Small Town Murder - Cold Blooded "Hero" - Early, Iowa

Episode Date: April 2, 2026

This week, in Early, Iowa, when a young man ends up in a pool of his own blood, inside of a neighbor's house, it looks like a mother was heroically protecting her kids. But is it all how it appears, or is this some kind of massive cover up & conspiracy? A mysterious pink notebook, that was kept secret for years, seems to hold the key to everything, and a prosecutor who has never tried a case in front of a jury has the job of putting it all together! A small town mess, that grows into national news.   Along the way, we find out that the "world's largest popcorn ball" isn't as big as we'd hoped it would be, that if you say that 3 people invaded your home, you'd better have some evidence that those people actually exist, and that there is only so much conspiracy theory that people will buy!! New episodes, every Wednesday & Friday nights!! Check us out on VIDEO Wednesday and Friday evenings on Netflix! www.netflix.com/smalltownmurder Go to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder, Crime In Sports & Your Stupid Opinions!   Follow us on... instagram.com/smalltownmurder facebook.com/smalltownpod   Also, check out James & Jimmie's other shows, Crime In Sports & Your Stupid Opinions on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts!!

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This week, in early Iowa, when a young man ends up in a pool of his own blood inside of a neighbor's house, it seems like a mother heroically protecting her kids. But is it all how it appears, or is this some kind of massive cover-up and conspiracy? Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yay! Yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed.

My name is James Petro Gallow. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wiseman. Thank you folks so much for joining us today. And another crazy, wild, insane. Don't know what's going on, edition of Small Town Murder. A really twisty, weird one for you today. And it's a lot of fun in a really rural area.

Good stuff here. It's what this show is built on. Crazy stuff. And it's a crazy case. And you might have some thoughts on it later on. We all will, and it's going to be one of those. We're going to have to hear them. Afterwards go, what do we just do?

What will just happen here? So we'll get to all that and more. First of all, though, head over to shut up and give me murder.com. Get all the merchandise, number one. Tickets to live shows, though. That's what we're talking about. Next live show with tickets available is Denver on May 2nd. Salt Lake City is sold out the night before.

Thank you for doing that. And then, oh, no, Buffalo sold out on the 29th of May. May 30th, Royal Oak, Michigan. Get your tickets there. And then after the summer in September, the 18th and the 19th, we will be in Milwaukee and Minneapolis. So make sure to get your tickets right now. Shut up and give me murder.com.

Make sure to listen to our other shows as well. Crime and Sports and which we just had some real murdery stuff going on in our last episode. Wow. That was a horrific murder there with that boxer. And then also, of course, your stupid opinions, which is just an hour of funny. It's just a lot of funny. And so you're going to love that if you like jokes. So do that.

Check those out. Also get yourself Patreon. Patreon.com slash crime in sports is where you get all of the bonus material. Anybody $5 a month or above, how much of this do they get that we put in? All of it. Oh, my goodness. We're crazy. So much.

So much. First of all, second you subscribe, you get hundreds of back bonus episodes you've never heard before. It's like a whole other feed of a whole other show to listen to. And then you get new ones every other week. And sports, one small town murder. And you, my friends, get it all. This week, no different. For crime and sports, we're going to talk about, we're going to go back and do part two of the old-timey articles and ads.

Because that was, we had so much fun with that. And that was great. And we have a whole bunch of more of those. So we're going to do part two of that. For small-town murder, let's talk about Corey Richens. Let's talk about it. Oh, boy. I watched the entire trial.

Wow. No way more about this than I need to. So I need to impart it to somebody. And that's going to be Jimmy. We got into the closing arguments, and that was enough. Oh, my goodness. This is the Utah mother who, well, has been convicted now of killing her husband, and she wrote a book about it for her kids where she made the guy an angel and about it's the craziest thing you ever want to talk about.

She is a wild, wild murderer person. So we'll talk about all that and more. Patreon.com slash crime in sports. In addition to that, you also get everything we put out, all three shows, all ad free with your Patreon as well. And if that's not enough, you also get a shout out at the end of the show, the main show here, where Jimmy will mispronounce your name horribly while trying his best to get it correct. Names are hard. Trust me. They're difficult, and I don't, I'm not jealous of having to pronounce a million names.

As much as I, reading as I have to do, that's awful. So that's, and we don't have to say all their names, but thank you to everybody that came to the Phoenix show, especially your stupid opinion show. That was great. You sold down our club twice. Yeah, incredible. Thank you so much for doing that. You made us look cool and you were just the incredible crowds, too. That was just a great weekend.

We cannot thank you enough for that. Thank you. Just a great weekend. How do you make sure? How do you mix those things together? Well, we think it's a little more tasteful, honestly, this way. It's a little less weird and murder porny. And the way we do it is we never make fun of the victims or the victims' families.

Why, James? Because we're assholes. But we're not scumbags. I think that's how it works there. So if that sounds good to you, you are going to hear a wild story of murder and deception and oddness and strangeness. If you think the true crime and comedy should never, ever, ever go together, we might not be the show for you. But I think maybe you should listen and check it out. You don't know.

But either way, no complaint and later. What do you say? So that said, I think it's time, everybody, to sit back. Here we go. You say, let's all clear the lungs here. arms to the sky and let's all shout shut up and give me murder let's do this everybody

let's go on a trip shall we yeah bags packed ready to go let's do it I'm standing by the front door waiting on me looking down the street for Jimmy he's always late or he's always early you never know he might show up a half hour early sometimes but it's an accident when you're on time usually 20 minutes late, earlier 20 minutes late.

One of the two. I thought it'd be. You're like, hey, look at that. Wow, I thought I was late. So we're going to Iowa this week. Yeah. We're going to early Iowa. Just like it's early in the morning.

There's no, I don't know, there might be a late Iowa, but this is early Iowa. It's inside Boyer Township, which has a bunch of towns in it. It's one of those deals here. Boyer Township. This is in Western Iowa, about two hours to Omaha. Nebraska and about two hours to Des Moines in the other direction. So it's kind of in between those. Two hours and 10 minutes to Mason City, Iowa, which is our last Iowa episode, episode 645, Breaking Batter, which you can kind of get from the title what's involved there.

Iowa, I promise I will try not to say Idaho at all, but every time we have an Idaho case, like I'm going to call it Iowa at least once and I'm going to do it back and forth. and I don't know why. I can't figure it out, but my brain... It's English. My brain wants it to be... Those things to be the same word for some reason. This is in SAC County, S-A-C, like your sack. Oh.

Like a sack in your body. Sack. Huh. But not the Nutsack. Not your Nutsack. It's some kind of sack. Yeah, Nutsack County. Area code 712, motto here,

Crossroads of the Nation. There's always a crossroads. Yep. And their town logos like a big X with like roads marks on it, you know, like name lines. I've never even heard of you. Nope, I guess because Iowa was somewhere in the middle. So they're, that's what they're doing here. A little bit of history of early.

It was incorporated pretty early, 1883 and is named after D.C. early. It was a local settlement. He was judge D. Carr early. He was a judge. A judge, apparently. Wow. And that's what it happened. Somebody had traveled by stage through here looking for a place to start a blacksmith

shop. He was just going from town to town going, is this a good place to start a blacksmith shop? Yeah. And judge... I want to build a real hot fire. Can I do it here. Anywhere you can, I can do that here. I promise I'll try not to burn the entire town down, but I will probably.

Yeah. The judge recommended starting it on the 40 acres that he owned, which was about two and a half mile south of where downtown early is now. and so he even donated 10 acres of land. He said, I'll give you, you buy 30, I'll give you 10 free. What do you say? 25% off right now. That's right.

So that was recorded in 1878, and the new town was given the name of Early in honor of him. In the beginning, it's just a little bit, little tiny town. You know, it's really nothing. There's a big tree corner, which was a widely known landmark. It was literally turn left up up at the big tree corner. Big tree, yeah. That was just a way of doing stuff. Now, there's a junction of highways that's south of where Early is now here.

Now, as this is going on, basically, I guess the original town of Early was a little bit south of here. And then they kind of moved the town. They do that a lot. They shifted it. Yeah, they shifted it here. I think whenever the railroad puts in a station, people start meandering toward that. So the new town was. was in the 1880s, and that's, they had several houses, a post office, a railroad depot,

a blacksmith, of course, meat market, a barbershop, all that kind of shit. Now, reviews of this town, and really nothing has happened since then in this town, by the way, since the 1880s, it's really that not much has changed in this town. There's not a lot going on. Big ferrier town. Yeah. From what I understand, too, like stuff is kind of closed down here. Like there was a 24-hour gas station that's not 24 hours anymore.

stuff like that's going on. Like the restaurant closed. Yeah. It's not good. You know, that's what 7-11 was, right? That used to be their hours. 7-211. Uh-huh.

And then they went 24 hours and didn't change their name. And now it's just, they took the two off of there. Why didn't they just change it to 24-7? Why would you not do that? That seems so obvious back then to just change it to that. I don't know, man. But it used to literally be 7-2, the number 2, 11. Yeah.

And the 2 was real small, meaning we were open from 7-11. Which, you put a two in there, which just confuses everybody. Now it's all fucked up. No, it's all fucked up. There is only one review of this town here that I found. It's one review, one star. Yeah. And it's, quote, there is nothing here.

The local restaurant shut down and the gas stations no longer open 24 hours. See what I mean? From that. It's open 7 to 11. It's stupid. There is only crackheads and rich old white people. Nothing in between. Oh.

Old rich farmers and crackheads. This is all you get here. It's difficult. Yeah. Population here. That's kind of Nashville. Yeah. You also get drunks though there. Yeah.

You get middle class drunks that put in the mix. A little tourism. Yeah. So people who are people from like the hills of northern Georgia come there to party also. So people in this town, 587 is the official number. But people have said since 2020, it's actually gone down quite a touch. So we're not sure. It could be closer to the 400 mark now.

Wow. Going down. 400 people, not 400,000. No, no, no, 400,000. We wouldn't be talking about it. Right. There's a city over here. It's got 400,000 people in it.

Literally 500 people live in this place. That's it, pretty much. It's 56.4% men, which is wildly out of whack statistic for... For how small the population is. That's a shitload of dudes. That's way more guys. Yeah, that's not good. That's the farm work.

I think is the main issue there. It's like 300 men to 200 women. Yeah, that's definitely a much different ratio. Bad ratio for the fellows out there. Median age here, 43.8, which is about five years older than the national average. So you can get a little older crowd. It's only 41.6% married. I expected this to be one of those 60% married towns, but it's not.

But other than that, a lot of the stuff is pretty average, except for race. Race of this town, 87.2% white. 8.9% black, 3.2% Hispanic. So that's it. Iowa. Look at you. Look at you. Zero Asians and nothing like that.

Doing your part. What are you talking about? For what? Seems like an awfully high amount of black people for Iowa. Oh, oh. I said, you said that right after I said 0.0% Asian. So I was like, what are you talking about? Doing your part of them.

Keeping them damn Asians out of here. It was like, wow, what is going on? Jimmy. He's just unleashing a bubbling hatred of Asians I didn't even know existed. And we talked privately all the time. You've never brought this up. This is wild. Almost 10% African American in a tiny-ass town in Iowa is fucking mind-blowing, really. That seems like a lot of black people for that for a small town. 74.4% of the people here are religious. That is as high as, that's like Utah levels of religion here. And the highest one of all is Lutheran coming in at 20.

24.3%. Lutherans, they're taking the title here. Now, there is low unemployment in this town, which, I mean, there's not a lot of people. It seems like if there's no jobs, you just move to find jobs. So you don't just stick around here and be unemployed. That would be horrible. And hope. And hope.

The gas station's not even open 24 hours. Jesus, yeah, they canceled the night shift. We don't even have that anymore. Median household income here, $78,210, which is above the national average. Holy shit. about almost $10,000, which a lot of the properties are big. It's a lot of farms, a lot of things like that. How do they do that?

What do you mean? Farms. That's a lot of money. Yeah, I think there's a lot of people have property and farms. Living off the land and stuff. Yeah, when you only have 400-something people, I don't think there's a lot of, you know, there's not a lot of people that are working at the gas station. It's probably only two guys that work there because there's only two shifts that are open.

And that's it. So you probably get everybody, you either kind of own some property, it makes some money off of that or you don't really, you know. They probably cut that midnight shift because nobody needed the job. No, yeah, we can't find anybody for it. Now, cost of living, 100 is regular average. Here it's 73. So that's, 73 is pretty low.

And the median home cost is really low here. Really? It's crazy. $123,500. Maybe they don't want us talking about this, James. That is cheap. This sounds great. It sounds awful.

This is the middle of nowhere in Iowa. But I mean, everybody's making money and, Nobody has to spend any money. Who cares? They seem to be happy about it. It's like 100 degrees in humid all summer. It snows all. This is a terrible place to live for, you wouldn't go there and go, yeah, I got me a cheap house, but everything else, who cares?

This is great. This is awful. Afro-Man's doing it up in fucking Ohio. Yeah, and look what happens. Cops come and kick your goddamn door in for no reason. That's what I'm saying. You don't want to live here. They want to live here?

No offense. early, but no, thank you. I'm sure it's great if you grew up there, but it would be hard to, you know, put yourself, weave yourself into the fabric of this community. Although that's our story today as someone attempting to do that. Yeah. Correct. So that's pretty cheap,

though, 123.5. So if we've convinced you, or if Jimmy's convinced you, that this is a wonderful place to live, we have for you the early Iowa real estate report. All right, house number one in Jimmy's utopia.

here. Yeah. This is actually a nearby Sack City. It's the next little town over. Yeah. There's only one house open for sale in the town proper of early. So in Sack City, though, you can get yourself a one bedroom or a studio with one bathroom.

It's a house, though. Yeah? Who the hell builds a house with one room? What a weird thing to do. And it's not a... That is the czar. It's not like a new tiny house. It's an old house.

house. It makes no sense. It's 1,110 square feet. No land to speak of. You're kind of on top of your neighbor here. It seems kind of depressing. $112,000, though, for that. You're in Sack City, you're in Sack City. Oh, it's time. And then here is the one on right on Main Street in downtown early. You can watch the gas station close at 10 o'clock every night from here. This is a three-bedroom. Walking it off. Yeah, three-bedroom, two-bath, 1,488 square foot house. It's a nice little cute house, do story. On 0.29 acres, so not huge, but you know, you're not right on top of your neighbor, which is nice.

Quarter acre kind of close to it, though, right? Yeah, because it's downtown early. So, I mean, there's a few little houses like that. 162,500 bucks for that. It's nice on the inside, well done. And you're a homeowner. And you're a homeowner. That's not bad.

I mean, 1,500 square feet, three bedrooms, not a bad house. Next up, oh, here's you. You want to really stretch out and relax. This is the crowning jewel here. There's a lot of land for sale around here, but not a lot of houses. This is another one in Sack City. It is a five-bedroom. Keep that in mind when I tell you the square footage.

Five-bedroom three bath, 1668 square feet. Five bedrooms. How do you do that? I don't know how you squeeze five bedrooms. I mean, there's no living room, no kitchen. That's all bedrooms. You're on point. 3.39 acres, but behind you is like a big farm field and it just looks like flatness as far as the eye can see.

That's your view. Flat. $475,000 for that. They better justify that. What is that? Where that's coming from. Was gold found on this property in the past? I think Jed Clampett used to live here and I think there's a good deal of oil under this property is the only possible explanation. Is there a civil war battle?

If you are a shooting at some food, you may come up with something here. You may find some crude. Other than that, I don't know anything about it. So that's a lot. That is expensive. Now, things to do here, there's a couple of things to do. Number one, everybody should really do this. 11 minutes away, a short 11 minute drive from here is the world's largest popcorn ball.

Well, how? That's about the reaction I had to. It's not even that big. That's the thing. It's shockingly small. It's not that big. Like a basketball? Like a medicine ball?

No, it's about the size of a truck, I would say. It's about the size of like a GMC Yukon, if we'll say. Which the world's largest, I expect it to be like, oh, it's three stories high and it's, you know what I mean? Didn't you think of it like that? It better be indoors too because that's going to be a little smaller every year. Every time it rains. But yeah, you picture that. I picture like something.

Impressive. This is literally they have it like in a, just like in a bulldozer thing like picked up and you go look at it. Oh, really? Like a front end loader. And a big, yeah, and it's not that much. It's about the same size of the front end loader. It's pretty pathetic, honestly. You wouldn't travel for this, put it that way.

No. It's pretty sad. It feels like that little rascal's sketch of a four foot man eating chicken chicken. Yeah. It's just a four foot child eating a chicken life. Eating a chicken leg. Yeah. It's the same thing.

You stop and you're like, oh, that's it? That's it. I mean, technically it probably is the world's largest popcorn ball because no one thought that was important enough to make a giant popcorn ball except for whoever did this. Yeah, because nobody else has tried. But when I saw it,

I was so unimpressed. Oh, we could set the record easy. It's so unimpressive. So unimpressive. But what do you stick it together with? Is it just like a melted sugar? Who knows? Honey?

I don't know. Popcorn. Popcorn glue, Jimmy. You know, that stuff. I used to get popcorn balls when I was a kid. the fucking ones that looked like a jackal anton at Halloween. Yeah. I don't know what the fuck they're glued together with.

That's probably something edible, I would assume. I hope. If you're making it just to look at, you could use fucking Elmer's glue at that point. It wouldn't matter. Yeah, I guess so. No one's going to eat this goddamn thing. So there's also early crossroads day. Okay, that's an annual July event.

It's the most important community celebration of the year, according to the town website here. Important. Important. That's the word that struck me. featuring numerous activities for people of all ages, including a parade, school reunions. They just have it at this every year. They don't bother getting, like, gathering at a hall or anything.

They just say, I'll see you at the next parade. We'll see at the festival. Softball tournaments, a craft show, food and live music. And we'll find out what that live music is because it's not even ludicrous. It's... No, there's no... It's 400 people. There's nobody here.

