Sword and Scale - Episode 279

Episode Date: December 15, 2024

On a warm afternoon in Wichita Falls, TX the twisted mind of Kody Lott would be unleashed on the unsuspecting middle-schoolers walking home. Forever etched in their minds is the day that their friend Lauren Landavazo was gunned down in front of them. The reason for Kody’s actions perhaps rivals the heinous act itself.

Welcome to Kidsplain, where kids explain how underfunded our schools are. Let's take a call from a listener. Kelly, are you there? Hi. I was wondering why I get less one-on-one time with my teachers. Great question, Kelly. It might have something to do with the fact that we have 3,500 fewer teachers under Doug Ford. Ugh, that sounds about right. Want to help support students and teachers?

Visit nomore.ca. That's K-N-O-W-M-O-R-E.ca. A message from the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association. Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. Somebody that beautiful, that loving, that kind, in a particular way, there's something wrong. I already knew the world was best if you don't understand that or realize that you're not

paying attention to that. They say you build it and they will come. I don't know who said that. It's probably in a movie or something. Anyway, we built it about nine months ago. It's called Sword and Scale Television. There's nine episodes available right now. And there's many, many more coming next year.

We made it for true crime fans like you, because we're true crime fans as well. So we wanted to make a TV show for the fans by the fans in a way that leaves out all the cheesiness of Hollywood, all the bad actors put it that way and gives you just a solid true crime story. Right now it's once a month and I know we said we were going to do two a month Right now it's once a month and I know we said we were going to do two a month, but that's just on me. That's my fault. I've been crashing.

I've been unable to keep pace. And unfortunately, there's only one of me and I can only do so many things. Unfortunately, when you get to a certain size, you spend most of your time running a business, being a CEO rather than a podcaster. It's just the way it is. When you get to a certain size, you just have to hire people and you have to manage people and you have to manage people that manage people

and so on and so forth and then you become a CEO and it sucks because I don't want to be a CEO. But there we are. We all do things we don't want to do in life. Anyway, what I was really trying to say is just go watch it. You know, you could try it and if you don't like it, you can unsubscribe at any time. It's really easy. You don't need to contact support or anything. You can just do it on your phone. So, if you liked your crime, the place to find it is swordandscale.com. It's usually a lesson you learn when you're young.

Anything worth having is worth the effort to get it. You have to work hard to achieve the things you want in life. It won't just be handed to you. And this lesson is mostly true. Sure, there are people out there who never learn this lesson and everything is handed to them. But if you see one of these people come face to face with opposition, watch out. Anger and chaos will ensue.

You see, the lesson isn't really about working hard. You can work hard and still fail. The lesson is really about learning the fact that sometimes you just can't have what you want. I know, I know, I know, it's hard, it's hard to come to terms with such a reality, but it's true. So the quicker you accept it,

the better off everyone will be. Because what happens is that with this eventual realization, those certain entitled few revert to the mentality of children, and children rarely act rationally or logically. Instead, they act out without regard for the calamity that they will cause. September 2nd, 2016 was a day like any other. By 3pm it was 84 degrees and cloudy in Wichita Falls, Texas. On the south side of town, the school bell rings at McNeil Middle School, and a flood of children

pour into the sidewalk streets and alleyways. One such kid, 13-year-old eighth grader Micaela Smith, looks for her friends before starting her walk home. I met Kyra first. It was in front of the school. And Renell and Alani didn't walk home that day. So we walked across the big field that we had.

And we saw, I saw Lauren over there. And I called her name to see if it was her. And we met up with her. We caught up with her while she was walking. Many kids walked home in this city of around 100,000 people. This was the first year sixth grade was offered at McNeil, and the neighborhood streets were filled with children, more than normal. Mikayla caught up with her friend, Lauren Londovaizo, to lament over the first few weeks of school. We were talking about school and how like we don't have any classes to get in.

That might be so, that you don't have class for the morning. Yeah, but Alex Sear in the hallway and stuff,. It was the high, two-time passing. The neighborhood surrounding McNeil Middle School was full of single-family homes very close together. There were sidewalks, but many kids chose to take the alley that separated backyards as their route home. And we stopped right near the dumpsters. Okay. And Lauren, she started walking ahead of us so she could go meet up with her boyfriend, Calvin.

So she was right about in the corner. Okay. A mere block from school, the girls stopped to part ways. We all pulled Lauren by. A mere block from school, the girls stopped to part ways. On the next street over, a boy named Garrett had just made it to the intersection when a car flew by. It was a gray, goldish Tahoe. He was on the sidewalk waiting to cross the street when he saw the Tahoe stop in front of the alley. From his perspective, he only saw one person.

