down all the way flat on the floor. There's usually no windows, no sunlight, no ventilation. It's a tiny space. I mean, you're lucky if you get a light bulb. And once that door is shut inside that tiny little closet, it starts to feel incredibly claustrophobic. It's stuffy. It's dark. You don't hear anything. July 2022 in a cookie cutter suburban neighborhood in Michigan, where all the houses look exactly the same

and they're just perfectly lined up in rows in one of those perfectly suburban homes underneath the stairs in the small storage closet there's a camera setup in the closet a camera and it's recording the door slams open and an individual is seen walking in and spreading out a blue plastic tarp onto the ground. It's a pretty small space so the tarp can cover pretty much all of the carpeting and then they step out of frame and when they come back into the closet they're dragging something heavy. It's almost like if you were to put a Christmas tree down on the floor and

drag it by the tip, it's clear that they're struggling with whatever it is. They're leaning back, they're grunting. And then slowly, another figure emerges. The individual is dragging a young boy by his arms onto the blue plastic tarp. The young boy looks barely responsive. He's skinny. I mean, skinny to the point that being dragged looks like his arms are about to pop off. He doesn't look like he can even support his own weight. He looks like he's been starved for a very very long time He looks malnourished He's dropped onto the blue tarp right in front of the camera almost as if he's staring into the soul of the camera He's awake

His eyes are open, but it doesn't seem like he's very responsive It doesn't seem like he's registering the full extent of the events. He's awake? His eyes are open, but it doesn't seem like he's very responsive. It doesn't seem like he's registering the full extent of the events. He's not talking, he's just moaning here and there. His bones are protruding out. He's not wearing any pants, just an adult diaper, and his hip bones, his knee joints, they're all so prominent, they're sticking out and they look like they're going to pierce through his skin.

The individual is posing him on the blue tart, positioning him so that the camera can get a better view of him. When they're satisfied with the frame, they stand up and they just watch him, laying there, helpless, weak, moaning for help. You're pathetic. But I already knew that. You know you owe me the biggest apology in the world? The young boy is seen on

camera taking short shallow breaths through his mouth kind of like a fish out of water struggling to breathe. The individual leans down with a dirty scowl on their face and they grab the little boy's lips and pinch them shut. They watch excitedly as he struggles to breathe and his chest starts moving up and down slowly almost to the point where it's, and his chest starts moving up and down slowly, almost to the point where it's unclear if his chest is even moving anymore. His body seems to relax, and they say,

"'See, you didn't need to breathe through your mouth like that. "'Dummy.'" They get up, slam the door shut, leaving the boy in the diaper in the small closet underneath the stairs. Even if he was able to get up and try to run out of there, there are alarms on this door. There's motion sensors right outside.

There's cameras all throughout this house, even in the restroom that he's barely allowed to use unless it's to be tortured. There was no way out. He was being held captive and he would die in that closet that night. 15 year old Timothy would be held captive, tortured with hot sauce,

ice baths, and forced starvation for a year. But why? And who is on the other end watching him through the cameras? We would like to thank today's sponsors who have made it possible for Rotten Mango to support World Central Kitchen, a non-profit organization that is first to the front lines. They provide fresh meals to survivors of disasters and humanitarian crises. They have served a total of more than 350 million meals around the world. This episode's partnerships have also made it possible

to support Rotten Mango's growing team of dedicated researchers and translators. And we would also like to thank our listeners for your continued support as we work on our mission to be worthy advocates of these causes. As always, full show notes are available at rottenmangopodcast.com and just a few quick disclaimers. This case deals heavily with food restriction,

abuse against the most vulnerable age group, and it briefly touches on essay. If that is something that you feel is way too heavy for you today, please go take care of yourself, take a bath, I can see you in the next one. This case was incredibly trial heavy as well, mainly because the types of answers the prosecutors were getting by those that were testifying. I mean, it is absolutely unhinged. So we poured through all the trial

videos that we could find and it was hours upon hours of information. Some statements, responses, and questions have been shortened for length and condensed for clarity. We do not have access to any private or withheld information, so the full statements in its entirety are easily accessible to anyone online if you wish to watch those. So with that being said, let's get into it. Shonda was called to testify in court. She sat there nervous, emotional, her hands are in her lap. Are you nervous?

Yes, sir. Is this stressful? Yes, sir. Is this stressful? Yes, sir. Very stressful. She was here to talk about her son who had just been sadistically murdered. They placed three photographs onto the witness stand, photos of her son shortly after he died,

and Shana immediately throws her hand to cover her mouth. She gags. She hunches over to the side and starts throwing up Her 20 year old son Paul has been arrested and her 15 year old son Timothy has been murdered The pictures Shonda were shown of her own son were so horrific that the judge made sure that they did not get out to the public He has banned them from being released. Timothy was dead at 15 years old, weighing just 69 pounds. He had been starved to death. How long do you think that you can sit still

without moving at all? How long do you think you can sit still without moving at all with your hands in the air, your arms suspended above your head? Like 10 minutes. I don't even think I could last, I think 10 minutes is very ambitious. Yeah.

Maybe a minute. Timothy was standing there, sweating. His arms are in pain and he was told that he needs to stand his legs shoulder length apart, his back straight with his arms held above his head for as long as he can manage. He's losing strength. I mean, the circulation's getting bad.

He feels like his arms are about to fall off, but he cannot put them down. He knows that he cannot because at his wrist and around his waist, there are devices attached to him. These devices are motion sensors. If he were to move even a centimeter, even an inch, these motion sensors would go off. They would start reading these high-pitched alarms

directly into his ears, but that's not even the worst part. The worst part is, if he moves and these alarms go off, he's gonna get tortured. He knows this, so all day he has to stand for as long as he can with his arms above his head, all these cramps. He's sweating in pain, he's sweating in fear, and it's psychological torture. So all day he has to stand for as long as he can with his arms above his head, all these cramps. He's sweating in pain, he's sweating in fear, and it's psychological torture. He's just staring at the wall. He doesn't know how long he has to do this,

but he knows that he can't outsmart this little sick game, because there's no way that you can do this forever. At some point, you're gonna move. At some point, something's gonna itch so much that you have to put your arm down. At some point, your legs are gonna give out. He played this game a lot, to the point where he actually did outsmart the game once. He realized that the motion sensors were not that sensitive.

If he moved ever so slowly, like one millimeter at a time, just tiny incremental movements to the point where he could slowly put his arms down, the motion sensors would not go off. But that doesn't mean that he doesn't get punished. Because there were cameras everywhere. There were cameras in every single corner of Timothy's life. Any place that he had access to in this building, there were cameras set up. The tiny little storage closet underneath the stairs that he slept in, every time the door would open,

there'd be a zzzz, the camera would move and it would track him. The camera would track his movements. There was a camera placed directly outside that storage room door. Just in case he left the room, there would be motion sensors and cameras going off, alerting the people watching him.

There were cameras in the living area directly outside of the little closet in the stairs. There were cameras on the stairs to lead to the outside, to the real world. There were cameras everywhere and all of them were actively watching Timothy. There was no escape. And every day, everything in Timothy's life was controlled.

I mean, every single little thing. He was not allowed to leave the house. He was not allowed to go to school. He was not allowed to socialize. He was not allowed to live a normal human being life. All of his bathroom breaks were timed 60 seconds for urine, 120 seconds for anything more. It got to the point where Timothy, whether it was from the abuse or the torture, he became incontinent. He was unable to hold his urine anymore.

He was forced to wear adult diapers, and those were not frequently changed. He would be yelled at and tortured if he soiled himself. And even Timothy's food and eating schedule and water, they were timed and controlled. Well, it wasn't timed. He never knew when he was going to get his next sip of water. He only had a few sips a day. He never knew when his next piece of stale bread was coming, but it was all controlled. He didn't have a single choice in his life. And when he wasn't being punished or tortured, he would be shoved into that tiny little room under the stairs

with no light, and he would be forced to get on his knees, sit facing the webcam, pointed at his blue tarp on the ground, which is his bed, and he would be trapped there for hours. He was not allowed to lay down, he was not allowed to sit down, stand up, stretch. He would just be on his knees, staring at the camera. Like kneeling on the ground? Kneeling. No books, no mattress, nothing.

Just him and that little webcam. He would be kept in there until he would be used for torture. The door would slam open. He would be dragged out. Everything in his life was monitored. Even in that room, the webcam was pointed directly at him and he knew that he was being watched. He was forced to sit on his knees.

Even though no one was there with him, He was terrified to even rest a little bit or lean up against the wall. He wasn't allowed to itch his nose, rest his arms when they started getting numb. He had to remain in that stress pose for the entirety of the day. Otherwise the torture would begin. Even Timothy's sleep schedules were monitored, so if he was seen dozing off on the webcam, he would be punished. Timothy was heading into sleep deprivation territory. And there were a few times that Timothy would break these rules. One time he was so hungry, he snuck upstairs as quietly as possible. He opened up the fridge and saw a pound of raw hamburger patties sitting on the shelf and he was starving. He grabbed the package, ripped off the

plastic and started shoving fistfuls into his mouth. He had to hurry so that he wouldn't get caught. I mean he would get caught but he had to hurry so that he could keep eating a little bit more. You say it was raw meat? Raw meat. Another time it was raw bacon, uncooked bacon from the fridge. And the most recent time was he found his way into the freezer and ate an entire bag of frozen chicken nuggets, still frozen straight out of the freezer.

That's how hungry he was. Another time Timothy was caught trying to sneak a bite of a stale burger bun and he was forced to throw it up because that wasn't for him. How dare he eat something that wasn't for him? This is Timothy's life. And anytime Timothy would be caught breaking these rules,

he would be dragged into the bathroom. And the bathroom was like the worst part of his life. Timothy would be forced into an ice cold bath. That's not even an exaggeration. There would be ice thrown into the bath. There was an ice maker in this house, specifically for the purpose of filling Timothy's bathwater with. The shower curtain was taken off so Timothy could be watched and on the bathroom counter,

laid out like a surgeon's little instrument tray, were a bag of black zip ties, a motion sensor camera, a piece of stale white bread, and a jar of hot sauce. Elijah's extreme regret of hot sauce. Elijah's extreme regret hot sauce. Elijah's extreme regret is the name of the hot sauce. Yes. Now there is a ranking for heat. It's called the Scoville scale. A bell pepper from the supermarket is zero Scoville heat units. I mean it's almost slightly sweet when they're in season but it's still a pepper technically. A jalapeno pepper that's maybe at most around 8,000 Scoville units, and from there, different peppers

have different ranges of heat. So the higher you go up on the Scoville scale, the more that you're gonna feel it in your temples, the more that you're gonna feel it in your throat, your stomach. But two of the hottest peppers in the world are the Trinidad Scorpion and the Carolina Reaper pepper, and both of them are at about 2 million Scoville units.

