The Misery Machine - The Story of Emma Jane Walker

Starting point is 00:00:00 Emma Jane Walker was born on March 20th, 2000 to parents Jill and Mark Walker. Jill always wanted a baby girl and always wanted to name her Emma. When she finally had one, it was a huge blessing. Emma grew up in Knoxville, home of the University of Tennessee, and had a brother named Evan. Emma was a beautiful person with a caring soul and was loving and kind to everyone. As of the date that I'm telling the story with you all, Emma should have been celebrating her 23rd birthday. Emma cheered on the Central High School football team starting her freshman year. She made fast friends with Lauren Hutton, who was a senior on the squad.

Starting point is 00:00:39 According to Lauren, quote, Emma really took cheerleading seriously. She loved doing it. It was one of her passions. She loved leading and she loved football games. She just loved being part of crowd appeal, end quote. On the sidelines cheering for the Bobcats was where then 14-year-old Emma caught the eye of wide receivers. number eight, Riley Gall. Riley was a junior in high school who was raised by his mother and his grandparents.

Starting point is 00:01:07 But despite living in a city where Friday night football was everything, Riley wasn't your classic jock. He was described as a funny, intelligent young man who loved to play video games and had a nerdy side. At first, Mark and Jill Walker thought that Riley was a great fit for their daughter. They described him as a very likable, well-mannered, nice-looking young man. Soon, the cheerleader's social media accounts were filled with pictures of a seemingly perfect couple paddleboarding together, embracing, and taking silly selfies. However, Emma's friends and family soon realized that Riley had a dark side.

Starting point is 00:01:44 According to Lauren Hutton, Riley got more possessive and more clingy towards Emma and wouldn't let her do certain things. Apparently, Riley didn't want Emma to hang out with anyone but him. He also would comment on what Emma wore, dictating what she could and could not wear. Their two-year relationship was nothing short of tumultuous. Emma and Riley would often have dramatic fights and would frequently break up with Riley taking to social media sending Emma horrible messages on Snapchat, such as, and I quote,

Starting point is 00:02:16 I hate you, I hate everything about you, and you're the biggest I've ever come in context. with. And finally, you're dead to me. I'll check the obituary. You, end quote. But teenage love is fickle, and as soon as they'd break up, they would quickly reconcile and repeat the process with Riley love bombing her. Mark and Jill Walker, however, were less than impressed with these messages. They immediately banned Riley from their home and took away Emma's cell phone. But the couple still found ways to communicate outside of school without their parents knowing. Riley gave Emma an an iPod touch that could still message one another over Wi-Fi. In the fall of 2016, Riley went off

Starting point is 00:03:05 to Maryville College just 17 miles south of Knoxville, and Emma was just starting her junior year of high school. Mark and Jill decided to resort to drastic measures and grounded their daughter an attempt to keep the couple apart. She was not allowed to leave the house unless it was for school, work, or cheering. But to their surprise, Emma realized that she did indeed deserve much better. Around Halloween, Emma decided that she had enough of their dysfunctional relationship and ended things with Riley once and for all. Little by little, her parents began seeing changes in their daughter. She was back to being the old Emma again now that she wasn't under Riley's thumb. According to her father, she would come out of her room and eat dinner and socialize with a family,

Starting point is 00:03:52 something that she hadn't done for a time. However, the breakup didn't sit well with Riley, and he took drastic measures to get Emma's attention, including an attempt on his own life and faking his own kidnapping. While in his college dorm room, he swallowed a bunch of Vicodin pills and washed them down with alcohol. On November 18th, just a few weeks after the breakup, Emma attended a party at a friend's house.

Starting point is 00:04:21 she was loving her newfound freedom without Riley breathing down her neck. At around 11.30 p.m., however, Emma received a text from an anonymous number. The message read, Go to your car with your keys. Go alone. I've got someone you love. If you don't comply, I will hurt them. Eventually, the messages got more menacing. One read, if you like to hear his crying and his screams, give him a call.

Starting point is 00:04:47 But Emma wasn't dumb. She suspected that maybe Riley had some. something to do with this after all, especially since she was out at a party enjoying herself. Emma and her friends went outside and happened upon Riley laying face down in a ditch. He claimed he'd been kidnapped and couldn't remember anything because his captives had hit him in the head. But Emma wasn't buying any of his story. She knew that this was a cry for attention and walked away leaving Riley looking foolish. But Riley didn't stop there. The very next day, Emma saw a creepy man dressed in black outside of her house.