Lauren. I was on the corner, like where the coffee was, and then I could only see right there. I was on the road, I saw him right there. Okay, I could only stop right there. I was the only girl I saw up in right there. Okay, I think in... this is an alleyway, right? Yeah. There was like a fence covering every other girl except her. Just as Lauren waved by to her friends and turned to walk away, a vehicle pulled up abruptly. Further down the alley were three other students, Elijah, Hope, and Crystal. It wasn't uncommon for kids to get picked up on their route

home, but something about this vehicle seemed strange. Garrett, on the next street over, noticed the window on the Tahoe was down. Then he noticed something else. And then, did you see anything unusual come out of that window that was down on the driver's side door? It was a gun.

Okay. Elijah, Hope and Crystal saw the gun too, but didn't immediately recognize the danger. At first I thought it was a paintball gun or a BB gun because teenagers like to play pranks and all that. Then they heard the sound. It sounded like something popping on us. When I think back to it, it's all silent. I just thought there were firecrackers,

and you didn't really think anything of it at first. Garrett, the little boy on the street corner, recognized the sound immediately. His father was a cop. I heard something about four, five, six, or seven gunshots. Did you see what happened to Lauren? She found that all around. Suddenly Elijah, Hope and Crystal knew this was no prank.

So we didn't think any of it until Lauren fell and Michaela ran. Chaos erupted in the alley and the surrounding streets as the Tahoe sped away. Some kids froze while others ran for their lives. Elijah, Hope, and Crystal ducked into Hope's backyard, but the back door to her house was locked. Garrett took off running and started banging on his neighbor's doors frantically to find help. So, were you knocking on the door trying to get help?

Yes, ma'am. Were you scared? Yes, I was. frantically to find help. After the sound of gunshots stopped, Elijah, Hope and Crystal slowly ventured back into the alley to see what had happened. And we saw Lauren on the ground where she had fallen. And we also saw Michaela. She looked like she was out with her phone trying to dial her number. I asked her if she was OK. And she said no. And we saw her blood. And so then it was like calling 911.

Like we were asking what was going on. And we asked if it was a real gun or what. She said yes. And she was if it was a real gun or what. And what did she say? She said yes. And she was on the front, trying to get she was holding her hand over where she had been shot. And so at that point, then I kind of got over the shop and was more frightened at that point. So I pulled out my phone and I called my dad.

What did you do next? I looked back towards the other side of the alley, towards the apartment. And I thought I saw that car But I wasn't sure so I told Hope to get in her backyard and I ran past Everything to the front of Hope's house to go get her mom to unlock back door In the aftermath the kids were at a loss for what to do Most called their parents, but Crystal risked herself to keep her friends safe. She had to run past her fallen classmate.

I just really didn't want to look at her because I was scared. Once her mother pinched at the door, what did she do? I hugged her and I cried a little bit and then I told her hope was in the backyard. Nearby, Navy and Army veteran John Lewis heard the shots from his backyard and sprang into action. I was actually in my backyard on my patio and I was prepping for my daughter's 13th birthday party. His backyard was just on the other side of a privacy fence from the alley. Luckily, his daughter hadn't taken the alley that day.

she took Kingston Street and rode her bike down that way. He was about to head inside when he heard the shots. As I went to open the door, gunshots, low, like I told the police, low caliber, semi-automatic kind of a weapon was fired and all military training I ever had kind of kicked in. The first one was a pilot shot. And then a second later maybe is when they all just let loose. They all got fired off in rapid succession.

It was fast. It was real fast. Three to five seconds maybe. All of them. Maybe. His military training kicked in. He even recognized the sound of the gunshots and was able to identify the caliber as a.22.

A.22 has kind of a short crack sound to it. The nine millimeter has, it's a little heavier and a little more chunkier of a sound. Knowing this was when kids started to get out of school, he was worried for the other children in the community. I instantly dropped the cups and I knew the kids were getting out of school. I knew the direction, which was the shot they were coming from was the alley. I dropped the cups and I instantly ran to a six foot privacy fence.

And I jumped over my six foot, I climbed up and jumped over my six foot privacy fence. I fell over the fence, I hit the ground so hard that my footlobs came off my feet. And I didn't realize that until after the police had arrived. This man in the face of danger sprang into action. Jumping his fence and landing in the alley so hard it blew his flip-flops. With this experience in battle both in the Navy and the Army, it didn't matter that he was barefoot. In the alley he looked for anyone that was hurt. I saw Lauren, well I didn't know her name at the time. Alley he looked for anyone that was hurt. kind of not there. And I ran there, I didn't know if there was a shooter, I didn't know,

I just knew there was kids. I saw a little girl laying there. And when I approached Lauren, when I got to Lauren, the military train kicked in, or I was supposed to, you know, assess the situation, see what's going on, and you know, the shooter, other people wounded, another active shooter, other people wounded. Check the person that you come upon. And I noticed that I'm not a doctor, I'm not a nurse, I'm not an RN or anything, but my training, I know when someone's gone, there are signs we look for. One is their blood, like a massive amount of blood.