Jalapeno pepper? 8,000. The police issued pepper sprays they actually started at around 2 million units. So imagine just like spraying pepper spray into your throat. It's not going to be a pleasant time. I mean to consume that level of heat. Elijah's extreme regret hot sauce could be considered very high on the Scoville scale. On the side of the bottle it reads, packs the fire of the two hottest peppers in the world. Trinidad's scorpion and the Carolina Reaper pepper. Your tongue

will burn from the sting of the scorpion. Your eyes will tear up as sweat pours off your head. Your throat feels the burn of the Carolina Reaper going down. The pain becomes unbearable. You feel like you just ate a burning hot coal. That's when you realize extreme regret. It is made, like I said, with the two hottest peppers in the world. This hot sauce is a combination of both of those. The RM team and I actually ordered a bottle of it from Amazon just to understand the case better and I mean we had a tiny tiny dollop of it.

It was enough for us to start sweating. It was not a pleasant experience. I would say that we collectively had was not a pleasant experience. I would say that we collectively had less than a teaspoon together. We were really safe about it too. We made sure that we already had food in our stomachs. But for Timothy, he would eat it on an empty stomach and he would eat a lot of it. Globs of Elijah's Extreme Regret Hot Sauce were poured onto three pieces of bread, coating the bread, soaking each of the slices. You know, when you make French toast, you grab the piece of toast and you just

submerge it in that eggy mixture. Yeah. That's what this bread looks like, but with hot sauce. And they were shoved into Timothy's face. Eat it. That's all you're getting. Hurry. Gotta be quick. Mom's coming home.

The police were finishing up the very first interrogation of 20-year-old Paul, who is being accused of abusing his 15-year-old little brother, Timothy Ferguson. Paul is sitting there with his feet up on the chair, his knees are pulled into his chest, and interestingly he looks very skinny as well, which he claimed was due to his overactive metabolism. Tell us about your home life. The investigator, they want to get to know Paul, understand him and maybe the way that he thinks about things and the way that he does stuff. Tell us about your home life. Paul hadn't always lived with his mom Shanda. I mean Shanda, in fact, he hadn't talked to his mom Shanda for years before moving on

with her. Shanda and Paul's biological dad, Eric, they had gotten a divorce. Paul and Timothy, the brothers, they stayed with their dad, Eric, along with two of their other siblings. But in 2020, Paul moved all the way from Oklahoma to Michigan to move in with his mom. In 2021, Timothy would move from Oklahoma to Michigan

to live with his mom. So at this point, at his mom's house, there were five of them. We had mom, Shanda, her new husband, Adam, their new half-brother, G, who's seven years old, and Paul and Timothy. So the authorities ask, what was life like in Oklahoma before moving to Michigan to be with your mom?

Hectic. They were living with their stepmom's nieces, so there were eight people living in a four bedroom house. Paul had to share a bedroom with Timothy at his dad's house. So they're pretty close. You know, these are not brothers that didn't grow up around each other.

Paul stated that their biological dad, Eric, was evil. He said, my father spanked me with a belt so hard in Oklahoma that my butt was bruised. He said his dad would have them do wall sits where they would have to lean their back up against the wall, squat down like there's some sort of chair. And it sounds somewhat doable, but it burns like hell, okay? Paul said that his dad had him doing that

while holding two cans of chicken noodle soup. I could hardly go to school the next few days because I had to walk and my limbs were so stiff. Allegedly, Eric, the dad had convinced all of the kids that Shanda, their mom, left because she didn't love them. And so when Paul finally moves back in with her mom in 2020, he's 18 years old, he asks his mom is that the truth and she said, absolutely not. He said, my mom loved every single one of us, but my dad's control-ish, freaky nature

was just, he didn't want her to have any contact with the kids and screwing up all of his control. Paul further r rented to the investigator about his father, about the fact that when Paul turned 18, his dad started demanding he go find two jobs and give up 50% of the paycheck to him so that he could pay for rent and food. He wanted Paul to be fully independent and if he didn't, he would get kicked out. So that's what ended up happening. Paul was kicked out at 18, he had nowhere to go, he called his mom Shanda, who he hadn't talked to in years. He thought that she hated him, and that's why she left. She took him in with open arms. And Paul loves his mom now. He loves living with her.

He's got his own room. He's got a part-time job as a dishwasher at Applebee's, and he doesn't have to give up 50% of his paycheck like his dad made him do. Paul continues, the thing is that my mother can't even face my father right now. She doesn't want to call him because the one thing that she and I both know is that he's gonna hurl every ounce of blame that he can at her. She's nothing like him, that much I know. She never does anything to be harsh. It's interesting because Paul lived in Shanda's house with his full brother, 15 year old Timothy, and 7 year old half brother, G. And he treated them so differently. Paul would force Timothy to open his mouth and he would yank his head back and just pour giant clumps of ghost pepper hot sauce straight down his throat when his mom was at work.

Or he would force him to submerge his entire body into an ice bath for an alarming amount of time. But he told investigators that baby G, the seven year old, is, and I quote, a miracle child. He's a blessing to this world. Paul went in depth about how much he liked being at his mom's house over his dad's. Why? I had problems with emotional release in Oklahoma.

I was so terrified of my father that I didn't ever want to release any of those negative emotions I ever had around him. But here, I can release my anger, and I do it in the right ways. Tell me about the hot sauce, Paul. I know it was used as both punishment and it was put on the bread.

Yeah, but the thing is, it still hardly did anything for my brother. There'd be times it would do something for me, because I would accidentally rub my eyes after I put it on the bread and it was just It was out Wait, he said that That's ouch. Yes, and that did nothing to the brother. No Wow, is that really the only thing that he had to eat these days or would he get other things to eat? From the bread and the rice other than that,

not that I know of. So for how long do you think that he just ate rice, bread, and hot sauce? Maybe four weeks? A month? Did you see a decline during those four weeks, losing even more weight, or being less responsive? Like what changed when you moved on to just feeding him hot sauce and bread? Um, I think it was that there would be times that it would take him a moment to respond. At first I thought it was him acting, but then I was getting concerned. I think a week or so, maybe his responses were delayed. So it seems like Paul can move to Michigan, release his anger, and Timothy was clearly being punished.

But why? Like what could a 15 year old possibly be punished for? During the interrogation, Paul stated that he had to share a room with Timothy when he lived at their dad's house and he absolutely hated it. He stated that Timothy hated getting up to use the restroom at night so he would just wake up, walk from the bed, a few steps to the left,

open up the closet door and pee into the closet. Sometimes he would walk to the dresser, open up a drawer and pee into the closet. Sometimes he would walk to the dresser, open up a drawer and pee into the drawer. Sometimes he wouldn't even get up from the bed and he would just urinate in the bed in his pants. He was what Paul called a problem child. If you asked Paul, he would state that Timothy was a problem starter.

He could never sit still. He would take apart anything that he got his hands on. His desk's at school, he would disassemble them. He got his school issued Chromebook and he took it apart. Paul would likely say that he destroyed things. I mean, Timothy would be very reactive to loud noises in a way that I guess if you're ignorant and unsympathetic could be perceived

as being overly dramatic, but Paul found it very frustrating that Timothy didn't think or behave just like him. For example, Timothy was in the bath one time at his dad's house. He fell, hit his chin on the edge of the bathtub. Timothy didn't say anything to anybody. After his bath, he just walked into his brother's room and there was blood everywhere inside of his mouth. He had completely bitten through his tongue. He did not show any signs of pain.

He didn't even think to bring it up to anybody. Why? You know, why can't you just say something? Why can't you just sit still? Why do you have to pull the outlet covers off, screw with the light fixtures, rip off the paint from the walls, pull the studs out of the wall? Why do you have to do any of that? Sometimes Timothy would take apart batteries, AA batteries, which is very dangerous, by the way. If any sort of moisture or oxygen gets into a lithium ion battery, it can cause a heat reaction that could start an explosion. It's pretty bad.

Paul likely processed this all as Timothy is a problem child that needs to be punished. He needs to learn that's not acceptable. But if you asked a teacher at Timothy's school or his doctor, they would likely tell you that Timothy was diagnosed with ADHD, bipolar disorder, autism, and a sensory processing disorder. He was on various medications to try and help him navigate life a bit easier, and there

were additional things that Timothy and his parents could or should have focused on to pay extra attention to, but otherwise, Timothy was a quote, precious little guy, according to his teachers. The school counselor stated Timothy was sweet, caring, cooperative, and hungry. At school, teachers stated Timothy had a tendency to eat whatever he could get his hands on. He always seemed really hungry, even in elementary school, to the point where teachers were worried about Timothy. They would stuff his backpack with food every single Friday because they were concerned that he wasn't gonna have enough food at home on the weekends.

They called CPS to investigate Timothy's dad multiple times, but it didn't appear as if anything really came out of it. But it wasn't just a food problem. Teachers stated Timothy always came to school smelling very, very bad. They said, I was really worried for him. He would come to school smelling like he was without a home. His clothes were multiple sizes too big for him.

And when everybody was already past the potty training phase, like way past it, cause you're talking about like fifth grade, Timothy would have accidents in class. But other than that, teachers stated Timothy was a lovable little boy with this beautiful smile. They said that he constantly joked around in class.

He ate lunch with the other kids. He had friends. But it seemed like nobody loved him. It's weird, okay? So it's not that he came to school and was like, nobody loves me, but his teachers, they noticed things. They said he had this insane people pleaser mindset.

It seemed like he was starved for attention. Like he would literally do anything for the teachers to just say, good job, to compliment him just once or even show him like the smallest ounce of approval. He seemed to live for that. And elementary school teachers, they typically take that as an indication that these kids are not getting that love, attention, and security at home. And there was a rumor at the school. This is purely a rumor as of right now, but there was a rumor at the school of sexual misconduct by Paul towards his little brother, Timothy.

Wait, this is surfacing. This is in the school? Yeah. By May of 2021, Eric, Timothy's biological father, decided that he was done. He couldn't quote handle Timothy anymore. So he called up his ex-wife Shonda and allegedly stated, listen, these are the two options. He either goes into foster care or he goes with you. And just like that, Timothy was dropped off with a clear Ziploc bag of medications like filled, a gallon sized Ziploc filled with different medication bottles at Shonda's front door and he would be reunited with his older brother, Paul. It's stated that Timothy arrived at his mom's house, quote, a little chubby.

