SERIALously - 88: 25 Year Old Vlogger Murdered, Alex Murdaugh, Lindsay Shiver, & Disturbing New Cases

Episode Date: November 9, 2023

Annie discusses the latest news and cases in the headlines this week, including updates with Alex Murdaugh’s jury tampering claims and motion for a new trial, Lindsay Shiver back in court, Mitchel Tang, a vlogger who was murdered, and two disturbing new cases. Follow the podcast on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@serialouslypodcast Follow the podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/serialouslypod/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/annieelise All Social Media Links: https://www.flowcode.com/page/annieelise_ SERIALously FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/SERIALouslyAnnieElise/ About Me: https://annieelise.com/ For Business Inquiries: [e-mail] Sources: CNN Law & Crime USA Today Audio Credits: Law & Crime

Hey, true crime besties, welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialistly. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to this week's episode of Headline Highlights. With me, your host, Annie Elise, over here on the podcast, Serialistly. I don't know why I just said your host, because I'm the only host. It wouldn't be anybody else, so that made absolutely no sense. But whatever. Just trying to get this intro down, guys. But anyways, hi, it's me, Annie, and we are going into another episode of Headline Highlights today. So in today's episode, we actually do have quite a bit to talk about. We're going to talk about a bunch of stuff going on in the true crime world. And some of the main things we're going to be talking about are some new updates in Alex Murdoch, Lindsay Shiver, a vlogger who was brutally murdered, and two other extremely, extremely,

extremely disturbing cases that have hit the news. So without further ado, I'm just going to jump right in, and I want to start with this vlogger who was brutally murdered in Atlanta. Mitchell Dang was a very well-known and beloved 25-year-old vlogger from Atlanta. On August August 26th Mitchell had told her family that she was going to go meet up with some friends at this venue called Alley Cat in Atlanta off lower Alabama Street in downtown. She was meeting with friends there to attend a concert. Unfortunately she didn't return home that night. So while leaving the concert, she was approached by a 24-year-old man named Jacavius Arnold. Now, Jacavius was apparently acting as a good Samaritan and offered to help her find her car. He then seized that opportunity and strangled her, and then he raped her, leaving her body in

the parking garage and then taking off. So police had said that they responded to a call around 7 a.m. on August 30th. This was four days later. The call was regarding an injured person in the parking lot near Underground Atlanta. A parking lot attendant had reported smelling something very foul and then followed that scent to the staircase, where he then found a decomposing body, and the body belonged to Mitchell. Investigators said that all of her clothing had been removed, but she did still have some jewelry on and then that wristband, which said Alley Cat, and that's what tipped off authorities as to where she may have been before she was attacked and then killed. Now, because this was four days later, when she was

found, she was nearly unrecognizable due to the level of decomposition. The investigator who spoke at a preliminary hearing told the court in some great detail some of the horrific things that had happened to Mitchell, and he had we were watching the video that Mitchell stumbled at one point. You said that would be significant. Is this why? Yes, it's very significant. On the video, we see her stumbling out of frame. This is where I believe that she came in contact with Ekevious.

What did he say next? He said that he walked up to her, asked her if she needed help. He said that she screamed at him, said, get away from me. He insisted and persisted to help her. Finally, she gave in to needed help. He said that she screamed at him, said, get away from me. He insisted and persisted to help her. Finally, she gave in to the help. She said that she said that I'm trying to find my vehicle. That's when he told her, I can help you find your car. That's when he came in possession of her keys and her phone. And he masqueraded as a good citizen by walking her around. He said they got into the parking deck.

As we see on camera, he said he got into the stairwell. His words were, as he walked into the stairwell, she started scratching him. He said he drug her down, drug her up under the stairwell, threw her on the ground, choked her, and said she passed out. Detective Shepard said after she passed out, Arnold raped Dang for at least 20 minutes. And what did he say happened next? At that point, he said he stripped her clothes. I asked him why he stripped her of her clothes. He said because of DNA.

