Sword and Scale - Episode 217

Episode Date: August 8, 2022

Anthony Templet lived his whole life in a cage. One morning he decided to take his life into his own hands and set himself free. The only setback was he had to kill his father to gain his freedom. Trapped and abused by his father he shot his father twice at point-blank range, once in the arm and once in the skull. Now, he only had to escape the Louisiana justice system and the charge of second-degree murder.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sort and scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences Listener discretion is advised Do you want for the tour mission? Now I say that I say that of a You know reaching distance right so I like shown once and twice and then he was on the grounds of outside of all right Sean once and twice and then he was on the grounds of I was like alright that's it All right hold your horses This is season 9 episode two

17 of Sword Scalers showed our bills that the worst monsters are real Hey, how's your week going? Mides off to a bang. You know, got more right up slightly. More right ups from people living in their parents' basement. But we're not here to talk about that. We have a show coming up. This one we had to rush out to get to you because there's going to be a Netflix dock on this coming up real soon Can't we beat them to it When you approach adulthood, you hope the first important decision you make is something

like which apartment to rent, or whether or not getting that credit card right out of high school is a good idea. Pro tip, it isn't. But you never expect the first adult decision you make in your life to be as important as life or death. White Oaks was a quiet subdivision, mostly. This stoic confession came from a boy on Grey Moss Avenue, nestled amongst the opulent homes of the White Oaks community of Shenandoah. Shenandoah is by no means a sleepy little town. It was part of the greater Baton Rouge metropolitan area. When many callers are usually frantic, this kid wasely calm. So no, I need to tell you. So you said you just killed your dad?

Yeah. Okay, and what's the address? Um, it's just one, seven, eight, eight, six. Green Mod 7ew. 17886 Green Mod? Avenue, I think. Is there any way for you to tell me I can go check if you want? 17886 Green Moss. I don't know, I think. Is there any way for you to tell me I can go check if you like?

Well, I need to make sure that they're correct address. Is it Green Moss? G-R-E-E-N? If it's G-R-E-A-L-I-G-R-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G-R-E-G- It's gray. Gray? Yeah, gray isn't like yellow. Okay. You know the colors? Mm-hmm. Gray moss and adjuvets 178. 8. 8.

6. It's a moss underneath. Hello. Yes, yes, sir. So that's the correct number 178. 8. 8. 6.

Gray moss? Yes. Okay. As the exceedingly patient dispatcher tries to clarify the address, a hint of urgency starts to show through the calm demeanor. Only time would tell what happened in that home, but first, they had to find it, because after all of that, it still wasn't the right address. He was way off. It wasn't the right address. He was way off.

It wasn't 17886. It was 17652. OK, and is he still alive or? He might be, I don't know. I think I saw like three times, I think. You shot him three times. I'm not sure, sometimes I hit him. He lives in the first one.

I know he's at least a shot. I shot three times at him. He's on the ground. Okay, you shot him three times with the gun? Yes. Okay. What's 100%? No, of course. Or at least I tried to.

What a strange call. What peculiar behavior. And what a curious claim. He tried to attack me. We got into a curious claim. He tried to attack me, and we got him to a fixed fight, and our man in his room, and he left the door and God was good. And I unlocked the door, and he tried to pick it, and then I shot him. While he explained it, he heard his rate of breath increase. The realization of what he did must have been settling in.

Okay, and around what age is your father? Uh, it's been something. Okay, 50. A little. Okay. Yes. And are you there right now or have you left? Y'all understood here? Okay, you still at your dad's house? Yes. Okay, you still at your dad's house? Yes. Okay. Of course he was still there.

His father was the only family he had. Why would this kid kill his only family? What's your name? Anthony Joseph Tomplay. The P-U-M-T-L-E-T. T-U-M-P. T-E-M, like a simple cut out of T at the end. The soon to be 18-year-old Anthony Tomplay was the only son of his father, Bert, and

apparently, wasn't all that bright. OK, and do you know exactly where you shot at the areas yet well uh... i just gave you a good different areas of its body i think that by my end of the test

not sure i guess it's an easy question to get confused especially considering what just occurred. Anthony confessed to killing his father, and although his confession was oddly tranquil, it was clear he was in over his young head and needed help. Okay, sir, but I am going to transfer you over to another department they had some additional questions to ask, okay? Are you certain that the cost of coming to a right address? Like, I'm not to transfer you over. Okay.

It still wasn't the right address. The police and paramedics would rush to Grey Moss Avenue, and the neighbors of Anthony and Bert would have a rude awakening at Monday morning. He claimed his father attacked him, and in defense of himself he shot at him three times. Definitely hitting him at least once because there was blood all over the floor. While Bert was known in the neighborhood for working as the treasurer of the HOA, little was known about the sun. ran into him, I was a Costco, ran into him, he was with Susan, and Anthony was with him. And this was the first time I'd ever met Anthony.

I'd heard him mention that they had a couple of kids, but didn't really know the history. Well, Anthony would not even engage. He was back to the side and sitting down, but made him get up and say hello to me, which I was like, Anthony, nice to meet you, but Anthony was just very, very withdrawn. You know, I think it's strange, you know, but again, socially awkward kids, you can go with it. How about contact with Anthony any other contact? I didn't have any other contact with Anthony. It was that one meeting just, you know,

I just felt so bad for him because he just seemed so socially awkward and how about you, Jim, did you have contact with Anthony? I never met one. I never once met him. They said they had a son. They said that two kids I never met him. Okay. I had the time that I was over at their house. I didn't see him. Any time I drove by their house, I didn't see them.