And just 13 months later, July, 2022, a 911 call would be placed. Shonda Van Der Arc was panicked. I mean, truly panicked. Hello, I woke up to go to work and yeah, my son's not breathing. I went to go check up on him before and he's 15. He's been on a hunger strike. He's really thin. He hasn't been eating lately.

I woke up this morning and he's not breathing. There's brown stuff coming out of his mouth. It's, it's brown and it's gurgling out. Paul is heard in the back saying it smells bad. During the call, Shonda is heard doing what sounds like chest compressions. One, two, three, four, 13, 22, 26, all the way up to 40. Law enforcement, they rush over to the house. I mean, it's this plain little suburban house at the end of the cul-de-sac.

And a 43-year-old mom, Shonda is in yoga pants, athleisure attire, one of those thick headbands to keep your hair out of your face when you're working out. And she's at the front door, panicked. She's putting her head in her hands, wiping her tears from her cheeks every few seconds, fidgeting with her phone, she can't sit still

for even a moment, but it's understandable. Her son had just been declared dead. Shonda explains to the police that she woke up to get ready for work and found her 15 year old son, Timothy, unresponsive. Her other two sons, Paul and G, were home, and she was freaking out. She knew that Timothy had been on some sort of hunger strike

recently, but she always assumed, you know, he's a teenager, he's being stubborn. And her husband, Adam, Timothy's stepdad, recently had a stroke. He's still alive, but he had to leave. He had to move in with his parents and all of Adam's financial and physical help was gone. So she'd been working nonstop.

She hadn't been as focused on the kids as she probably should have been, but she was trying to put food on the table. I mean, she was a wreck. She told officers that she stupidly didn't think that a hunger strike was this bad. You know, it's a teenager, they're being stubborn. She realized last night because his face looks so thin,

and she said, how could I have missed that? He was wearing a hoodie for crying out loud. I just didn't, his face didn't look like that. What the heck? He was always wearing baggy clothes and Shanda thought that all teenagers were just into baggy clothes right now. She told officers, that's why I asked him to eat last night

because his face started looking a little thin and I'm like, okay, enough. And I asked him to show me and he wouldn't show me like his, you know, and I'm like, hold up your shirt and he wouldn't hold up his shirt. He wouldn't do anything. Oh my God, I feel like such a failure. There's food in the house.

Oh my God, no, I should have made a meet. I should have made a meet. I should have done something. Can they really hide that from me like that? This is all happening at the scene? Yes, they're waiting for the medical examiner to arrive and they've secured the scene, but Timothy is beyond being helped by

paramedics. He's dead. She's outside at the front door with a police officer and she's having a full-on breakdown. He's really skinny and I didn't notice until this morning because he wouldn't like I asked him if he was okay and he wouldn't answer me. He had fallen out of bed. You said he fell out of his loft bed so like think of a higher bunk bed at 5.30? Yeah, are you sure it wasn't earlier? I mean, it's possible. I thought it was 5.30, but I wasn't super awake.

I heard a thunk, I came down, and he's kind of laying on the side, on the floor, kind of like, I was like, what the heck, I reached out and oh my God, I'm so sorry. That's all right. Oh my God, oh my God, I reached out and he pulled himself up and I asked him if he's okay and I asked if he hit his head. He said no, and I think I hit my knees on my chest. That's what right. Oh my god, oh my god. I reached out and he pulled himself up and I asked him if he's okay and I asked if he hit his head.

He said, no, and I think I hit my knees on my chest. That's what he said. I mean, obviously he couldn't tell me how he fell. Oh my god, what do I do? Oh my god, he said it was okay. Shonda stated that she went back upstairs to get ready for work after she found her son fallen out of the bed.

He said, it's fine, mom, I'm fine. So she goes back up and before she leaves her work, she goes to check upon him again and he's not breathing. The officer tries to calm her down. Best thing to do right now is to surround yourself with family. We're going to get victim services down here to help you through this grieving process, ma'am. Please, because I don't, he's really good at hiding stuff. That's part of the reason that his dad couldn't handle him because he was lying about stuff. But his dad texted me last May and said, I can't handle him anymore. I have to send him to live with you.

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contact Connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to any operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Shonda said that she had been horrified when she saw Timothy get out of that car that day with just a giant gallon sized ziplock bag of medications. Timothy was a zombie when he came to live with her 13 months ago. A zombie. Timothy asked her if he could stop taking the meds and she safely got him off.

And she felt frustrated that Timothy's dad, her ex-husband, put him on all these medications just so he could be less present in the kid's life. His parenting style was Medicaid, so I don't have to deal with it. But this was gonna be a new chapter. Things were gonna get better. But now he's dead. Why was that? Why did your ex has been not want to care for Timothy anymore? He was lying to him destroying things. Is he hard to deal with? I don't think so, but I'm stricter than his dad. So I don't know if that, I mean,

the lying has been a problem, but nothing major, nothing crazy, he's tripped down the stairs a couple of times, just half the flight, and then later he came back and admitted that he did it intentionally. But I've asked him like, are you trying to hurt yourself? He's like, no, I just wanted to see what would happen. That's the way a lot of times,

he just wants to see what would happen if he does stuff, and oh my gosh. She told officers that last night she tried to get Timothy to eat but he didn't want anything but buttered toast. So he had a few bites and then he went to bed. But it's interesting. The officers on the scene immediately noticed a few things that just weren't adding up. The first was Shonda's voice.

It was weird. The officers noticed that when Shonda is answering questions, she had a stern voice, almost like a teacher giving out instructions. But the second that she's done responding, she starts making wailing noises. For example, they would ask her if anybody else is in the house and she tells them that her two sons are in there and she has to clarify which one of her sons is asleep. Her seven-year-old is asleep, her 20-year-old is awake, and she says, no, the 20-year-old's awake.

And then she immediately starts wailing without skipping a beat. So it's like, no, the 20-year-old's awake. Oh my God! Or sometimes she would have her face in her hands or her palms pressed into her face, and her body looked like she was trembling, crying, sobbing, but her voice would be really clear and not shaky at all.

Aside from her voice, Shanda would keep switching topics. She'd be talking about where she works and then suddenly she would cry. She would cry out, I love my child, but yeah, oh my God, why did this happen? Which officers felt was maybe a bit understandable since she was in a state of shock, but it was just weird. Sometimes Shanda would kind of answer the question in a strange of shock, but it was just weird. Sometimes Shanda

would kind of answer the question in a strange manner, so one officer asked her where Timothy sleeps and she stated in the loft bed, you see the pillow in the blanket and stuff? Or she'd be crying because you know she just found out that her child is dead, but when another officer enters the house she apologizes to him. I'm sorry it's a little cluttered down there, but I'm sure y'all have seen a lot worse. It just all felt peculiar. Another really curious thing that they noticed was, while they were waiting for the medical examiner

to show up, they all went upstairs. So now upstairs there's two police officers, Shanda and Paul, the 20 year old son in the living room. Shanda walks up to Paul and says, I knew I should have made a meet, but did you notice he was covering up with big clothing? Before her son Paul can respond, she says, you didn't notice, never mind. I love you, dear, but you never notice. Shanda is then pulled aside by one officer, and the other officer turns to Paul and asks him, did you know that your brother was on a hunger strike? Shanda stops mid

conversation with that other officer, walks over a few steps looks at Paul Did I tell you or not? I don't I don't know if I did or not Paul says quietly. I don't think that you did The police state because he's all skin and bone and Shanda says I know how did he well? He Paul doesn't communicate with Timothy much hardly at. Like they say hi, but they don't... Yeah. It was just odd. The whole family dynamic in that house, it was weird. So you think, like, at that time, the police already picking up this is very, very bad?

Very strange. Very weird. But what the police were really concerned about was when medics arrived and told them, none of this is making any sense Timothy was so malnourished that he was at the zero percentile of his age's weight He had bones protruding from his skin the medics doubted that he could even walk well or support his own weight There were bruises and sores all over his body and he was freezing freezing cold to the touch His skin was almost translucent in color. It seemed like his body was in a state of hypothermia when he died.

In July, in Michigan, where temperatures are almost in the 80s, and his body is completely stiff, which meant his body had entered into rigor mortis, which usually starts at around like the two hour mark after death. Shonda's timeline, it just didn't make the most sense. And the only one who had the knowledge to know that Shonda's version of events had a giant plot hole was Paul. Because there's no way Timothy fell off his loft bed and died that morning,

because by that point, he had been trapped and held captive in the tiny little closet underneath the stairs. There was an 18 minute gap from when Shonda found Timothy dead to when she called 911. And the prosecutors, they wanted to know why. So Shonda takes the stand and they wanna know a lot of things about Shonda, to be honest, like why she lied about feeding Timothy

toast the night before his death when the autopsy showed that she did not feed him butter toast the night before his death when the autopsy showed that she did not feed him butter toast the night before his death. I mean, it's such an odd thing to lie about. They asked, you told the detective that you realized how skinny Timothy was the night before and you threatened to take him to the ER

if he did not eat this piece of toast. That's not true, is it? No, sir, I have no idea why I said that. I was traumatized. Why didn't you tell the police immediately what was going on? I was so freaked out, I was, I'm sorry, I don't remember what my line of thinking was at the time. I wish I had an answer for you, but I don't.

I was exhausted. The night before he passed, I had less than an hour of sleep and I was frightened. I had just lost my son. I have no idea why we waited like that. I don't know, I can't imagine waiting, but apparently it happened. I don't know. Do you remember imagine waiting, but apparently it happened. I don't know.

Do you remember Paul asking if you guys should call 911? I remember performing CPR and he did help me out a little bit when I got tired and took over a little bit. But I mean, I can't imagine ever saying no to that. I don't remember him asking because I was the one that called. And that's okay if Shanda doesn't remember. It's okay because we know exactly what happened before she called 911 in those 18 minutes because the cameras that were set up to watch Timothy were also watching Shanda. So let's play the clip then to refresh Shanda's memory. We only have audio but it is clear that this is the moment Shonda finds Timothy

unresponsive. Timothy was not in the loft bed like she lied about. He was in the tiny closet underneath the stairs where he had been forced to live for the past few months. Shonda calls Paul for help. Which side note, the audio is not very panicked, nor is it fast paced, nor is it really clear. It's um, I would say it's not chill, but it's surprisingly calm for how high stakes the situation is. Shonda has heard calling Timothy pet names. Baby doll, come on, come on, Paul, come here. What's wrong? I don't feel him breathing or anything. Go get a towel real quick. Oh my God, this can't be happening. Come on, Timmy. He's dead. Timothy. Sorry, you got to move. Timothy. No, no, no, this can't be happening.