Starting point is 00:05:25 Terrified, she reached out to the only person she knew that she could think of. Riley Gall. She said to him, I hate you, but I need you right now. To which he replied, I'm coming. I'm speeding. Just give me a minute. When Jill Walker arrived home just a short time after and saw Emma outside with Riley, who remember has been banned from their home, she was understandably furious.

Starting point is 00:05:49 Jill demanded that he leave and suggested to Emma that the man in black had probably been Riley all along. Emma was really scared, though, and one can't fault her for reaching out to somebody for help. Afterwards, she texted her friends, quote, I'm home alone, and somebody in black walked down my street and came to my door and rang the doorbell over and over again.

Starting point is 00:06:11 I thought that I was going to die, end quote. Little did Emma know she wasn't too far off. The following day, Emma, went to her Sunday shift at a supermarket in town. Her parents followed her to work and back home to ensure that she was safe as Riley had a history of waiting around for her in the parking lot. Apparently, he would just wait outside for hours. That night, things seemed back to normal at the Walker household.

Starting point is 00:06:38 Emma texted with her friend Keegan Lyle about a homework assignment, then went to bed a little after midnight. It was the last time her parents would see her alive. At 6 a.m. on Monday, November 21st, Jill went into Em's room to wake her up for school and found her unresponsive. She immediately called the police, who rushed to the home to investigate. At first, they believed Emma may have taken her own life, but they spotted a strange hole in her bedroom wall. According to Knox County Sheriff's deputy Nikki Buell's quote, there was a hole in the wall. It appeared to be a bullet hole. At that point, I knew that it probably

Starting point is 00:07:18 wasn't a side, end quote. Emma Walker, a beautiful and vibrant cheerleader, had been killed by a gunshot wound to the head after two bullets had been fired into her bedroom from outside the family's single story home. One bullet had hit her behind her left ear and the second had lodged into her pillow. Further investigation revealed two shell casings,

Starting point is 00:07:43 a yard outside. According to Jill, quote, once the detective got there, asked to leave the residence, so obviously it had turned into a crime scene at that point. So they were wrapping tape around our house and walking around outside, but we still had no idea what had happened to her, end quote. Emma's friends and family were devastated. The night after her death, they held a candlelight vigil at Central High, and her fellow cheerleaders released balloons in her memory at that week's Bobcat's football game.

Starting point is 00:08:16 Another officer on the case, Lieutenant Alan Merritt, started interviewing friends and family members and noted that the same name came up over and over again. Riley Gall. Meanwhile, Riley was busy posting on Facebook and Twitter about Emma's death. Rest easy now, sweetheart, he wrote in one tweet, and, I love you forever and always in another. Despite Riley's performative posts, investigators quickly brought him in for questioning. According to Detective James Hearst, quote, when I first met him,

Starting point is 00:08:48 I thought he might have been a grieving boyfriend. When we got into the interview room and sat down, I felt like there was a dark side. He didn't have a whole lot of passion or concern, end quote. Riley told the police that he'd been trying to speak with Emma that weekend, but allegedly, she refused to engage with him until he helped to write a paper. He went on to claim that Sunday night

Starting point is 00:09:11 he used one of his friends' phones on campus to call her, and the conversation didn't go very well. Supposedly, Emma blocked the number after telling Riley a bunch of cruel stuff. Afterward, Riley told detectives he went over to his grandparents' house briefly and then drove back to his college. Once there, he'd cried in his car for two or three hours before going to bed. The whole time, however, he never referred to Emma by her name. He only referred to her as the girl.

Starting point is 00:09:42 When asked which girl, Riley replied, the one that passed away. According to Lieutenant Merritt, Riley's interview was one of the most disconnected that he'd ever seen. It seemed rehearsed and deliberate. Although the interview was suspicious, police had no solid evidence that they could use to arrest Riley. That was until two of his close friends showed up. Riley's college friends Alex McCarty and Noah Walton quickly told investigators that Riley had displayed. some concerning action since Emma broke up with him. They told him all about the incident with the Vicodin and the supposed kidnapping attempts.