So it says, though, the events of Crossroads Day are important for... current and past or residents alike. Okay. So we start out on Friday, July 18th with the Play Bags Tournament. I assume that's Cornhole, but they don't want to say it. It fucking better be. The kids make too many jokes, so they just call it bags now. We've got Sack City right down the road.

Right there. I'm going to go play. I'm representing Sack City in the Bags Tournament. Now, there's Bingo for three hours. That's how exciting this is. Bingo is one of the main events there. Bingo and bags. Bingo and bags.

There's a kids parade, which just looks like a, what is that, like a pedophile buffet? That sounds awful. Just walk them by and pick them out as they go by. Creepy. Then there's Noise Kitchen, which I think is a band. It should be, yeah. But it's a three-hour thing. That's a long set.

Good Christ. Jesus. Then there's a car show. There is a big parade registration. Yeah. Okay. The big parade? I guess.

Then there's the big parade, and it's in all caps. And it says featuring Abu Becker Rat Patrol. What is that? Are those people that kill rats or is that a band? I don't know. Then there's a lucky wife wine slushies will be available at 10 a.m. For the lucky wife. The lucky wife who gets drunk before noon on a Saturday.

Frozen wine. The noon meal, which is free with a donation. You know, lunch. You know, lunch. Well, they call it different because then they call it the evening meal later on. That's some Iowa shit. What? That's some Iowa shit.

Yeah. This is one of those places I think where supper is at noon. You know what I mean? Supper is lunch and then they have the evening meal. It might be like that. There's kids water fights. That's in the street at 12.30 p.m. Then there's regular water fights at two.

Then we bring in the adults here. Push those kids aside to fight with each other. They bring up the big guns that. warming up their pitching arm. Yeah. Oh, come on now. Evening meal from 5 to 7. At 5 p.m.

Cow pie bingo will be taking place. Cow pie bingo, which means they're using shit as markers. Yep. That's what that means. That's disgusting. And then the big entertainment for the weekend. Oh, boy.

Cotton Creek Entertainment DJ. That's what it says. Somebody spin it something. Some DJ we hired. Yeah. Some DJ we hired. Now, crime rate, what we're interested in this down, property crime, about half of the national average. So very low.

That's good. Because you'd be able to know who stole anything. Yeah, for sure. I saw it. It was Bob. He stole my shit. And that's all their crime, right? That's it.

And then violent crime, murder rape robbery, and of course assault, the Mount Rushmore of crime is about one quarter below the national average. Seems like it should be lower, right? That's frighteningly high. Let's talk about a reason why maybe it's a little higher with this murder here. Let's talk about some murder, everybody. Okay. Let's go. Now, let's start out with December 13th, 2001.

Give you a little snapshot of the overview, and then we'll go back and get into this. Now, there's a nice... Christmas, two weeks away. Two weeks away, and somebody is actually Christmas shopping comes up in this whole thing, too, that somebody was Christmas shopping. Doing it early. Good for them. They're getting it out of the way.

That's nice. Plus, in an early, you need to, like, you need to get to... get out of town in a Christmas shop, so you really got to plan it. You can't just go to the store. Two weeks before and early, you're late. You can't even stop at the gas station for the last minute item. Get you some 10W 40 for your troubles. You can't even do that if it's late.

So there's a 911 call from an 11-year-old boy. Oh. And he's saying they need help over here at the house and early. People have broken into their home. It's been like a home invasion with multiple men have broken into the home. and his mother shot an intruder. Oh, good for her. They need it all.

They need everything. Yeah, bring the cops, bring the ambulance. Come help this man. He's injured. You get. Now, when police arrive, they find a young man absolutely been shot quite a bit. He's been shot nine times. Oh.

He's in a pool of his own blood. He's in a heap on the floor. He's a mess. She hit him nine times? Nine times. We'll find out later 11 shots. were fired nine strikes on this guy. Wow. Now the woman at the hospital they discover later on, she has red marks around her neck, that they believe are ligature marks from strangulation. And she says

she has been strangled with a pair of panty hose that she was hanging over the banister to dry. And she's got other bruises on her indicating a possible struggle here. Because that's her, that's her story. Now, she also says he was not the only person here, multiple people. broke in the rest of them ran it might it was at least two it was at least the dead man and another person and possibly a third wow she was said the whole thing was you know she didn't realize whether it was two or three but at least two so this other assailant this person who breaks into a woman's house she has three small kids at home there's an 11 year old there's a nine year old or a 10 year old and a one year old in the house that's why you shoot 11 rounds yeah so

that's a that's a lot so she says there's still somebody on the loose right now. So the cops freak out. The town freaks out. This is not a... I'm sure. This is not a normal occurrence in early Iowa. That this is going on.

Even any kind of lights, emergency lights, people are like, what the hell's going on? You know, they think they know everything about everybody. So... Hey, everybody. Just going to take a quick break from the show and tell you a much better way to feed your dog with Ollie. Ollie.com. O-L-L-I-E dot com.

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That's OLLI-E.com slash STM, enter code STM, to get 60% off your first box. Now back to the show. Neighbors immediately after that say they lock their doors now. This was a no-locking community before this, but now everybody's deadbolted up. One neighbor said it's been really shocking. I know it happens all the time, but this is a small town and somebody you know. How does this happen? You know what I mean?

She said she and her husband were watching TV when they saw the flashing lights of emergency vehicles coming down their street. And she said, it's a pretty quiet town. So something like that really shakes people up. That is bizarre. As you might imagine. A lot of 50 cent origin stories happening. Not a lot of that. No, no.

A rapper from here is really going to get. get going to get clowned on a lot. He's not going to... He's not going to... He's not going to... How'd you know? That was his... How'd you know? That was the name of the one guy's debut album, nine ears of corn.

And, yeah, people knew. People knew what he meant. Because he's hard. It's okay. So, Kenley Schamaker and his wife, Jane, are both members of the local fire department's emergency medical units. It's a lot of volunteer. Right. There's not a lot

of work for the community together. Yeah, not a lot work for people around here. You can't hire a full-time staff. You got to have, you know, there's only 400 people. What are the odds of needing constant medical care in emergencies? Yeah. And the ability to keep somebody on staff more than one fireman, because you can't just have one fireman. He's the guy. You got to have firemen. Yeah, exactly. So that's how you do volunteer stuff. Now, they said, quote, there was a lot of blood and shell casings. I have no idea what she went through, the woman who had to do the shooting. She had to go through hell to be. be scared like that.

That's what they said. Like, it looked like, man, somebody must have really just been so terrified. Brass all over the place. It's a dead man. No, this shit looks like the OK Corral, for Christ's sake. It's wild. And when we find out later, too, two guns were used. What?

So this is, she was going like Doc Holiday on this person. This is crazy. That's why the OK Corral came up with me because someone just pop, pop, pop, pop. I mean, that's pretty wild. She had dual holsters this like. That's impressive. It's pretty impressive. So let's find out a little bit about her and find out who's on the floor and what the hell happened here.

Okay. Tracy Ann Richter is her name. Now, at the time this happens, she's Tracy Ann Roberts. But Richter is her maiden name here. Now, she's from Chicago originally. Okay. Born in 1966. She's not from the farm area.

She's not from Iowa. She's not from this area. She's pretty new in town, actually. They've only been in town about three years-ish, two to three years, her and her family, her and her husband and three small children. Sure. Now, she, her dad is a Chicago homicide detective, by the way. Oh. So, yeah, someone said.

She's aware, yeah. Someone told her, somebody breaks in your house. You shoot first and you ask questions later. I'll tell you that right now. And if one gun is empty, grab a nothing. You grab two in case one. don't work right. I'll tell you that. Yeah. That's right. You put a sport pepper on it afterwards and you make it Chicago style. That's how you do it. That's shake the celery salt. Salary salt and a

little bit of a sport pepper and you got yourself something special there, pal. Let me tell you. Now, so that's that's where she comes from. If you come from your dad being a homicide detective, you've heard some wild shit. Yeah. And you are like, okay, it's finally coming for me. Like I would assume you just be waiting for the minute that somebody's coming to murder you in your home. Locked and loaded every day. All the time. So she got married in 1988 at age 22 to a Dr. John Pittman the 3rd. Oh.

Yeah. He's a plastic surgeon. Hell yeah. Originally based in Colorado and then later in Virginia. Now, plastic surgeons I never trust, by the way. They're the... Yeah. I've always heard somebody...

I can't remember who said it. But years ago, someone said plastic surgeons are the pimps of the doctor world. And I was like... Yeah. Because they're not like normal doctors. They have like jewelry and shit. And they're, you know, you go in their office and they're like, you want a white wine spritzer while I look at your tits. It's a real weird scenario.

It's not quite as clinical as other. I've never seen one of them walking around like this either. You know what I mean? No, no, no. Never. They're just like shaking hands. And they're about to go do surgery. Excuse me.

Yeah, it's crazy. And you never know. Like, if you go to a normal doctor, they're like, well, nothing's wrong with you. Go home. or as you go to these people, they're like, what do you want me to fix? You know what I mean? You look like shit, I'll fix it off.

I'll carve you all up. You don't like your nose? No problem. Your lips, we can work with that. Your tit's sagging, perfect. How's your ass doing? Does that need a little help too?

They'll do anything. And they'll look at you and just pick you apart. Like, oh, look at you. Yeah, I could see that there. But you don't even know. Five toes? Jesus. Everybody only has four now. It's kind of the new trend, really.

If you hang out in certain places. It's usually taking the middle one out. It balances you out. We take that out. And it seems, yeah, people seem to like it. No, you'll walk funny, but it's people seem to think it looks good. Yeah, yeah. Closed-toed shoes, for sure.

You'll never fit in another pair of sand. No, no. They'll fall off for sure if you do that. So 1990, they have a son named Bert. Now, Bert is the 11-year-old who called 911. All right. Okay. By 1992, their marriage is getting a little fucking weird here.

A little messed up here. Complicated and messy, would be a good way to put it. They separate after some strife and then they get back together and separate again. They accuse each other of all sorts of shit. It's mutual accusations of abuse. There's gun. There's gunplay involved here as well. Yeah.

Some crazy shit. In 1992, Tracy ends up pleading no contest to discharging a firearm during an argument with him. In the home? Wherever they were, it doesn't really. really matter. Honestly, she discharged a firearm in the house down at the... In city limits. Yeah. Yeah. Just during an argument, I think, is the main issue here. That's not good. If you fire a gun and anger, that's a lot. That's some shit. So she received probation for that. Okay. Okay. It was her first offense. So Tracy pulls guns, apparently.

She's good for it. She's good for it. By 1996, they are, the divorce is happening between them. And there's, like I said, competing stories of violence. During the divorce, she accuses him of sexually abusing their son Bert, the one born in 1990. She said he was three years old when Dr. Pittman was abusing him. Now, the investigators look into the claim, fully investigated, social services, everything else. They find no evidence of this whatsoever. And they find it awfully convenient.

that it only comes up during a custody fight. During a divorce. And not earlier, you know what I mean? And he countered that she was violent. I mean, she did let a shot off at it during an argument. There is evidence of that. Never mind letting a shot off. There was a gun out during an argument.

That's crazy. Right. That's what I, you know, you've been in relation, you've been married and divorced. Sure. You've been in arguments with your spouse. A gun ever come out once? Never, right? I'm shocked, but no.

No. At your house, yeah, that is shocking, but still, no. So he said that she was not only violent but unfaithful as well. She also was cheating on him and all that kind of thing. So after the divorce, Tracy moves back to Chicago with the young son, with Bert. So it's just Tracy and Bert. And she begins dating, apparently, a new man, a different doctor. Sure. Oh, she likes the doc. She likes this. Well, they're stable people. You know, there's an income coming and they're usually, you know, well, people tell you too, you know, go find a nice doctor. Go find it. Especially back in the day, not now, but in the 60s where she was born, they'd say, find a nice doctor. Also, back then, health insurance paid you no matter what, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. They just cut the check. If you were a doctor and you send them a bill, they'd pay it. They'd pay it. So this is Dr. Joseph Lispiza. And he's an oral surgeon in Chicago. So a hated, hated man.

Boy, are they fucking, they're heroes. People have nightmares about his face, though. That's the problem. Well, it's this close to them. Terrible shit happens. Heroes. They will change your life. Oh, they're great.

Trust me. You will... It's horrible. Yeah. You will want to kill that person with your bare hand. As I have a dental appointment tomorrow. Tomorrow. So that's why I...

As much as I love them, I hate them, too. Absolutely heroes. Oh, yeah. Heroes. I won't feel that way tomorrow. But a week from then, I will feel that way again. But grudged hero. Yeah.

Now, there is a serious accusation that she makes toward Dr. Lispiza or Lispiza here. Okay. She, in this, they were dating, by the way. Yeah? She claims that he sexually assaulted her while she was sedated in his dental chair. Oh, how did she know? Which is, I mean, I guess if you've seen that episode. of Seinfeld.

Maybe her shirt was untucked or I don't know what the signs of that or something. Something, but that's what the accusation is. Now, she produces a typewritten confession from him. Oh. What she says is from him in which he not only admits to all of this, but agrees to pay her $150,000 for her trouble. Okay. Now, okay. He said, I didn't fucking type that.

That's crazy. I didn't molest her. We were going out and I never sedated her in the chair. I didn't molest her. And I certainly didn't type up of confession. I definitely didn't agree to pay her 150 grand. So this is all bullshit, basically. He called the whole thing an extortion scheme.

And he said... Sounds like. Yeah, he said she had him clocked from the minute they met probably to do this. He said, none of this ever happened. She didn't report this to the police, by the way. No? Who did she report it to?

Didn't report it to the police. Didn't report it to like the board of... Dentistry or whatever, whoever you're telling a doctor to. She filed a civil suit for the 150,000 that she says that he promised her now based on this letter. This went nowhere. There's no proof. No proof it happened. No proof he wrote the letter.

It's just her with a typewritten page is saying he should give me $150,000. He asked me $150,000. So he, Lispiza later said that the incident damaged his practice. He described the whole thing. And he said it made him feel angry and stupid. Sure. Yeah. He got like Sharon Stoneed in casino basically.

Like that's what they, that's how he feels, that he got scammed. So about 1997, maybe late 1996. She's had a busy year. She's been divorced, had this whole thing with the oral surgeon and now meeting a new guy all in the same year. So it's been an eventful year. Yeah. It's been a time. Been a time.

She meets a new guy named Michael Roberts. He is an Australian, actually, and he's an entrepreneur, which makes him sound really fancy. He's an Australian entrepreneur, but he also income is spotty and stuff like that from his entrepreneurial adventures and things of that nature. He's starting and selling businesses so much that he doesn't know which one he's involved in now. I think it's just he doesn't have a job, I think, is the main point. But he will end up working. doing this, but for some, it's not, he's not overly successful. He's not, you know, some kind of Australian baron who came over here to, you know, relax in Iowa or anything like that. So,

so that's what he does. Now, they met online in like 1997, which is incredibly ahead of the curve. That's chat rooms, right? That's a hell. Yeah, probably. It's, it's way ahead of the curve, this shit. This is well before this was coming. That's before you, Harmony. Oh, yeah, right before that. This is when if you met someone online, you'd make a deal not to tell anyone where you met. He'd say, I know people like that. What?

I remember in like 2000. What? In 2003, there was a couple that I knew. Yeah. And they said they knew each other in college or some shit. They, whatever. And my friend took me aside and he was real funny guys. He had a Boston accent.

And he's like, he goes, I got to tell you the truth. And I'm like, what? He goes, I never been to college. He was actually like a really good accountant with a weird Boston accent, which was hilarious. He goes, I didn't meet her in college. I'm like, okay, where'd you meet her? He goes, I met her on the internet. I was like, whispery like that? Whispered. We were nowhere near people. I met her on the internet. And I said, I need this to go no further. I said, okay, he goes, don't tell nobody seriously, because people will make fun of us. We didn't tell our families,

because my mother would kill me if he, if she, if she, we didn't tell our family. My mother would kill me if she knew I found a girl off the computer. That's what he tells. me just like that. And then he did one of these. He pats you on the arm. Like, that's our like pact of silence. And he nodded and he walked away. I'm not

shitting you at all. That's exactly what happened. And I was like, I don't care where you met. On the computer. The computer. I was like, I won't tell, bro. You're good. You are totally fine. That's too fun. Yeah, do you know why she would kill you?

Because it never fucking works. man. Yeah. It usually doesn't work. All they did was fight too. It was a now, because now they've got it down to a science. Oh, they're still together. I don't think they're together now.

Oh. They were fighting in like 2003. It was ugly. So I can't imagine they're still together now. But now it's people that meet online, it's different because there's so many like things, filters you have to go through first. So it's a little more matched up. Back then it was just, there was this chicken, this chat room.

Yeah. And then like she was talking and I was talking. And, you know, like, I was like, hey, she likes the band I like. And, like, you know, TV shows are the same. And then we got together. And now we're married. Don't tell my mother, though. Don't tell him.

Yeah. She don't know. Like, I'm going to meet his mother, too. I didn't know this guy that well. Yeah. Like, I'm going to meet his mother. That means she's as embarrassed as he is, that if we're not telling anybody. Yeah.

But this is like Tracy's adventurous because not only is this online. Yeah. And she's like 30, too. 31 years old at this point. So not a lot of 31-year-olds were really kicking around on the Internet in 97. This was for like 15-year-olds to be doing. And not only that, but he's an Australian. This is all very exotic.

Yeah. Very exotic, this whole thing. So they get married very fast. Like, within a year of meeting, they're married. Wow. Yeah. They have kids quick, pumping them out. Entrepreneur.

Entrepreneur. Australian entrepreneur. He makes kangaroo repellent. And not a large market for that in Iowa, unfortunately. But in his homeland, it went huge. Makes mallets to defend against drop bear. So, 19. I love that. 1998 they have a son named Noah.

And then in 1999, 2000-ish, they have another child named Mason. So three kids, total for her, two out of this marriage. Two are half Australian. So we've got Bert, Noah, and what's the last one? Mason. Bert, Noah Mason. They moved to... Four letter names?