Is he okay? Don't do anything, Paul. He's resisting. Is he okay? What is he resisting? Everything's stiff. He's dang it, he's cold, mom. Paul starts administering CPR, but he states brown smelly liquid bile is coming out of Timothy's mouth.

It sounds like Paul at one point wants to use something to either clean up the bile or get what's in Timothy's mouth out, but Shonda tells him not to because it's hers. mouth. It sounds like Paul at one point wants to use something to either clean up the bile or get what's in Timothy's mouth out, but Shonda tells him not to because it's hers. What's hers? We don't know. We don't have the video. We just have the audio, but it sounds like she's saying, Oh no, that's fine. Don't use that. Oh, the towel. Oh, the whatever rag or whatever. Whether it's a shirt towel. But that's crazy. It sounds like Paul also does not want to continue administering CPR,

but Shonda has just heard saying, I don't understand. Paul responds, me either, should we call an ambulance? No, not yet. Come on, Timothy, come on, buddy. Gosh, this is horrible. Come on, sweetie, come on, buddy. You have your belt? Put it on him.

I just want to make it look like he was in that loft bed. I have to lie about that. Yeah, you have to tell them that he was on a hunger strike, that he wasn't eating. At one point in the clip, Shonda states that because Timothy's eyes are not shut, that means he's not dead. The judge had access to the footage and he side eyes Shonda multiple times while he's watching it because it is so interesting. We hear about moms that will lift up 6,000 pound cars to save their child, but according to the audio clip, Shonda won't even perform CPR on Timothy, her son herself,

but that is not even the most damning piece of evidence that was found in that house. A micro SD card was inside of a camera that was placed inside the small storage room underneath the stairs. There was video footage of the night that Timothy passed. No way. It is too much for even the jury to see so an officer who was tasked with watching the video then came to court to tell the jury what he saw. It was from the night of Timothy's death where Timothy was dragged into the small room with the blue tarp. The person dragging him by his frail arms was his own mom, Shonda. Her last words to him, other than, you're pathetic, but I already

knew that, you owe me the biggest apology in the world, was, see, you didn't need to breathe through your mouth like that, dummy. Shonda was a defendant in a murder trial in the very courthouse that she worked in. Shonda was a count clerk at the courthouse. So these are her co-workers? Yes. That's crazy. Yeah. In a way, it was easier for investigators since they could just ask around to see what Shonda's colleagues thought about her. How is she? She was, she had a service dog that she would bring to work.

Apparently she had low blood sugar. The service dog could smell her blood sugar level when it's dropping and warn her so that she could drink some juice. And that dog would come to the courthouse every day while she's working. The dog was fine, but the coworker said about Shonda. Shonda was never professional at work.

She was always on her phone or her laptop or iPad, and it seemed like she's checking out cameras in her house. I mean, the whole thing was odd. One coworker stated that the cameras had the ability to talk through it, like a ring camera. So she would click a button and start screaming into her iPad in the middle of the day. I mean, she was never without that iPad at work.

Like they heard her screaming things like, no, you can't have more food. You already have what's provided to you. No, you can't leave your room. At certain times- This is crazy. This is happening. In the courthouse, yeah, in the courthouse, technically, yeah.

Nobody had questions. Nobody's like, that's weird. They thought it was weird. Maybe she's so blatant and people was like. Yeah, there's no way that she's abusing them. Maybe this is just a way to keep an eye. Maybe you could call her a micromanaging parent. At certain times it sounded like she was talking to a dog

more than a literal human being. The coworker also stated that Shonda referred to her kids, Paul as the 20 year old, Timothy as either the middle child or the problem child. The only child that she ever referred to by name was her seven year old son that whose name we're not gonna say. I also think that a big part of the reason that people did not suspect anything from Shonda was and a big part of the intrigue for this case is that Shonda is intelligent by all means. I mean she's

graduated top of her law class, she passed the bar exam. Everyone from her class remembers her being highly intelligent, but also being a giant bully. They said she was mean. I mean, an interesting thing to note. The bar exam has a section that tests your problem solving and common sensibilities. So she's not only book smart because Shonda only missed one point on that portion of the exam. So she's not just book smart, she obviously has strong problem solving, logical capabilities. So people just assumed maybe she's just extra strict on her kids. It's said that Shonda's upbringing was incredibly rough. Her parents got divorced when she was really young and for a while Shonda and her sister Paige were sent to live in foster care for two years.

They were allegedly physically abused in foster care. Now this is kind of feeling like deja vu, but they were starved given only small bites of bread and sips of water or milk, forced to take ice baths and beaten with ping pong paddles. Eventually Shonda's mom would get remarried and Shonda went to go live back with her and her new stepdad. Her sister Paige called her a self-entitled, controlling, possibly a sociopath. When their mom died, Paige said that Shonda started having sex with her stepdad. She was a teenager, so obviously we blame the stepdad, but still, there was a lot going on because when Paige gets pregnant Shonda is so jealous that Paige got pregnant first that Paige got pregnant at a wedlock She's very upset about that that she punched Paige in the stomach causing Paige to miscarry

Your sister and this type of assault is at the point that Shonda was arrested They hadn't talked in decades. It seemed like Shonda was upset that Paige got pregnant before her and believed that she would be a better mom than Paige would ever be, which is wild. And to nobody's surprise, Shonda was not a great mom. Her track record is beyond alarming. The kids remembered growing up that Shonda would just plop down on the couch and write quote, sex books.

And one of Eric's kids, so this is her ex-husband's kid from a previous relationship. One of Eric's kids said that when she was young, Shonda gave her a book about how much Shonda liked being spanked as a kid. There's a police report filed on this, so I'm assuming it was not like a welcome authoritarian punishment, but more sexual in nature. There was another time

that Shonda allegedly showed the children explicit videos. CPS eventually got involved, Shonda less custody of all of her kids, she'd be forced to move out of the house. She was so upset about this. She went up to her husband, Eric, and asked him, can you reverse your vasectomy so that we can have another child? He rejected it and she was not happy about it. Side note, her new husband, Adam, who divorced her once Timothy died, he said, you know, Shonda and the kids did have a little bit of a weird relationship sometimes, especially when the boys were younger. She would have them sit on her lap when they were preteens and she would hug them for very long amounts of time.

I mean, she's just hugging them, but it was for so long that Adam would start to feel, I don't know, a little uncomfortable. I'm not sure what that means, but Shonda did have a very strange relationship with Paul. Some would liken it to that of a manipulator and her little punisher. Whatever she told him to do, he would do it.

Whether he wanted to do it or he felt forced to do it, that's up for debate. And there are very, very few methods of torture that don't leave physical scars. Two of the most popular methods include waterboarding and sleep deprivation. Waterboarding sounds like the more intense of the two, where you're tied up to a board, your hands, your legs, they're tied up so you can't move.

You're on a board and that board shifts downward on one side like a seesaw. So now you're laying on your back with your feet pointed upwards towards the sky and your head is lowered. A rag is placed over your head to cover your nose and your mouth, and then water is repeatedly poured onto the towel. The result is, to put it simply, you feel like you're drowning, because you are. You are drowning, but so slowly and so painfully that you don't actually die. Or at least they make sure that you don't die.

It's stated that when the water is pouring down on you, your instinct is to hold your breath in. That's what you think is going to happen, right? You're like, okay, once they pour the water, I'm just not going to breathe. But your brain instinctively makes you breathe in and it feels like the water is poison and it's stinging the entire inside of your skull. Your brain is on fire. Just to give you an idea of how bad it is, the Pentagon banned the military from using

waterboarding and training to train you to resist interrogation of captured. And it was stated by a military official, waterboarding teaches failure in the military. No one succeeds. They can't teach a strategy like that. Literally, it's absolutely so painful. But some people who had the unfortunate luck or experience of experiencing both waterboarding and sleep deprivation, they said sleep deprivation is worse.

They said it's so much worse than that. And Shonda felt like she was being tortured. She had chronic insomnia and her kids are constantly keeping her up at night. Shonda had placed a camera inside of Timothy's tiny little closet of her room, and if the camera detected any motion, it would notify her phone. Like a notification would pop up, motion detected. And Shonda had a really hard time going back to sleep

once she woke up and she refused to silence her phone at night. She told Timothy, if you move at all, at any point in the night, the ringer will go off on my phone and I'm not going to be able to go back to sleep. And so you're going to be punished for it because you're keeping me up all night. If Timothy woke Shonda up, Shonda would not let him sleep for the next two to possibly three nights. She would force her other son, 20 year old Paul,

to torture Timothy to the point that he could not fall asleep. If she felt an ounce of pain or discomfort, she wanted Timothy to feel like 20 times harder. Shonda texted Paul. He's moved around, so he has the cuffs in the front of him instead of behind him. I put the cuffs back behind him. I'll have to deal with less than two hours of sleep today, but I'm not letting him get away with this. The next 48 hours, Shonda would watch the cameras, and if she saw Timothy blink for even a moment too long, she would text Paul, he's sleeping, go wake him up,

go dump cold water on him. She would watch these cameras at work. Shonda lost a ton of sleep at night, making sure Timothy didn't go to sleep that night. To her, that's the price she has to pay to make sure Timothy gets his punishment. At work, Shonda would obsess over the cameras. Before work, she would tell Timothy he has to stand in the stress post on his knees with his arms up behind his head. If he's so much as moves, it's over for him.

Then at work, she would text. If he behaves, I will let him lay down for a couple of hours today. But if he doesn't behave, he's gonna stay up all night tonight, tomorrow, and Friday night. Paul would text her back. He just laid down again. Please go get him up. Feel free to dump some cold water on him, and even if he sits upright before you get there or as you get there, I honestly don't care if you get a little rough with him. Are you gonna go get him? Please go ahead and turn on the AC. You'll be warming up with your blankets, and that'll make sure that he doesn't stay too warm.

OK, but sometimes, Paul would be the one to text his mom first. He'd be home alone with Timothy and he'd text, mom, I'm ready to slam him into the ground. He wet the bed and he's covered in urine. Would you say a five minute shower with the curtain open so I can watch? Wait, what does that mean? We don't know.