Visually, you never even met. That's a big deal. That's a bad song. Never. Very few people, new of Anthony's existence, and even fewer had actually met him. The few that had, only described him as socially awkward, especially for his age. I was supposed to pick him up for work and I,

to end up text message, didn't hear anything. And I sent him a second text message, I guess, and said, look, even a few moments need to ride. Anthony's boss and neighbor, the owner of a local plant nursery, would pick him up from work every day. For obvious reasons that morning, Anthony didn't respond. By that time, he would already be at the police station. Didn't answer well, I can't see that side of the street. The first street I'm out of the first street.

I'm in the last house. So I just got in the car with the work. I didn't find out till I don't know. I think maybe Jim might have been the one to tell me later in the afternoon what happened. This was the only person who had any one-on-one interaction with this kid. His honest reaction when he heard was shock.

I found it very surprising Anthony never to make sure of any inkling that he never had something like that in the middle. It seemed that Bert only really had one friend to speak of. James Tennyson. We were friends since probably mid school. So you've known him for years and you always get. A chance run in at a local store would lead to James reconnecting with his childhood friend after nearly 15 years. He didn't even know Bert moved back to the area. When you were go over to his house, did you see Anthony or interact with Anthony? I don't know, okay, since he didn't come out too often, he really stayed in his room.

Now, I had to say Anthony Berry's very seldom came out. He was just being inside playing video games or something like that, you know. And Berry's seldom did he come out. He described Anthony as a typical teenager. Let's face it, kids don't play outside anymore. Probably out of fear being shot at random. Anyway, James didn't really notice anything odd. Certainly not anything that would make him believe Anthony was capable of murder. did that was so quiet and so harmless looking that could do something like that. It just didn't make any sense. Not at all.

He only knew Anthony as a quiet and polite kid. Did Anthony seem like a normal kid? Did he seem more socially awkward or just quiet? He just a quiet, quiet little kid. I mean, he looked harmless. He didn't speak a whole lot, but he would come out and say, hey, what's the day you're doing? I'm doing anything, you know. So he was polite, nice, nice, nice, youngster.

I mean, you know, just, I just figured he'd want to be one of the kids. I like to play video games all the time, so I'm going to stay inside. You know? The only thing he found odd about Anthony was how withdrawn he was. Did you ever see Anthony with friends there? No, now with Susan's son, they hung out together, you know, and they would kind of have...

As far as any independent friends, not at all. That's kind of strange, you know. Did you ever witness any physical abuse between Anthony and, no, I did not. Anthony was on the verge of adulthood. He lived in a neighborhood of spacious half-million-dollar homes with manicured lawns. He had the life so many longed for. Described only as quiet and withdrawn, it's hard to imagine any reason Burt would attack him, if he even really did. Anthony's 9-1-1 call confession was so devoid

of emotion that it was surreal and hard to believe what reason could Anthony have to have shot his father. Anthony Tomplay called 911 to confess to murder. He claimed his father attacked him and he had to shoot him. Once the police were on the scene, the mystery surrounding the Tomplay household would thicken. Many that new bird didn't even know he had a kid. The ones that did rarely saw him, if ever. It's like the kid only existed within the walls

of that house. A house that the 17 year old didn't even know the address to. Rumors would begin to fly about what happened behind those closed doors. And your date of birth is worth. See, there is so temperate 13, 2001 or two. Can't remember which one. He can't remember what year he was born. This should be a simple question for someone his age. First, he didn't know his address, and now he doesn't know what year he was born.

Now what's your current address? My home address? Yes, I don't know. On the set, 652, pretty much, I don't know if I think, He actually got it right that time. I guess he got a chance to look at the mailbox as they carted him to jail. Still, the kid isn't sure he's right. He clearly has some confidence issues. While not uncommon in teens, this seems to be a bit more extreme.

He timidly avoids direct eye contact with the detective, not in a suspicious manner, but more like a shy child. What about your mother? I don't know, where she's at. When the last time you saw her, it'd be a week or two ago. You know, isn't it kind of way you can help me to cross that?

I don't know where a phone number, the only thing you can give my dad's phone, you can probably, he has some recent text with her. You got a step mom? Yeah, I don't know where my room is. And I don't know where my step mom is. You don't know where your step mom is, and what do you do? to be clear, Anthony referred to a stepmom as his mom. He hadn't seen her in weeks. His real mom or biological mother, he hadn't seen in years. He had no idea where they were, and he killed his only other family.

Anthony was truly alone. It wasn't long into the interview when the detective noticed something was a little off about Anthony. I don't really know how to give you an idea. Right, so you're 17, so what school do you go to? I've been home school all my life. Okay, so if your home school do you have a different grade levels? No, like I said, my education is not great. I'm sorry. My education is not great.

Okay, you're not a read. I'm not a read. You're not a right. I can write every letter now. Okay. Now, and you know that point in school, you do the read, corporate, right? If you read something, you understand what you read, you're pretty new today. I'm pretty okay. I was understanding. Yeah. Whatever you. Okay. Thanks for starting to make a little more sense. Anthony claimed he'd been homeschooled his entire life, which might explain his social awkwardness. Because of this, he admitted his education wasn't the best, which might explain his confusion with basic questions. And you know, like if you don't have nothing money or any money to pay for, you know, that the

courts would provide that for you. You understand that? Yeah, I'll take the one they provide. I'll take the one they provide. Okay, but if you couldn't afford one, that's how it would work, okay? So I have to buy one if I have a money. If you like the same friends of your life, people with money, they get paid for it on you. Yeah. People with all the money, if they don't have it, then one can be provided for them.

You understand that? Right, but do I have to buy a letter? Oh no, no, no, no, no, we just talking about, just making sure that you understand everything. Yeah, okay. So everything I just talked about making sure that you understand everybody. So we hear a thing, I'll talk to you about if you understand what's going on. Yeah. And you're right, so everything. Yeah.