Starting point is 00:10:20 But the next bit of information proved to be the smoking gun, literally. On Saturday, November 19th, the day after Riley's fate kidnapping, he told Alex that he stole his grandfather's gun, a 9-millimeter glock pistol, in order to protect himself. His grandfather stored the gun in his car and actually had reported it missing. Riley later asked Noah how to get fingerprints off of a gun, and he eventually asked both of his friends to help him dispose of the weapon. Riley allegedly swore to his friends that he had not killed Emma, but he wanted to toss the gun into the Tennessee River

Starting point is 00:10:58 because he was worried the police would unfairly connect him to the crime if they learned that he had it. When questioned about the gun, Riley claimed that he didn't know where it was. He denied showing it to Alex and also denied asking Noah about removing fingerprints. Riley asked them if he was a suspect and denied having anything to do with Emma's death. When Riley left the sheriff's office, Alex said he started getting text messages from him, asking him why he told the police about the gun. Other friends also began receiving texts from Riley, asking them not to speak to the police anymore.

Starting point is 00:11:33 Wanting to do right by Emma, Alex and Noah agreed to team up with investigators to reveal the truth. Fitted with cameras and microphones, they participated in a stinking. operation accompanying Riley to dump the gun that he used to kill Emma. With the help of Riley's own friends, police were able to intervene, finding Riley not only in possession of the murder weapon, but the black clothing that the creepy man was wearing outside of Emma's house. Jill was right. At his trial in May of 2018, Riley's defense attorney, Wesley Stone, argued in court that he had never meant to kill Emma, but had fired the gun to try to scare her, and get her attention. Stone also stated that Riley denied being the mysterious man dressed in black.

Starting point is 00:12:18 Quote, he never intended to cause her harm, never intended to cause her death. Consistent with her reaching out to Riley regarding the event Saturday morning, he was attempting to get her to ask him for help again, sort of to be her protector. It's been in his heart. It's been in his mind. It's been in just everything about him. Every day for the rest of his. his life, wherever that may be, he will have to live with that reality." End quote. At his sentencing hearing, Riley apologized to the Walkers for killing their daughter, but stuck by his defense that it was an accidental shooting.

Starting point is 00:12:56 First and foremost, I would like to sincerely apologize to the Walker. My words may carry little to no value to you. I would also like to apologize to my family for the pain and embarrassment I put you for. I love you and I hope that you to forgive me. I know that nothing I can do will ever bring him back before the other or alleviate the pain that I caused. But what I can do is tell the truth of what happened that night. My intentions were not, and never have been, to cause Emma any physical harm.

Starting point is 00:13:39 At times, I was a terrible boyfriend. I caused her emotional and psychological pain here after two years that we were together. But I never once even imagined to cause her any physical harm. My intentions that night were never to harm Emma, let alone take her life. I wanted to scare her. to brighten her so bad that she would have no choice but to talk to me again, to confide at me. I would be there to come for her and to win her back. I love them, and there's not a day that goes by that I don't think about her or what I did.

Starting point is 00:14:15 I know that I can't be forgiven and this will never be forgotten. But now that the truth is out, I pray that it's enough to show that I never meant to take him as love. Again, I'm sorry. After five hours of deliberation, jurors found Riley guilty of first-degree homicide as well as stalking, theft, reckless endangerment, and being in possession of a firearm during a dangerous felony. In the state of Tennessee, a first-degree murder conviction carries an automatic life sentence. However, Riley's sentence allows the possibility of parole after 51 years. The sentence imposed for the additional convictions adds up to a little more than a decade, but will run at the same time as the life sentence, essentially making it symbolic.

Starting point is 00:15:03 In May of 2021, Riley Gall filed a motion for acquittal based on insufficient evidence. That motion was denied in June of the same year. In the wake of Emma's death, Jill Walker hopes what happened to her daughter can serve as a warning to others who may be in tumultuous relationships. She said, quote, if your boyfriend or girlfriend is telling you that you can't go there or what to wear or who to hang out with or who to talk to you, it is not okay, end quote. Since her death, Emma Walker's family has tried to keep her legacy alive. Her mother said she loved animals and wanted to be a NICU nurse, so the family has gotten a

Starting point is 00:15:41 dog park and a NICU patient room at East Tennessee Children's Hospital named after her. Emma's funeral service was held at the Central Baptist Church. church in Fountain City with the Reverend Josh Beeler officiating. She was laid to rest at the Hill Cemetery in Knoxville, Tennessee, with many of her friends and fellow cheerleaders serving as pallbearers. Her headstone, adorned with engravings of pom-poms and a megaphone, bears the inscription, We miss you, loving daughter. We love you.

Starting point is 00:16:09 If you or someone you know is experiencing intimate partner violence, help is available. Call 1-800-799 Safe. or text start to 88788 or visit thehotline.org, where they have a live chat option. All of these resources will be linked in our show notes. If you feel like you're in danger, it's never too soon to call. Please do not wait until it's too late.

The Misery Machine - The Story of Emma Jane Walker

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