He said he watches TV, watches how we investigate cases. He took all of her clothes, stuffed it in his book bag. He stuffed her naked body up under the stairwell. investigated cases. He took all of her clothes, stuffed it in his book bag. He stuffed her naked body up under the stairwell. He grabbed some newspaper, tried to cover her head. He said he walked out of the parking deck. He broke her phone, threw it away, realized he left his sunglasses up under her body, went back to the body, picked her body up, grabbed her sunglasses, pushed her, picked the body up, grabbed his sunglasses, pushed his stuff,

their body more up under the stairwell, and that's when he left. According to court documents and records, Mitchell was abducted and then held against her will. After she was murdered, Jacavius stole her phone and stole her debit card. He is now facing charges of murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, aggravated sexual battery, robbery card theft, kidnapping, and get this one, necrophilia. Can you believe it? We've talked about a lot of things over here on Serialistly and even over on YouTube on 10 to Life, but we have not talked about necrophilia in quite some time. And this disgusting ass creep just has the gamut of charges against him, a slew of them. The ultra bottom of the barrel, sticky, tar, disgusting human being. And now this beautiful, young, 25-year-old girl,

Mitchell, had her life snuffed out by this disgusting psychopath pervert creep. It is just beyond sad and heartbreaking for her whole family. She put her whole life on display. She would vlog her everyday life. And then this guy who she thinks is a good Samaritan helping her find her car after a night out at a concert just to blitz attack her, abduct her, hold her against her will, and then rape her and leave her body, and then apparently by the sounds of it, rape her again post-mortem. It's just really, really freaking disgusting and eerie. So speaking of people who are absolutely disgusting, that's actually a very good segue over into Alex Murdoch, our good old buddy Alex. You know, he's always in the news with all of his antics and everything that keeps going on with

him. And once again, he's back in the headlines again now that the state has responded to his defense team's court filings accusing the court clerk Becky Hill of jury tampering and filed that motion for a new trial. So just as a recap, in that filing, they had said, and I quote, Court Clerk Rebecca Hill instructed jurors not to be misled by evidence presented in Mr. Murdoch's defense. She told jurors not to be fooled by Mr. Murdoch's testimony in his own defense. She also had frequent private conversations with the jury foreperson, a court-appointed substitution for the foreperson that the jury elected for itself at the request of Ms. Hill. Ms. Hill did these things to secure for herself

a book deal and media appearances that would not happen in the event of a mistrial. Ms. Hill betrayed her oath of office for money and fame. Once these two facts are proven, the law does not allow the court any discretion about how to respond. It must grant a new trial. They also claimed to have sworn affidavit testimony from jurors and a witness-to-juror interviews, testimony at in-camera proceedings, and other evidence, all to support their motion. In the state's response, they listed several procedural defects in Alec's original court motion, arguing that it didn't meet the requirements necessary to suspend his appeal and allow his motion for a new trial to proceed in the circuit court. The attorney general asked the state court to give the defense 10 days to file a corrected motion.

The attorney general's office has also asked SLED to investigate the claims in the defense's motion for a new murder trial. According to court documents, the state says that most of the jurors and a final alternate juror have been interviewed by SLED during the investigation. None of the jurors who were willingly interviewed with SLED reported feeling any pressure or influence to reach their verdict. One juror has declined to be interviewed, and two jurors are represented by an attorney who has yet to consent to an unconditional interview with SLED. It then goes on to say that in support of his claim, Murdoch offers affidavits from one juror who participated in deliberations, one who was removed for dishonesty, concealing her improper communications about the

case, and two hearsay affidavits from his counsel's paralegal. It goes on to suggest that Alex also advances a sweeping conspiracy theory about these irrelevant Facebook posts with very little evidence to support it, and at the end it says that if the motion for a new trial is not denied, then they request a hearing where all the jurors would need to testify under oath about jury tampering allegations. The filing also included a three-page signed affidavit from Becky, Ms. Hill, where she states under oath, I did not tell the jury not to be fooled by the evidence presented by Mr. Murdoch's attorneys. I did not instruct the jury to look at his movements. I did not say to the jury, this shouldn't take us long. I did not tell jurors, y'all are going