Mason, all right. Yeah, Mason, but short. They all moved to early. It's cheap, number one. We can get a big house for cheap, which... I've heard of that. We heard tell of that bit. That's my selling point.

It's quiet. It's cheap. She thinks it's a nice place to raise kids. It's not like Chicago. It's not, you know, a big city and that sort of thing. So they were like, plus she's got a lot of history in Chicago with all these divorces and lawsuits and gunplay and things like that. So she's looking to start over. Start a new.

New family, new times, new start. So they buy a house here from a woman named Mona Weedy. I think it's Weedy. W-E-H-D-E. I think it's Weedy or weed. But Mona. Now, Mona lives two houses over. And she's also a real estate agent.

So she is the person showing the house to the Roberts now Roberts family, Tracy, Michael, Bert, Noah Mason. Okay. So Mona's family lives right there and they're going to be close with the Roberts family because they're the first people they meet. She's the real estate agent who sold her the house. And she's like, if he's anything, I'm right there. Is this also her house or somebody else's house? No, somebody else's house. She's just showing it.

But she lives two doors down. So cool. Now, Mona has a fan. family as well. She's got a husband named Brett here, and they have a son named Dustin at this time. Justin's born in 1981, so when they move in, he's 18-ish, just graduating from high school. Dustin grew up here his whole life, all that kind of thing, or his father has lived there forever. He's a local guy. They're sewn into the early fabric here. They're early as it gets.

They're early as it gets, that's right, real early. Now, Dustin, people say he's quiet, pretty timid, seems a little depressive sometimes. Okay. Generally, a non-confrontational, kind of a quiet kid. That's just the way he is. Iowa boy. But he's not like a, he's not brash at all, which is understandable for an Iowa guy, but he's also not like, I'm a tough farm guy. He's not like that either.

He's just kind of a timid young guy. No criminal record or anything like that. Not a real ambitious guy. He works at Dairy Queen. Okay. He's working at Dairy Queen and stuff like that. He likes to play golf and go snowmobiling with his dad. In high school, he was in special education classes.

He worked at Dairy Queen, and he also worked on a construction, on a plant, basically the construction of an ethanol plant. Let's turn that corn into something, essentially here. Now, Dustin. That was likely, like, the big job to get at the time, too. Oh, probably. Yeah. They're building the ethanol plant. They're building the plant.

It's probably a decent pay. Now, Dustin becomes close with Michael, Tracy's Australian husband. Oh. They become close. Michael becomes like a mentor to Dustin. And for Dustin, if you grew up your whole life in a town with 400 people, somebody from another country across the world must seem pretty cool and exotic. And he's been around the world.

And, you know, he seems like he's probably. just worldly, you know what I mean? And you don't know shit. So, and Michael's real nice to him and takes them, takes him along like to church. He'll take Dustin along with them. And he's doing fine, but he was a little slower than the other kid. So it's probably pretty impressive that he does things too. And I don't know what his level of that was or if he's just like dyslexic or we have no idea.

You know what I mean? He could just be something simple like that. I'm not sure. If there was less people in the classroom, I probably would have been in those classes, too. The teachers could fucking see it, apart from my fucking grace. I just heard you read the shoutouts, and they're like, we're bringing him in. He said Pamela, and that's not right. They never had me read out loud.

If they would have heard that shit, they'd been like, oh, no. Something's wrong. That's fucking funny. Yeah, that's, if you don't know, I don't read the stories because I like the sound of my own voice. Yeah. That's not what it is at all. Because I can't. If I can say, Jimmy, read this.

That would be wonderful for a while, but it would take, and it's no offense. For a good five, ten minutes, it might be fun. Yeah, it's no offense at all, too, because reading out loud is not, you have to be practiced at it or else it's not easy. So you're not dumb. It's just a matter of, it's a hard thing for some people to do. And so anyway, basically, Dustin gets to hear about the outside world from Michael, and Michael's trying to take him under his wing. They do paintball tournaments and stuff too.

Michael and Dustin are like paintball buddies. Dustin goes with the family and they enter paintball tournaments and he's on Michael's team and all that kind of shit. And so, you know, the family is pretty, they're pretty enmeshed these two families. I mean, they're not eating at each other's houses every night or anything like that. But, you know, they're doing special outings together. Yeah, they know each other well. And now there's also Mary Higgins. She is a local lady who's Mary Higgins sounds like she's from Iowa.

Well, there's an author, Mary Higgins Clark, right? Yes. She doesn't have a Clark, though. No? No, she's looking for a guy named Clark. She can marry. She thought it'd be... So everybody thinks she's real rich.

Yeah, she could up her status a little bit here. My mom has every one of that bitch's books. Yeah, that's fucking one of them. I was going to say, a lady like your mom's age, that's right in the wheelhouse there. Agatha Christie and Mary Higgins Clark from my fucking bathroom was looked like a border, so it was just those, though. That's the female equivalent to having a shelf of Tom Clancy novels. It's very similar.

That couple's married. You know, Mary Higgins-Clark lady and fucking Tom Clancy guy. Yeah. So she's a farmer here, Mary, and she becomes Tracy's close friend in early. There's her confidant. She drove Tracy's son home from school all the time, and, uh, Her and Tracy would have coffee together and, you know, just this is her pal. This is her sit down lady pal here.

Sure. Now, there is still drama here, though. This isn't, everything isn't settled. She can't clean it out. Well, it's not all settled because she, Tracy is still in an ongoing custody battle with her first husband, Dr. Pittman, over son Burke. It's still going on. They've been divorced for years.

They're still fighting about custody. He's 11 or some shit. Going on. he's 10 going on 11. So it's a lot. And there is a custody hearing approaching in early 2002. So now the whole shooting happened December 13, 2001. There is an approaching custody hearing going on there. And it's a big deal, too, because he pays her at this point a thousand dollars a month in child support. In the 90s. In the late 90s. And that apparently, shit and early, that's enough to live on back then. Yeah, yeah.

And that apparently is something that Tracy does not want to lose at all. I mean, I'm sure she doesn't want to lose her son either, but she also needs the income as well. Right. So there's a lot. If she loses primary custody, she loses her son and $1,000. Yeah. It's winter take all here. So there's a lot.

So this $1,000 meant something to her as well. Sure. Now, 2000 and 2001 in this area, her marriage to Michael is starting to fall apart. Her relationships are rough. Yeah. They're rough. I mean, they don't last long. Mutual allegations of abuse, again, Tracy claiming physical violence, Michael denying it and accusing her of trying to suffocate him.

Now, we don't know if that's figuratively or literally, but that's the accusation that he says is suffocating him. So we're not sure. So she, in 2001, she's still fighting with Dr. Pittman here. she makes new allegations about abuse of Burt from Dr. Pittman. Oh. And these were dismissed by the court. From 10 years earlier, she's still saying this shit was going on. Yeah, she's still saying from 1993 this happened.

And I don't know if she's saying that or if she's alleging new instances of abuse. Got it. Not sure. But either way, the doctor responds by filing legal actions claiming that she was interfering with his visitation rights and alienating him from his son. and she's not allowed to do that. So Tracy is worried about all this. She's going to have to travel to Chicago to go to court now. And it's a turning to a huge pain in the ass.

Now, a few days before the shooting in her house and the home invasion and all that, a judge had ordered that Tracy be deposed shortly. Okay. In the next couple of weeks, you're going to be deposed, which is a big deal. in a case like this. Oh, yeah. That's a lot. So December 13th, 2001 comes around.

This is where we started. This is the pool of blood. Two guns blazing. I got two guns. One for each of you. All that shit. Let them have it. Letting him have it.

Now, Michael's out of town. He, I believe, is in Minneapolis doing something for work. With a friend of theirs as well. They have a couple, a friend couple, the freedmans. And the man in the couple works with Michael and the woman. and the woman hangs out with Tracy. They have like a work couple friends here. Now, on this night, on this day, Tracy's home.

She's got the children, Bird 11, Noah 3, Mason 2, all at home with her here. So they're all home, everybody's home, except for Michael. Now, in the days leading up to December 13th, apparently, I guess she had Dustin, the next neighbor, Mona's kid. I guess Tracy had asked Mona, Dustin's mom, if Dustin would be available to be able to come to her home in the next day or two to do some work for a computer business that Tracy owned with her second husband. There was some filing and paperwork to do that she didn't have time to do

because she has three small kids too. And she's saying, you know, I could use his help and I'll pay him and all that kind of thing. if you need some extra money. Okay. So Mona said, quote, she said, we have a whole bunch of copies that we want Dustin to make.

So Mona said, I said something like Dustin's not really speedy about getting jobs done. Dustin's a bit of a slacker here. He's a teenager. And if you want speedy clerical work, he might not be your top,

might not be your top prospect for that. That could be. Takes him a minute to find the dilly bar. So, yeah, it's tough. So Mona said, quote, she goes, that's okay. Just send Dustin down in the next day or two, and it'll be on a trial basis. If you can do it, then you know, you can stay on. If not, then no harm, no foul, basically.

So apparently on the 13th during the afternoon, Dustin stopped by, as requested by Tracy. Rang the doorbell here and was looking for work. Like she said, I heard you have work. Tracy told him to come back the next day when her husband would be home from the business trip to Minneapolis. That's what Tracy says. He's the one that needs to, yeah.

So she said, yeah, you know, well, I need him to talk to you too and all that kind of shit. Or she was just busy with the kids didn't feel like dealing with it right then. We don't know. Now, she had a friend that was supposed to stay with her

the night of the 13th. You didn't hear about her being in the house, right? No, no, no. That's because Tracy sent her away. Oh. This is Marie Friedman. she is the Michael's work friend's wife. Yeah. She's

friends with them for that. Now she says that she showed up at the home here on December 13th planning to spend the night because their husbands were traveling on business. Oh, she's going to stay over. A little gal's night. Yeah, I guess she doesn't like being in the house alone. Yeah. And if you live in a rural area too,

it could be creepy to be in a house alone like that. You can feel like at any moment, you choose the horror movie character that can come murder you without anyone knowing the difference. So, I mean, that makes sense, you know, we don't know. So this woman here, what is her name, Marie, Marie Friedman, she told Tracy that, or she said Tracy told her when she got there that the Dustin kid was here from a couple doors down. He had been over and he was asking about work, but Tracy had told Marie that she was glad that Dustin left because he creeped her out. So her story now is she sent him away because he was creeping her out, didn't want her in the house.

without the husband. So she also told Marie that we're not going to do the sleepover tonight, even though Marie came over to the house with like a tuffle bag ready to sleep over. Instead of a sleeping bag. Yeah. She told her to go home, which is super. And Marie was like, what? Like, why? Why did you tell me to come here and now I got to leave?

I brought a tent. Why am I not allowed to stay here also? Yeah. Like, what the fuck? I brought like, I brought some hot pockets with me. It's fine. I won't eat. It's good.

You got a nice bottle of wine. I got look at it. She pulls it out of her bag. She left. I guess they had tea together and they chatted about all this. And then Marie just took her shit and left. She was like, anyway, so you'll go home now. She was like, I guess I'll go home now.

She took off. Now, later on here, Tracy says this is what happened. And this is the goings on. She was getting the one-year-old daughter ready for the bath. Okay? Yeah. And she said she laid towels over the bath. along with some panty hose.

Uh-huh. I don't know if the towels were to dry the baby and the panty hose were, I don't know what it was. Panty hose, it sounds like the panty hose were probably hanging over the shower like women used to do. And she probably took those and the towels that were hanging and put them over the manister. That makes sense. I'm just trying to put together why you would do that. So her son, her son, uh, Bert was watching a movie with his brother, the three-year-old,

in Bert's room upstairs. Got it. That's what's going on. So Tracy says she hears their, their Rottweiler, Maxine, so they have a Rottweiler in the house, so that's pretty secure, barking outside.

So she does what people do when we have dogs, and we hope they alert us to intruders. And then when they bark, what do we do? Shut up! God damn it, shut up. Why are you barking? Fuck! Stop doing the thing that you're supposed to do and that dogs do, especially a Rottweiler.

What do you expect? They're a little territorial, and that's what they do. I love Rottweilers. They're great dogs. So she told her to shut the fuck up, the dog. She screamed, shut out, Maxine. God damn it. Then she heard a noise downstairs.

Oh. She was like, oh, and Maxine's like, mm-hmm. Yeah. I told you, bitch. I'm thinking of that shit. That's right. She thought it must have been her husband and Ray Friedman who went, who had gone to Minneapolis with them.

They're supposed to come drive back like overnight, but they left in the morning. We got here a little early. You know, who knows? Either way, that is the setup here. Something is happening. Now, then we cut to the 911 call, so she hears something downstairs. A little while later, Bert calls 911. Police arrive and find, like we said, a dead young man on the floor.

It's Dustin. Oh, what? Dustin is dead on the floor, full of hulls. Nine gunshot wounds from two different guns. Now, they look at this, including three of the wounds, are to the back of the head and neck. Whoa. And we'll later find out that they are fired from above while he was face down on the floor. What the hell was that about?

That is rough, including one shot through the eye. Oh, wow. This is pretty graphic. Yeah. Yeah, so this is a lot. They said later on they will find out, but the timing of the shots will become important. Sure. Now, Tracy's story is, because obviously she's standing there with guns and she said, I shot him.

I mean, she's not hiding it or anything. And she said that I was upstairs. I was bathing the baby when I heard noises downstairs. Yeah. She said she ran into Burt's room and handed him the baby. You can't leave a baby in a tub alone. Yeah. That's rough.

Hang on to Mason. Yeah, hang on to Mason here. So she said after she handed Bert the baby, she was grabbed by the hair and pulled. And then she said that she was choked unconscious with a pair of her own panty hose that were drying on the staircase banister. Oh. So somebody used that as a weapon. So they didn't bring their own ligature. They used the panty hose that were hanging there.

Okay. Okay. Now, she passed out from being choked. Yeah. She regained consciousness, she said, and she was alone. Yeah. She heard noises, but there was nobody over her. Nobody was still choking her or anything like that.

So she ran to the master bedroom, opened up a gun safe, which is either under or beside the bed, not sure which, but right by the bed. Yeah. And grabbed a 40-caliber barretta and a third. 357 revolver. That is a wild. That's a lot of gun. That's a frightening human being holding both of those. That's a lot.

And one semi-auto, one fucking revolver. So she said at that point, she had two guns and she just, quote, blindly fired over her shoulder. Really? With three small children in the house, blindly shot. She heard noises and blindly shot over her shoulder after she pulled him out. Like she raced in there, got the gun safe open, heard somebody chasing her. As soon as she pulled it out, just pulled, turned behind it. And only missed twice.

And, well, no, no, no, that's the first couple shots. Okay. Okay. She said she blindly shot over the shoulder and hit one of the intruders who was Dustin. Yeah. She said once the gunshots went off, the second intruder fled. Yeah. You hear a 357 go off inside a house.

You will fucking run. You will run. Yeah. That's more than. a Rottweiler. Oh, man, that's a lot. That'll make the Rottweiler go hide. Like, that's a lot.

So the second intruder fled. She said she got up and fired more rounds into Dustin as he laid on the floor, including after he had tried to get up. She said so that she knocked him down with the initial shots. She doesn't know how many she shot at him or hit him with. But he went down, but he was trying to get up and he was telling her to stay down. She said she warned him to stop. And she'd shot him a couple more times.

She said, then she went and checked. on the children. Now, Bert corroborated this story and said that he had a baseball bat, and that was part of this whole thing too. We'll get more details as this comes out. But he said that he had a baseball bat and was trying to defend his siblings when this was going on. That's when his mom was passed out from being choked. The intruder went to him and he had a baseball bat and then she ended up running away.

They followed her. She got her gun. And this is what happened. So police find that. she fired 11 bullets, nine of which struck Dustin. Wow. Now, they find no forced entry. But a lot of people don't lock their doors around here also.

So a lot of, you know, especially a back door or something, people aren't going to lock that. So, but they also find no ransacking as well. Okay. Now, maybe that's because they didn't have time to ransack because they ran into Tracy and this whole thing took place first. Maybe the point, the thing was to get her out of the way and then ransack. We don't know. So they find no signs that the house had been broken into. They do find Dustin's car parked in the driveway.

So he drove there from two doors down. Two doors down. He drove there, which, I mean, I guess if you're going to steal shit, you'd want... You're going to need a get... Yeah. Something to carry it in, I would assume. Two doors down. That's a long walk.

That's a long walk. I'm pretty obvious as you, you know, carry a desktop dell down a couple of blocks there. So it's not hidden. It's not in the bushes. It's not around the back of the house. This is right in the driveway. And inside it, they find an old computer that was in the house. In their house.

In the Roberts house. So they find an old computer. Okay. And they find Dustin's car in the driveway. So this is not the most brilliant attempt at a home invasion. Jacking? Yeah. This is interesting.

Now, the computer was apparently the only item that was taken from the house and brought outside. Oh. They cannot find the second intruder, and it's not like they can ask Dustin, who's with you, who is with you. So they don't know who the second intruder was. There's no fingerprints from a second person or anything like that.

They don't know if he's wearing gloves. But they went in, took the computer, put it in the car, went back in the house, evidently. Apparently so. So that would make sense, I guess, maybe for the barking, is what Tracy's saying that she heard the barking. Maybe that was when they went outside with the computer. The dog was barking outside.

Then they came back in and she heard noises. Okay. So, yeah. Now, he, they find out that Dustin, you know, mowed the grass. He was like a local kid that mowed grass and did shit like that. Yeah. Oh, those are on jobs. Yeah, they said, one of the local people said,

he's nice if you know him and quiet if you don't. That's all. A quiet kid, or he's a nice kid, whatever. They said it didn't seem like the type who would really be like aggressively committing crimes, like breaking into an occupied house is a very aggressive crime. Sure is. He said he's pretty timid. That doesn't sound like him, but you never know if he gets hooked up with some other kid and they get a couple of fucking wine coolers in him.