Whether he means so he can watch him probably shower in ice cold water so it's torturous or watch for other reasons, it's unsure, right? Sean detects back. Sure, a five minute shower where he can scrub and you can watch his fine as well, but it has to be a cold shower. Five days before Timothy's death, Paul texted his mother, I'm ready to kill Timothy. He left his peed in and pooed in diaper in the freaking bathroom and I stepped in it. She texts back, ill, lots of hot sauce

for that. I've cleaned my foot but I'm already at my limit. And where is he currently? On the wall downstairs. He can have bread with hot sauce on it. Does need bread though. I already gave him four pieces of bread earlier. I know he's not walking fine, but he's still doing a whole wonky walk. What does that mean? Saying that he seems very frail and unresponsive. Now, July 5th, 2022, the day before Timothy's death, there's a lot of phone activity between Shonda and Paul. Shonda texts Paul from work. Forgot to tell you this before I left. Timothy was doing his fake stumbling and falling last night of course, so I decided to prove once again how

fake it is. I asked him if he would stop doing that, if he could eat a whole pizza by himself, and he said yes, of course. And then I told him how obvious it was that it was fake, and he had just proven that yet again. And of course he just looked down and didn't respond. Sean detects it again. If you want him to sit in his room with his hands on his head, that's fine, but Timothy does not get to lay down all day. Maybe we should leave the light on, that way it'll be harder for him to fall asleep. I can't believe he keeps getting worse and worse with his stupidity. Now he's refusing to answer me, so go throw some cold water on him as well.

Please do the water now. He's being beyond stupid. I can't work like this when he's doing this. Why is he doing this to me? Am I not going through enough already? Feel free to go dump more cold water on him. He moved over so he's not laying in the cold water that you dumped on him earlier. Go dump more cold water. He's doing it. She's watching it. on him earlier. Go dump more cold water. He's doing it. She's watching it. Through the cameras. Paul texts, I know you're trying mama, but he's just too selfish. She texts him, please hurry with the water dumping on him

though, he thinks he's getting away with something. I know mom, I'm crushing up the ice. There are a lot of texts between Shonda and Paul about how worried Shonda is about G, her seven year old seeing Timothy in this state. She really really babies G and it's very interesting. It seems like she babies the youngest or whoever thinks the highest of her. And when you're 7, I mean every kid thinks that their parent is like a superhero when they're 7. But Shonda goes on to ask about if Paul thinks Timothy is faking all of this. Faking being sick and

weak and unresponsive." She texted, is he seriously trying to make us believe that he can't communicate? He's full of it. Can you please force him to respond to you just to make me feel a little bit better? Be honest with me. Are you worried about him at all or is this just a bunch of BS like it's been for days? It's the same old BS. So you're not worried at all, Paul. Nope. If I wasn't so angry then maybe and that's a big if. Okay, let me rephrase that question then. So you're not worried at all, Paul. Nope. If I wasn't so angry, then maybe. And that's a big if. Okay, let me rephrase that question then. Do you honestly believe that we should be worried? I don't know. I'm just tired of him being such a nuisance. Could

you please stay on his case? It looks like he's trying to go to sleep and I don't have time to yell at him from work. And actually, I got to get stuff done here. Why don't you go ahead and run another cold bath and stick him in it? You'll have to stay downstairs in the bathroom with him though. This is the day before? The night before. So they know he's in that condition. He's dying, yeah.

But they're like throw him into ice water. Don't let him sleep, throw him into ice water. Paul texts, how is that gonna help? It's gonna make him miserable. Try to force him to talk to you. We both know that he can. His eyes do have a slightly glazed look. You can make your eyes glaze over by staring for too long.

Yeah, it looks like he's been staring at something too long. You said he smirked at you? Paul responds, never in my life have I ever wanted to beat someone so bad. Sean detects crazy idea. Heat up some pizza rolls and take one downstairs and offer it to Timothy and see what he does. Put it right in front of his mouth,

but be ready to yank it back if he tries to eat it. Hold it right in front of his lips. How much do you bet that he's gonna try and eat it? A lot. Please make sure you keep bugging him so he doesn't try to go to sleep like that. Maybe force his mouth open and put some hot sauce in there considering everything that he's put us through.

KK, does he blink when you smack him on the side of the face? I don't mean a hard smack. Yes, he's swallowed. Yeah, he's fine. He's just being an absolute butt head. Paul is instructed to put Timothy into an ice bath when he's already, like we said, barely responsive. Sean does that work watching all of this through her cameras and she texts him.

He's just adjusted to make himself more comfortable. Perfect. He thinks that he can outlast us. Paul says he's doing this to take us off and make us give up and at this point I'm ready to beat him within an inch of death and go to work. And that is exactly what he wants you to do. He will not outlast us. I can promise you that. This is getting to do. He will not outlast us. I can promise you that.

This is getting beyond pathetic. He will not win this. Not gonna happen. Might be time to dump more cold water. Just make sure it doesn't go outside the tub and maybe force him to drink some more. Crazy thought. Tell him if he actually sits up by himself

and stays sitting up, he'll get some pizza rolls. Don't tell him it's only two rolls and I'm okay if you keep them frozen rather than cooked. He's determined to be a pain Fine and question. He's ticklish, isn't he? Yeah, go tickle him mercilessly When you go to remove the shower curtain, please remove everything else from that bathroom that he could mess with He's not getting diddly squat to mess around with tonight

What does that mean? She doesn't want him to have toys, I guess. And she's actually telling him to get rid of the shower curtain so that he doesn't try to cover his body with it. For warmth, heat, but also because you know you're vulnerable when you're not clothed. Paul texts, okay. And he needs cold water dumped on him at least one more time before I get home. Yes. He's still breathing, right? I just have to ask he's doing enough to make you paranoid even though I know it's fake it just further confirms how fake he's being and how horrible he's being and you know if this is just a

Matter of him being tired. He could have gotten enough rest sitting and laying there He'd be fine right now It just further confirms how fake he's being and how horrible he is I wonder how it'll feel to have hot sauce on your private parts. I'm not saying touch him down there, not at all, but dripping a little bit down there. Is that horrible?

Paul says, I don't know and I don't care. Does that mean you're willing to try it? No. Okay, well I need you to lose the attitude with me Paul, at least. I didn't do anything here. You need to lose the attitude, sir. This is a text message?

Yeah. Shonda gets home and Timothy has been in that ice bath from two p.m. To 11 p.m. One of the last texts that she sends Paul that day is when she's already home and now Paul has gone to work at Applebee's. It's at midnight and after this is after she takes Timothy out of the ice bath after nine hours of being in there and it reads, please set your alarm for 6am. I ended up dragging him back to a small room because I wasn't going

to risk him having access to the tub or other things overnight. He's still trying to be stupid but I'll tell you more tomorrow while I take you to work describing all the different ways that I can prove that he's still faking. He's still doing it though. It's beyond ridiculous. Paul stated in his initial interrogation with the police that Timothy took advantage of his mom. He stated after Adam, the stepdad, stroke, and side note, they were paycheck to paycheck. Well, not even.

They were really behind on bills like the family's finances were falling apart. But Paul is now saying that Timothy somehow took advantage of that. He said, Timothy would take advantage of that situation. We were all stressed and he would take advantage of that. Anything he could find he would take advantage of his entire life, except I think maybe when he was like still a baby, he would find some way to take advantage of whatever he can. He didn't elaborate further. The investigator asked, what was he allowed to eat? We stopped the food restrictions recently because we noticed he was getting thin. We wanted to get that back on. We never wanted any of this.

We never wanted him to be injured or hurt. I loved him so much. When you say we, are you talking about your mother? Yes, she loved him. We wanted what's best. The thing is he was stuck in the past. And what were the restrictions? We made sure that it was still something that gave him enough calories and everything. It was rice or bread. And like I said last week, he got pizza.

The detectives knew that the pizza thing was a lie. There was text message proof where they all ordered pizza and Shonda texted Paul make sure the pizza is out of reach What were the food restrictions in place for Paul in the first place? Why were they there? Sneaking food over and over and over and it wasn't just that he was hungry at some point It was just that he wanted something sweet at times. He would be taking stuff that had plans for actual food I mean we tried everything. We were nice. We tried different consequences, but he just never listened.

Why was it that he couldn't have any meals? I mean, the whole sneaking. There would literally be times where I'd be sitting on the couch playing, and then I look up, and he's there grabbing something. Tell me about the hot sauce. What dictates whether or not there's hot sauce on the bread that he's eating? I don't know. Whenever my mom told me to put hot sauce on it, I did. It was normally a thin layer to make sure it wouldn't be too much because I know that the ghost or the Carolina Reaper is like two millions Govill. Right, so you're giving him the bread as a meal.

What's the purpose of the hot sauce then? I know it was punishment, but I don't think that it was that useful, because like I said, he had no feelings in his tongue. And who was buying the hot sauce, and from where? From Amazon, or Walmart online? She bought it, but my mom asked me if I could help pay for it, but like I said, my mom's been amazing, she's never demanded money. What is this relationship? This is so weird.

Hot sauce is not something that should be used to punish a child for eating food that they're not supposed to eat, Paul. Or for disrespect. We know those things aren't okay. I know that. We just tried so many different things. We were just running out of the options of trying to find a punishment that actually worked and even that did nothing and we still kept trying.

We gave him food. She even told me to give And we still kept trying. We gave him food. She even told me to make sure that he gets a good amount. She would tell me on random days, but other than the hot sauce punishment, it was always bread and rice. She cared. She never wanted this. Paul stated sometimes Timothy would just force food back up

because I guess he was rebelling, so he would throw up his own food, and the investigator was speechless. The investigator said, honestly, you ever think, because maybe it's painful, the hot sauce, so he threw up? I know at one point that he was actually refusing to eat. We would give him his food,

and he would just be stubborn and sit there and just slowly, slowly, it's regular bread, nothing else on it. Just chow down to the point where it's basically, he's trying to waste time so that he could be upstairs longer. Well, where did he spend most of his time? In his room.

So he's chewing slowly so he can not be in that room in a stress pose. We wouldn't make him stand. Sometimes he was kneeling in his room, like on his knees with his hands on the back of his head like a military post facing one of the corners. That's like that's so freaking painful. What was that for? I don't even know what that was for at this point. I'm not sure.

Does your mom feel bad at all about giving him just bread and hot sauce and locking him in the closet? Yes, she hates it. She hates it. She never once enjoyed it. Did your mom feel bad at all about giving him just bread and hot sauce and locking him in the closet? Yes! She hates it. She hates it. She never once enjoyed it. Whose idea was it to give a cold bath as punishment? It was my mother's. I wasn't sure if it was going to be effective punishment or not.