Okay. It doesn't sound like he gets it. He was completely out of his depth. This lanky kid with long hair sat there slightly leaning forward. His hands grasped each other and his bare feet shifted on the floor. He seemed underdressed, wearing only a t-shirt and jogging shorts. As he started to tell, his tale, and went to sleep around 12ish or maybe one. 12, one o'clock is more. Like a typical teen he stayed up late.

When he finally went to sleep, he was rudely awoken by his father snooping through his phone. You started looking through my phone, and in the middle of the night, I was like, you know, like, when you're looking through my phone, so like, what do I think? And we got to a big argument. What do you say I'm looking And we got to a big argument.

What is the only lookin' for? He was lookin' for a... He was accusing me of calling, having calls with my son, mother, and... And I proved to him that that wasn't the case because he was just seeing things like he wasn't. Yeah, his glasses on, he said, but he was shit-faced.

The toxicology report listed his blood alcohol concentration at 0.148, almost double the legal limit. That was about three bucks one and I think around three or five days in one round three ish maybe you know three thirty ish. So you won't give up? Yeah. You're wrong or where? Yeah you won't get me out of the environment. Okay.

So you won't give me your room. Yeah. And accuse me of having fun with a settle. All right. Well when will he want you to even talk to you as that, Mom? Well, I guess they're in a fight or something. That's why he was drinking, who he goes.

He doesn't like secrets. So like, if I knew something like that, I would have to tell him. In the early morning hours, his father woke him from his sleep with drunken accusations. And he goes where he sees what? He brings it over to the light in his room. I follow him and he's like, and he was like, uh, I was like see that is not, that is not your best step.

I was like, he was like, oh, whatever, you know, and then start fighting about something else. I can't quite remember what else we felt about. We say, follow Trump and verbal, we just don't. And, you know, he's kind of crazy religious, so he'd be like, you, you deem him, whatever, you, the demons and you were something. The conversation after that is just him blaming me, him saying to I blame him for everything that goes wrong. And I think it's the opposite, most of the time, but that's basically what I turn into. And like him just calling me names, you know.

What kind of names do you call you? I just hold a dick. Now this is a ridiculous guy, right? Yes, probably to me. Yeah, well, so he's calling you an A to D and then you are seeing him with. Uh, same like, I'm really used to it at this point so I was like what, like, how would I respond to it? I don't really respond to just drag and verbal. I just wait until he actually can make some sense so I can respond. He calmly claimed the accusations escalated into a verbal argument and name calling.

What stranger is that Anthony also claims he's used to that kind of behavior. But in the video you can see a nervous tick start to emerge as he recalls the events. He has a habit of twiddling his fingers when he can't quite articulate a thought. just like let the intro and then he'd be like, yeah, this is my home. That's not right. Then I head back to my room to go back to sleep and then he gets mad. He gets mad me for pacing on the room as I pace around the room when I'm right. That is time of our time. So sometimes he's like, you go to sleep or whatever. And I'm like, all right, I have him in his glasses and he's not, you go to sleep or whatever. And I'm like, all right, I hand him his glasses and he knock him on my hands, I'm like, what?

So, I'm obviously mad and I'm like, I just try to hand you your glasses and you just knock him on my hand. And I remember after that, we fall for a few more minutes. Anthony claims he tried to de-escalate the argument, but his father followed him, almost as if to try to pick a fight cornering him in his bedroom. get him once or twice, maybe he like, I guess he was still very drunk because you didn't fight well. So he tried to grab me and I like, I slipped out and ran into a string locked the door. Well, I go immediately for guns and he's banging out the door trying to open it.

And I guess he tried to open the door and like stunned himself who he heard himself and I grabbed at least powerful. A locked the door. So he if he would open it and then I open the door and like stun himself who's he hurt himself and I grab at least powerful a lot of the door see if you open it and then I open the door he's there stuns my shoe and I kept he kept kind of walking back and to the bathroom and I shot him once or twice two times more well at least I shot with them three times but I don't know how many times I had him. I was just kind of like, you know. Described only as socially awkward, Anthony was something else, too.

Honest. He told the detective exactly what happened, even the self-incriminating parts. Sure his father had cornered him in a room and was trying to break down the door, but Anthony unlocked and opened the door. And while his father was stunned, he shot him. Then after he stumbled back, Anthony stepped into the hall and fired again. And after all that, his recounting of events was seemingly unemotional. The detective wanted to go over the shooting again to make sure he had heard what he thought

he heard. When I first opened the door, he was stunned from hurting himself, I guess. So he's like kind of down years for some reason. So he's kind of like heard, I guess he heard. Yeah. So he's locked a little bit. Yeah, he just locked a little bit. Okay, so he's locked a little bit. Yeah, he just want a little bit Okay, so I'm slumped a little bit. Yeah, and show me what you do and I shoot him and he like stumbles back and he's like

You know, he's holding wherever he's shot. I guess I don't just like I don't know it. I hit him so so when you shoot That's demonstrate so when you shoot say Show me what to do Pow so he's shot somewhere like this Yeah, and he's someone's back or he's standing there He's someone's back and I try to go through the bathroom Okay, yeah, someone what are you doing after that first shot? Now show me what you do again

Like, so that he's stumbled in a bed So like the bathroom was over here and I just stood up and like Did you walk close to 12 in the evening? No, I stayed out of a, you know, reaching distance. Right. So I like shot him once and twice, and then he was on the ground, so I was like, all right, that's it. So, when he was on the floor, you shot him on the floor?

No, I didn't shoot him on the floor. So you shot him out, he was still? Yeah. Okay. He hit shot him while he was still? Yeah. Okay. He hit the floor and I was dumb. Would you say it's standard thing when you have a new shot? Yeah, it was like no stop. And I was like, oh no.