You never know what can happen. Sometimes a follower will do some pretty dumb shit. Yeah, especially if it sounds like a good idea. And this person is a strong personality. They also were wondering, was Dustin maybe trying to protect Tracy from the other man and been killed in a mix-up? They were wondering that. They said, what could this be? Well, they don't understand the whole thing here.

So as the EMTs leave the scene, obviously, no, they can't do anything for Dustin here. They hear Tracy in the kitchen with her three kids and the deputies and she's screaming. They said that, or she said that two other intruders, one or at least one, but probably two intruders had escaped. And so the deputies and everybody they could find any state police, county police, they are canvassing. They're knocking on people's doors asking for shit. Like they're doing house to houses here. And the fear spreads and it gets... For sure.

There's two crazy people out here on the loose. So they... The story is that, you know, Bert had dialed 911 and Tracy is then taken away in an ambulance to be checked over and Bert rode with her. The other children are taken to the hospital as well separately. Now, just to be looked at. Now, even though no one touched them just to, you know, make sure. And plus they can't leave them in the house.

by themselves too. So they got to come. So at the hospital in Sack City, over in the Big Sack City. It's where they got all the best equipment. She looked in the bathroom mirror, she says, and noticed that her throat was swollen

and red and that she couldn't swallow. And she can't swallow? She said, adrenaline must have made it. So you couldn't do it here. She also claims to not have known who she shot still. Oh.

So it's at 3 a.m. They tell her that you shot, Dustin, your neighbor. Yeah, right. And he was like, she couldn't believe it. And they said, do you think maybe he was trying to help you since you know each other so well? And she said, it was Dustin who was pulling on me. That kid was not coming in my house to save me.

He was the one that was the assailant. That's what she says. She said, I shot the guy who was pulling and choking me, so it's got to be Dustin. Which is interesting. So then they find out, too, that from Mona, because they talked to Dustin's mom, Mona and find out that Tracy had been asking Dustin to come over for the last couple of days to do some work. So now Mary Friedman members or Marie, whatever her name is, the Friedman wife there, Mrs. Friedman, she was over there to sleep over and didn't have her sleep over.

Now, Ray was driving home with the husband, Michael here. And Ray's recalled how he and Michael. were driving home from Minneapolis when they heard about the shooting at Michael's home. He said he let Roberts, Michael, drive his car home because he could navigate dirt roads faster. Michael can? Yeah, he's like Bo Duke over here. He's a backwoods guy. He knows what he's doing.

I guess he's from the outback or some shit. I don't know what's going on. Not a lot of paved roads where he's from in Australia. I totally picture him, you know, fish tailing on this shit. Hang on, cut him. Let's go now. Yeah. Hang on,

we're going. Fucking driving off. How are you going back there? Driving off. Yeah. And fucking, Hey, that boss hogs a real cunt. I all right then.

Oh, this car's powerful, huh? Now the freedmen's say they saw Tracy at the hospital and she was distraught and had red marks on her neck. And Marie said everything Tracy told me it appeared to be that way to me. there was no question in my mind that she would not be telling the truth. She's being truthful. She got choked and shot some kids trying to break in her house. Now, they talked to Mona again, Dustin's mom. She says that she has to come clean on some shit now.

There's a man she's been having an affair with. Mona has? Mona has. An Iraq veteran who's got some mental issues allegedly at the time and was, I think, driving the Schwann's frozen food truck, which we have, that has come up so much in these episodes. Somebody driving a Schwann's truck is, happens constantly. I hate those trucks so much.

Oh, they're great. That food on them is wonderful, though. That's how I got, that's how I don't eat crab legs anymore. Oh, you don't get crab legs from a truck. What are you doing, Jimmy? That's, that's, rule number one, don't buy crab legs from a truck that drives around your neighborhood, number one. Yeah, they said, uh, they said, uh, they said, they had to get rid of them. Now I know why. I get it. Yeah. I get why they were on sale.

The little fucking round, frozen, like, Red Baron pizzas they have are outstanding. Oh, yeah? They're good as shit. Yeah, those are good. I don't know. I got steaks, hamburgers, and crab legs. I ate the hamburgers. All perishables. Amazing. I'm sure. They were terrific because they were big fat ones. You can make a patty and be full. And the crab legs, I don't know about the steaks because I didn't eat anything else after the crab legs almost killed me. general don't buy shellfish from a truck probably for the best wherever it's going yeah shellfish especially it's extra sensitive specifically specifically shellfish

so mona said she has been having an affair with a guy named Jeremy Collins yeah and she went to the cops because Jeremy Collins hours after the shooting breaks up with Mona so

Mona's like oh my god my son's been killed and he's like yeah I don't want to see I can't do this anymore. Yeah. You know, it's not you. It's me. Yeah. You know, blah, blah, blah.

And so she... As a kid down the road, I got him sick with crab legs. I got to lay low a while. I got to lay low. The gut is, it's churning, man. So she told investigators that, you know, that it's possible because she waited like two weeks, but she ends up saying that maybe he was the second intruder. Oh.

Maybe it was Jeremy Collins. But she said she doesn't know. she doesn't suspect him, but she did think it was odd, the timing of the breakup. And she has nothing else to give them, basically. And this is all I have is like, I know this guy. He was kind of, you know, he didn't want to be with me. So I guess he was not liking me. Maybe that's maybe he did it.

I don't know. She said, I have no reason to think he would or did. But just throwing everything out there for the investigation. Because they literally say anything. The craziest thing you could think of still tell us. That's when they have no idea what happened. So. She said, I did not believe Jeremy was the second intruder, though.

I didn't think that seemed right. She also said that she found two strange post-it notes in her son's room. What were they? After the shooting. One of them said money in November. Just a post-it note that said money in November. Here we are in December. Yeah.

The other had a telephone number of a West Des Moines, Iowa hotel. where Jeremy Collins stayed during a date with Mona. Oh. So she's like, how the fuck does Dustin know the hotel that I fuck my boyfriend in? Yeah. Well, I have an affair on his dad. Like, how does he know this? So that's why she goes to the police with this information because she said, I found this.

It doesn't make any sense. None of it makes sense. I don't even know how they would, like, know each other like that. Like, they know each other, but not intimately or, like, they'd be hanging out. Maybe he's planning to blackmail me or some shit. Yeah, so she doesn't know what's going on. That's why she goes to the police to go, here is some connection with Jeremy.

Still don't think it's him, though. Now, Dustin's uncle, Bruce, this is, I believe, Brett's dad's brother. Yeah. Bruce and Brett. That's some manly names. You're going to be Bruce and you're going to be Brett. You two are going to be men.

Brett? Is that his name? This is Bruce. That's his name is Brett. Yeah. So Bruce said that, Dustin was, quote, a super friend to Tracy and her family. He said they would go to church together.

They'd been to paintball shooting competitions. He doesn't understand any of this. He says he wonders if his nephew was just tragically in the wrong place at the wrong time. Was this just a horrible mistake? He said, I think he walked in on something going on in the house. I think Dustin was coming to the rescue. And in the darkness and confusion, he ended up getting shot. for mistaken reasons.

Oh. So they'd think maybe Dustin was outside hanging out. He saw some strange activity over there, went over to look at it, scared the intruders off, and then because somebody else came, and then she ended up shooting him because she thought he was one of the intruders. Accident. That's this guy's theory, that possibly, because Dustin just doesn't seem like that kind of cat. Okay.

Now, the next day, they find in Dustin's car, not only the computer, but a pink note. Yeah. Okay. Now this notebook, the police will not say they have this notebook or tell anyone of the existence of this notebook for 10 years. Ten years. Nobody knows. They said this is a piece of information we are going to keep because only the person who

who might- Who did this wouldn't want or need it. Right. So this is one of those pieces of information. A lot of times in a homicide when they don't know what's going on or killing or just any sort of murder investigation. or death investigation, I should say. They hold back pieces of evidence so somebody doesn't come and have a confession knowing all the shit they got publicly. It has to be something. Yeah.

This is something only the perpetrator might know. Something like that. So they don't know what significance this has, but they keep it. Now, it's five pages written in Dustin's handwriting. Oh. Okay. It was described later as sloppy. and one of the lines is J.P.

wants me to get slash force his X.R. Now, TR is Tracy Richter or Tracy Roberts. And J.P. is John Pittman, who is Dr. Pittman. Right. That's what they're saying. So they're saying they want, J.P. wants me to get slash force his X.R. Make record of mysterious fellow who asked me to work for him. And then in parentheses, John Pittman.

Okay. So the notebook identifies him as John Pittman, the JP. He also, the writing suggests that he's been hired by a mysterious fellow, John Pittman, and all that thing. And then it also says, get slash forces XTR to kill her son, Bert, and then commit suicide. What? That's what it says. And then it also says plan B make it appear as though TR had committed the murder of her own son, then committed suicide. So either get her to do it or make it look like it.

So Pittman then, if this letter is accurate and is giving instructions, kill her and the baby so that I don't have to pay child support. Yeah. Kill her and the 11-year-old, so I don't have to deal with either of them, basically. That's what this is purported. The next seven years, Scott Free. Totally fine. Yep. So now, they also have other details in here. The name of his divorce attorney, Pittman's divorce attorney, Stephen Comey of Chicago. So details that this kid shouldn't know or that aren't easily available. Details about Pittman's personal life also. Oh. That nobody knows outside of very intimate details of things that nobody would know.

So that's interesting. So they keep it. And they say basically the notebook was, it's a dead man switch, the one guy calls it. If you knew it was in there, you put it there. Or you force someone to write it there. So they didn't tell anybody about it. Now, the big question around town, because everybody remembers Dustin is a pretty mild kid. Yeah.

So like, is this in his character? Everybody doesn't get it. But, I mean, it happened, so it must be. But they don't get. It's in somebody's character. Now, Mona acknowledges to the police, because the police are saying, again, you got to help us out here. Yeah. That at one point that he, Dustin had been in a fight with his dad over ownership of his dog.

I don't know what that could possibly entail. Yeah. But at one point, Dustin pulled a BB gun on his father during this argument. Nice. Yeah. So that happened a couple years ago. And another time he got in a fight with his little sister that ended up with her getting medical attention. Okay.

So he's a bit of a loose cannon. So that's what that sounds like. The little sister fight, siblings fight. I mean, that's, that happens. You know what I mean? To whatever. To medical involvement? She could have tripped and fell.

And we don't know that he can't like take her and bash her head through her window. We have no idea what happened there. But pointing up, whipping a weapon out on your dad's a little odd. It's a bit much. That's a bit much. Like, I'm just saying, benefit of the doubt, I can give you a sibling fight. Yeah, you shouldn't ever hit your little sister and all that kind of shit, but it happens. People get in fights siblings-wise.

Medical attention probably should have been offered a few times that I fought my family. That's what I mean. That just means maybe they're just responsible with their medical care. That's all. Maybe so, yeah. Yeah. If it's otherwise, it makes sense. So now, Dustin's funeral comes around and his friends and family are all there, and they're saying he loved music and movies and all that kind of.

of thing. Hundreds of people come to this too, which is interesting because he's not being treated as like a pariah here. It's odd. Even Tracy has, like, later on has kind words for the family and shit like that. Like she seemed sorry about the

whole thing. So they said, this is the sheriff said, we're still searching for clues. We don't know what a motive is. That's why we need to find that second intruder to find out what the fuck, why were they there what was going on essentially. The fuck is going on. So three days after the shooting, Tracy wants to tell her side in detail and give everybody, you know, fill in the details here.

To who? Well, we'll find out. Not the police. I'll tell you that much. No? No, she shows up at the back door of Mary Cullen's house, which is in Storm Lake. Mary Cullen's husband is the publisher of the Storm Lake Times, the newspaper. The local news.

The local news. Tracy said she just wanted to get her story out. So that's what she did. And so the guy who owns the paper, the publisher, his brother, Art is the paper's editor. He conducts the interview. Here's what happened. She said, Dustin came over, rang the doorbell early afternoon. You know, we were close to him, you know, all that kind of shit.

My husband was coming home from the business trip. She said an hour later after this. So sometimes her story is, in that hour not only Dustin came and left but then that Marie Friedman came and left as well and they had tea and talked about Dustin and all that all that happened

in an hour in her in her telling here she said she's getting Mason ready for the bath she laid towels over the banister along with panty hose her son was watching a video just like we said Maxine barks she said shot the fuck up out there god damn it and she hears a noise

and she thought it must be her husband and Ray who had gone to many Minneapolis. So she looked down the dark stairwell and she said she saw the tops of two heads. This is why she knows there was at least two intruders. The tops of two heads. One had dark, wavy hair like Ray's, Ray Friedman, and the men started, that's why at a glance she thought it was them. But the men started to up the stairs and she got a look at one of the man framed by towels through the towels, she got to look through the banister

and saw it wasn't Ray. And she said, we made eye contact. It wasn't a good look. Like, oh shit. I don't know, it wasn't a good look. It's a weird way to put it. But you make eye contact with someone who shouldn't be in your house.

You're like, oh, shit, it's on now. Generally, though. They know I know. So it's over. So she said she retreated with her daughter and shoved her daughter in with the other two kids. Yeah. Then that's when somebody tugged hard

at her hair. and it jolted her back. So she yelled to Burt to lock the door, lock the door. So she said someone, she thinks a man in a black leather jacket, not sure, choked her with the panty hose that had been hanging from the banister. At that point, while this is happening, her prescription glasses get knocked off her face. And so the rest of this is a blur at this point. Can't see shit. Can't see shit of what's going on.

So she said she was dragged toward the stairwell and blacked out. Now, Bert said, this is while she's blacked out, Bert said he heard the men talking. He said that's how he knew Dustin was involved because he had gone paintballing with Dustin and knows Dustin's voice well. So he said he heard Dustin's voice. All right.

Now, Tracy was unconscious at that point. She hadn't identified Dustin as one of the intruders. She had no idea. because she was unconscious when this talking was going on. So Bert later says that he heard Dustin call the other man either Ross or boss, one of the two. Okay. This is what Bert says. Okay.

So Tracy said she was awakened to the sound of Bert, armed with a baseball bat, screaming obscenities at one of the men, which that's the best way to be woken up to your 11-year-old screaming obscenities. That's a fun way to be woken up. How do you know that term? That's pretty good. Wow. He must have heard that for me. Had to have.

We don't have cable. This is tough. It feels like my doing, yeah. Yeah, I think that was me. So apparently, that's what she heard. Bert later said that Dustin had told, Bert, shut up or you're next. Oh.

So, Tracy said she struggled to her feet and was yanked back by her hair and grabbed under the armpits now and dragged. She said the attacker was definitely wearing a black leather jacket. Dustin was found wearing a suede coat when he was shot, so not a black leather jacket. Yeah. So that must be the second guy, I guess. She said she used all of her might and weight to back up the man holding her and slam him into a wall.

She said she went to being kind of to limp to just forcing herself back, which would surprise him. Right. Seller it backward. Yeah. She's a small woman, by the way, Tracy. This is not some big farm mama here. This is a smaller woman.

She's a violent little small woman who's been arrested for it. Yeah, yeah, but it's always gunplay. Physically she hasn't really... She usually doesn't use her body. She knows she needs a weapon to make herself forceful here. But when you surprise somebody like that, you can do it. And also the adrenaline she must have had, that'll really take you. you back there. So she said that she slammed him into the wall. She said, I'm not a tiny, dainty thing.

No, she's not a big lady. Anyway. A gangster. She's a gangster. So she said she threw him against the wall. He let go as she hit the wall. At that point, she ran as fast as she could the other direction. I guess he didn't reach out and try to grab her, which seems odd. Well, it stunned him, the drywall in his back. Maybe, yeah, we don't know. Maybe it's stucco. Ow, that hurt. It poked him a little bit. So, She said she ran in the bedroom, dove between the bed and her dresser, and reached for the gun safe under the bed, fumbling with the combination. That's not easy to do. No.

She said as she dove there and is fumbling with the combination, that's when someone is on her back pulling her hair again. And she's trying to get the gun safe open as that goes. She said, that's when she said it was Dustin who was pulling on me. She saw him. At that point. Well, she doesn't know it then, but she'll know it. it later when she finds out he's the one she killed because she killed the guy who was pulling on her hair at that point understood yeah so this is later on she said it was dustin who was pulling on me

that kid was not coming in my house to save me huh that's when she said that so anyway um she she couldn't i guess he couldn't get because she where she is between the dresser and the bed and all this it was too tight of a fit for him to get his arms around her so he yanked her on her feet. She said she held on to the safe door as he pulled her and it sprang open. So I don't know if she had just gotten the combination right and it comes open just at that point or if it's got some sort of faulty mechanism and just pops open if you pull it hard enough. I'm not sure. It doesn't seem like a good gun safe if you can just yank it open. Yeah, if you're being tugged backward and it just opens up, that's a problem.

Yeah. So I think what she's saying is she got the combination just in time and yanked. And the timing of this is amazing. Usually if it's got a combination, it's got a hand pull. Yeah, so she probably grabbed that. Yeah, she probably got the code in, grab the hold of hand, pulling it open. Yeah. So she said she grabbed the 9mm semi-automatic burretta and twisted back to fire. She did one of these, but nothing happened.

Trigger wouldn't pull. Yeah. Safety was on. Oh, shit. Safety's on. So she said she gripped it with both hands. She was just grabbing around the gun And she said something clicked

Meaning the safety She clicked on the safety eventually Even in this panic while someone's pulling up Fumbled around and accidentally got it Yeah so she said she turned and squeezed the trigger Mm-hmm she said I fired I saw a noise I saw the flash it was a very loud noise She said she closed her eyes and fired between her and the bed

Just closed and fired Yeah She said she heard breathing and she heard someone run out and down the stairs. And she heard her children scream. Yeah. So she said she climbed over something to get out, but she's not sure what. Because she couldn't see.

Probably the bed or the body. Either one. She said, quote, I was scared to death. I needed to get to my kids. So she said she went back toward Bert's bedroom carrying the Beretta and the six shot 357 revolver from the safe. She said, Bert almost hit her with the baseball bat in the dark hallway. because it was dark.