to hear things that will throw you all off. Don't let this distract or mislead you. Justin Bamberg, one of the attorneys for the court clerk Becky, spoke to the media as well and said, and I quote, we have fully respected the investigatory process, which was tough given the horrible things said about Mrs. Hill on Alex Murdoch's behalf. However, you can put to bed any allegation that Ms. Hill tampered. You can also put to bed any allegation that she's going to be charged criminally. So we all kind of expected a response like this from the state, and it honestly will be really interesting to see what the next thing Alex's attorneys respond with. Recently, and not at all shocking, Alex's defense team asked the South Carolina Supreme Court to remove the judge, Judge Newman, from Alex's case going forward.

Now, there's no word yet on the outcome of that, but I don't think that they are going to be very successful. And no offense to Alex, but I'm not really sure what a second trial is going to do for him either. I mean, there's quite a bit of evidence, and no offense to Alex, but I'm not really sure what a second trial is going to do for him either. I mean, there's quite a bit of evidence and no offense, bro, but most of us think you're guilty. Moving on. Michael Halstead and Karen Halstead were both arrested and charged with reckless manslaughter after the death of their son, Logan, who was 19 years old and disabled. Now, this story is so cruel and beyond maddening and fucked up. Just a heads up. Sorry for cussing. But according to the press release, deputies at about 11.37 a.m. on October 29th responded to a home after a caller told the emergency dispatcher that they had just

found a dead body on the property. Upon arriving at the scene, first responders located a severely decomposed body inside an overturned freezer that had been left in the backyard of the home. The remains found were identified as 19-year-old Logan, who suffered from spinal bifida, and several hours later, his parents Michael and Karen were arrested in Jack, Alabama, which is 50 miles from where Logan was found. Authorities believe Logan's body had been in that freezer from about late July to early August. They are also accused of recklessly and constantly disregarding treatment for Logan, which resulted in his death. Now, let's get a little bit of backstory here. So, Michael and Karen were renting the house, but moved away without paying rent sometime after

August of this year. The landlord of the house later sold the home to its current owners, who then discovered the body in that overturned freezer while they were cleaning their newly acquired property. The freezer was too heavy to load into a trailer, so instead they had decided they were going to try to clean out the contents before moving it. However, they opened up the freezer and they quickly noticed that there was a human hand inside of it and called 911, which can you just even imagine being in their position? You buy this property, you're cleaning everything up, tidying it up, trying to make a house a home. You come across this overturned freezer. It's too heavy to move. You're like, you know what, let's clean it out. Let's empty it out. Maybe then it'll be easier to move. And you open it, and there is literal human remains. That is

so frightening to think about. Investigators spoke to two of Logan's siblings after all of this was discovered, and according to WDVY, a Henry County investigator testified that one of their other children called authorities several weeks ago after he became stuck in the bathroom of the home, which they were soon going to be moving from. However, while not suspecting anything suspicious then, investigators now believe that the boy may have expressed concern for his parents. Investigator Sean Robinson said he just wanted to tell or call his parents and tell them that he was stuck in the bathroom, because if cops came to the house, they had done something bad and they would go to prison.

That all a direct quote. Now, even weirder in all of this, apparently, and this is another quote, on October 11th, Michael Halstead called Headland Police and reported what he had done, but officers searched the freezer and did not find the body, which had been covered in a tarp and a shower curtain and placed in a cardboard box. Now, what he had done, I'm not exactly sure what that means. If it means that Logan died of natural causes for some reason and they decided to then put him in the freezer, I have no idea. It doesn't make any sense to me, but I'm not really sure what to make of it, since they are only being charged with corpse abuse pending Logan's autopsy results. I just don't understand how your disabled son could pass away,