So the heart stops, nothing pushes blood around. I didn't see much of any odder. The way she was laying, if I remember it clearly to her wrist, is it was in a pinch position where anybody was conscious or was alive, they wouldn't want there to be another kind of physician. He wasn't a doctor or a nurse,

but he could tell Lauren wasn't with us any longer. When he looked into her eyes, he was sure. When I approached Lauren, I noticed... It's hard. I know, let's take your time. I noticed that in what we refer to in the Army, one of the things I would treat as the death flight or the death stare, the feeling of the entrance, like when I got there, it just kind of felt like going into a bubble,

a bubble, and it felt just like that. I didn't hear anything really. It was a flat feeling where you know something just died or something just happened. It was too late for Lauren, but John could still help Michaela. I heard a child off my left side come down from the alley saying, another child was shot. I looked up and that's when I saw Mikaela. She was standing there. And I ran to her and I put, laid her down. By this time, John's daughter had arrived to witness the chaos.

When I laid her down, my daughter was there. I yelled at her, give me something to pull your holes with. And so I got her into the house and it felt so fast. And I looked at Lauren, or Michaela, and I said, you're a champ. You're going to be okay. You're going to be fine. We're going to get you fixed up. You're a champion. And by that time I looked up and here came my daughter with the red to, you know, stop the bleeding. Michaela was bleeding, but she seemed to be okay. Michaela was bleeding, but she seemed to be okay. She was conscious and coherent despite the shocking events. That's when the enormity of the situation dawned on John.

That's when I kind of came to a little bit more and realized that while hell was breaking loose there was just people everywhere, kids crying, you know, women crying, men crying, there was everybody crying, they're all over the place. And I tried to stop everybody, try to get them away from Lauren. People were trying to come out on the alley. I tried to stop them. I just have to say, this guy is a hero. He was on scene long before the first responders or the police, and thank God he was, but there was nothing

that could be done for Lauren. As the chaos of an alley. A regular warm afternoon in Wichita Falls, Texas became a nightmare. McNeil middle school students would never forget. 13-year-old 8th grader Lauren Londovozzo had been gunned down just a block away from school. Her close friend Michaela Smith was also shot but would recover. The havoc on that street corner, though, was still unfolding.

On the next street, Sara Cervantes saw Garrett running for his life and immediately knew something was wrong. As I was driving downtown, there was a young male running downtown towards my vehicle. And as I pulled up to his door, I mentioned to my son, there's something wrong. There's a reason why he's running. It's just strange. And I looked both ways.

I could see at the door. When she first saw Garrett running, her mind went to the more likely scenario that he was running from school bullies. But when she got to the stop sign and saw someone lying in the alley, she knew that was more serious. And what did you think had happened to the woman?

Initially, I thought maybe she was hit by a vehicle. That was my first thought. And then I kind of went through other scenarios that maybe someone attacked her because there were a lot of kids screaming. I just kind of ran through a lot of things that may have happened. Regardless of the reason she knew,

she had to try and help. She pulled up to the alley, told her children to stay in the car, and approached Lauren to see if she was okay. I asked her if she was okay. Did you think she was going to respond? Why is that? Why is that to me? I believe her already had passed at a point. Her eyes were still open. And there was a large wound to her head. She's still fed, her mind is still wrapped in her arms. Everything happened so fast.

In a matter of a few seconds, the shots were fired and Garrett ran. John jumped the fence and Sarah saw Garrett fleeing as she approached the intersection. At the same time, Elijah and Hope were ducking into her backyard, while Crystal ran around to the front. By the time Sarah Cervantes approached Lauren, it had been barely more than a minute since the shots were fired. Right behind her was Jamie Lopez. I turned on the Trinidad and I saw, the first notice a lady standing at the corner, kind of hysterical, waving her hands. And I saw a girl laying in the alley,

in the opening of the alley. So, you know, I immediately pulled over to see, you know, what had happened and if I could help and do anything. Jamie was a home health nurse and had medical training. I knelt down to try to help her to see if she was okay. She was moving and started trying to look over and I got her turned over. She was laying on her stomach. So I turned her over to start looking

and I was fixing to start CPR. I remember seeing there was a bullet hole right about where her heart would have been and thinking I'm gonna, I don't know if I'm gonna do more damage or not if I start this on this girl so I don't know where it went. And about that time is when Mataigla started running from the, coming down from the alley yelling that she had also been shot, that she needed help.

Realizing Lauren's condition, she decided to focus on Mckayla. There really wasn't much to do with Lauren because, I mean, I could tell when I first looked at her. Do you remember her eyes were open or closed? They were open. Pretty blue eyes. She's gone. There was so many people and everyone was staring and I just felt that everyone's

just staring their life here. that everyone was just staring through my hair. And I wanted that for, so I got a blanket and tried to cover up a little bit, just to get rid. Jamie had some first aid supplies in her car and began helping Michaela. Sara Cervantes was unable to help and placed the first 911 call. I need an ambulance, the-43-8-6.