So she said she saw movement and shadows near her bedroom and told Bert to stay in the room with the other children. Yeah, stand down. So she said she yelled to the figure standing up, don't move, don't get up. And he said that's when he tried to get up again. She had him again. So she tried to shoot the barretta,

which was in her right hand, and she said it did nothing happen because it was out of bullets. Wow. So she fired the revolver that was from her, her left hand and she said it had a big kick to it's a 357 yeah those don't play around and she fired it in her left hand left hand and she fired it on wow she said a pool of blood formed and she didn't see any more movement so she said she approached the bedroom and heard

labored breathing she said she closed the bathroom door she said that the daughter the one year old picked up her glasses yeah and that's when she grabbed them and grabbed the kids and made their way downstairs where Bert had already called 9-1-1. Right. Then she was taken away in an ambulance. Bert rode with her. The other children were taken away. She saw in the mirror that she had a swollen red throat and couldn't swallow.

And she found out at... Yeah, she found out at 3 a.m. That it was Dustin, who she shot, who was declared dead of multiple gunshot wounds. Now, she swears she didn't fire more than four shots. Four? And he's hit nine times. Swear it. But this is a thing.

that goes on with, even with trained police officers will say, I let off two shots and they got six missing. It happens all the time. In their mind, they only let off two shots. They pass polygraph saying, I let off two shots. That's great. And they let off. Your body will forget shit.

Your brain will go crazy. The thing about guns, too, five round revolvers, five rounds has gone in a blink and it feels like you only fired two or three. And that's five. And that's in the chaos of a shooting. or a situation like that. Can't imagine. Yeah.

It's way different than if you're at a range going how many to I squeeze off. This is mass chaos. So this happens a lot, people not knowing how many shots they fired. She said, quote, a lot of things don't make sense. Why were they there? They never asked me for money or jewelry. Why me and why my family? Yeah, good question.

Now, Michael, he got home to find this mess. Yikes. And he said, I'd taken him under my wing. to help him out. He said, I don't understand it. And he said, my 11-year-old was protecting the two younger children and wouldn't let them in. So he said, you know, Bert's a real hero here. And he said that he believes the other man, whoever the second intruder was here, was, you know, that person should be at charge with attempted murder as well because they tried to kill her. And he also says he thinks maybe Dustin was, quote, under the influence of the other person.

because it's not the kid I know, basically. Yeah. Yeah, so it doesn't make sense. So the Sack County authorities, I mean, they, she's a hero. Conclusion, yeah. They come to the conclusion. They accept it, self-defense. I mean, you know, people break in your house trying to fuck with your kids.

This is why, you know, why you're allowed to have guns for shit like this. He said, no charges were filed, case closed, basically. Okay. That's that. She gets a golden door lock and a key to the city. That's it. Well, it gets even better. She's going to get a golden seat on the Montel Williams show here in a while.

Is that right? Absolutely. So the sheriff said he can't see a motive. Again, he's still looking for it. And he said that Michael Roberts has offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the second man, the second intruder. So Tracy says that she worries about the family, Dustin's family. She said, I want the weadies to know or the weeds to know that we can. care about them and then our heart goes out to them.

She also says at the end of this article that the family needs to get out of here for a while. They need to get away and they're planning to leave this week for an Australian vacation. Oh, we're going to the out of the out of the far away from here as we can get, basically, and still be in some kind of civilization. You go see a beach elsewhere. Michael's going to teach me how to do that Duke Boy driving that he does. We're going to fly 18 hours for a beach. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So they go to Australia, take a vacation. Now, there's an article on December 19th, 2001, and the title of this article is Town at Odds over Man's Death. Oh. So this, I'll read this. It said a family whose wife shot to death a family friend during a break-in says he's disturbed by local resident speculation that the friend was trying to save her. Remember the uncle said that? a lot of people in town who knew Dustin said that must be what it is. They won't accept that Dustin was trying to harm her.

He says that, you know, he doesn't understand why they're doing this. Michael Roberts said Monday that he doesn't like to think that Dustin was threatening his wife and three children, but doubts that he was trying to save his family. He said, it's very difficult to use the name Dustin when I talk about the man that shot my wife, or the man my wife shot, who was the man that had minutes before, said, your dad's dead and when I finish with your mom, you're next, meaning to Burt. So he said, I can't really, I don't like this guy. So the authorities have released a description of the man, but they're waiting for Tracy

to help make a sketch of the second man. And the sheriff said, that's why we need to find the second intruder so we can find out why Dustin was in there. So they said that they don't know if the missing intruder was an acquaintance of Dustin or if Dustin was trying to help. But they, either way, he's dead. the reverend at the funeral, at Dustin's funeral, said there can be a moment of shock, disbelief, and even anger when one learns of the violent death of a loved one. Dustin enjoyed his short life.

He graduated high school in 2000 and had been a member of the student council in high school. So that's not good. That's okay. Yeah. They said, the guy here says this is the pastor. He said this is such a tender, delicate hour, probably for the Roberts's two. It's a time to acknowledge a fractured community, a town once known for its safety that suddenly reels for answers. And now Michael was supposed to be a speaker at the funeral, but I don't think it happened.

The family took him off the program when he was saying, hey, don't say that he's trying to help. Now, late January, early February, Tracy has a visit with Mary Higgins. Remember her friend, the farm lady, Mary Higgins? Mrs. Clark. Mrs. Clark. She says, quote, I wanted to let her know that I stand by her, Mary says. I just wanted to help her. And she said that Tracy recalled the shooting in detail.

She said it was very emotionless, though. It was weird. She said, like she was telling me her grocery list, she basically had no emotion to it. Really? Yeah. She said that she told Mary she had unloaded the gun while being grabbed. she said she got that she then she got up stepped over what she thought was dirty clothes but it turned out to be Dustin's body checked on the children and then she said that she walked back over the body was moving and Tracy told her that she stood over Dustin and said stop moving or I'll blow your fucking brains out oh my and then she shot him again that's what Mary Higgins said that's what Mary Higgins said Tracy told her. Holy stop moving her I'll blow your fucking brains out and then shot him again.

Now, Mary says while Tracy is retelling this story to Mary, Bert walked into the room, heard his mother talking, walked over to the table and started banging his head against the table, which is a wild reaction. And he then said to his mother, according to Mary, quote, why did you go back up there? You didn't have to shoot him. You didn't have to kill him. That's what Bert says out loud, according to Mary. Tracy then screamed at him, burt, god damn it, blah, blah, blah, and he left the room. Yeah. And that was that. So police end up talking to Tracy about the second assailant, and they said, now you've had some time. And you had a nice Australian vacation.

Maybe you could help us work up a sketch so we could, you know, maybe catch this fucking guy. So she said, 35 years oldish, white male, tall and had wavy brown hair. She said that he, so they asked Tracy to attend a meeting in February to help the expert draw the composite sketch. so they could put it out there and maybe get an identity on this guy. But her father, who was at this time a retired homicide detective, called and said she won't be participating in that. She's busy today. She's not going to do it.

She's not doing it. The dad called? Yeah. One of the investigators said he indicated he did not think they were reliable and caused problems in court, which I did not understand. He said, look, I'm a homicide detective. Trust me, the sketches will end up hurting you more than they'll help. they're helping you.

Because if it doesn't look just like the guy, you get in court and they go, see, it's not the same guy. So we're not doing it. Which, it's not his case. Let them run the case how they want to. And if they want a sketch, let him have a sketch. Yeah, but he's her dad, right? And he knows.

Yeah. And he thinks he knows better here. But so the investigator said that he turned his attention away after that from the case because it was just kind of a dried up case. If she's not given a sketch, they're not going to have very much luck finding this other guy. And he said, he ended up, he said, the leads were dwindling this investigator, the lead guy. And he was then assigned to join a joint terrorism task force that was signed that was formed after the September 11 attacks.

So he just basically said, well, that's case closed and moved on. Where's Osama? That's, that was, now I'm moving on from the second assail into bin Laden. So Mona and her husband, Brett, shortly after this, they get. a divorce. As you might imagine. The marriage couldn't survive this. Well, the loss of the son, and he found out that she was fucking Jeremy Collins, too,

and that whole mess. So he said, I'm done here. Then Tracy appears on the Montel Williams show. What is the theme of this? The theme is a brave woman defending her children with violence. Dear Lord. Yep. So she portrayed herself as a brave mom, acting in self-defense.

is a home invasion. For a daytime talk show, this is red meat. It's a big deal. You're throwing red meat at them. This is a bunch of, at the time, a bunch of ladies sitting at home, scared to be home invaded, and they have kids, and that's the audience, basically. So she, the audience, you know, loved it, and she appeared on the show with Michael, who held her hand the whole time.

And the episode presents her as a heroic mother. Tracy said, I did what I had to do to protect my family on the show. show and the audience applauded. Yay, you know how talk shows. You get a good applause line in and they would applaud back then. Yeah. She said, I was screaming at him not to move, to stay put, not to get up, not to get up. And she, you know, did her thing.

They're all clapping. Montel called it justifiable homicide and called her a hero. Yeah. Montel said that. And, yeah. So April 2002. Remember Mary Higgins? Well, she's interviewed by the cops again,

and she didn't say anything to the investigators about some stuff she knew, especially about she knew about the notebook. How? That's a good question. Yeah. She says later on that she didn't mention the notebook because, quote,

she assumed they already knew about the notebook. How the fuck do you know about the notebook? Never mind what they know. Yeah, we know a lot. How do you know? She also said she didn't really want to get involved in all this because, quote, I was afraid for myself. I was afraid for my family and I was afraid for Tracy. I knew none of this was good.

So she says nothing. Now, what had happened was Tracy had told Mary there was a notebook and in the notebook there was proof that Dustin was there to murder them as a hit for her ex-husband. Right. Yeah, yeah. So Mary doesn't say shit about that. Now, Dustin's family is also divided in this whole thing here. Very much divided. The Robertses describe him as a troubled youth.

They had tried to befriend to help. And, you know, one thing Michael Roberts does say is that maybe the second intruder was the one that coaxed Dustin into doing this. No one thinks even the victims here are saying that it doesn't sound like him. It had to have been somebody else, you know, talking him. into it. So, but the death breaks up the family. They get a divorce and all that kind of shit. Then, not quite a year after the murder, the next or after the death, the November, it's Thanksgiving week, basically. Thanksgiving of 2002, Brett, Dustin's dad, goes to visit his son's grave. And it's Thanksgiving Day, actually. He wrapped it. He wrapped it.

his arm around the headstone and shot himself in the head. Oh my God. Right at his son's grave. Yeah. This is fucking horrible. Holy shit. Yeah. No joke, man.

With a 22 caliber, he did it, which is pretty risky. You got to, you got to hope that thing bounces around. On Thanksgiving, he went. God,

damn it. Yep. He left four suicide notes. Yeah. Here on the kitchen table telling relatives what they already suspected. He said he couldn't live anymore with this broken heart.

He said he's cried every day since December 13th of last year and couldn't take it anymore. And holidays are hard for people, especially the first one afterwards. So this is the first Thanksgiving. And then I have to, I'm going to go through this shit.

Then I'm going to have Christmas. And it was so close to Christmas? Fuck that. None of this is getting better. A motorist who had stopped at the cemetery to use his cell phone to pull over to make a phone call, noticed the body and called 911.

And the sheriff said it's a sad situation. So now Dustin and his dad are both dead. Oh, Jesus. Barry Brett right next to him, two headstones right there. Short trip, yeah. So 2004, Michael Roberts files for divorce from Tracy. Uh-huh. Now, once this all goes on, she starts a website.

Yes. Yeah. To call him a deadbeat dad. like Michael's a loser.com basically is what she starts a website for. The man's buried. No, no, no. This is Tracy's husband. Yeah, the Australian guy.

Yeah. Calls him a piece of shit and also alleges on the website that he may have been the second intruder. Even though he was in a car with another guy driving from a man physically impossible. Minnesota wilderness. Okay. Yep. He told police that she tried to kill him twice. But the police just dismissed it as he said, she said.

These two are in the middle of a divorce. Give me a fucking break. Never mind. So 2004 comes around. Yeah. Mary still has the secret. Yeah. Of I know some shit that I don't know that I should know and stuff like that.

Pittman's the first husband, actually, the one that was, that she's going through the battle with. Pittman is, yeah. Yeah. This is Michael, the Australian we're talking about. Oh, not Michael Pittman. Oh, God. No, you're thinking of the running back. the Arizona Cardinals years ago.

This is a much different guy. I'm going to marry two guys together and make a running back and insert him into this story. I can't wait for Mr. Emmett and Mr. Smith to be. We know what's going to happen there. Barry Roberts and Johnny Sanders are going to come together and we're going to know what's happened. So Mary here talks to Tracy again. and, you know, talks to her about all this type of shit. And she said, you know, that told me about that notebook.

And, you know, I just feel weird about that, that, you know, it's crazy. And you can't believe that your ex-husband would make him, would orchestrate all this. And it's just horrible. Yeah. Now, Mary says Tracy pointed her finger at her, literally pointed in her face and said that she needed to forget about that pink notebook. You said, you forget that shit, Mary. Don't make me come over there, Mary. rare. It's happening. No fucking talk. So Mary said later on, it frightened me. Tracy could explode and then be calm.

She did, you forget about that notebook. Anyway, more sugar? Like she was, wow. So she said she was really frightened at that point. So she reverts to her maiden name Tracy does, which is Richter, and moves to Omaha, Nebraska. Oh, now she's going to move again. Moves again. She's got to get out of this little town. Oh, this 500 people will not shut the fuck up about me. No, they all know her now. She ends up getting another fiancé. Really? A guy named Russ Shirts.

Really? S-C-H-E-R-T-S. S-C-H. I wonder what his nickname was in high school. That's pretty obvious. So they're together and he loves Tracy. What's he do? Do we know?

Not sure what he does. Not a doctor, I don't think. Okay, yeah. Now, as this goes on, Tracy lives in Omaha. While she's there, in 2009, she tells police that her Lexus had been broken into. And she says, it's my fucking ex-husband, Michael. That's who's responsible for this. They find no evidence of a break-in, but learned that she had carried out a scheme to assume a fake identity.

So she called the cops in who then investigate her claim. and find out she actually did something fucked up and she ends up getting arrested for it. None of this would have happened if she wouldn't have. She just shut up. She tried to set her husband up, apparently. She had altered her divorce decree to give herself a fabricated maiden name, which she then used to obtain a driver's license,

a new social security number, and a new passport. Straight identity theft and just making one up. So she pleads no contest to welfare fraud in Nebraska. and is convicted of vehicle licensing perjury in Iowa as well. And was getting benefits based on it. Based on something here. Jesus. So this is a lot.

Now, she's also still fighting custody battles over her two younger, two youngest children with Michael Roberts, the Australian guy. So it is 2009 before anybody looks at this again. Really? Nobody looks at it anymore until 2009. Okay. And in this, a team went back to the home where the shooting occurred to try to recreate the events. Like, we've never done a crime scene recreation on this.

And everything seems a little janky and a little unwieldy. And we need to figure this out. All right. They found that bullet trajectories and blood spatter contradicted some of Tracy's statements. I mean, they say things happen fast and we get it. They do. Some of the shooting stuff, you really have to kind of know where you were. Yeah.

Tracy said that Dustin was getting up when she fired her final shots, but the report shows forensically that Dustin's head was on the ground when the last three shots were fired into the back of his head and neck. She said he was getting up. She said he was getting up and she was threatening him to stay down or she would shoot him. They said that at the same time here, they said that the investigator was struck by the fact that Tracy fired in the dark without her glasses. Yeah, that's another good point. She had no glasses on.

He said she connects nine out of 11, and that's exceptional accuracy. It's amazing. He said that's a huge red flag. Yeah. That's very accurate. And one through the fucking eyeball. Yeah, that's what I mean. This is, you know, what is she fucking wild Bill Hickok over?

Like, I mean, honestly, who the hell is? I'd like to say I'm a pretty fucking good shot. Take your glasses off in the dark. I don't know that I'm going to hit somebody in the fucking eyeball. Repeatedly. Over my shoulder. In the dark without your glasses. Fuck, I won't find my gun without them.

Feeling around and shit. I'll shoot myself before I shoot them. Here's my question. How do you do the combination without your glasses? Impossible. In the dark, I don't know how you do that. That's why I have a press button. That makes more sense.

I have a keypad. There you go. Much easier. but this is also 2001, probably less accessible than that. Bank vault guys, you know what I mean? Yeah, you have a little bit of a big manager has a hard time with it. I would never be able to. Impossible.

You know, a guy he's, I just pictured it. And he knows this motherfucker. Yeah. On the big vault doors. Yeah, like the big price is right one. And you spin the fucking wheel? I'd never, I'd never be able to do it. No.

So then there's a new county attorney in 2010. Yeah. His name's Ben Smith. He's the Sack County Attorney. And this sack is going to really make his name on this one. He's going to make his juices out of this one here. He's 33 at the time of the trials. He's a very young man.

In the world. Yeah. On his second day in office, a special agent named Trent Valletta stops by to welcome him, but also says, I want to tell you about this one case that I'm interested in. And he said, yeah, sure, whatever. but this Veletta guy said, no, no, no, you really got to know about this. He said, I'll send you photos of the crime scene and all this shit, and he does, and it peaks this Ben Smith's interest. Yeah. So Smith decided that he would spend a weekend reviewing the case, and he said he was in.

He was hooked. He goes, this is wild shit. Yeah. My sack is tingling. I need something going on. So he was, my sack senses are tingling. He said he worked late nights and, through. the weekends and went through years of files putting together what he would call 10 years of

motive for the shooting and 10 years of twists and turns since. What he said? 10 years of motive. Okay. Yes. Now, he's going to try to get this. He's never tried a jury trial before, by the way, the new county prosecutor. Great.

So he just had beat the previous prosecutor who had declined to bring charges here. Yeah. Because he said everything was fine. And it was just a self-defense. So he reopens the case, though, and with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, within months of taking office here. So they go back to the evidence. They do the crime scene reconstruction. They hire ballistics people.