and then you think that you could just move his body into an abandoned freezer that's lying out in the yard, and then call the police and say, hey, yo, hey, my son died. His body's in the freezer. And not to mention, I'm really, really confused as to why the police weren't able to find the body either. But even then, why didn't the police get clarification or investigate any further to figure out what was going on? If somebody called them and said, hey, here's what I've done, so much so to get them to go out and look at the contents of the freezer. If you're only seeing a tarp, first of all, no offense detectives, but open the freaking tarp

and see what's in there. Don't just be like, oh, there's just a tarp in a freezer. It's nothing. But then also if they really aren't seeing anything because I don't know, you're blind or something, maybe you call that person back and say, so what did you do? What have you done? We haven't found anything in the freezer. Don't just let it go until these new homeowners stumble upon it. It's crazy bananas confusing. Now, under Alabama's sentencing guidelines, the Halsteads would face little to no prison time if they are convicted of corpse abuse, which does not seem right in my book. The math is not mathing here at all. How could they possibly get away with this? Perhaps. We'll see, pending the autopsy results. So I'll keep you updated on this case, but it is a bizarro one. And you know I love

to do my segues, so let's segue here into another bizarro case and a truly bizarro teacher, a nasty, nasty ass teacher. A former Maryland middle school teacher was arrested and charged with having sex with an eighth grader. This was eight years ago. So Melissa Marie Curtis, who is now 31 years old, is accused of engaging in sexual acts with a student while she was a teacher at Montgomery Village Middle School, beginning back in 2015, when she was 22 years old and the victim was 14 years old. Creep. The Montgomery County Police Department said that they opened their investigation in October after an adult male came forward with allegations of abuse. According to court documents, the abuse occurred within a school, also in Melissa's car, and at several residences in Montgomery County, all happening between

January and May of 2015. Additionally, it's alleged that she gave the victim alcohol and marijuana and that she had sex with him more than 20 times, all while he was in eighth grade, 14 years old. A warrant for Marie's arrest was signed on Halloween, on October 31st, and it charged her with sexual abuse of a minor and multiple counts of third and fourth degree sexual offenses. She turned herself in on Tuesday, November 7th, and is currently awaiting a bond hearing. Detectives also said that they believe that there might be more victims. Now, I feel like this has kind of been a pattern the last few weeks. There have been a lot of female teachers who have been going down

for sexually abusing their students. We all saw like the OG of this whole thing, Mary Kay Letourneau, I think that was her name, Mary Kay Letourneau, where she was like abusing her student. They ended up getting married. They had, she had a baby in prison. Then they got back together. They separated. They got back to all these things. It was like she, she walked so all these other people could run. But what always gets me about these cases is so often we hear about the men grooming, taking advantage of the younger girls, the hot young students, the girls who dress like, you know, however they're dressing to look older and how the men try to pretend like, oh no, I didn't know she was that young. She looks older. She like dresses like Kylie Jenner, whatever they're trying to say,

which who the hell cares what somebody dresses like? That does not warrant an invitation for you to sexually assault a child. But what I'm saying here is that there has been like a massive uptick in the last few months of these women teachers who are in this position of power and they are sexually abusing their young students. Now look, I get it. Maybe a younger guy has more stamina than your dusty old husband or boyfriend, whatever. But maybe at least go younger like 18. Don't go younger like 14 where they're like barely hitting puberty. They're getting a little mustache on their lip. They're doing all that. Like you are such a creep and a pedophile when you do this and it is disgusting. And I'm just curious what the motive is and I know that

it's something like deep within these pedophiles and they get off on like the power and the younger people it's just and again I'm trying to just kind of think of it in my brain I think it's sometimes it's easier for the public to understand when things like this happen when it's an older man and a younger girl because younger girls these days do tend to look older. They do tend to dress in a different way and wear different makeup than I know my generation and even older generations were. So I could see where they're, and again, that's not an excuse. I'm just saying I can see where like that level of attraction might ignite, might spark. I don't see the attraction for a 14-year-old boy. Now, I know what you're thinking. That's probably because,

hey, Annie, you're not a pedophile. That's why you don't see the attraction for a 14-year-old boy. Now, I know what you're thinking. That's probably because, hey, Annie, you're not a pedophile. That's why you don't see the attraction. But, like, I can't even make it make sense in my head because little boys look like little boys. Like, where younger girls look older and I don't know. It's just I can't wrap my mind around it. It makes me sick to my stomach. And these women are creeps. And I just don't understand what's going on.