He's just gonna do some shit and give me. So when he hits you to stop? Yeah. Are you still shooting again? Or was shooting over? We told him. He told me to stop after I shot him the first time when he was in the bathroom.

He was like, no, I'm not. Shoot him twice. He ain't a bathroom. Yeah. And he falls to ground. So the shoot starts at the door and hits the bedroom. He backs up. And he backs up and he says,

it's time. Well, he was in the bathroom when I said, when he said it stopped, you know? and he shot him some more. Anthony claimed abuse. He claimed there was an argument that escalated into a physical fight, but that was the word of an un-injured boy. The dead body of his father was a strong counter-argument to that claim. The autopsy report would detail Burt's injuries. The first shot perforated his right forearm, which slowed the bullet down enough that it only created a superficial wound to his chest.

When Bert stumbled back and begged him to stop, he would have likely lived. It's unclear whether the third shot was the one that ended his life. But a second bullet entered the front left of his head and pulpified the brain matter, allowing the path to the back right of his head, lodging into a skull. Why did you call for help? No, it was just scary, and I was like, I can't rely on the police to get here and in time, in case you haven't heard the door,

I was just ready to end it. And I knew you wanted to excited me to continue them. So I knew I was just surprised them. And this was really into there. He may be under-educated, but he's certainly logical, except for the murder part, of course. He was in a fight with his dad and waited until he had an advantage and attacked. He didn't give a warning, he didn't try to escape, he went for the gun, saw an opportunity to end it and took it. If this was a military exercise, he'd probably get an A+. But this was his house and the enemy was his father. Now Anthony was likely facing murder charges. His demeanor and lack of proof for his claim of ongoing abuse made it a pretty flimsy excuse.

That's when attorney Jarrett Ambo enters the story. Here he is from his appearance on a podcast called Cannabis Talk 101. So I'm a felony criminal defense attorney. I have more than 50 felony jury trials to verdict first share. And so I had an opportunity to try a lot of cases, be very successful, get very good at trying jury cases. The only thing he knew about Anthony's case was what he heard on the news. So this happens, and then there's this unbelievable Facebook outreach. And get contacted by three different people.

One's now a judge, an attorney, a very well established civil attorney who calls me up and says, hey, can you look at this case, help this guy? Contacted by two other people on Facebook, call my office, hey, can you help this guy? He's got no money, the only person that's ever taken care of him or tried to is his dad and just killed him. He's got nothing else, he's got no other found, he got nobody to help him. And so I agreed to go meet with the kid,

pro bono to figure out, you know, can I help him? Can I help him? I don't even know anything about the case, but there's rumors at that point that he might have been kidnapped at one point, there's rumors at that point that he might have been an abusive home, and I just don't know, you know, I mean, you know, here at any time you get these crazy cases, these murder cases, like this kind of shit, these facts, you're always suspect of the information you hear

at first, right? Right. And is this shit true? Is it just an excuse? Is this some crazy kid just decided to kill his death? Because he wouldn't let him have a car or some shit, you know, God knows that happens. So, I went and met with him and blow him a whole man. It was immediately apparent to that this kid was,

he was just stunted man. He didn't have the ability to communicate really. You could tell he was socially, incredibly awkward. In that first meeting, he actually shared some sadness. He actually cried with me a little and said, you know, I mean, I already missed my dad like he's only the person I have. And it was remarkable, man.

I immediately knew. I knew in 30 seconds I had to help this kid. I had to represent him. So we took the case pro bono and started the process of defending him in this case. After a short meeting, he was sure he wanted to take on the case. He started digging into Anthony and Bert's past to see if he could substantiate the claims of abuse. Bert didn't have many people in his life, just one friend and the board of the HOA.

What was your relationship with him up until the time of his death? Were you all still pretty close? Yeah, pretty close. We had this after, I hadn't seen him for about 10, 15 years and somehow we ran into each other. And we were getting together, probably a couple of times a month, you know, prior to this happening, I hadn't seen him in like 80 months. I was supposed to about 80 months.

Before this, yeah. So when y'all would get together, what would y'all normally? Which they're around, we're sitting around, great being here. You know, this and music. He had a big pool. It's all the water pool. We go swimming, you know. We had a good time, you know.

On the surface, Bert seemed like an okay guy. His career as a civil engineer afforded him and his family a big house in a nice neighborhood. That had a pool. Okay, so about two and a half years ago, the board was founded and there was one person around the Hall of Home and Association. And at the annual meeting, they asked people if they would step up. I went on the board as president, captain went on the board as vice president, and then

we asked a couple other people who would come on a stredger and secretary. That's when I met Bert. That first time he was there, he was jovial and he was happy and he said yeah he goes I would love to serve and so he got on the board Karen Brawman's got on the board and Patty was secretary and Burke was treasurer and so we met shortly after that meeting because the H.O.A. was running out of money. Burke brought in, he was very detailed, oriented, he drew up spreadsheets, he drew up PowerPoint things, he had all these suggestions and ideas on how we could do it and how we could present it to the neighborhood because we're raising the dues substantially at that point. We're going to 220 to 350 a year.

And Bert was treasurer and so he was a numbers guy and he presented everything really well and that went down fine. We sit all that stuff. We got the board moving in the right direction. The home association started moving better. We hired the sheriff and we got them 30 hours a month instead and a marked car. Bert stepped up to help the HOA. But there was much more beneath his surface persona.

Shortly after the board got moving and going on I got a phone call from somebody on grandmas That's the street where Tom we live. We're Tom like the house straight across the street And it was a husband and wife and they were having to gather in their house and they fight a few houses Cars parked on the street and they said the bird had come over there and knocked on the door and was and they said the bird had come over there and knocked on the door and was threatening with his wife. That he was in a demeanor that wasn't comfortable for her at all. And he basically told them that I am on the H.O.A. Board and you can't do this over here. You can't park cars on the street like this. And I told her I see he doesn't have that authority to tell you that.