Shonda convinced Paul that Timothy was faking being injured from their torture. At one point a few days before Timothy's death, Paul sent his mom a few pictures of Timothy and he raised the alarms. He was basically like, mom, I think he needs to eat a real meal soon. The police show him the pictures that he sent his mother. And then you sent a picture of his leg. That's basically gone, right? No wonder he can't stand. Yeah, but the thing is, before yesterday, and I think even the day before, he could walk. He might need a little support every so often, like he put his hand against the wall or grabbed the railing of the stairs But after a couple seconds he would let go and he'd be fine. It was never anything major There's a text from Paul to Shanda that reads mama. He's already pushing every one of my buttons the whole shaking and I need support crap

Shonda text Paul He doesn't shake at all for a while when he's standing there and then apparently remembers he thinks he should be shaking and starts doing it again. Paul tells the investigators, he would do things that would scare the crap out of us to make us believe that something was wrong. I mean, several times he fakes seizures, I've seen it.

Paul explains why he gave Timothy the pizza roll the day of his death, to test him, he said. I offered him a pizza roll because I wanted to truly test whether or not he was faking it or not, and at first he didn't move, and then he moved to try and grab it and I'm like, okay, I don't know anymore. Well he wasn't faking it, Paul, because he died. Do you feel good about any of that stuff? No, of course not. The investigator shows Paul another picture of Timothy. It was

apparently of Timothy in the bathtub the day of his death and the photo was zoomed into his face and this photo has not been made public. What's the deal with this photo in the bathtub and his face? He'd been taking a bath and I went in there to check up on him at one point and he's just kind of laying there and I'm like, but are you okay? He didn't respond but he's looking around and he was breathing that much I know he was breathing and yeah, I probably should have said something about the ER at that point though. I feel so stupid. Is this when she told you to smack him in the face to see if he was faking it?

I was trying to see what was going on, trying to see if he would even respond. I was scared. Did you ever hate your brother? Trying to see what was going on, trying to see if he would even respond. I was scared. Did you ever hit your brother? I did, yeah, but every time I would come back and apologize. The bruises on him were not me. I know that much, because I know that I would never try to actually injure him.

Side note, there were bruises on Timothy's skull when he passed. Paul stated that he did slap Timothy's face in the bath to see if he was coherent and responsive But he believes the bruises are from when Paul was dragging Timothy into the bathtub for the ice bath and Timothy was so weak He couldn't even walk on his own He fell tripped hit his head on the edge of the tub and about that incident Paul says I don't know what exact region he hit his head because by that time I heard the thought

I was literally about to turn around because I had to stop for a moment to breathe. I was frustrated. Like I never wanted. I just feel like I could have done something. I should have put my foot down at some point. I loved him so much. What did he do that you had to give him a cold bath? I think he not only peed but also pooped and my mother wasn't too happy because it absolutely reeked We always wanted what's best for him though Paul tries to defend Shonda and his own actions by basically stating we used to cuff him Paul tries to defend Shonda in his own actions by basically stating, we used to cuff him. Like they had leg handcuffs

and they used to cuff him to furniture. And he said, we stopped the leg cuffs though because we noticed that his legs were swelling. So we stopped that because we didn't want his legs to become irreparable. The authorities ask, how smart is your mom? She's incredibly intelligent, magna cum laude. She's highly intelligent.

Right. Well, have you ever thought, how can a woman that's this smart, this intelligent, graduate second in laude, she's highly intelligent. Right, well have you ever thought, how can a woman that's this smart, this intelligent, graduate second in her class in law school, graduate with honors from college and law school, how could she think that this is fake? She doesn't know that not giving your kid food is gonna make him sick and die, that he's wasting away?

Your mom's a liar, your mom's a manipulator. She didn't want him around anymore because he was too much of a problem. You know that's the truth. She didn't want him around anymore because he was too much of a problem. You know that's the truth. She didn't want him around anymore because he was too much work. This wasn't an accident that didn't just happen. Everyone knows the things that she did are not okay. Except the smartest person in the room. She's the only one person that doesn't know that that's not okay. You're joking, right?

This is all very intentional, Paul. And she put you in this spot. She did this to your brother using you. Do you not see that? How could Paul not see that? Maybe because to Timothy, Paul and Chanda were the only ones in his life. Literally they were his whole world. I mean, it's a horrible world, but they were in a way all he had for 13 months. His whole life revolved around them. He wasn't allowed outside. He had no friends. He couldn't go to school. This is all he had for 13 months. His whole life revolved around them. He wasn't allowed outside, he had no friends, he couldn't go to school, this is all he had.

But Paul had a regular life outside of being this punisher. He was a YouTuber. What? He told the investigator during his interrogation he likes playing with Legos, video games, anime and making videos. Being able to build and be creative is just something that I absolutely adored.

And it was also something that I like doing for YouTube I have a YouTube channel. It's not popular by any means, but it's something I'm very inspired by I was inspired by Preston plays and the recently passed techno blade He has these videos where he doesn't show his face on YouTube or at least not for this series He does have a few videos where it does show his face, but he posts text up on the screen. That's a story that he wrote, a fanfic, but it's kind of like the words pop up and nobody's talking, his face isn't showing, and we just kind of read the words.

And this series, it revolves around a half dragon, half human named Dynasty. And the dragon form is called Dynasty, the human form is called Paul. But the story of dynasty is fascinating. In a way, it seems to be inspired by Paul's personal life. And hopefully, I'm not being too presumptuous with this, but the backstory to dynasty is,

dynasty's dad is absolutely evil and ends up selling his soul to the devil. The dad is described as a quote, stubborn, stuck up bastard who never thought of himself as a bad person with wicked heartless ways. But then there are two versions for Dynasty's mom's backstory. In one version, Dynasty's mom dies early on

in Dynasty's life. And Dynasty's evil step cousins that he lives with, are we seeing some parallels here, are shape shifters that shape shift into his dead mom to mess with him. They insult him and they say, I never loved you while they take on the form of his dead mom to mess with him. They insult him and they say, I never loved you while they take on the form of his dead mom.

He ends up being so upset and revealing his natural powers that he burns the house down in dragon form. In another version of this story, Dynasty's mom was quote, a cruel woman who beat him daily at first with her hands, but then after seeing it no longer had any effect, she began using steel chains. When Dynasty turned 12, his mother began using his body to make money by letting other women have fun with him, leading him to develop an enormous fear of quote females.

Three years passed and it was continued like this. Every day was the same. Get beaten, get R worded, repeat. There are scenes in his fanfic where the mom is trying to beat him. She comes into the room with a chain and says, hey you little shit, you know what time it is. She knocks him unconscious and he, dynasty, is trembling on the ground and she says, don't worry, my best customer comes tomorrow. There's this one part where he breaks free with a group of girls that fall in love with him and he slams his mother into the ground,

snarls in her face and he's about to kill her and she says, do it, go ahead, kill me. He snarls, jumps off and like, these are the words from the story. I'm not saying he's snarling, right? He snarls, jumps off in a deep rumbling voice. He snarls at her, no, I'm not like you. And his mom is seen being cuffed and shoved into a cop car.

Which is all kind of fascinating. I mean, it could mean something. It could mean a little bit. It could mean a lot. It could mean nothing. But it's always interesting to see if someone gets inspiration from their own lives. Paul told investigators about his mom.

I know she's a good person. I just don't know if this is something that is both of our faults. If we should have done something sooner. I mean, I know we both could have. He said, it's not just that we loved him. Can I ask you this, Paul? Like straight up, this is the interrogator.

You keep saying love, love, love. Do you feel like this was love? That your brother's dead now because he couldn't eat food? Maybe he was stealing food because he needed to survive. Does that feel like love to you? No. At the very end of the interrogation, the detective asked Paul, I'm going to step out. Do you need anything? You need to use the restroom, need a drink of water?" Paul looks up at him and says, Do you have something I could snack on? I have slight hypoglycemia problems. Maybe chips? Something with salt.

That is ironic. Yeah, after like an hour and a half interrogation about how he starved his brother. And you think they give it to him? Yeah, they have to, I think. Or they should. Yeah, Paul is very divisive in all of this. Some people think that he's just another child that Shonda had control over. And his ultimate punishment was being turned into an abuser

by his own mother. Now, some people have a problem with that because he actually went to Shonda's when he was 18. So it's like it wasn't like he was abused his whole life and just under her influence the whole time and then became this adult abuser. But let's just go down this path. Some stated that Shonda physically tortured Timothy

but psychologically tortured Paul. Used Paul to torture Timothy physically, ordered him around in text messages to harm his own brother. They said, Paul is a victim. Anything he did was recorded by her. Of course he's a victim. There's a part of the investigation that some netizens bring up where the detective interrupts him while he's mid-sentence and says, I want to stop you just for a second. And Paul immediately presses his shoulders forward, like carving

himself inward, kind of like you would with anxiety. And he apologizes, sorry. Netizens say it sounds like both parents were abusive and this guy thought it was normal. He wanted his mom to love him because he was kicked out by his dad. So he did what she wanted. He clearly has no idea what love truly means. Codependency, manipulation and brainwashing.

At another point in the investigation, Paul says, I hate myself, okay? If I could take his place right now, if I could give him back his life, I would do it in a dad gum heartbeat. Some people said that the way he talked about his mom and the interrogation was like a cult member slowly waking up. There's even a YouTube video that he posted of himself playing Minecraft

and there's a moment in the video, or a few moments, and it's kind of chilling, where he looks down at his phone and says, my mother just texted me something about my little brother. So he sounds super stressed out, but he tries to get back to playing the game. A minute later, we hear someone yell off the screen and it sounds like, ow, hello?

Paul says, hey Timbo, could you, sorry guys, geez, not sure if you heard that, but that was one of my little brothers. I deeply apologize. I probably should have asked them politely to keep it down before I came up here. Wait, what just happened? He hears someone screaming through the door, but it doesn't sound like an alarming scream. Then a few minutes later, Paul gets another text message. He reads it. His expression quickly changes.

He looks stressed out. He starts touching his face almost in like this soothing gesture, and he quickly ends the video Was it his mom texting him to do something to Timothy? He looks incredibly distraught if it is But other netizens disagreed and stated that Paul was just as evil as his mother They said because he's 20. He's a full-grown adult I mean there are a lot of people in this world that are abused by both their parents and they don't help kill their brother and I mean, there are a lot of people in this world that are abused by both their parents and they don't help kill their brother.