Why are so many teachers trying to, you know, have sex with their young male students? Get a life. So moving into the next case, sorry, went off on a little rant there. I want to talk about Lindsay Shiver. Lindsay Shiver is the Georgia beauty queen who was arrested in the Bahamas for an alleged murder for hire plot to kill her husband, Robert Shiver. She had apparently had this whole murder plot with her secret lover, Terrence Bethel, and also one of his friends, Farron Newbold Jr. The plot was uncovered when Bohemian police were investigating a break-in at the local bar that Terrence worked at, and then during the investigation, officers went through Terrence's phone and discovered WhatsApp messages where Lindsay is said to have texted, kill him, and a picture of her husband. Lindsay was arrested and spent 19 days in the Fox Hill

prison in Nassau, Bahamas before she was released on a $100,000 bail. Per her bail conditions, she has to stay in the Bahamas and wear an ankle monitor. She also has a curfew imposed from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. She has said that she is innocent, which, no real surprise there. Lindsay and Robert were in the middle of a very contentious divorce, and Robert comes from an extremely wealthy family, and the divorce proceedings were not going well for Lindsay. According to some of their divorce documents, Robert had blamed the divorce on his wife's adulterous conduct. She countered in a pleading that any extramarital relationship

had occurred while the couple was separate and was legally condoned by the husband. Lindsay asked the court to grant her a restraining order to shield her from the abuse that allegedly occurred in front of their children and compelled her to install locks on inside doors. Robert also asked the court to grant him a restraining order against his wife to keep her from molesting or harassing him. In his filing, Robert wanted to maintain the house, furniture, and car while the divorce was ongoing. Additionally, he says that Lindsay isn't entitled to alimony since she is able-bodied and able to work. On the other hand, Lindsay's filing said that she is entitled to their home and that because she is dependent on her husband's money, he should pay her alimony. Additionally, Lindsay claims that

Robert moved $98,000 out of their joint bank account and into his account, as well as not letting her use their private jet as a means of punishing her by removing her from their overall expensive lifestyle, trying to punish her, make her hang back with the rest of us folk here in economy and coach. So a little bit of a backstory there, but that's the picture that we have so far. And it's been speculated that the hit that was placed on Robert may have been financially motivated because of the divorce, and Lindsay getting outmaneuvered in family court. So Lindsay was back in court in the Bahamas on Monday, November 6th, and prosecutors were supposed to present evidence against Lindsay, Terrence, and Farron. However, they asked the court for more time to get everything together

to present, so her new hearing is set in December. According to Kevin Farrington, a tutor at the law school legal aid clinic in the Bahamas, the prosecution might be waiting on additional evidence to add into the indictment, which could include additional police reports, witness statements, and even police interviews. If convicted, all three defendants face sentences of up to 60 years in prison. Kevin Farrington spoke to U.S. Today and said, Because it's conspiracy to commit murder, because the alleged murder was not carried out, then any possible sentence may attract the lower end of the sentencing scale of 35 years. In this case, maybe somewhere in the range of 15 to 20 years if convicted, in my opinion.