And the husband said, well, he was drunk, he'd been drinking, and we told him to stay away from our house and stay away from our property. So I asked for it about it, and I said, what's going on with that? And he gave his story about it, which was quite different than there, as he was sitting with polite when he went over there, and there was no indication of any issues.

And I said, well, they've asked for you to stay away from their property, and they've asked you to stay away from the house. And please don't tell people your treasure on the board, you can do whatever you want because you can. You know, you're your treasure for a homeowner association. So that was the first issue I had with him. Whenever Burke drank certain parts of his personality normally hidden parts with surface. When he got drunk that his personality changed. Oh, of course. Oh, yeah, and what was Sometimes good, but sometimes jealous if Susan would come out there and we would be drinking and we would be dancing

I'd go dance with Susan and he you know, we all three be dancing under colorboard Need be like you know tell you want you want to talk about You know, you know things like that, you time, I'm like, what the hell are you talking about? I'd smack him on a... You know, you know, things like that. You know, I would never have happened, but he, you know, I could tell he was a, he was a jealous person when he got home. You went on there and y'all had beers and he ever had anything besides beer, who's he called? Oh, beer turn. Oh, no. He had cocaine, most of the time, you know.

I partake several years back and then after I got to my got married told my wife I'm done with all that, he knew it all himself and I wouldn't do anymore. Was that pretty consistent every time you were there? Pretty much, yes. The thing that really bothered me about Bertu is he was really boast about getting drunk and partying. You know, it was almost like he was back in college saying, oh yeah, you know, we had a big party, got drunk. You know, and I mentioned that to you a couple of times,

he just said, he's like, you know, high school college kid, a ghost in the back getting drunk, you know, hanging that on their carcass work in drugs. But when asked if there were any signs of abuse? When he would get drunk and all that, he would become kind of, you know, Want to be the man. He was the ex, you know, military guy. He still breaking out his numb chokes and things like that, you know, used to chill off the front of me as far as, you know, any Any sign of it, I really could not tell you that I've witnessed any of that. I could see that he how his

Moons were changing out and all that when he would get drunk, you that, I could see that. How he's moved, we've changed and all that, when he would get drunk, you know, I just never saw him. And I'm surprised, because I've been going out there for five years and just kind of alive for no, you know, but he did it well, put it that way. While he's setting never saw any signs of abuse, they were there, like the times Anthony actually emerged from his room. Like, when time when he would come out,

but to make him, make him barbecue, barbecue on the bit while we were swimming, he would make him barbecue. He didn't want to, but he did with making. You know what? When you said making, what would he, he would tell? He was like, I don't really want to do this dad. You're going to cook. That's what he said. You're going to cook

because it's not. I didn't think I just thought maybe he was just trying to get him to learn how to barbecue and things like that. You know, he's like a kid needs to learn. While he and Bert did some blow and drank beers in the pool they made Anthony grill lunch. Yeah that doesn't really seem like abuse but others too got a weird vibe from Bert. He was always you know just a different kind of odd. It's not creepy to me. One of the times he came by Susan was was out of the truck. Again, I kind of fell

uncomfortable around work, so I didn't like him coming in and hanging when I was here by myself too much. I said, hey, I'm going to come out with you and thanks for bringing about his checks. I'm glad I said how to Susan. So I walked around the truck and Susan's huge beard was drawn in the truck. Not only a matter of a couple of times, I said, hey, Susan, how's it going? And when she spoke, she had teeth missing all along her body. And I was like, no, this is just, you know, this is before I knew that there was an abuse issue.

I had anything I didn't want to, but I noticed, you know, teeth missing and she was not wanting to talk to me. Anthony's boss saw some controlling behavior from Burke when they went to dinner as a sort of interview to hire Anthony. You know, alcohol with the meal, I didn't have any, you know, Burke had a mischievous, and I was trying to get to know Anthony. So it was Burke, Susan, Anthony, and I was sitting across from Anthony. I couldn't ask him a question without Bert being the one to answer everything.

At one point, finally, I asked Anthony a question just trying to get him to talk and Bert said something to me and I looked at Bert and said, and that's why I'm asking Anthony. You know, it's funny, it's funny, and I say this as an aside, when you hear that somebody's being abused, I mean, I'm a dumbass, right? So I don't understand what that means, right? I haven't been abused, so I don't get it. So I thought, well, what does that mean?

He's been beaten every single day, like all day long. Or does that mean he's being beaten every other day? Like, what does that look like? Well, it turns out that abuse and control and that kind of stuff, it doesn't have to happen every day or every week or shit. It can happen once a month. It's the use and threat of physical violence to exercise this insane level of control over the person.

That's the insidiousness of it, right? That's the stuff, man. That's the fucking monster thing of it, you know? Is that you can take, you can take just a little bit of abuse, just enough, just enough of a physical violence to have this massive amount of control over someone. And then that's what we had in this case, man. And so when I started looking, I didn't find it.

There were no officially filed reports that showed anything that supported a claim of abuse. After that call from Burt's neighbor, a year would go by without any trouble. He was odd at meetings to say the least, but I mean we all have our stuff. I mean, so you know, I mean, he did a good job of his treasure, but he was definitely odd. He was definitely odd. There were a couple times he asked me to come over to his house

and drink some beers and hang out, and I never went over there and took him up on it. I think it was by his house one time I saw him in his garage over there when I went over there to talk to him about something on the board. When you say he was strange or whatever, at interacting on the board. Give me an example, just first off, he wore glasses,

okay, and his glasses, like, if I took my thumbs and rub my thumbs all over my glasses, made him as foggy in his dirty as I could, that's how his glasses always were. You know, I don't know how he saw it, I really don't. But just because there was no evidence of trouble, doesn't mean it wasn't there. About a year ago, I got a phone call from the next door neighbor over there.