They hire all sorts of people here. And they look at the trajectory of the shots, the position of the body, the angle of entry. And they concluded who basically, if basic physics exists, that the final. three shots were fired while he was lying face down on the floor, which is a big fucking deal. The Tracy's claim requires her to have been firing in fear and chaos and terror. If someone's face down on the floor, there's not a lot of fear in that. You know what I mean? You can aim.

Yeah. You can aim. So they said that while someone's on the floor prone and wounded and not attacking you, you can't shoot them again. And that's not self-defense at that way. That'll get you life in prison. That's what they're looking at. So they said that later on, Ben Smith will say to the press, and this makes sense, she's dangerous and everybody keeps underestimating her.

That under us everyone in her life has underestimated her. She keeps coming. Yeah. So 2011, this is March. Mary Higgins again. Clark or not here. Mary's husband had become church friends with Ben Smith. They just happened to be.

become buddies at church. Wow. Okay. So this is small town shit, you know what I mean? So finally, she ends up telling Ben Smith what she knows because it's her husband's church friend, so she trusts him here. So Smith met with her at their, at Mary's home here, Higgins' house. And she told him, I didn't want any part of this.

But when he asked if she knew about details, she responded, do you mean that stupid notebook? Now he's intrigued. How the fuck do you know about the notebook? She later said, when I told him about the notebook, quote, the blood drained from his face. I'd never seen anything like that before. He just went on the ground and sat on the floor and leaned up against the kitchen cupboards. He didn't even, wow. He was like, holy shit, this is because his whole thing is he's been reviewing these files and he thinks something's amiss.

And then he goes over here and she says, what about that notebook? And he goes, how do you know what the fuck? Where'd you hear about it? So he's like, he has to go re-fucking settle himself here. So now the notebook here, like I said, they've kept it secret. And they considered the timeline. Tracy described the notebook's contents to Mary Higgins within months of the shooting. The notebook had been a police secret.

No one who didn't create it should have known anything about it. Right. So the Division of Criminal Investigation Forensic Document Examiner said that several pages of the notebook that claim that, that Pitman was hiring him and had all that hitman shit were consistent with Dustin's handwriting. Oh. Dustin wrote it all. But he said one page filled with apparently random numbers deep inside the notebook was written by somebody else. Doesn't know who.

He said impressions that he lifted from the first page of the journal suggest that someone had either torn out an earlier page or written on a sheet on top of the notebook. also in a different handwriting style than Dustin. Also gone. Oh, so gone. Now, he said he could not determine whether any of the writings in the notebook were consistent with Tracy because samples of hers that he was given did not have a good internal consistency. Her handwriting is all over the place.

A fingerprint expert says that he was able to match 10 fingerprints lifted from the notebook to Dustin's fingerprints. All of his, oh, I get it. Yeah, 10 different fingerprints could be one finger. Got it. All right. Or all, yeah. Three other prints lifted from the notebook were not Dustin's. He said that one of them did not match Tracy's prints, but he couldn't make a determination on the other two.

They weren't perfect prints. All right. So no Tracy's prints aren't on the book or anything like that. July 11th, Omaha, Nebraska, or July 2011, Omaha, Nebraska. Tracy's arrested in Omaha. For what? For murder. Oh.

This murder. Of Dustin? Of Dustin. She was living with her fiance. She's extradited to Idaho. I did it. See, I told you. God damn it.

I told you to do it once. She's extradited to Iowa. Yeah. She pleaded not guilty and filed a notice of affirmative defense of justification. So self-defense is what she files. This is bullshit. She said, I did nothing wrong. That's why I've been free for 10 years.

Yeah. This is the county trying to come against me for some reason. But if she's being arrested, they've got some evidence. Yeah, we'll talk about it. All right. She moved to California. I'm sorry, Michael had moved to California with the children after Tracy's arrest. Michael, living with the two younger children, said,

thankfully for her victim's past, present, and future, her make-believe House of Cards is about to fall. I don't rejoice in her downfall, but I cannot deny the relief. That's a fun one to say. Yeah. She made a website saying that he was a fucking murderer and a piece of shit. Interesting. He also described Dustin. He said it was very sad and he was simply a prop in her big game. So they do move the trial out of Sack County. There is not enough people here to get a jury that doesn't know about this.

400 people. Yeah. It's a county of 10,000. The whole county has 10,000 people. All of them know. All of them. And they said you can't get a fair trial. The judge agreed. It was moved to Webster County to the town of Fort Dodge. So here we go. Pre-trial, there is a psych evaluation of Tracy. Okay, this is done by the defense. She's not claiming insanity. So this is a strange thing to have a psych-valuaries. Well, it's an opportunity for them to find something that she doesn't even know she has.

That's possible, too. Because sometimes that's what crazy is. They don't know that they're fucking crazy. That's the truth. But they're doing this in a different way. They're not trying to find, they're not looking for mental illness. illness particularly. Or at the end of it, they don't come up with mental illness. This is crazy. So I'll let you know here. The expert is a clinical psychologist, Dr. David Grove. He interviewed her

for about two and a half hours, one month before the trial is supposed to start in late 2011. The court granted her request for this expert assistance at the state's expense over the prosecutor's objection. Now, Grove evaluated whether her description of the home invasion and shooting had psychological implications and whether the content of her story was congruent with her emotions and body language. His whole thing is he was going to sit down with her and see if she's lying, basically. Based on answers and body language. Yeah. Yeah.

So based on the interview, he diagnosed her with acute stress syndrome and PTSD. Okay. She's got ASS? She's got ass and PTSD. with your PTSD ass. That's what she's got. Got a little bit of some ass. A little bit of some ass.

They said this is specifically tied to the 2001 shooting. Yeah. Now, he said he would testify that her account was consistent with someone who experienced a credible traumatic threat. So her responses are normal. Her non-viewable, nonverbal cues like crying and shaking, matched those of a trauma survivor. And he explicitly stated he was not opining on whether he was truthful, but on whether the described event would produce such symptoms. That's why they got him, just to see if someone did do this in self-defense and did all this shit, would they be consistent with what Tracy is now? Okay.

Okay. Now, September 2011, during an interview, Tracy Richter's dad, Bernard, he worked for 27 years as a homicide detective in Chicago. He indicated that the allegations against his daughter were taking a toll. He said, I see what they put in the paper. They don't put anything about the poor family. He means him, not. Why does he? Not Dustin's family.

Yeah. Why does he want to be? He said they don't say that we're suffering, too. It's all about this other shit. So about this victim who's got a dead family member. It's all about this shooting and the dad who blew his brains out on his gravestone. Oh, you know how it goes. As a homicide detective, he should be very well aware of that.

Yeah, he definitely should. He should know a lot of things about this. We'll find out about him too. October 11th or October 2011, the trial comes up. Will the psych ofal be? 11. Did it help? Well, the court here, the judge, excludes that testimony.

Oh. He ruled it was, quote, essentially basically saying she's telling the truth about this and would improperly bolster her credibility while potentially opening the door to other life events, which had been excluded by emotion. Oh, right. So not only you're going to do that, you're going to open the door to other shit. You don't want defense because then we can bring in other shit. And if we're going to talk about a psych evaluate,

Well, then we got to let them have a psych evaluation and we got to see what they can pull out of it. You don't want to talk about that time. She fired a gun in her fucking living room. Yeah. You want to bring her ex-husbands in here and have them talk about it? So they said this was not a court-ordered competency or sanity evaluation. No public records mention any prosecution requested psych evaluation or anything like that. And the defense's expert report and interview were the only documented, were the only documented psych-eval for this entire proceeding.

So that's how this goes. So the jury will, and the judge rules all this inadmissible. So that can't come in. Okay. The process, the waste of time and money for everybody. The prosecution here, they say that Tracy facing the loss of her son and her child support income from an upcoming custody hearing, which was just about to happen. She was going to be deposed soon.

She would create a fake murder for, murder for hire plot against herself, which would not only get her ex-husband offer back, it would solve all the problems now, basically, because then she could not, she could delay shit here and she could say that her ex-husband set her up to have her murdered, which would mean that she would get custody and there wouldn't be a problem anymore. Okay. I don't think he'd be paying child support anymore, so that's the one argument that makes it a little weird. So they say that she, you know, she lured Dustin with the promise of work. Right. to the house. And he had no reason to fear her.

They say she forced him at gunpoint to write in the pink spiral notebook. She told him what to write and held him at gunpoint. Yeah. They said that's why it's so sloppy because he's probably really scared because he's got a gun to his head. Which is to make somebody write a full thing at gunpoint is fucking diabolical. That is. Yeah, but how'd she get him to grab her by the hair and choke her and stuff? Well, that's the other thing they talk about here.

They say she told him what to write, and when the notebook was complete, she shot him, and that was that. She then staged the crime scene, had her son call 911, told her story, and then flew to Australia. They say the panty hose mark, quote unquote, they say, on her neck was later found by forensic analysis to be inconsistent with ligature strangulation and looked more like a self-inflicted friction mark. Oh, she just rubbed her neck? Just did this with it. She was like drying a bowling ball. Yeah. She did one of those on her neck and made it, but it's not the pulling and the bruising isn't there.

It's just the abrasion of it. Just superficial. Yes. So the defense, they have a different take on it. Tell me. December 13th, 2001 was a nightmare for Tracy. And this nightmare is not over yet. It's not even done yet.

No, now she's sitting here. Oh, because we're going through this. Yeah. You say that was great. Oh, they're coming back. They're going to come in. Oh, no, Jesus. They're coming.

Here he comes through the door. Holy shit. He's been hiding the whole time. The defense lawyers paint Dustin as a mentally troubled and violent young man. They claim he stopped at the home that day, uninvited, looking for work. Oh, yeah. And that Tracy was glad he left because he made her uncomfortable. That's what she told her friend anyway.

Right. You know, they have two main arguments. First, they argued that the forensic evidence is ambiguous. It's not they can say that they thought this or they thought that. By the way, they're saying that the last shots to the head were at least 15 minutes after the first shots. They said they were long enough to where blood was congealed before she shot again. In the gunshot, yeah. Yeah.

So if someone's been in a spot and down for 15 minutes, they're good. You can't shoot that person. Can't shoot that person. But the defense says that the shot trajectories could be consistent with Tracy's account of firing from a crouching or unusual position. And she might have been off of exactly where she was because she had no glasses on. She was scared and it was dark and her kids were screaming and the dogs barking. Who knows? Second, he argued that the investigators had failed to follow leads that could have identified the second intruder.

So they're doing that on purpose. And they said, do you know who that second intruder more than likely was? Who? Jeremy Collins, back to him again. Yeah. A local man in Iraq War veteran who worked as an ice cream delivery driver, and among other things, poisonous crab legs and good little pizzas, who according to the defense's theory was having an affair with Mona. Also according to Mona that was happening.

And the defense suggested that Jeremy Collins was the second intruder or at least may have been the second intruder. They said that, you know, that's how it was. They said that this Jeremy Collins later developed speech and memory problems after serving two tours in Iraq and denied having anything to do with this home invasion either. But they're going to bring him up anything. Who knew the Schwann's guy was getting so much. Dangerous. Who knew? A lot.

Well, I mean, he's like the modern day milkman. I guess so. Yeah. He's going from house to house. Swans guy. Slinging poison crab legs. That opens up real legs at that point. Poison crab legs and huge dick.

That's what it is, man. Good for him. Slinging little frozen pizzas and dick. Frozen penis. That's right. Frozen penis. He knocks on the door. Frozen penis.

The defense also suggested maybe Michael Roberts was involved in this. Her husband at the time, the Australian guy. He may have organized the whole thing. Yeah, they said there was a suggestion Michael found insulting. He was found this very insulting and made a public statement about him. How dare you accuse me of any of this show? it. So the defense layer noted that Michael Roberts, who was investigated in the connection to the shooting, but never a suspect, planned the business trip and gave Ray Friedman a $5,000

bonus and a $20,000 raise right afterwards. Okay. Okay. So maybe he paid Freeman for it? Friedman? So who the hell knows? That's what they're saying. He paid him, paid him off to give him an alibi, is what they're suggesting, I guess.

Friedman bristled at the suggestion that he was paid off. saying that he was bringing the company $1 million in sales and asked for a raise to match his previous job salary. And he said he later left after he grew tired of the Roberts' antics, meaning Tracy and Michael. He said, you just never know what was going on there. I didn't like the roller coaster ride there. I live a very peaceful life and I don't want to be involved in other people's issues

or chaos. Well, yeah, they're always fighting. They're in a fucking divorce problem here. So the notebook, they bring it in. They say the defense will say there's no proof of Richter's of Tracy's fingerprints or handwriting found in the notebook. The notebook is read aloud in court. The photocopies are distributed to all the jurors, the five pages that are important here. They were read line by line while the jurors followed along, including that, you know, JP wants me to force, get forced his ex-wife, DR, and all that shit.

So the state's crime scene reconstructionist testifies that the trajectories of the bullets and the wounds to Dustin indicate the initial shots could have been fired from an area in the southeast corner of the master bedroom near the gun safe and that the shots could have been fired as Tracy was crouched or kneeling. He later stated the shots to Dustin's head would have had to been fired from above

and that there was congealed blood on his face indicating a shot was fired into his head well after he was deceased. Enough time for the goddamn blood to congeal. Now, Mary Higgins, who describes herself on the stand as a reluctant witness, she's like, I just don't want anything to do with.

Tracy scares me. I'm not supposed to be here today. Yeah, Tracy scares me, and I don't want to do this. She said she once enjoyed Tracy's company, but later saw her as a dishonest woman who treated her children poorly and could explode in anger. Oh my eye.

Yeah. She testifies that, you know, she told me I'll blow your fucking brains out, not her, but told the intruder that, described it like a grocery list. She said she had no emotion. She also talks about when she talked Tracy about the notebook and she said, you forget about that fucking notebook. Don't too worry about the notebook. You don't know shit about that notebook. So she recounted everything, a visit in early 2002, all the, her telling her about it. She recounted Bert walking in and banging his head on the table and saying, why did you? didn't have to kill him and her telling Bert to yelling at him and him running away. The warning about the notebook. She said Tracy could explode, then be calm. She also testified about fear. She said she had been afraid for herself and afraid for her family and afraid of Tracy.

Yeah, and of her. Of her. So, yeah, they say basically that the first several shots hit Dustin in the right arm, the abdomen and the butt. That's how they put it in court, the butt. Okay. So he's hitting in the ass, in the abdomen, in the right arm while he was standing.

But the last four struck him while his head was on the ground. The last four. Wow. He said one of those four shots struck Dustin near the shoulder and two others went through the back of his neck and the blood patterns from all the wounds were consistent. So they said that's what happened.

Of a dead man. Can't argue with that. Yep. He said the ninth and final shot came 10 to 15 minutes after the previous one, though. That's the big one here. He said it's splattered particles of drying blood across the room and onto the ceiling and dresser. And they can tell all that shit. There was already drying blood.

And that drying blood is elsewhere now. Yep. That's crazy. Wow. That's a lot to go on. Now, they did a pretty cool presentation in court. The newspaper said some jurors appeared amazed as Engler, he's the crime scene guy, gave a crash course on blood patterns using fake blood on a white board to illustrate what causes different types to form. What is this the fucking science museum?

This is a great time. This is the first episode of Dexter. It's a lot of fun here. He's showing you how it all works. It's good shit. Yeah, he said, this would be so much fun as a juror. Fuck, yes. It's fucking show and tell day.

He said that this guy's an international expert in the field and wrote the book, Blood Secrets, Chronicles of a Crime Scene Reconstructionist. He must have laid some blood out in the air at different time intervals and then splashed them to show you what happens. Yeah. Yeah. And they're showing different angles. Yeah. He's shown using fake blood.

That must have been so much fun that day. I can't imagine. The jurors are like, can I have one of those sheets you use them? Take that home with me. Can I have one of your paintbrushes? Please sign it from it. Mona testified. Oh, boy.

And she says that she wondered whether Tracy tried to have Jeremy Collins distract her so she could lower Dustin to her home. She said she got a phone call from Collins hours before the shooting, even though he knew she was out Christmas shopping. See, I told you Christmas shopping. Yeah. She testified he must have dialed the wrong number. That's what happened. And not distract, tried to distract her. other witnesses, all the ballistics experts and, you know, everything like that.

Tracy's pattern of fraudulent behavior as well later on that all comes into this to show that she's capable of all this. They bring in a retired detective here, and this is, I believe, is a defense witness. The defense calls him. He retired in 2006. He testified he arrived at the house hours after the shooting and was immediately skeptical that a break in an assault had occurred. Really? He said investigators found no signs of forced entry, no items in the house had been knocked over or were out of place, which is usually a sign of a struggle. But during cross-examination, okay, he was for the prosecution.

During cross-examination, he acknowledged law enforcement officials viewed the killing as a self-defense at the time. And he said, yes, we did. We were told this was a self-defense case and we didn't necessarily see anything that disagreed with that. It was basically going either way. and they were like, well, I mean, if she's got a great story and he's dead, I guess that's what happened. Yeah, that's kind of the point of why you keep firing, so that there's only one story. Exactly. So the former Sack County Sheriff's Lieutenant also testifies telling jurors he also initially believed Tracy's claim of self-defense and thought the bruises on her neck, hands, and legs were consistent with her story.

He said that Tracy appeared concerned and perhaps scared when he interviewed her at a local hospital. hospital, though. He said, we took Tracy's information at face value. That's all there was. He said, one thing that bothered me about the story was the way she used two guns, ending up with one in each hand. Right. He said, in a self-defense home case, he said, literally, I've never seen nor heard of that before. Never. I reviewed case files, looking for it. Never found. No one has two guns blazing. Yeah. Even the, okay, Corral, they did one gun. And they did one gun. At a time. At a time.

You can't aim with two guns. You can't do it. You only do two when you're doing some like shooting exhibition when it was like a cannon. You're going to keep it in the air or something. Or you're just blasting like crazy. Yeah. You can't, I guarantee you, James. If I put two guns, one gun in each hand of yours, you're not hitting nine guns.