There is a young lady whose life is on the ground. She's bleeding. We don't know what happened to her. Sarah was barely holding it together, but she knew how important it was to relay as much information as possible to first responders. There is a young lady whose life is on the ground. She's bleeding.

She does not appear to be causing her to have any other life or blood in her, because there is blood, not fire, in her. Ma'am, can you tell where she's leading from? I can't tell her where she's leading from. I can't really tell. There must be some blood in her abdomen. Is she breathing right now? It's never local. Okay, do you know how long she's been lying there now?

No. Can you touch her and tell me if she's cool with it or if she's warm? Is it cool with it? In this tight-knit community, it wasn't long before the news spread through the neighborhood. Mikayla, wounded and dazed, called her mother. I hear her phone tussling, so I'm thinking that maybe she had blood down. And so I'm yelling at her mate to pick up and until then she finally answered. She was just yelling my name.

From that first moment I thought maybe she was getting into an altercation with another student and I know that's not her. And so I kept telling her calm down and I can't understand what you're saying. And I asked her to do that several times and I thought, what's going on? And that's when she got out. Someone shot Mom. And I asked her what. And she said someone shot me.

And I was like, what? And just went register. And I didn't ask her? And just went register. And they gave me a spender, you know, and she said mommy, I was shot in the chest. And she said, Lauren is not my girl. Mommy, I got shot in the chest. Imagine hearing that from your child. Michaela's mother dropped everything

and left her job as an elementary school teacher to rush to her daughter. Michaela's mother had already made it to the scene when the Landovazos got word that something had happened. I heard a commotion outside. I read that, I'm not sure I heard neighbors or something about kids beating down. And then as I was sitting there trying to process that, I heard Bianca, I think it was a woman, I think it was a woman.

I think it was a woman. I think it was a woman. I think it was a woman. I think it was a woman. I think it was a woman. I think it was a woman. I think it was a woman. I think it was a woman. I think it was a woman. I think it was a woman. I think it was a woman. and something about kids beating down. And then as I was sitting there trying to process that,

I heard Bianca and just the way she said it, something about kids. And there was just something in her voice saying something was wrong, something was horribly wrong. And as I was coming out of the room to try to find out what was going on, I heard the front door close. And by the time I got to it, Bianca wasn't there. So when I went outside, she was already running down the street. I was kind of caught after, where are you going?

Where are you going? Verne Londovozzo didn't know what was going on, or where his wife was running. The only clue he had was something about kids being down and the sound of fear in his wife's voice before she bolted out the front door. He hopped into his truck and started driving. As I was driving down there, I could see right down the corner. I remember at one point stopping the truck and pulled over thinking, there's a thousand kids at that school. It's not her. It can't be her.

So I stopped and I called her cell phone. And it rang. It maybe rang all at one time, but somebody answered the phone and instantly what I heard was screaming. I didn't know at the time that it was Piana screaming, but I heard somebody screaming her name and the way she was screaming. I knew, I knew instantly it went cold. I knew, I instantly went cold. And I just knew I got out of the truck. And I walked down to the corner, and as soon as I got to the corner I could see the crime scene tape. And as I turned the corner to that corner,

what I almost see, my tongue goes and everything seems kind of, like there was a white fog around everything except for Lauren, I saw Lauren lying there and she wasn't covered, there was no one around her and I just remember standing at the crime scene tape they wouldn't let me go to her and I could hear Dada screaming in the background but that was about all I could hear

and just looking at her and wondering, oh, how come that not doing anything? How come she was just laying there? Powerless, Vern watched from a distance as first responders finally started to treat Lauren. Quickly, the two girls were put into an ambulance headed for the hospital. So they led me into the ambulance as we were sitting there

and they were working on her and that was looking back at them and that was the first time I had noticed the blood. I didn't notice the blood while she was lying there but when I looked back I could see her hair and it was blood in her hair. And she would be thinking, oh my God, that's not good, blood in her hair. Lauren's parents, Vern and Bianca, held onto a thread of hope as they rode with their daughter to the hospital.

But when they got there, they were led into a family waiting room. Bianca feared it was because their daughter was gone. I was trying to tell her, it's not that, they're just here to tell us what they're gonna do to her. And that's when they told us that she was gone. Most people who knew Lauren knew how special she was. There was something about Lauren and I know all parents have that thing about their children knew how special she was looking at me that there was something going on behind there and it just seemed she was just so much more advanced than you would think a child would be as far as her compassion for people, her kindness, just how tender she was with other people.