Next door to the next door to Tom Play, the air Gordon's wife, who lives right to the west of them. And it was early in the morning and she was concerned. And she said, she said, you need to go on next door and look at Bert's next door account. She said, there's something on there that he didn't write for sure. It's Susan that's written it and he's been abusing her pretty bad. And she said, Eric's out of town right now and she said, I'm scared. And I said, you need to call the cops and she said, you know, he just, he goes off over here.

It was a long, we probably seen it. It was a lengthy paragraph about how he had been abusing her for years and she wanted everybody to know. Bert's wife had had enough. She was tired of the abuse, so she took Bert's phone and posted a message on next door. If you haven't heard of next door, it's like a social media thing,

like a, it's like a thing media thing, like a thing where you go on and you put in your address so that they know what house you live in and they know what neighborhood you're part of and then you interact with people in your neighborhood. So you actually, you're trolling your own actual neighbors. It makes absolutely no sense and I have no idea why anyone does it. But oh my god, it's a thing, check it out. It's hilarious. You might have a fun time. Now let's get back to the story, shall we?

The message that Birch wife posted on next door basically outed him as a wife-beater. And again, that's pretty standard depending on the neighborhood you live in, for next door, go check it out. It's a fun time, trust me. But putting that out there and having everybody in your neighborhood know that you're a wife beater is kind of something. She also grabbed her son left Anthony behind and got a protective order against Bert. She wrote the same stuff that you guys need to know who Bert is.

You need no ways about. He's been abusing me for years. He's been beating me. You guys need to know who Bert is. You need no ways about it. He's been abusing me for years. He's been beating me. You know, it was bad. So I called him and I said, listen, I said, I need you to step off the board. And he said, why, what's going on? I said, you know, I got another complaint

from somebody else over there. And he's like, no, I haven't made it on. I made it on. And he said, look, you need to go on next store and read what's written on next store, man. And I go, it's a problem. And he said, um, he goes, well, my Facebook's been hacked. My Facebook's been hacked and they hacked my my space. And he went on and all this stuff had been hacked.

And I said, Burke, I don't know about any of that. I'm talking about your next door account. There's something written on your next door account by Susan. He goes, well, Susan's gone. He goes, she just gone. So she didn't even worry about her anymore. And I like, Burke, I said, it's not my business. I'm just telling you right now, I need your resignation.

I need you to step off the board. You know, people are uncomfortable. You get treasure and I've had more than a couple complaints on you now so I need you to step off the board. And you said, fine, I'll step off the board. And two days later, the treasure or stuff will drop on my porch and I never spoke to him again. His wife leaving, getting a protective order against him

and being kicked off of the HOA board seemed to be the beginning of a downward spiral for Bert and Anthony. And he went off the rails. When he got kicked off the board, he went off the rails. And you didn't see him until like a week after it was so bizarre, because this whole thing comes out on next door.

Susan leaves and you don't see him for the long time, then all of a sudden one day he's walking on the block with a smile on his face. And I'm like, okay, I beat myself and it was all of the neighborhood and I would not show my face on the street. If I did or didn't do it, it was not, I just wouldn't. But that's how I'm not wired like that. So he just seemed very, it seemed like a sociopath. While Bert was quickly losing his mind, Anthony was left to try and pick up the pieces. Once after I was at work one day and I see Anthony getting out of a car

that I didn't recognize in the parking lot, it's like, oh, because Susan used to bring back work to work. Well, I didn't do the social meeting thing. I didn't know all this stuff about the stuff on his account that was posted everywhere. And so, I was thinking, well, anything who's that does, brought you work. Is that somebody's family or somebody's a nurse? A new bird had a brother says, like, your uncle's, and now I'm saying, who is this? That's Uber. Uber. Yeah. It's like, uh, we're Susan. I don't know. Um, okay. Um, how long are you going to be needing a, well, I don't know.

So how about your dad? Well, he lives to a early in the morning. It's like, well, so I want you to go out to the drive-over because I'm about $20 a second. Well, you're not spending $20 on Uber anymore. So I'm gonna drive to work. I can't get you home because I stay later, but I'm gonna drive you to work every day.

So, okay, I said, I'm gonna get to work earlier than what you need, but you can just hang out. Okay, so at that point, I'm sorry, I'm not driving over picking up. I'm gonna always drive up, sometimes I just take some as a pull-in and a few seconds later, you can come out and I never would see Bert or anything at the house. As it turned out, Bert had been married multiple times. Each ex-wife having their own story of abuse. She said, yeah, it's Bert Tompillage. She goes, do you know that he used to be married to my sister?

This is like what? And he said, oh yeah, Jane. And Jane, Jesse's sister, he used to pet sit for us years ago. And she said, yeah, Jane was married to him very briefly. I said, what the hell? What? And she said, yeah, apparently, Bert's previous wife to Jeanne,

had told Jeanne, don't do it. He's abusive, don't do it. Well, Jeanne weren't having Mary Bird. You only lasted a short time, and Jeanne was smart enough to get out. She said, oh my God, she's a terrible person. Yeah, well, I said, he beat the crap out of Teresa, and poured milk,

Karen to afraid of me, beat the crap out of Teresa, and poured milk all over in front of his parish. The stories of abuse were emerging, but they weren't exactly undeniable proof. But what of Anthony's mother, births first wife? So he lived in Texas with his mom until the age seven.