You're not hitting nine targets. It's never. It's going to knock your line. You're going to miss. Yeah. But her story is she shot emptied the one first, then just unloaded the second one with her left hand. Again, her story was she wasn't shooting them at the same time. It seems ridiculous.

It really does. There's no way. Not going to happen. Got to agree with you there. So they had her ex-husbands, Michael and Pittman there, both testifying to her history and she's not to be trusted. Dr. Pittman takes the stand because one of their, one of their, the defense's defenses is what Dustin wrote was true when Dr. Pittman wanted to have her killed. Yeah. So he's got to come and look like a guy who doesn't want to have his wife killed if they don't want the jury to be suspicious of him.

So he was asked directly, did you ever meet Dustin? And he said, no. Never. He said, did you know about this notebook? And he said, no. Never. Did you hire anyone to kill your ex-wife and son? No.

They said, did your ex-wife, Tracy, despise you? Fuck yes. And he laughed and said, I think so. You know. So he said, I didn't know anything about the notebook. The prosecutor asked whether his personal details, the name of his divorce attorney, the details about his life that. appeared in those five handwritten pages could have come from anyone else but Tracy. Yeah.

Could you, is there any way Dustin could know that shit without Tracy? And he said, only Tracy and her family would have known that much detail about my personal life. Wow. Period. Cross-examination tried to suggest that Michael Roberts, who also feuded with Pittman, because they were exes there, might have had access to that information as well. And Pittman acknowledged that possibility, but he's like, well, me. I don't know shit about that. All I know is wasn't me and only Tracy and them knew that shit.

I didn't do it. Yeah. The defense has to, she's not going to testify. No. Which seems crazy for a self-defense case. Does it? Yeah. Fuck yes.

That's the one time where you testify when it's self-defense. Yeah, self-defense is you've got to tell the story. And if it's convincing, we all walk out of here and go home. That's it. Most self-defense cases, obviously you don't have to testify, but their lawyers would love them to get up there and tell a great fucking story and end the whole thing. If you're going to tell this world that you killed somebody in self-defense, you got to tell us.

Killing is that you can't just do that. No, that's last resort. Right. We need to know why. You got to tell us what happened to get you there. Yeah. And if the story makes sense, it should be fine. Should be easy.

It should be easy. Yeah. Yeah. This should be, yeah, it should be the easiest thing you've done is tell the story. Even Sarah Boone got up there to try to claim that shit. And that bitch is crazy. And she, and she zipped a guy up in a suitcase and made fun of him on video. We were having a good day. We were having a good day.

So I can't wait to talk about Cory Richens because she said almost the exact same thing. So, Bert testifies. Yeah. Now, he's an adult now. Mm-hmm. Bert, and he testifies. By the way, since then, he has gotten a very large tattoo on his rib cage on the side of his ribs of his mother defending them at the home invasion. What do you mean?

It's like a giant woman who's got like, you know, things. It's not, you know, completely accurate depiction, but it's like this giant protective woman with like little kids hanging off her. Like she's protecting them. Does she have guns? Oh, of course she does. Oh, yeah. But that's what he said. This is his mother's defending him right there and tattoo on his body.

Holy. Bert gives testimony about the home invasion. Same thing as mother said. His mother got choked with panty hose. There's two intruders. He testified he was there. He said that his mother was choked. He described himself as being armed with a baseball bat.

He gave vivid detail, which supported everything Tracy said. Yeah. He also said his stepfather might have been involved in the attack. Oh. Yeah, which is weird because he was out of town. It's very strange. So the defense attorney then suggests that we got to bring Jeremy Collins back into this. They said that he had an affair with Dustin's mom.

And so they bring Collins in there to testify that he had nothing to do with any home invasion. Didn't know shit. Barely knew Dustin. I don't know shit. Okay. November 3rd, by the way, during his testimony, Tracy cried and like asked the court be stopped and like left the courtroom. During her son's testimony? No, during Jeremy Collins' testimony.

Oh, really? I think she's trying to say like, oh, my God, that's the guy. I can't, you know what I mean? Oh, I can't be near him. Yeah, I'm freaking out. I hear his voice. He's triggering my ass. There you go.

My ass is just beeping right now. It's going off. You got to run my ass off right now. That's the problem. Get my ass out of here is what I got to do. So November 3rd, 2011, mom testifies. This is Tracy's mom, Anna. Yeah.

She testifies for the defense and, you know, just that her daughter's a nice person and that she didn't know anything about any of this other nefarious shit. Then they bring in the former county prosecutor, the guy who this Ben Smith had beat in the election. And he testifies for the defense. He said he made mistakes in the initial. investigation and other circumstantial details made it difficult to know what had really happened. That's why he never filed charges, which is a pretty good witness for the defense to have. Yeah, that's actually impressive that he just said, we made a lot of mistakes and therefore we fucked it up.

He said there was some shit in the initial investigation, and yeah, I didn't have enough to go on. It's the reason why I didn't press charges. I don't know what this guy thinks he has. But the thing is, number one, he has Mary knowing about the notebook, which this guy didn't have. He didn't know that. So to me, that changes everything when Mary says she knew about a notebook. I go, oh, everybody back to one. This is something's not right.

Something's not adding up. So during the closings, the defense noted here that the previous prosecutor testified for the defense. The guy who would have been in charge of doing this said there was no reason to press charges. So they didn't. This is just an overzealous young prosecutor. This is his first jury trial. He's trying to make a name for himself. Trying to get into it.

And what better way to do it than to skewer some poor mother who was defending her children? That would not be the best way to make a name for yourself as a prosecutor if she was innocent, by the way. I'm going to railroad a mother who was defending her children. That'll do it. That'll get me some attention. And drag her neighbor through the mud that was getting the Schwanns-Schwantz. Yeah, the Schwanns. Drag that affair through the courts.

So he said that, you know, this is bad. It's not a ringing endorsement here for the prosecution's case. So it's three and a half hours of deliberation. And the jury returns a unanimous verdict. They find her guilty of first-degree murder. Oh, first-degree. They're saying she planned it. Yeah.

Well, you have to. Yeah. It's everything the prosecution said they believe. believe. It's either one or the other. Yeah, it has to be. What the hells are pointing doing this, though? That's what's crazy. I think she wanted to set her act. That's why she wrote a show. The point of murdering this young man is to show that he was in cohorts with this man. Yes. Hired to ruin me and take my $1,000 a month. So she can win. She's proven she'll do anything to win. And that is a banana's way.

That is. Diabolical doesn't even begin to fucking start it. She sacrificed a young man to get $1,000 a month for the next six years. Maybe, maybe. And if he's in prison, you're not getting that anyway. So that makes no sense. But he think about the, think about, she had to come up with that initially and go, what if I, what about the kid a couple doors down? Dustin, I'll get him over here.

I'll, think about her to put this all together. Supervised a young man for 70 grand over time. Over time. That's absurd. And she also, I mean, that's like I said, if he goes to prison, you're not even getting that. So that doesn't even make sense. So she had this kid come over. She told the mother have him come over to do work.

He came over. And here we are. So this is wild. That's unbelievable. Her fiance, Russ, and her son Bert and her mother, Anna, all hugged and cried when she got found guilty. Mona said, I knew that was what we should get. We thank everyone for seeing through the lies and hearing the truth. It's what we were all waiting for.

Now, Michael, the ex-husband, said, pray for my healing, pray for healing for my children, for both the families involved. pray for a hedge of protection around Tracy in prison. That's another thing. I'm not praying for that. Fuck or safe. She could get fucked. Yeah, who cares? She sacrificed a young man for nothing.

Nothing. And that through this experience, she might trust in God. He's like, I'm hoping she finds Jesus is what he said. So, yeah. Now, the day after the conviction, day later, before sentencing, her dad, the retired police detective, was found dead outside his rural Iowa home. He did it too. No, well, they think it might be natural causes.

He was found dead at 11.50 a.m. on his property by sheriff's deputies sent to check on him after relatives said they hadn't heard from him since Sunday morning. They said that it appears that he died of natural causes, but that they're going to conduct an autopsy just in case. They said the discovery of the body the day after the conviction, appears to be purely coincidental. Wow. They said that... Bag of Portillo's laying next to him. He just all...

Yeah, he's a little chunky. They said he was sick in the last few months. All right. And so this, I mean, your daughter got convicted or murdered. I might have pushed it a whole thing over the edge. They said, we're still trying to piece together the timeline. The investigation is still ongoing. And they said that it appeared that the body had been where it was found face down on the ground for 24 to 36 hours before they arrived.

So they're saying he might have been dead before the verdict came in. She might have amazing. Her luck might be so incredible that she gets convicted of first-degree murder and her dad dies on the same day. That's pretty, you did this. And behavior may have killed him before the jury even said guilty. That's amazing. So can Tracy get any more depraved? She's a real asshole, man.

Is there a basement to her actions? Is there? There really isn't. Days after the verdict before sentencing, she tried to send a letter to a sex offender. Oh? Okay. She's awaiting sentencing. She wrote a letter to a Wisconsin inmate named James Landa. He was a convicted child sex offender. A fucking convicted kid father. Yeah. The letter was intercepted by jailers before Tracy's mother Anna could deliver it because it was to her mom to be delivered to this guy. A photograph of the letter was found in Landa's prison cell later, though, somehow. He got a hold on it somehow. Somehow.

Now, the letter contained hand-drawn diagrams of her former home in Early and the car where the notebook was found. Yeah. Personal information about Dustin. Personal information about the man the defense had suggested was the second insurer, Jeremy Collins. Michael Roberts' social security number. Yeah. Uh-huh. Michael Roberts' date of birth, Michael Roberts' physical description, Michael Roberts' home address, and pictures of her own children.

Why? Okay. And in Tracy's words, it said, quote, my trust must be earned over time and actions speak louder than words. The statute of limitations has run out on assault and burglary, so there's nothing to lose if someone feels bad and wants to do the right thing. What does that mean? I think it means she's trying to get this guy to kill her husband and children is what they think it means. And the children? Why would there be pictures of the kids in there?

Yeah. Why would you give pictures of your kids to a convicted fucking kid fucker, number one? Whatever the anything else is, that is crazy right there. Oh, so she's telling him, he hurt my children, go kill him. Apparently. But why kill the kids? We don't know. We're not sure.

We don't even know if that's what she wanted. Right. We're not positive. We don't know. But Michael certainly, go get him. I mean, he's got all his information. So, Ben Smith, the prosecutor, told reporters he was concerned enough to alert Michael Roberts's attorney that, hey, watch out.

Because we don't know if this is the only person she's reached out to. She might have five different people out there looking to kill this guy. And even if this is the only guy, maybe he reached out to people that he's known in here that are now out there. I mean, there are other people besides him possibly. So they worried. Yeah, totally. So he said he believed that Tracy was soliciting testimony to win a new trial.

He was also worried she was setting up Michael Roberts to be located and possibly harm. So it's possible witness tampering and possibly another murder set up. Ben Smith said she's dangerous and everyone keeps underestimating her. I feared for Michael and his kids. The intentions were clear. She's not stupid. This is her Doug Flutie toss in the end zone. He is making it.

a very extremely specific sports reference to a game played, I believe, in 1985 between Boston College and Miami, where Doug Flutie threw a Hail Mary pass. He went back there and threw it with every little bit of his five foot two mite. He fucking chucked this thing and a Boston College receiver came down with it and they beat the number one ranked Miami. And he's saying this in 2013? Yeah, almost 40 years later. he's bringing that up.

Like everyone's going to go, oh, yeah, the Doug Flutty toss. A flutty flicker. Wow. That is amazing. And he said it was alarming because it included a photograph

of the children and personal information about the ex-husband. Yeah, that's frightening. That is. Now, Anna Richter, her mom, later said, told the judge in the custody case

that her daughter had asked her to, quote, check out Landa's background. He's a pedophile. There's your background. What else do you need to know? So is he going to dittle, Mike? What are you doing?

What are you going to do? Come fucking, yeah. So she said that she didn't remember the letter, Anna said, and she wrote to the judge, no way did Tracy ask me to give a pedophile information on my grandkids. Well, but she did, though, is the problem. Because she sent the letter to him with information. So you can say anything you want. The judge is going to have their say when this judge says,

you, ma'am, may fuck off life without parole. Oh, boy. Over there is where you are and we'll say. Stick around there trying to figure out how to hurt people from in there. Now, the same judge, the sentencing judge, also ruled on a related matter. Tracy was owed back child support for Michael Roberts. Oh. He rules.

But there's a big butt there. He ruled that the payments, $2,000 in outstanding support would not go to Tracy but to Dustin's family as restitution. Okay. She's the court ordered $150,000 in restitution to Dustin, and they said she no longer has any dependent children. She doesn't need the money for herself. It goes to them. So that's pretty interesting. So, yeah, I can't believe still about the letter to the pedophile is why.

That's crazy. That's just, uh, diabolical doesn't describe it, James. That's fucking vile. If everything the prosecutor said happened. happened here, which it pretty much seems like it did. Holy shit is this one of the most diabolical, sick, twisted plots. Like, she needs

a hobby. Just sit around thinking about this shit. Dude, lose yourself in some TV or something. Holy fuck, man. My question, though, James is everybody seems to be underestimating her. Is she crazy hot? No. No. She's not a hideous or anything. She's normal.

Just normal. Is she just one of of those like forgettable people? Not even that. I don't know what it is. She's just really manipulative. And I don't know what it is about, you know, her dad's a homicide detective. I don't know if that has something to do with it, some sort of, I don't understand why she keeps getting a pass.

Well, a lot of times, like kids who have parents who are like cops or like the school principal or something like that, they're the pastors. They're the biggest fuck-ups of them all. Yeah. Like, they're trying to go against their parents a lot and their parents have like a try to have a grip on them so they buck that shit. Like that happens quite often. It's either that or they're a fucking dork.

Or they're a dork or they go along with it and they, you know, I want to be a cop too like my dad or they're this. You know, we never know. So remember Dr. Joseph Lispiza? Yeah. This poor bastard. Yeah. Who had a type written.

That's the other thing is she's no stranger to typing out things and saying other people did it or basically using other people's words and to try to set them up. Everything she does, there's so much collateral damage. It's a lot. She never, she never has a targeted strike. It's always just a carpet bombing of a metropolitan city. It's all it is. It's just, it's not even that.

It's just press the button and see what happens. But it's the carpet bombing of a metropolitan city. With no intelligence behind it. It's just like, hope that's where they are. Jesus Christ. It's the equivalent of just hucking a grenade out of a fucking Over a fence. Just out of a trench.

Just throwing it up there. Throwing it out there. Hope that hit something. So Lispiza said that quote, his history with, this is what a reporter said. His history with Richter is in some ways even more bizarre than the stories emerging from this testimony in this trial. That back story is even crazier. The more people got into Tracy, they were like, oh my God. What the fuck, man.

So anyway, two or six months into her life sentence now. It's 2012. She appears on a two-hour dateline NBC special about this case. Two hours. Two hours. One hour about the case, another, about how much of a diagnosed ass she is. Yeah. Well, we're doing three.

So we can't really fault them for doing two. Yeah, but we can sit around and talk about other shit. Sure, we can dick off. Keith Morrison can't do that. Keith Morrison can sit there with his nuts sack. This is wild. This bitch is crazy, right? And he turns to the other people on Dateline.

They're like, I don't know about that. I don't know. This bitch is crazy. Did you say that acronym was ASS? ASS. So she is interviewed by Dateline from prison. Like they get to talk to her. She spoke with correspondent Dennis Murphy,

maintaining her innocence the whole time. Damn it, not me. She's stuck to the home invasion story. Her son, Bert, appeared on the show to back up her account and show off his crazy fucking tattoo. I want to see those tattoos. Oh, it'll be on social media. Don't worry. It's on there.

I got a picture of it. Amazing. So this is in Mitchellville, Iowa. She's sitting in a prison cell, essentially, you know, doing PR, basically. Just trying to make everybody thinks she's a nice person. It's crazy. So here's some quotes here. The interviewer said, did you lure Dustin Weedy over to your house that day and execute him in a cold-blooded fashion?

She said, no. She said, I was in the corner. The person had to follow me into the corner to get to me. You couldn't have gotten more further away in the house and been like in a more defensive position than huddled on the ground in a corner, shooting at him. And she said, that's not true because they said, said shooting at him and she said that's not true i know i was in the corner and the person was coming at me that i know i mean i will take that to my grave oh and now they talked about her neck injury and they said did you fake it did you do that to yourself and she said no no that's ridiculous

and it's hurtful oh now we've heard her feelings i'm sorry my bad i'm hurt you know what it is right here my heart is where you got me that's what hurts now. It's right here. It's not any of this. Not here. Not right there, Dennis. Right there. God damn it. Dennis, you son of a bitch, Mr. Murphy. I heard. God damn it. He said, and I hurt. If you cut me, I don't bleed. You cut me. And I hurt. And I hurt. And I bleed. She said, I didn't. I honestly never, it was never a concern. She said to start that sentence a couple of times.

Yeah, yeah. I didn't. I honestly never. It was never a concern. The only person that benefits is Michael Roberts. Now, she's still pushing that it's Michael that did this. Wow. And it benefits Michael Roberts because if I died while he was out of town and he was going to

collect, you know, several million dollars in insurance on me. Don't know if that's true or not. He was going to be the number one suspect. And you think that today, and you think that today, no matter what, I think it more today than I ever have. Meaning that it's open and shut to her. Michael Roberts did this to her to collect insurance money. He's diabolical. I'm a fucking victim.

And now I'm in prison because of him. Bullshit, right? I'm a victim. Victim. January 2013, Iowa Court of Appeals, the court finds their way. was substantial evidence that the killing was not justified. Issues about excluded expert testimony, mainly the psychologist, the Dr. Grove, who said she showed PTSD and ass, ass, DSD.

She showed her whole ass. Her whole ass. All those were rejected. The court ruled that there was enough evidence of staging that the jury could reject self-defense affirmed. Wow. Okay. Now there's a website called ripoff report.com. What is that?