Very kind and open-minded. She was very positive about everything. You couldn't help but love her, and not just us, not just the family, but she made friends so easily. You know, and we heard the kids at school would just almost idolize her, that she was so popular. I think probably what made me the proudest was just how she interacted with people, especially her children, how kind she was to them. I never saw her once be mean to somebody, say anything.

Quite the opposite. She went her way if she knew that somebody was troubled. She went her way to reach out to that person. Definitely a happy, beautiful girl. She had a big heart. She's always helping her friends. If you're having a bad day, she was the uplift man. She was very well loved.

Lauren made a positive impact on anyone who knew her. She always wore a smile when she looked at you with her beautiful blue eyes and you just knew she genuinely cared. With the loss of a community sweetheart, the police were pressed to solve this attack. They needed to speak with Michaela and hear her recollection of events. I remember he stopped and I was, we all kind of just like stopped walking. And I was paying attention to him and I was looking at him. And like he looked up at me. We made eye contact for a few seconds. And then he turned and like he got his weapon and he pointed it at me. And as I was moving, I got hit,

and I thought I got hit in the middle of my chest, and I couldn't breathe. And Kyra was asking if I was okay, and I couldn't speak, and I was waving at her to go, and kind of motioned for everybody else to move. Micaela heard the deluge of shots after she was hit. After she motioned for the other children in the alley to run, she wondered why no one else was being hit.

Little did she know that Lauren took the brunt of those shots. She relayed to the police what she remembered about the man, or boy, who did it. I'd say he looked between like 20s or like 17, 18. He had brown hair and it was like shaggy kind of. Shaggy kind of, shaggy thing. And he had acne and he had a big nose. She said she locked eyes with the killer. And he was a white male between the ages of 17 and 20

with unkempt long brown hair, acne, and a big nose. But where her memory failed her was the vehicle he was driving. And can you describe the vehicle that you remember? It was a black truck, and it had silver, those silver bars that she would step on and get in. As the police addressed the public about the shooting, they initially released the description that Makayla gave them. Just right before 3.30 p.m., we received a 911 call in reference to check welfare, in reference to shots fired,

call in the 5100 block of Kingston, actually in the alleyway. When we arrived on scene, we located one subject that had suffered what we believe right now. Keep in mind this is all still new. It's still just occurring. We saw we have two individuals that were suffered from a parent's gunshot wounds. From what I was told right now, both victims are female. Suspect information, the only thing that we have at this point is a possible suspect driving a black SUV,

black truck type vehicle, a white male, shaggy brown hair. Micaela recalled the killer was driving a black truck, but her memory was flawed. Everyone else saw a gold SUV except for John, the guy who jumped the fence. He saw both the gold SUV and the black truck. Not knowing which description was accurate, or if maybe there were two shooters, they released both vehicle descriptions to the public. The shooter was a young white male with shaggy brown hair, acne, and a big nose driving a

gold-colored SUV, most likely a Chevrolet Tahoe or a black Dodge truck. In the couple of days that followed the shooting, there wasn't a person in Wichita Falls who didn't know of the tragedy and the description of the killer. The community banded together to memorialize Lauren at the site of her death with her favorite color, purple. Happens to be my favorite color too.

People who didn't even know her came to pay their respects like Joanne and Faustino Ramirez. Yes we heard it on the radio and the news who they were looking for. It was pretty widely spread throughout news media and social media was it not? Yes ma'am. Faustino wanted to go look at a memorial where they had started putting more stuff for Lauren. I did not. It was a bad situation and I didn't we didn't really know her or we didn't know her at all.

But he wanted to go just take a drive by. It was hard for any citizen of Wichita Falls to not be moved by the tragedy, even if they had no connection to Lauren at all. We drove through the neighborhood trying to find where the memorial was. We kind of got lost, took some streets we didn't know, and we ended up on Trinidad where the memorial site is. When they found the memorial, there were crying people everywhere. Not wanting to get in the way of those who likely had a personal connection with Lauren, they

waited in the truck. And we just didn't want to get out of the truck and you know be in the way. So we just kind of pulled over to the side to you know just wait maybe you know to clear and then we see. But we never got that chance. Okay. And why did you not get that chance? That's why we were waiting. Must know, you know, we just said, Well, look out for a vehicle, you know, just make sure we don't see a vehicle going by. And we saw a vehicle drive by us that was the description of the SUV. It was a gold SUV. We saw that it was a young white male that they were possibly looking for. We kind of just followed him.

He turned into, Uncle Trinidad, he turned into right into the apartment complex. And of course we followed. They didn't even know Lauren, but when they saw a vehicle and driver matching the description of the news, they decided to follow him. He drove past the memorial and stopped at an apartment complex mere feet away from the alley. He went to the back passenger door. He opened the door and he proceeded to get what looked like a rifle or something.