And then at seven years old, so there's a kidnapping, right? We think kidnapping is the same, one of the same misunderstood things. It's a kidnapping. He like scooped him up in the middle of the night, threw him in the back of the car, and took off right. Well, he didn't kidnap him like that. What he kidnapped him with is the family justice, the family court system. So this mom got a court order in Texas, bring her custody. And the

dad goes to Louisiana to a bad news court and files her custody. Bertwood win custody in a Louisiana court and have the judge order the police to go and get the kid. Now all Anthony's mother had to do was provide the previous court ruling to the judge in Louisiana, but she didn't. Because she doesn't have any money. She's poor. She's poor. And she doesn't have any sophistication or education. So she doesn't know. All I got to do is take this dog on Texas and go bring it to Baton Rouge and say, Judge, where previous judgment Texas is nonsense. So she comes to Baton Rouge one time, but she gathers enough money and enough resources to get her butt to ban Rouge. She comes one time, she appears in court, the judge tears her ass up for not getting notes for two times before, and re-stets the court date.

She doesn't know to tell him anything, she doesn't get it what's going on. Wow. She then goes back to Texas, the guy makes up all kind of shit about how she's stalking his mom's house and he's making a police report record against her, completely untrue, but he's sophisticated. He's a civil engineer, a successful one. So he's sophisticated enough to know if I make this record against her, I can beat him, man.

So the next court date set, she doesn't have the resources to come. The judge in Banroost says, well, she's not here. Luizan is the home state of jurisdiction. And this has continued to outdate. And it's over. But the real kicker is, well, he was arrested actually for felony battery in Texas and convicted of felony battery in Texas. Also, something he did not disclose to the court in Baneroux.

And it's something that she didn't disclose, because she didn't know how to do so, right? And so he's got a history. He's got a history of in fact, physical abuse with every woman he was married to, including the one, the current one, the one that was married to him when this happened, who had had a protective order against him earlier that year. This happened in June. This was early in the year she had a predatory order against it because he knocked her teeth out, plunged into the face. With the history of violence mounting, other details that supported his spiral out of control came to light. But it was a smart guy.

I saw him, he had a good job, and then coming to the final, he had lost his job about eight months, and then him and I never, you know, he was living off credit card, put the Susan way he'd get, and he would live still living like a king. And adding to Bert's downward spiral was his struggle with his sexuality. One thing that she didn't know, he was bisexual and he's been fighting this for a long time. I've been known as for 10 years. So I think he's having demon in him and he couldn't know which way to go. How did you come to find out that Burke was bisexual? He told him. We were getting drunk one night and just came out. Hey, I'm bisexual. I'm sorry. I don't care what you are,

you know, but you just blurted it out. That was it. I never discussed it again, I never discussed it again. When I told Susan after he passed, he said, more wonder, he used to have connected men on his phone pictures of him. I said, because you didn't know he was bisexual, so you said, no, I didn't know. That's right. But even with all this evidence starting to pile up, Ambo and his team were racing against the clock. Police officers arrest you for a charge, and then that information goes to the DA, and the DA then makes a charging decision, right?

So the DA can charge you in one of two ways and we can't either indict you with a grand jury, just give the matter to a grand jury, grand jury returns it in indictment of some kind, or they can sign what's called a bill of information, which means the DA just decides to charge you with some shit. And that's the charging document, that's actually the charge you face in court, right? It's not the one, not necessarily the one the police officers arrested you for. Could be something different.

It could be the same thing. Should it be something worse, right? So we go to the DA and we say, look, don't charge the kid. We're collecting information about the abuse. Let us gather this evidence together. We just got this case. It's brand new. We've only been involved for about two weeks.

Let us, let us figure this out. We'll weigh speedy trial rides. Okay, so McLean has a right to be brought to a grand jury or charged in a particular amount of time. We'll wave those rides, chill out, don't do anything. And he's two young ass dumb ass line prosecutors brought it to grand jury later that afternoon and built him for second-degree murder.

And I lost my shit, man. So now I know we're behind eight ball, right? We got a lot of, we got a lot of work to duty. He's built by indictment was Second Degree murder. Second Degree murder is the intentional killing of a human being and carries a mandatory life sentence in Louisiana. Even though he was a juvenile for criminal purposes it would not have been life under the new rules he would have spent the next you know 30 or 35 years in jail. Ambo was convinced that the abuse Anthony suffered directly led to his decision to kill his father. Yet now it looked like he was going to have to prove this

in front of a grand jury and fight a charge that he didn't think he deserved. Anthony shot and killed his father seemingly in cold blood. In almost an execution type way, he shot his father once, followed him and shot him again, ending it. The un-injured teen then called 911 and confessed to the killing in a cavalier way. We get involved, right? And I start to collect this information and I'm talking to the district attorney about it. And I'm telling them, don't go charge it. and a cavalier way. Anthony would quickly be indicted for a second degree murder by a grand jury. A charge that could potentially land this kid in jail for longer than he was old.

A charge that Jared Ambo thought was unjust. So I call him up and I say, look, I'm getting ready to run your ass out the flagpole on the news, man, I'm calling on my friends, I'm my buddies on the news and we're gonna, you know, look, I'm gonna throw you all into the bus, man. And I know you're gonna back your people, but this is nonsense. This kid never should have never been brought to the ground jury. And so we do, man, we run them up the fucking flagpole. You know, now we're really're really man We're way deep in the hole. We're going to dig our way out of this shit So so we start to gather the information. I tell the 30 dumbass district turning, you know You got a you got to really you guys start investigating this man. Put your investigators on it

Like they do something don't you know you made a mistake? The first assistant district attorney has been proud of him with 35 There's a sentence I'm in the case which is a super good sign for me because I know she's going to take it seriously. And then we decide that we are going to engage a forensic psychologist. I want to, because we're not going to be able to find any real evidence, so there's he's first saying that he was commuted, the stepmom is saying it, and he had a step brother that lived with him in a couple of years and a half before, he's going to confirm. So everyone in the house is going to confirm.