And Paul and Timothy's half-sister came out to say she lived with Paul before and he was the biggest bully that she had ever met in her entire life. She fully believes Paul was involved in this and was fully complicit on his part, not coerced at all. She said even before moving in with Shonda, he was questionable. She stated the family wanted to get him tested for psychopathy. But because he wasn't 18 yet, they can't get a diagnosis for being a psychopath. And some of Paul's family members have stated that he was a relentless tormentor of Timothy

without any coercion from his mother. Yeah, see, that's the thing. I think all these evil people, you can argue they all have like a trouble childhood, right? Along with many many other people. So still it doesn't excuse what the hell they're doing. Yeah, I guess it's um, It's a matter of how harshly he should be punished then, right? Paul even stated in his interrogation that his brother Timothy was quote motor and speech impaired So why would he even think that his brother was faking, not being able to talk to them the day that he died?

Also, Paul worked at a fast food spot. A lot of people argued he could have easily snuck food home for Timothy if he was that scared. Paul would also tell an investigator, I accept a responsibility for what happened to Timothy. I was a willing participant in administering punishment to Timothy. It made me feel powerful. I wanted to hear mama say that she was proud of me. The power got to my head. I was drunk on

power. I hate myself. If I didn't do the punishments, mama would yell at me. Adam, the stepdad, would have never let things get this far. I'm basically a murder as well. If I did, just throw me in prison for the rest of my life. If I was a part of it, I deserve it." And then a lot of netizens are just kind of somewhere in the middle. They said, I think he needs to be punished. But nowhere near like his mother.

She controlled that home and he was afraid of her. I hope a lot of his time in custody will be in a mental institution and if he ever gets out he will need a lot of help learning how to take care of himself. During the interrogation, the investigator asked Paul, why did your mom ask you to put pants on Timothy before the cops came? He said, because she didn't want to seem like she's bad, that we weren't neglecting him. And even if that's what somehow ended up like, it wasn't intentional. I just hate it. I know she doesn't want to be the bad guy. She never wanted this.

We loved him so much I do know that my mother she's not perfect, but she's not a bad person Can I ask you this? Do you know any good people who starved a child to death? Tell me one that you know of How is that a loving mother? You know what all that sounds like to me? Honestly the worst mother I've ever met in my entire life That's what it sounds like to me. I know I know But she's not. Paul posted on Facebook for his birthday in April of 2021. For my birthday this year, I'm asking for donations to No Kid Hungry.

I've chosen this nonprofit because their mission means a lot to me. No Kid Hungry works to ensure that every child in the US has access to healthy food where they live. This is during the time that he was torturing the brother? We don't know if he was being starved yet, but he had been there together. In about a year, the police would be called and his brother would be found starved to death in that home. Some netizens that struggle with disassociative amnesia have stated they spent a

lot of their time looking for clues. Because oftentimes they're just left with giant gaps in their memory. So all they can do is try to fill in the blanks. One netizen stated, I have clocks everywhere and there are times when I can see that the time has passed but I struggle to fill in the blanks. It's just not there.

I know time has passed but I cannot tell you anything about it. You lose minutes, hours, days, months, even years without knowing what you're missing. Your memory is essentially like Swiss cheese with missing bits that are either brief flashes or just like total blinks. That is what Shonda Van Der Arc was claiming she had.

She stated that after her husband Adam stroke, she developed disassociation to the point of having giant gaps in her memory. So disassociative amnesia. And she also stated that she had chronic insomnia. She said, shortly after my husband's stroke, I started experiencing episodes where if you've ever like passed out,

the world closes in, you get tunnel vision until you black out. It felt like I was blacking out, but I didn't actually pass out. The events after that, I have no idea what happened after I would have these blackouts. I don't remember, I don't know. And this happened anytime I got even a little bit stressed.

A huge part of the trial is Paul's testimony against his mother. After the initial interrogation, Paul took a plea deal and in return, well, it wasn't necessarily a plea deal. He got a little bit of like a agreement that the prosecutors would not ask above the sentencing limit for his crime, which would be first degree child abuse.

And he was gonna testify against his mom. And in return, Shonda also turned on Paul. Essentially, they're both pointing the finger at each other. When they're both in the courtroom, Shonda doesn't even look in Paul's direction. Suddenly, the mom that loved her children more than anything can't even stand to share the same error as her precious son that she cared so deeply about.

She just sits there and every time Paul says something bad about her, she starts dramatically scribbling on her notepad and whispering to her attorneys. Which side note, Paul also very casually testifies and throws it out there that G is not Adam's son. Yeah, I really just- So who everybody just says, we don't know. Paul testifies that he quote, has something similar to Stockholm syndrome

where he will do anything to make his mother proud. He states, I suppose I believe that mother's no best if you have the right one. Paul confirmed to the jury and the judge that Timothy spent most of his days in that small room under the stairs with nothing but a blue tarp, usually on his knees with his hands on his head.

And if he moved, Shonda and Paul would get an alert on their phones, which meant that they would need to go punish him. For what reason? Nobody knows. The prosecutors asked Paul about his mom's Shonda, asking him to put a hot sauce on Timothy's private parts to which Paul responded.

He never actually followed through with it because it was quote, beyond cruel as everything was. But later Shonda would be on the stand and the prosecutor would ask her, whose idea was it to get the hot sauce and administer it to your son? The idea was originally Paul's. Shonda states that she does sometimes put a hot sauce on things that she doesn't want her dogs to chew on. But when asked by the prosecutors, if she ever poured it down her dog's throats, she said, no, because I don't give my dog's human

food. You can't do that with service dogs. Because remember, she has blood sugar problems, so she has a service dog. So it never occurred to you forcing the use of hot sauce on a dog, but you thought to use it as a form of punishment for your 14 year old child. It was Paul's idea. But yes, I was at my wit's end at the time. Shonda tells prosecutors that she put locks on all the refrigerators because Timothy ate all the food. He would sneak the food and then he would eat it.

Sometimes he would even forget to close the refrigerator door and it would spoil everything inside. She uses the fact that Timothy was starved to the point of sneaking into the kitchen risking all sorts of punishment to eat a pound of raw hamburger beef, raw bacon, and frozen chicken nuggets frozen as a reason that she had to lock up the food and deprive him of a basic necessity for life. Side note, I don't think by the point that Timothy passed he would eat had the strength to walk up the stairs at that point. I don't even think let alone he could open a refrigerator door.

I did the lock to protect him because he could have he could have killed himself eating those chicken nuggets. I didn't put the locks on after he did the hamburger or the bacon but the chicken nuggets it's raw chicken. The prosecutor looks at her for a moment. Chicken nuggets are cooked aren't they? They're pre-cooked frozen chicken nuggets. Are they? I didn't even think about that. But the day of Timothy's death, Shonda had texted Paul, don't tell him it's only two pizza rolls and I'm okay if they're frozen rather than cooked. The prosecutor says, then why did you send this message if you're so worried about him eating frozen food? I don't know. Don't remember that either? No, sir. So you're not worried about him eating frozen pizza rolls?

Is that what's going on? If that's what it says. Just another one of those memories that's gone from your head, right? The prosecutor brings into evidence texts from Shonda to Paul, asking Paul to smell Timothy's breath. The text reads, Figure out what he has snuck right the heck now, because I know he's snuck stuff

since you weren't doing what you were supposed to do. Check his breath. I can almost guarantee he's eaten something. He was chewing on something when he walked downstairs. You and I will be talking about this on a later date when we're both home. Shonda responded on the stand. I mean, I don't know what happened in that situation.

You said, find out what he's been into, and Paul says he's been into chips in the later text messages, is that right? If that's what it says, yes sir. Then I imagine the next message is then, oh great, that's fine, he can have some chips because again, you were worried about the frozen chicken nuggets killing him, not chips.

Well no, the point of it was that he was sneaking things and he knew better. It was dishonest. I was trying to teach him not to sneak. It wasn't just food. He would sneak in the garage. He would sneak toys. He's a kid.

Shonda kept arguing with the prosecutor that she never locked her pantry and stated she had a giant cupboard in the kitchen filled with canned food that Timothy would get into regularly. So, you're okay with him getting into a bunch of canned food now? I mean he got into it all the time. So what did he do? Did he go to the drawer, get a can open or open up the can, put it on the stove, warm the stuff up? No he didn't. He would just eat it straight out of the can. It was weird. And your response to all of this rather than seeking some professional help for him because of these eating issues he apparently has, is to restrict even further access to food,

then watch as every move on camera or motion sensors? My response was to prevent him from being deceitful and sneaky. The prosecutor then presented another text message exchange that she had with Paul that referenced pouring Tabasco down Timothy's throat because he ate a cup of raw pancake powder. Raw pancake powder.

Like maybe the batter, I mean. Do you remember this text message? Vaguely? I don't remember the Tabasco because I never called. I said Tabasco? The text read, put Tabasco in his mouth and make him swallow. Lots of it. Do it every 30 minutes till you leave. That's what you said.

I don't remember that being part of it, do it every 30 minutes till you leave. That's what you said. I don't remember that being part of the, I remember part of the conversation, but I don't remember that part of it. Timothy obviously didn't like Tabasco. We didn't have any Tabasco sauce. That's why it doesn't make any sense. We had hot sauce, but we didn't have any Tabasco sauce. Okay, so the punishment for eating pancake in a cup is Tabasco or some type of hot sauce in the mouth.

Sneaking something dangerous, if that's what it means, if you're asking what he was punished for, it would be for sneaking something dangerous. So you were concerned for his well-being. Yes, sir. That's why you were having the text exchange because you're a real concern for him. Yes sir. Those pancakes in a cup, if I remember correctly, it's been a while but they had eggs in them. Raw eggs. Another text message from Shonda DePaul reads, yeah it's fine today. You can do his bread with hot sauce at any time, though preferably sooner rather than later. Put more hot sauce than yesterday please. He must eat at least three slices with hot sauce and then may have more as long as they all have plenty of hot sauce.