Oh, yeah. I know what that is. Remember that? Yeah. It had user. Consumer protective. Yeah. Yeah. It had dozens of user submitted complaints and updates, primarily authored or updated by contributors to this site that we're doing this regularly.

It aggressively claimed Tracy was wrongfully convicted of murder. Consumer report did? This did. Rip off report. Starting as early as 2012, notably in report number 930. 38843 and follow-ups like 10493 or 1049232 and 109 5021, Jimmy. I know you were waiting for that one. Is that right?

You know it. Old 5021 there. You're telling me the website you can go to to say the ass of these Levi's ripped and that's bullshit is the same one that's defending her. You complain if you think the police have convicted you on a conspiracy theory. Yeah. Same one. I'm complaining about the Sack County

fucking whatever. So they portrayed the Sack County Iowa case as a textbook example of prosecutorial corruption, evidence tampering, witness intimidation, and a tainted trial. It's a real rip-off. She's got ass and tainted trial.

She's in deep trouble. One search on the site for Tracy Richter or related items surfaced dozens of interconnected reports, videos, documents, and rebuttals. A 2007 and teen post even tied them to a federal civil rights settlement that we'll talk about here. Okay.

Now, they say that she shot Dustin while protecting her young children, initial investigators, and the prior prosecutor found no basis for charges and viewed her as a heroic mother. They said nearly a decade later this Ben Smith comes in, reopens the case, and gets a life sentence despite no evidence linking her to the crime. Oh, yeah. They said Michael Roberts was the real perpetrator orchestrator. This is what the website said. They said Roberts allegedly had motives, drug debts, leading to, quote, street-level justice. That's what they said. Violent thoughts confessed on secret recordings, child-related issues, whatever that means,

and a desire to eliminate Tracy in a custody battle. He reportedly, or he purportedly hired. Dustin planted evidence, the pink notebook, that's Michael planted that before he went to fucking Minneapolis. Before he went to Minneapolis, yeah. Paid his alibi witnesses, the guy in the car with him, sent crime scene photos, including the top secret evidence to others, and fled to Australia with the children against court orders.

Roberts was placed in witness protection, which they called a sham, and testified for the prosecution instead of being investigated. They said he failed a polygraph. They said 99% deceptive on key questions per some claims. Yet Smith relied on it. There's no claims. I haven't seen any. And no sources cited there.

I don't know where that is. These are just all wild-ass claims. Literally per some claims is not enough to put something in writing. The prosecutor, Ben Smith, they say engaged in gross misconduct and conflicts of interest. It's gross. So gross. She said she shot him, man. That doesn't matter.

It's Ben Smith's fault. Maybe Ben Smith shot him. I think maybe that's... They said that Smith was a close friend to the Roberts is, which we don't know that. At the time, the thing happened, he was 23 years old, so I don't know how he would have been a close friend there. They said prior to that, he helped Roberts prior child abuse conviction, advised him on dodging child support, and jointly applied for business financing with him. This is all later on. Oh, okay.

They said when that failed, Smith allegedly charged Tracy to cover it all up. It's a real big stretch. Wow. They said that Smith married the daughter of Mary Higgins, who later gave the notebook test. There's 400 people here. They're all connected. They all know each other.

Don't take this person's married to that person. Don't do that. As long as the jury isn't married to one of them, I couldn't give a fuck. It's fine. But this is all, yeah. They said that raised perjury and bias issues. Suppression of exculpatory evidence.

They claim that they ignored or hid Dustin's own handwritten notes claiming that Michael Roberts hired him to kill Richter. Withheld discovery documents dismissed the failed polygraph of Michael Roberts while using paid ones, they said. There's a lot of claims with zero evidence. You can just type this on the internet? You could type this on the internet. You're allowed to just say that? It seems like, especially if it's about a person, if you say some person orchestrated this and murder, that should be liable. I threw away evidence.

If there's no court evidence to back it up. That's crazy. You can't just say that. Especially if it's been adjudicated completely and in a different way. Right. It makes no sense. We can say she's a murderous asshole because a jury said that. So that's now fact in the world.

And if you wanted to sue us, you would have to prove your. didn't kill someone, which you obviously can't do. Which is because you're in jail. Because you're in prison for killing someone. The murder that we're calling you a murderous asshole about it. Exactly. So that's how that works kind of. So they also say that they claim witness intimidation.

They say they threatened former prosecutor Earl Hardesty and others with arrest to suppress evidence and filed a motion to squash, which I think they mean quash. No, legally it's squaw. I think it's squash to block Mead from sharing proof with Richter's attorneys. They also claim retaliation. They used over 100, they said used over 100 investigatory subpoenas on ripoff report, eccentric ventures, and mead to silence critics, violating privileges and launching a civil rights abuses campaign. Oh.

Also saying the trial and conviction were tainted based on an arrogant and baseless assumption. perjury and propaganda, e.g. misleading dateline coverage. That was after the conviction, six months after sentencing, as a matter of fact. So I don't know how that would change retroactively. It's very arrogant. That Keith Morrison, he's known for it. They said Smith sought fame, not justice. A sculptory material was never presented to the jury. Smith is the prosecutor, by the way. Nobody knows who he is, so didn't get that fame. Here's some key quotes from the posts. An innocent woman is sent to prison for life without the possibility of parole for protecting her children during a brutal home invasion.

Based on information and belief, Michael Roberts orchestrated the deadly home invasion. He planted evidence, a pink notebook, paid alibi witnesses, and much more. Quote unquote. Wow. Then Meade pointed out that notes in Dustin's handwriting claim that Richter's first ex-husband, Tracy's first ex-husband, Tracy's first ex-s husband. husband had hired Dustin to kill Richter. That's the Pittman one. This ex-husband had been a witness for the prosecution against Richter instead of a suspect. So that means he's guilty, obviously, according to them. They also report secret audio of Roberts confessing his motives, Michael Roberts,

videos, discovery documents, and public records offered to law enforcement and the media. updates through 2018, report number 938-8-843 updated January 17th, 2018, celebrating the dismissal of criminal charges against Mead with prejudice and tying it to Smith's failed retaliation. So the rip-off report framed itself as framed the post as protected consumer speech exposing corruption. But you could say what you want about a prosecutor in his job. That is fine. Protected speech? You can say this, if you don't agree with what happened, you can say you think the prosecutor did this, this, and this. And that's perfectly legal.

Is it? To take a, fuck, yeah. You are the prosecutor of the county. Everything you do is under the microscope and anything I want to say about you is ballgame. Except for saying he covered something up, right? How often do you hear that? Yeah, yeah. Constantly.

That's constant. You can say they, he threw away? Fuck yeah Really? It seems I don't know if they can sue you Or what or what the legalities of But no one seems to ever get sued for that

So people tend to say These prosecutors did this and they did that Yeah I guess the prosecutor's so busy He doesn't have time to be Chasing down libel shit too It's got to be that it's legal Because you're a public figure

Being a prosecutor And you've You can disagree with the case That has to be part of it I think You're unable to be liable I don't Yeah probably

I can. Yeah. Well, if you're a public figure, people can have whatever opinion they want. That's part of it. So, or certain cases. Sure. And you work for, also, you get paid by taxpayer money. I think I can say whatever I want about you.

I pay your salary. Wow. That's the other thing. So why not? But a private citizen like Michael Roberts, you can't go off saying. He's planning murders. That's fucking crazy. So when Smith investigated them, meaning the ripoff report,

as potentially defamatory and harassing to other people. Yeah. The site fought back in federal court leading to a preliminary injunction and a $750,000 settlement paid by SAC County in 2017 without admitting wrongdoing. So you can say whatever you want about, Benz, about the prosecution, I think. That's what it means. The county paid the website? Yes, $750,000 settlement. The platform offered to remove false statements if Smith proved them, but they said he never did.

They said, well, tell us what's false and we'll take it off. Proof it. Show us. In the ripoff report's coverage turned the Tracy's case into a high visibility online crusade against alleged prosecutorial abuse. The complaints painted Tracy as innocent, Roberts as guilty, and Smith as corrupt. Jesus. Yeah, they said many of the original posts remain on the site or are referenced in updates, though some content's been edited or supplemented over time.

That's amazing. They also bring in a private investigator from Arizona. Yeah. As a ZDPS license, I'm like, you got an Arizona department. Who is it? John Brewington. Yeah. Owner of Paladin investigations.

Sometimes styled Paladin civil rights investigations or JFB acquisitions based in the Phoenix Scottsdale area. He became involved in the Tracy Richter murder case indirectly. as an investigator hired or acting as an agent for parties aligned against the post-conviction innocence campaign, including connections to prosecutor Ben Smith's side or witnesses like Michael Roberts, who was the ex-husband. He said he's not a party to the criminal case but played a role in the surrounding controversy over ripoffreport.com's coverage of it. Jesus. He, Brewington, the detective here, conducted extensive private investigation work tied to ripoff reports. handling of the case, including producing or obtaining 60 hours of secret audio recordings involving

rip-off report owner Ed Magidison, or associates, e.g. Individuals using aliases and others. The recordings allegedly captured Magidson directing or scripting content, financial arrangements, and tactics related to complaints, including those about Richter's conviction and the prosecutor. They also creating or orchestrating a video, which Ripoff report later called a failed blackmail plot or bogus videotape, intended to pressure the removal of the Richter-related posts. Ripoff report accused Brewington of guiding participants to rephrase statements for the recording. Oh, boy. So this is a lot. Yeah, the blog post did not primarily relitigate the underlying murder evidence, ballistics, and all that shit.

Instead, they focused on discrediting ripoff reports platform and of the innocence campaign itself. Now, the blog appears to have been active primarily during the 2012-to-2015 litigation period, meaning his blog, the private investigator's log. And nowadays does not load any relevant content, so you can't get it. Now, they said that Brewington was named in federal court filings as one of Smith's, quote, agents with plaintiff seeking orders related. to materials he received or distributed, his work and blonde fueled accusations from ripoff report of witness intimidation, evidence tampering,

and counter campaign and retaliation. Yeah. Holy shit. 2014, Anna Richter. Yeah. Tracy's mom reports emerged that Anna is under investigation for allegedly harassing prosecution witnesses online. Holy shit, these people are a nightmare.

Yeah, they seem like they're all class, huh? 2017 she appeals again based on shit among her arguments were that the defense team at trial failed to point out an error on a model of of Dustin's body when discussing the shooting and that one of her attorneys should have withdrawn

because she wanted to call them as a witness Oh The Court of Appeals rejects all of her shit and says keep fucking off. But I want them to have a talk. But I want it to work for me. Now Tracy, it remains incarcerated and at Mitchellville, Iowa in the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women.

She maintains her innocence to this day. And Michael Roberts and the two younger children had relocated and Burt's out there with a really stupid tattoo. So yeah, that's what's going on there. That everybody is early Iowa. And you can see why this really stirred the town up a lot. Not only is it a murder, but crazy shit. Fucking crazy shit. So if you like that story, get on whatever actually.

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Then you get new ones every other week, one crime in sports, one small town murder, and you get every damn dropping. You get a whole deal. This week here, we are going to talk about the Corey Richens trial and that whole story. story from Utah, which is a wild story of a woman who killed her husband, then wrote a book about it, a book about her husband to help her children grieve. Right. It's wild stuff. A book for children's book teaching them how grief is brutal.

Which, by the way, here's just a foreshadow of how annoying she is. She thought that didn't exist in the world. There was never anybody else who wrote a book about children's grieving. She literally, that was her big selling point. She went on TV and everything. It's wild shit. This doesn't exist out there. You're not going to believe it.

For crime and sports, we're going to talk about, we're going to do part two of old-timey articles and weird ads and shit like that. Those are the most fun. So this is a really good week for Patreon. She might be right, though, James. A murderer may not have ever written a grieving book about their. That's probably true for their kids about their dead father who they killed. Probably not.

So, yeah, crime and sports. I don't even know where I was. The articles. Old-timey articles. Those are a lot of fun there. So do that and join up. And you also get everything we put out, which is all of the shows we put out, all ad-free as well. And then on top of that, you also get a shout out at the end of the show, which is right, goddamn now.

Jimmy, hit me with the names of the best fucking people in the world who always come through for us and have done wonderful things and get to hear tons of great content. Hit me with him right fucking now. This executive producers are Coral Corporal Carl Scher. God damn it. Corporal Carl Kersner. The man put down his cat, and I can't even say his name. Poor bastard. Sorry about that.

That's so sad. Sorry, Corporal Carl. Hope you're on the upside of things. Those are all C's by the way. What is it? Those are Cs, by the way, in there. Yes. Two Cs and a K.

Oh, one Kahn. Yeah. Yeah. Kershner is a gay. Yeah. His cat evidently loved catnip like you love weed. That's what I'm told. Terrific.

That's a lot of catnip. That's a lot. He's putting it down. It's a big bar cart. Peyton Meadows, Gary Howard, some pusopher in Cleveland, Texas. Happy Hour in New Caney, Texas. They're both in Texas this week.

Watch out for each other. God damn. Honk as you pass each other. Honk, honk. Yeah, really. As you're driving down the road, Gary, just pump your fist at every trucker and hopefully Happy Hour says a lot.

Maybe you'll hit the right one. We don't know. Andrew Frisch and his dog Crypto, Chabon Kalman, and Larry Butterfast. Thank you guys all so much. Thanks, Larry. Good to see you too, Larry and Phoenix. Oh, Larry's so good to see you. Thank you, brother. Definitely.

Such a good guy. What a big fucking... That big fucker hugs great. He does. He'll hurt your neck. It's good. I like it. Yeah, other producers this week. Pentea, Renee Nicole Zerdeski. Oh. Happy Hour just wanted me to say that name.

For whatever reason, he enjoys that. Ryan Bender, Janice Hill, Lauren Mercurio, Natalie LeGrand, LaGrand, Charles Holtz-Claw, Bean would know the last name. Caleb Sweet, Lauren Landon, Kenny from Iowa, Mara Tanner, Courtney Kreckleberg, Sensicle would know last name. Kevin would know last name. Ash Kent, Lyle would know last name. Josh Cabao. Lindsay Huta. Mark Twain, I doubt it. Kelly, Goodman, Onica, Damian Frunka, James would know last name. Josh Covington. Zach would know last name. Nick Johnson, Ashley Cross, Amanda Falk, Danny Lockwood. Astute Fruit. Skip would know the last name. Danielle Lockwood. Heather Jimison, S.D., like San Diego.

Stacey Birdwin. Cody would know last name. Christy Gardner, Erica Klein. McKenzie Dixon. Caroline, Birch or Carolyn? Caroline, right? Is it Caroline?

Have we agreed on that? It could go either way on that one. It could be Caroline or Carolyn depending on who you. All right. I just want to make sure. Most of the Carolyn is with a Y, but sometimes. See? Yeah.

Two ends. I don't know. This is just Caroline. Like North. Yeah. Or sweet. Brandon Brown, Gary Landry, Andrea Soup, Harley Marshall, Brian Pearson, Kim Murray, Kate Arango, Leah Ownby. What is this? Clifford Way Raven, Wallraven. Wallraven? Wallraven? It's like Walgreens, but also Raven. Wallravens. Come on down. There's sales. I'm trying to look to see if that's an I or an L. I'm going to have to start using a bigger vaunt. That's embarrassing to say out loud. Rachel Marks, Jackie Pasco. You got so close to the screen, guys. Like mouth open, like, what's going on?

I got real close, and it looks exactly the same as back here. Put his glasses up and down, did one of those, like a Mr. Magoo. What the fuck is happening here? Chris Patterson, Dustin Brown. Is this a fucking, was this one of those visual, what do they call those? I don't know. When things look different, but they're not. Optical illusion.

Fingo. There you go. It would be so good on that pyramid. Isis Jackson, Chris Patterson, Dustin Brown. Kevin Newberry. Travis would know last name. Del Nagy. Dale Nagy.

Nagy? Nagy? What was the pitcher's name? Was it Nagy or Nagy? Charles Nagy. Nagy. So it's Dale Nagy. Mockley would know last name.

Ashley would know last name. Amanda Kraft. Alex would no last name. Michael Gruber. Jeanette Gallagher. Snana. What is a snana? No last name.

I don't know if it's a first or last. Julia Shriner. David Fox, Scott Johnson, Adam White, Candice Flower, Michael M. Shaden, Milne Sparks, Vanessa Meyer, Kolo Doc. I imagine that's a colorectal doc. We got to go get our asses checked, by the way. Corey Sammis, you're doing it. Seth would no last name. Cat would no last name.

Kelly Hipwell, Janice Lamon, Michelle Schmalle, Mark Rouse, Alexis Stanky. All right. John would no last name. Rachel Lindsay. Rachel would know last name, possibly somebody with two patrons. Thank you, Lindsay. Rachel, Lindsay, if you meant to do that. Thank you, thank you.

Otherwise, check and make sure that you only have one. Ben Shemel, Nicole Royer, Sarah Jackson, Americus would know the last name. Terrence Matthews, Kim Garrets, Sherry Lynn, Ben Whittle, Constance Adams. Did I say? Nope, sir, sure didn't. Kylie would know last name. Lindsay would know last name.

Sherry would know last name. Ash, A. 31. Sam Settleston. Steph Saline. I wonder if she's related to the people who do the saline cobras and shit. Are you related to...

Do we have saline money now? Noah Gascon. C-Rag. That's gross. Max Huisman. H-U-I-S-Wiseman. That's fascinating. Casey Mihalik. Mark Chandler, Rebecca Jones,

Beth Hudson, Kevin Schlemerhorn. Shummerhorn. April Rose, Archangel, Otaku. O-Tacu. Emmanuel Alexander. Cody Austin, Bradley Camano, Ronda, Ronda Anderson, Brandon Love Day, India, Russell, Ronald Pachene, Grace Somerville, Just Bree, Maccvelli, and Cheese. Fascinating. Big Wally. Rochelle would no last name, Cynthia Barry, and all of our patrons, you're the fucking best.

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