But no one out of the house has any confirmation that he was being abused at all. No one, no family members of the dad, no friends, no neighbors, no, there's no workers, there's no financial, there's no one else to comply. So we have to, I have to create this evidence of the abuse by hiring a forensic psychologist and getting a real, you know, a full evaluation done. And we hired a lady that practices in Louisiana in Colorado. She came in and interviewed everyone, went to records, and 16 hours with my client. Wow. And produced 135 page expert report. Surely this would be enough evidence to convince the DA to

lessen the charges. I turn it over to the DA. First assistant comes back to me and she says manslaughter. She's a manslaughter still. Manslaughter is the intentional killing and the Louisiana's intentional killing of the human being without the opportunity for cool reflection done in the heat of the moment or passion without the opportunity for cool reflection. But manslaughter is zero to 40 years and the only probatable and some and some instances, most people get at least or passion without the opportunity for cool reflections. But mass loader is zero to 40 years in Louisiana. Only probatable and some instances, most of the people get at least 15 or 20 years

of mass load basis. So my client's still gonna a ton of time and deal. Half his life, right, he's 19, so 20 years. And so she won't come off of mass loader for shit. We don't meet, I go to court, she tells the judge, we're going right now to me, surprised to me. I go into the room, if her and the district attorney would talk for a few minutes, I talk about the court, she's, she tells the judge, we're going right now to me, surprised to me. I go into the room, if her and the district attorney would talk for a few minutes, I talk about the report,

they have some concerns, like, is there any victim impact? We're gonna have to have a victim impact statement. And I say, no one is gonna take the fan on his path as mother, not as best friend, nobody, nobody wants, nobody wants Anthony to go to jail, nobody thinks that everybody sort of thinks that this was justified. Which is weird because none of them, they all say they never saw any abuse. But everybody's like, we didn't see any abuse, but you know, yeah, we get it.

For everything that people did notice, there was so much more that they didn't. Were you surprised? No, it was not surprising. In. In fact, I had conversations with Eric Gordon and maybe even you. We had conversations that said, this is not going to end well. There was no question about it. Once you've used KMF from Susan, there was no question, it was not going to end well. The only person that seemed surprised was Bert's BFF. It was just really hot. I'm just flabbergasted still. I know that type of evil is that type of person and I just, I'm having a hidden, and have a hidden so well.

What if you're this guy's best friend and you see the abuse? You've seen it and it ends up like this. Are you going to admit that you saw it afterwards? You should measure their statements about not seeing abuse on the nature of how badly they want Anthony to be put in jail. Because they knew there was no abuse, if they believed there was no abuse, they didn't want his ass in jail. So we're in the middle of this conversation, she says some about manslaughter and they're like to D.A. says, not in a look, I think we're thinking about negligent homicide. I almost

started crying in his office like instantly. I just was blown away, gathered myself up enough to say, you know, just hear that you were gonna give this, you're gonna give this kid a negligent homicide, which doesn't fit. And he said, well, I know it doesn't fit, but I think the judge will not object to us taking, thinking in this case, his third outcome, given the reviews, given your expert report,

given what we've read, you know, I think this is is the outcome. Given the use, given your expert report, given what we've read, I think this is the right outcome. And so that's a probatable, not a crime of violence. It's expungible from his record. Anthony would get out on bond and move in with a stepmom to try to live a normal life for the first time in his life. Keeps him out of jail, puts him on probation. It's not a crime of violence, and it's expungible at the end of his probationary period and that's very important.

When I saw this injustice my thought was absolutely no way should this could be in jail. Well that's the outcome we have. It may not be the thing we want it may not be perfect but this is an imperfect system we try to find the best possible justice and I think that we've got that here today. The DA agreed. This is his opportunity. I said, second chance is maybe his first chance, but it's his best chance. And Anthony himself. It's good, I'm very happy.

This is the best thing that could happen. The best thing that could have happened. Can you imagine being so beaten down by abuse that the only way out you see is murder. Anthony would plead no contest to negligent homicide and be released on time served and five years probation. So he lives with his stepmom still today and the step brother moved back in with her. There's some friction there, that's not easy, you know what I mean?

There's a lot, there's been a lot of trauma in this group of people. Um, and so he's, you know, he's, he's working on getting out. We're working on getting him out of that. But it's tough. You know what I mean? He's a young man who has hardly no education. And so it's very difficult for him to have a job. Um, he's working at a gas station right now. And that's not great money to be able to support yourself. But we're trying to collect some money up from other sources and maybe get them some opportunity to do it. They're doing stuff with educating them, trying to get them some education, getting high school equivalency to diploma.

Just trying to get them set up where you can have some kind of life, man, that's meaningful. Because he's been given this opportunity, maybe the first opportunity he's ever had to have a life, we wanted to be, you know, not, not, you don't want to be as full as it can. Anthony was living in a prison of his father's making after being stolen away from his battered mother as a small child, Anthony witnessed 10 years of his father abusing wife after unwitting wife. He had no education, no life other than the one that Bert allowed him to have. He tracked his whereabouts constantly.

He paraded around the home with a loaded handgun, just so Anthony could see it. He controlled everything to the point that this kid was so stunted, so withdrawn, and so uneducated, that he gave up. He was an empty shell of a person, only alive at Burt's whim. But when Burt's life started to unravel, he realized he was also trapped. Anthony knew the only way out was death, and that's when he made the first independent decision in his entire life. He was going to live. Well if you enjoyed that then go check out Cannabis Talk 101 I guess. More that, where that came from.

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