He tucked it up under his arm like he put the butt of the gun underneath with the blanket, something to wrap it up and he like took it towards the apartment complex. They had the SUV, the driver, and now the rifle. Joanne called 911 immediately. I grabbed a pin that was in Faustino's truck and just scribbled it on the palm of my hand so that I could, while we were calling, let the police know the license plate number. What color ink was that? It was a purple ink.

She wrote down the license plate number in purple ink, Lauren's favorite color. What a coincidence. Perhaps her spirit lives on. to the South End apartment and there's a kid that just showed up in a top-hat or a shaggy hair and hat and he got, it looked like a rifle. He had it wrapped in clothes and went to get it, but he was trying to get it off in a hurry. He just went into the apartment. They were parked a little ways away and watched.

While they waited for police to arrive, the suspect exited the apartment. Now, without the rifle, he got back in his SUV. They expected him to exit the complex the way he entered, but they lost him when he used an exit on the other side, almost like an episode of Keystone Cops, or perhaps a more modern version would be Reno 911. Still, police knew his approximate location, and they had his license plate number, so why put in the work when you have surveillance? After all it was only a matter of time before he would be

caught and if you're on the government payroll then what's the rush? Moments later the police made a traffic stop of the gold SUV with the shaggy driver. He pulled over and cooperated with the officers. They asked him to step out of the vehicle and they patted him down. Then they searched his SUV, but there was no gun. But they did find a belt buckle in the shape of brass knuckles. And there was enough to arrest him on misdemeanor charges of weapon possession

and bring him in for questioning. of brass knuckles, and there was enough to arrest him on misdemeanor charges of weapon possession and bring him in for questioning. Twenty-year-old Cody Lott didn't work and wasn't in school. He lived in Seymour, Texas, about a 50-60 minute drive southwest of Wichita Falls. He did have shaggy hair, acne, and a big nose. He was thin and kind of looked like an evil Timothée Chalamet, if that helps. Actually, I'm not sure if the real Timothée Chalamet is good or evil, so too many Timothée Chalamets walk around these days. Yes me. I Don't even know what that means. Anyway, don't take my word for it. Just Google the two people

Cody lot is his name with two T's at the end He claimed the only reason he was in town was to feed his mother's dog while she was on vacation. That and pick up some money she'd left for him. After all, you know, like I said, he didn't work at all. He denied that anything related to guns would be in his vehicle and explained that since an incident last year, his family kept guns away from him. The incident he so casually refers to was an armed standoff with deputies in Seymour, Texas. His parents reported that he was at his grandmother's threatening to shoot folks.

That's a quote. The event warranted the Texas Rangers and three officers from the Department of Public Safety Criminal Investigation Division. One of the CID officers was a hostage negotiator and quickly talked Cody out of the house. He was later ordered to get treatment and diagnosed as bipolar and paranoid schizophrenic. But yeah yeah yeah there's no connection between crazy people and murder. Yeah, just keep telling yourself that. Ooh, let's not stigmatize.

He knew about murder. He fit the description of the suspect in. He was driving an SUV that also matched the description. But he was adamant that it wasn't him. The police though knew something Cody didn't and it had to do with what else they found in his Tahoe. Did they find anything else? No. Well they found a spent 22 shell casing. Hmm it only took a moment for Cody to explain away the shell casing. He had been shooting a year ago. He was being cooperative, just not very helpful. Too many girls with hurts.

And whoever did this, we don't want that to happen to anybody else. Probably, I mean, from my experience, whoever did this probably needs some help. Now, what happened to the girls, terrible. Whoever did this definitely needs some help, man. And I'm talking about some serious psychological help. And how are they gonna get that unless we can find out who to get that and help them? Does anyone else get the feeling that they are talking about him? He claimed to be a loner,

and only his mother cared about him. He claimed his father molested him and beat his mother. He had a long list of run-ins with the law and seemed to be spiraling into a life of drugs and crime. To the police, in addition to everything else, he seemed to fit the profile of someone who would randomly shoot two little girls. Of course, he continued to deny having anything to do with Lauren's death. I'm not trying to throw my stepbrother under the bus or anything, but you should definitely look at him. Wow. The police didn't believe it for a second.

Remember, they had a witness who saw Cody with the rifle. They started to press harder. And at the same time all this happened, then Ryan House would even tell me about that. Seriously. Because, uh, yeah. He finally admitted he was on Trinidad Drive the day of the shooting, but he was still claiming innocence. Cody wanted to talk first, but he needed to be assured that he would be in solitary confinement. He didn't think he could handle being in prison with real men. So when officers guaranteed they would make that happen, he began a new story. Patience, let me finish if you don't want. I'm not gonna fucking interrupt you, bro. All right, man, anyway. I was in my own jail, that has nothing to do with it.