Something to note, Shonda also looks super annoyed the whole time the prosecutor reads her messages like her own messages in court. She seems offended. Not that she said those things but like he dares to read them out loud in court. And Shonda stated that she never tried the bread herself with the hot sauce because, and I quote, I have a very weak stomach, I didn't wanna throw up. She stated the hottest thing that she could handle

were jalapeno cheddar cheetos. Yeah. She also stated that Timothy liked hot sauce. That's why they had to specifically, not even go to the store and buy a hot sauce, but order a specialty super spicy hot sauce from Amazon, which they're not cheap. We had a box of three for $30. Yeah. And they're small bottles. They're tiny bottles. And she said, it's because Timothy liked hot sauce, though,

if they needed to punish him with hot sauce, they needed to get extra hot hot sauce. That's why. It's also presented in court that Timothy snuck the bun of a hamburger to eat and Paul was forced to shove his fingers down. Timothy's throw up, making him throw it up. Then the prosecutors started asking the hard-hitting questions. This is after seeing Shonda quote,

throw up after seeing the pictures of Timothy. They're asking, those three photographs to picture son hours after you supposedly gave him a warm bath because she lied and said she gave him a warm bath. Did he look like that when you put him in the warm bath? The prosecutor is basically asking, why would you gag for the jury when you saw Timothy every day

and you gave him a warm bath before he passed? You're acting like you didn't know how bad his condition was. And the prosecutor continues, did he look like that when you put him in this warm bath? I did not look at him, sir. He's 15. I tried to give him privacy. It may sound lame, but I intentionally look away.

That's why Paul did most of his baths because he's 15 and I don't think that's appropriate. Which doesn't make sense, considering there were cameras everywhere in that house, including the bathroom that Shonda would religiously monitor. So suddenly Shonda cares about his privacy? Side note, there's evidence that Shonda would force Timothy to clean the garage with nothing but a shirt on completely nude from the waist down, which completely goes against what she's testifying in court.

But her excuse to that, because she's got excuses to everything, is, well, nobody else was in the garage with him when he was cleaning naked, he was by himself and the garage door was down. The prosecutor continues to grill her, so you didn't put him in the bathtub last night. No, he was already in the tub when I got home. Did you get him out of the tub? I don't remember. Maybe later that night, I would assume so. Later that night? How long was he in the tub? Well, night to me is like any time after work, so. After the bath, it's believed that Shonda dragged Timothy out of the tub and threw him into the closet room for the night where he would ultimately die.

The prosecutors asked, did you push him down onto the ground so that he was laying and facing the camera in that room? If that's what the video shows, then yes, sir. Did you position his face towards the camera? If that's what it shows. And did you tell him that he owes you the biggest apology on the face of the earth and then maybe he can go use the restroom? If that's what it shows sir but I don't remember any of this. And did you tell him that you don't need to open your mouth every time you breathe, dummy, and you held his mouth shut? I don't know what I said, sir, but I'll take your word for it. Oh, you don't have to take my word for it. Let's play the video.

Sir, that's not necessary. If that's what you're saying, it shows I believe you. I'm not trying to argue. Like I said, unfortunately, between January and the time he passed, I don't have a lot of memories in general of G, Timothy, of Paul. I know there are times that I went over to my in-laws' house and I don't remember any of that. It's not, it's just... The prosecutors continue grilling her.

Would you stick your dog in an ice bath? That would never occur to me. And having big dogs, I don't bathe them at home anyway. I use dry shampoo or I take them somewhere else to be bathed. I'm not talking about giving them a bath. I'm talking about using ice bath as a form of punishment for your dogs. I don't have space to do that, so I wouldn't do that because I don't have the kind of space for that size dog. Are you saying that if you had a large enough tub, you would want to punish your dogs by putting them in an ice

bath? I mean, I can't imagine doing that. Side note, this is really sad, but Shonda's dogs were treated really well, and that's not the sad part But it must have been really tough for Timothy to see that his mom treated her dogs better than he was treated The dogs always had food left out just in case they got hungry She had giant containers of food as backup She kept the dogs in good hygiene sent them to the groomer wipe their ears made sure they had daily walks Meanwhile Timothy her son a little human being Got nothing walks. Meanwhile, Timothy, her son, a little human being, got nothing. Shonda was also confronted

by the prosecutors about lying to the police about feeding Timothy slices of butter toast the night before he passed. And her responses to all these questions are variations of, I hear what you're saying, but I don't remember saying it. I don't remember, sir, if that's what you say it shows, if that's what the video shows, if that's what the text reads. So you don't remember, sir. If that's what you say it shows. If that's what the video shows. If that's what the text reads. So you don't remember saying any of these things to the police. If you say I did it, then I guess I did it, but I don't remember, sir. There are a few times that she actually remembers something I know. Crazy. Okay. It was either her remembering something good that she did or justifying herself

or even excusing herself. When the prosecutor showed her a text message she sent to Paul talking about how Timothy should sleep in the garage, she said, I actually remember that message and I was frustrated. I never would have done it, but I was frustrated. I typed really fast and I have a bad habit of saying stuff when I'm really upset and then calming down later and being totally different. But I do remember that, but it never happened. He never slept in the garage. In another incident, Shonda was shown the evidence that she knew how bad Timothy's condition was, because Paul had sent her pictures a few days prior to his death. With a message that says, he's bone thin, mama, I think we should feed him. Shonda responds to Paul in a text message, trust me, I know he's thin. That being said, he told me a week and a half ago that he wanted to

be thin to make me feel bad for punishing him. So yeah, while I want to fix it, he's gonna get most of his calories from plain bread and rice for now for pulling that. He'll get plenty of calories, but not get to enjoy them. Shonda would stick to her lie that she had no idea how bad her son's condition was, even when presented with all this evidence. The prosecutors asked how she didn't know if she had the pictures and she said, all my kids are skinny. I lose weight very quickly and I was assuming that he got that from me. So it never occurred to you to go back to that text message Paul sent you because you said you were at work and see the picture and check what condition he's actually in. No, sir. With me, when something is out of sight, it's out of mind. Once I

scroll, I don't scroll back on text messages. I just don't understand what are they arguing right now. Yeah. It's very obvious you can see him you know what's going on there's cameras there's what do you think they're debating about right now? I don't know but I think the prosecutor is just asking her more and more because it's making her look worse. Like she's digging her own grave. I see, I see.

Yeah. Like what do you, like nothing she says is... Relevant. Yeah. Yeah. It's just lies. So the prosecutor is like out of sight, out of mind, applies to Timothy as well. Isn't it true?

Timothy had just become nothing more than an annoyance for you and he wasn't even a human being in your eyes. That is absolutely not true. Netizens thought it was because Shonda remembers everything bad that Timothy ever did, did, but she only remembers everything good that she's ever done and nothing bad. They also stated that it's very convenient that she doesn't remember anything, but she has the cognition and logic to come up with lies that protect her. Also she was very quick to throw Paul under the bus

during all of this. And when she was asked about the leg cuffs, she said, I was aware that Paul had them. If you look at my Amazon, Paul had the option to do payment on there as well as mine. Paul had actually ordered those under his account. Order what? Ordered the leg cuffs.

What is leg cuff? Leg hand cuffs that he was, yeah. Experts who studied deception stated that this is very standard practice for liars. So instead of just answering the question yes or no, they always create this smoke screen of like, you can check my phone, you can check my account then. Like you can check my Amazon in hopes

that you don't actually check it. They're trying to give themselves a sense of credibility. But it's like, just say yes or no. She also lies on the stand and states the leg cuffs used on Timothy were Paul's and the hot sauce was all Paul's idea. You know, there are texts that literally read from Shonda to Paul.

The transaction is handcuffs and leg cuffs for Timothy from Amazon. Figured it'd be okay to get those right away till we talk about the sensors and stuff. And even when Shonda is shown pictures of Timothy during the trial, she throws up, remember? Like we were talking about. But netizens have pointed out the reaction is so quick.

It's almost like she covers her mouth before she even looks at the pictures for too long. It's like her brain didn't even process the pictures yet, but she, it feels like she planned the reaction. One netizen simply commented, fake puke, another commented, her lawyer really said, get up there and act like your life depends on it because it does and she thinks she ate.

Another reads, she never cries for her son. She only cries when she is undeniably shown to be cruel and torturing her son. She only cries for herself. Some had a slightly more nuanced take and they said, her face reminds me of one of my grandpa's saggy butt cheeks. Or one comment just reads, she's so inbred.

Which is wild. Now, side note, when Shonda turned herself in, she had a bottle of apple juice in her hand. And the officer is trying to handcuff her to take her to the jail to book her. And she leans her head up against the wall at the police station. This is for my blood sugar, you know,

cause it crashes, I need the juice. I can let you hold onto it right up until the jail, but the jail won't let you bring in any kind of food or nothing. So if you want to drink it, you can always drink it right now. I'm just worried that I won't be able to keep it in my stomach.

I haven't been able to stomach anything the last couple of days. I don't know. I guess I can try. We'll see. Well, then I have to handcuff you, but I'll do it in front of you because I know you're not gonna have any problems.

Like meaning he's gonna handcuff her hands in front, not in the back. And she says, I don't have the strength to do anything anyway. Also, while testifying, Shonda told the jury, I was traumatized, I didn't eat for my first month in jail. Which is ironic to say the least. Shonda's other two children,

so the full siblings of both Timothy and Paul gave their impact statements. Their sister stated, "'When Timothy died, I couldn't stop regretting. I regret not hugging him more. I regret not putting aside my differences with Shonda and Paul just to check on him. And that's my biggest regret

that I couldn't protect him when he needed me most. I want the world to know that Timothy was wanted. If not by her, then by me. He was loved by me. Their older brother stated, I thought things were different than when I was younger. I thought she had changed for the better.

Tim Tim wasn't surrounded by people that loved him when he died. And if I had known that, nothing would have stopped me from rescuing him. Thanks to Shonda Van Der Arc, I only get to cradle a bag full of ashes now. In all my life, I only knew of one thing that my little brother didn't like.

He hated goodbyes. If he had to say goodbye to anyone, he would cry. And he would hold you and he would say, don't go. And now I'm the one crying and I never got to say goodbye. Judge Kaseel gave a very long statement before sentencing Shonda. She was charged with first degree murder and child abuse. He stated, I don't believe you intended to kill him.

I think you intended to continue torturing him for as long as you possibly could. Why? I don't know. For what reason? I don't know. There is something broken in you. I don't know what that is,? I don't know. There is something broken in you. I don't know what that is, but that doesn't negate what you did here. So besides remembering

him like that, I'm not going to let you hide in the darkness anymore. People know what you are now. They know what you did. You're not able to hide in that darkness anymore. Timothy won. And he won because we know what you did to him and it's not hidden. We know who you are. Shonda was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Paul has pled guilty to first degree child abuse and a sentencing will be held February 26th of this year.

So in like a week. And that is where we are with this case. What are your thoughts on this? I mean, just, yeah, I don't even know what to say. So please stay safe and I will see you guys on Wednesday for the next episode. Bye.