Lindsay's attorney spoke to USA Today and said that the evidence will demonstrate Lindsay's innocence and that she is facing the legal process with complete transparency and honesty. They also say that throughout this ordeal, Lindsay's number one priority is the well-being and welfare of her three young children, that she is eager to resolve this matter as swiftly as possible so that she can get back to her family and continue being a great mother. While out on bail, Lindsay has not spoken publicly. However, she has made posts on social media. And on her birthday, she posted a quote. And in this quote, it says, One day soon, you'll wake up and the weight of the last few weeks or months will be lifted off

your shoulders. You don't know when that day will come. Only God does. All you can do is trust him And then in the children, Grayson, Landon, and Rhett. My heart is broken into a million pieces. I miss them dearly. Being apart from them for so long has been the hardest experience of my life. This has been a year with much self-reflection, and the one thing that has never been clear to me is how precious and valuable time with your children truly is. They're missing their mama, and I can't wait to hold them in my arms again soon. Meanwhile, Robert is back in Georgia with the boys, and there really isn't much information on the boys or what they know. However, Robert was pictured at airports with Savannah Chrisley, the daughter of Todd Chrisley and Julie Chrisley from Chrisley Knows Best. Now, there had been rumors that they were dating, but just recently, Savannah posted three photos across her social media accounts of her and Robert

hugging and kissing and using the hashtag THTD, which apparently means too hot to die. Now, I had to read the comments to figure out what that stood for, so that's my sign that I'm officially getting old. I also was told that this is what's being called a hard launch to the younger generation when you go Facebook official or God, that really dates me right. Facebook official. When you go Instagram official or TikTok official, apparently it's called a hard launch. And then this THTD, too hot to die, whatever the hell that means, like get a life, young kids. I can't figure this out. Now, this really isn't news, but it is a little bit of tea. So one of Lindsay's childhood friends on TikTok made a few posts about Lindsay, and she has adamantly stood by the fact that there

are two sides to this story, and that Lindsay is 100% innocent, and also that the truth will come out. Now, her comment sections are, of course, full of people saying that Lindsay is guilty and deserves everything that she has coming to her, etc., etc. And in one comment, someone says something about Savannah being the boy's new mom. And Lindsay actually replied to this random person, this random commenter, and said, they already have one and I'm not going anywhere. And then someone responded, since you're responding to questions, did you have an affair or not? And Lindsay responded, no, I didn't. So it's going to be really interesting to see what happens in this case as it moves forward, because there are a lot of people who think that she is being

set up due to the amount of wealth involved in the divorce and some audio recordings that had been released, a couple calls that had been made to the police prior to her being arrested. And maybe I'll do a full deep dive of this. I did do a deep dive on my YouTube channel about this case, but not since all those new recordings came out and kind of public opinion started to shift, wondering, all right, maybe Lindsay is innocent here. Maybe this is a setup by her wealthy man and his family and all of these things. So maybe what we'll do is we'll do a deep dive soon, kind of really just talking about both sides of this so that you can make a judgment call for yourself. Because there really are a lot of people divided out there. And I'm curious if you've been following the case,

what you think about it. Because in the beginning, it did really seem black and white. It seemed like, okay, she hired a hit. She was trying to get her boyfriend, her in the Bahamas, to kill her husband so she could inherit all this wealth and live happily ever after. But then as the recording started coming out and all of this information was starting to leak, it was like, this doesn't sound right. This feels too coincidental. Is this real? So I think let's do a deep leak. It was like, this doesn't sound right. This feels too coincidental. Is this real? So I think let's do a deep dive. I'm like clapping my hands if you can hear that. I'm like, this is what we're going to do. Maybe I'll do a deep dive on that soon. I probably will. So that is what I've got for you for headline highlights today, guys. Thank you

so much for tuning in. I appreciate you guys listening. If you would be so kind as to rate and review the podcast on your way out, you know I would love it and I would appreciate it. You guys are my true crime besties. Thanks for hanging out with me over here on Headline Highlights where I can kind of just break things down a little bit more casually, a little bit more candidly, just talking like we're BFFs. So that's what I got for you today. I will be back with you next Thursday with Headline Highlights, but before that, I will be back with you even sooner on Monday with a brand new deep dive into a case that is going on right now. So I will see you Monday and I will see you next Thursday. And now I am taking off. I will see you later. Thanks for tuning in and I

will check in with you guys soon. Bye.