But, like, I've found women, you know, females for a while now, and you think, you can have some boy around here and they'll tell you, absolutely, that's something Cody would do. They'll say, absolutely, he has hate in his heart. They tell you, though, I talk about you, and you should like, I will come. And, like, I've seen that girl out there He had seen Lauren walking with her boyfriend. He described the boy as a little punk-looking kid that wasn't no man.

Those are his words. Remember that we're talking about two 13-year-olds. Their relationship sparked off a fit of jealousy in them, and he decided to shoot her. What a romantic. If you think this doesn't make any sense yet, just wait. It's only gonna get worse. You 20 year old Cody Lott only tried to lie for a little while before the excitement of sharing his story got the better of him, and he confessed. That's what simple people do, they just offer up everything, all at once. They can't keep their stupid little mouths shut, so they blab and blab and blab.

Cody Lott admitted he was the only one who shot Lauren and Michaela, but his reasoning for why he did it was even more baffling than the act itself. I brought people to the best. I just fucking really looked down. So that again pissed me off. That was the worst hit when some numbers were going to try to be respectful to me. Nice to you, man. They said, the definition of crazy is just repeating the same thing. So I think the obvious thing that I guess just me being,

looking how I do it or whatever, me being nice is something that He tried to explain that he first thought about introducing himself to her, but then remembered how young she was. This too pissed him off. This is where his rationale begins to get a little twisted. It's important to remind everyone that a sign of schizophrenia is disorganized thinking. Somehow he went from the thought of her being too young to the idea that trying to be nice to her or any girl wasn't going to get him anywhere either. So he had to change tactics. Sure if being nice to a girl doesn't get her attention the

next logical step is to kill her. This was something that I thought about doing. There's a time that just popped in my head and I said, you know what? I'm gonna go and just fucking do this just to get something out of my chest. But I still, I go by my car like a couple days before. And I mean, I come out a little bit here.

I look like that. Jinx or something to me like those. Oh, I was like, how could someone have such beautiful eyes? He watched her for a year from his mother's apartment, every day building on his infatuation with her. He never did, I never even spoke into it. I mean I saw a beautiful girl, a man, and she matches my, absolutely matched my description of her by the way. Cute little thing. Yes.

And she was too young, I know, but she was attractive. He pined for a woman. And when the women his age wouldn't have anything to do with him, Lauren got caught in the crosshairs. He found the barely pubescent girl beautiful, but he equated Lauren's beauty to the women in porn videos. If you're thinking this guy couldn't get any more out of touch, think again. me like this is awesome I was on the vacation about it patient you know I guess nothing but hell here now I'm careful that people say she you know people said like she she every night she's alive is what I read like trust me I'm sure she saw that that her incense was gonna slowly start being punished you know that would say no good deed goes unpunished it's like she would have

ended up with like a clarinet being raised or she literally would have been something a lot worse than what I did If he couldn't have her, the only thing he could do to save her from the evils that he knew would eventually befall her, he had to, you know, sacrifice her. To the devil. Cause all of that shit makes sense. I felt like I needed to prove I was a man. I'll tell you that right now. I didn't know how else to go about it. You know, I'm glad I went ahead

and it went about the way I did, you know. You know what, I finally got to show how I feel. And I finally got to show how I feel. And I'm finally going to show the pain that's been growing on me and Al's life. And we can feel it. He was glad he did it so people could feel his pain. What a little bitch. Boy would I love a couple minutes with this kid. In a locked room with no cameras. Yeah, that's a fantasy.

Eventually, he would express some regret. Regret that he didn't kill her instantly, so he didn't have to hear her scream. But her scream was it was distinct. And I'll think about that too, He said he never intended for her to suffer. He only wanted for her to die. He didn't regret what he did, only that he should have done it differently. Think about that. Certainly, which I already killed myself, because I should have just run out of people and shot myself. Hey Cody, I'm sure that there's plenty of people in Wichita Falls that feel the same way.

It's not surprising that after Cody admitted to finding the 13-year-old Lauren attractive, they found several images of child pornography on his phone. One of the images was confirmed by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children as being that of an eight-year-old engaged in a sexually explicit act. Cody was arrested and charged with murder, aggravated assault, possession of a prohibited weapon, and three counts of possession of child pornography.

This guy is going to have a lot of fun in prison when the inmates find out not only that he killed a kid but that he's also, you know, interested in them sexually. You hear that inmates at the Skyview Unit in Rusk, A correctional institution that's part of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. You hear that, guys? His name is Cody Lott, with two T's. Anyway, Cody wasn't charged with capital murder, which meant the death penalty was off the table. At the time, the law in Texas only allowed capital murder charges to be applied under a few circumstances, including causing the death of a child under the age of 10. But Lauren was 13.

I hope that Cody Lott gets the fullest evidence he can, and it's a shame that the death penalty can't be can be instated. I don't want him to get insanity because he clearly thought it out probably for a long time. Two years after the murder the trial finally began. Cody's hair was longer and somehow he was even thinner. He looked kind of like white Jesus on meth or Jared Leto. Of course his defense

tried to play the insanity card but Cody wasn't as crazy as he sounded. While he did suffer from a mental illness and maybe it played a part in his plan, he thought about committing this crime for a year. Surely there were moments of lucidity within that year. A year of opportunities to decide, nah, I'm not gonna kill her. Maybe I'll just play some Xbox instead. And after he fired his gun into an alley full of middle schoolers, he tried to get away with it. He ditched the gun and then went back to retrieve it when he thought he was home free.

The bottom line, he knew at the time of the murder that it was morally and legally wrong. In court, he sat still, seemingly detached, as the terrified children recalled the events of that day. I just hope he has a long, miserable life in prison. I hope he never sees a free moment, and I hope he lives a long time and maybe someday when he's old and gray and maybe then he'll show some remorse. We've not seen any signs of that so far. Watching him in court, he's not, he's just emotionless. And I think that's indicative of how he committed such a heinous crime and shows no remorse for it. After five days of trial and less than an hour of deliberation, the verdict was guilty.

And he was sentenced to 20 years for the aggravated assault on Michaela. 10 years for each count of child pornography and a life in prison for the murder of Lauren. He is though eligible for parole on September 3rd 2046, a day that's quite fitting because it's one day after the 30th anniversary of Lauren's death. He robbed so many people, so many kids out there that day of their innocence and it feels two years, sometimes it feels like it was just yesterday, sometimes it feels like it was a million years ago, but we've had this day in our the The result of today, it doesn't bring Lauren back. It doesn't make us miss her any less. It doesn't make her death any less tragic.

There is a closure that you get when you know that the person responsible is going to suffer. But that wasn't good enough for the Land of Azos. They sought to change the law that governed capital murder charges. They wanted to raise the age requirement from 10 to 15 so that killers like Cody Lott in the future would be able to be sentenced to death. It's something that keeps coming up over and over again, but I don't think anyone can truly understand the importance of the death penalty unless you've had someone taken from you like this. The need for revenge, the need for justice, for accountability is overwhelming. Even though you may not agree with the

government killing citizens, this is a case where the citizens themselves demand it. And they did it too. The following year on the day before the third anniversary of her death, Governor Abbott signed Lauren's Law into effect, raising the age limit to 15 years of age. I'm going to be signing Senate Bill 719, which is known as Lauren's Law. We all agree that they're nothing more vulnerable, nothing more precious than our children, and we have to be able to change the law to reflect that. There are going to be future victims that are children. This is for them?

This is for them. And I know our daughter would approve. Hopefully, Cody Lott will never get out of prison. Why should he? The effects of what he did linger in the minds of her family and friends. It will until their dying day. So why shouldn't he have to suffer until his? Crystal suffered panic attacks after the event. Many kids were no longer allowed to walk home from school. Michaela will always be reminded of the violent end of her beloved friend every

time she feels the bullet fragment still inside her chest. The devil didn't make Cody Lott kill Lauren. That's silly. Stop believing in fairy tales, you're an adult. That was just how his drug-riddled brain, which wasn't too great to begin with, rationalized the guilt he felt for doing such a thing. He didn't hear voices, shouting commands. He didn't talk to the devil.

He certainly didn't talk to God, that's for sure. He was just a leech to his mother, a parasite to his community. He was an uneducated, unemployed, lazy piece of shit who thought the world owed him something. Does this sound familiar yet? Because it describes everyone we've ever talked about over the last 11 years now. And when the world didn't hand him a girlfriend, he didn't wonder what he was doing wrong. Of course not. No, why

would you do that? Why not just blame everyone else instead? Blame the world around. It's not me, it's everybody. It's everything. Right? Right? You know how this pattern of thinking perpetuates and wiggles its way into our brains? Every one of us, not just idiots like Cody. This entitlement, this sense that somebody owes you something, it's cancer. This is the result of cancer. Cody Lott never learned the lesson that sometimes you just can't have what you want.

You just can't. It doesn't work that way. But then again, it's not like he even tried to work hard and make a life for himself. No, no, that'd be too hard. Instead, why not take it out on poor Lauren? To which a good life just seemed to come naturally. A senseless act committed randomly that only made sense in one man's mind but affected those kids and their families for the rest of their lives.

Why blame yourself when you can blame the world instead? I'm going to be a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a Speaking of being disappointed, this is our last regular episode before I take a much needed break, which I promise you is very necessary. We'll have one more plusas episode before we go. We'll see you right back here next year for season 12. Stay safe. I'm gonna be the one to make you feel better I'm gonna be the one to make you feel better

I'm gonna be the one to make you feel better I'm gonna be the one to make you feel better I'm gonna be the one to make you feel better Thanks for watching!