True Crime All The Time - Ashton Sachs

Episode Date: October 19, 2020

19-year-old Ashton Sachs was a college student who came from a large family. His mother, Andra, had built a multi-million dollar empire. In 2014, someone entered the Sachs' California home and began shooting. Ashton's father Bill and his mother Andra were killed. His 8-year-old brother was paralyzed. The police investigation began with those people who had bad business dealings with the Sachs. But, a break led them to suspect Ashton.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the murders committed by 19-year-old Ashton Sachs. At first, Ashton had everyone fooled. He showed what appeared to be genuine remorse as he delivered eulogies for his parents. But, as police began to unravel the puzzle, Ashton realized he had nowhere to hide and he confessed to his crimes. The reasons that Ashton gave for murdering his parents and shooting his brother left everyone astounded.You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation informationAn Emash Digital productionSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Your math skills have global potential. As an actuary, you'll solve some of the world's most pressing problems while helping people to live better lives. Become an actuary through the society of actuaries and work anywhere in the world. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 205 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson, but I'm without my co-host and partner in True Crime, Mike Gibson. Gibby has a pretty nasty case of pneumonia right now. so he was unable to record new episodes for this week. So definitely please send your thoughts out to Gibby.

He's still awaiting his COVID test. But hopefully he's going to be on the mend and back with us next week. There will be no unsolved episode this Sunday. But we do have a T-Cat for you. It's the very first Patreon-only episode that Gibby and I did from a couple of years ago. It's a very good case. And I think everyone will enjoy Gibby's free-spiritedness, if I'm saying that word correctly. But in Gibby's absence, I brought into the studio my daughters, Emmy and Ashland, to help me out with the introductions.

They know Gibby pretty well, having eaten dinner with him at least once a week for the past four years. So, Emmy, are you ready to give some shoutouts? Yes, I'm so excited. Ashlyn, are you ready to give some shoutouts? Yes, I am. All right. Well, let's do it. We continue to see a tremendous amount of Patreon support.

So first up, we had Mandy Stevenson. She jumped out at our highest level. Well, hey there, Mandy. We had Tammy Smith jump out of our highest level. Thank you very much, Tammy. We had Elizabeth Axe. Well, she's probably part of that Axe Body Spray family. Yes, she probably is, or at least Gibby would have thought she was, so I appreciate that.

Tammy Bovet. Hey, Boewey. Fez Vistae. Thank you there, Fez. Tony Jones went way above our highest level. He must be really Jones in for T-Cat. I'm thinking so. We had Katie Rutledge jumped out of the highest level.

Good old Katie. Good old Katie. Aaron Baker. Thank you, Aaron. Norma Cuslerich Hey there, Cosserich Yep That's about as close as Givie would get

We had Brandy Adams Thank you Brandy Monica Palomo Hey there Monica David Jones That's old David Jones locker It could be We had Madison Lloyd jump out of our highest level

Well Thank you there Madison April Soderquist We got sun kissed in the house Yeah, we got that going for us. Dia Boss jumped out at our highest level. Well, she is the boss. I guarantee you she is.

Bree Green. Well, thank you, Bree. Leteria Hoy. Hey there, Lateria. Carla Castillo. Castillo. Velma Hopping jumped out at our highest level. Well, she's a hopping.

We had Victor Martinez jump out to our highest level, good friend of the show. Ooh, thank you, Martinez. Diane Dyson jumped out at our highest level. Thank you there, Diana. And then if we go back into the vault. How far are we going to go back? We're going to go back as far as we possibly can. This week we selected Aaron Johnson.

So we appreciate all the new Patreon support we get. And we also appreciate that long-term support. We had some great PayPal donations as well, Heather Woodward. Thank you, Heather. Joel Zulo. Hey there, Zulow. Sue Lewis. Hey, Sue.

Jean Bishop. Thanks, Gene. And last but not least, Heather Keithley. Well, thank you so much, Heather. So a lot of great support. I really appreciate it. And I appreciate both of you, my wonderful daughters, for stepping in, trying to help out, not take the place of Gibby, right?

Because nobody can take the place of Ghiby. Gibby, but I thought you guys did an amazing job. No, I think I took the place of Givie. Oh, okay. Okay. I will tell him. He'll hear it when he listens to it. But thank you very much.

All right. So now we're ready to dive into this episode. Hope everyone enjoys it. So we are talking about the case of Ashton Sacks. We are. S-A-C-H-S. Yeah. But we're going back, not as far as, is a lot of cases that we do.

This is 2014. Yeah, this is just basically around the corner, man. Around the corner. Yeah, just a couple years. That's a distance. You don't say, you don't use that term in relation to time. Says who? I'm just around the corner from...

Are you Edison? I am. Are you Edison? I'm Tanya Dancer. That's who I am. That's a good song, man. So, not to get, we'll start the episode, but I was in my car the other day, Gibbs, and the song came on. And literally I could think of nothing else, but you as like a 20-year-old bebopin kid in your grand terino or whatever the hell you had with your eight-track tape of Elton John.

Singing, son a dancer. Sing it. Hold me closer. Tonya dancer. That's all I could think about. And later Jane Weaver comes on. Jane Weaver. No, I didn't hear that one.

But it really did crack me up. I saw so many memes and so many emails about. Emails about Tanya Dancer. But we also got a lot of emails from people that were saying, no, it's okay, Gibbs. I thought it was this. Yeah. I don't know that I ever saw anything that said, yeah, I thought it was Tanya Dancer as well. They still thought it was something different.

Something different. So however your mind interprets things, that's how it is, man. I heard Tanya Dancer. But now you know what it is. Now I know. So we're on February 9th, 2014. Yeah. And we're in the affluent town of San Juan Capistrano.

Capistrano. We're in the O.C. Is that Italian, by the way? Capistrano. Sounds like it, doesn't it? Well, San Juan sounds Spanish, right? So it could be Spanish Italian. All right, we'll go with that.

Yeah. I don't know how to answer your... Capitano. No, you can't just change the word. I can't. I do it all the time. Capuchano? I change...

Capacino. Yeah. But this area is part of the O.C., right? Orange County, Southern Orange County. So we're talking, you know, beautiful beaches, lifestyles of the rich and famous. It's definitely an opulent lifestyle area. And I like that choice of word. Populent? Yep. Yeah. I did used to watch Lifestyles of the rich and famous. Did you? With Robin Leach. Lifestyles of the rich unfamous. Probably the best impression you've ever done. Nailed it. Still horrible. Nailed it. But by far,

the best impression that you've ever done. People right now are like, he did it. He got it. But it's a beautiful place. It is a beautiful place. It really is. Us in the Midwest, we're either scorching hot or we're freezing cold. We have this very small pocket of pretty nice weather.

Yeah. You get out there in some places in California, man, it's just like 72, 76. Yeah. All year round, not quite, but for a big chunk of the year. Yeah. So you have a very successful businesswoman, 54-year-old Andra Sacks. Yeah. And her ex-husband, 57-year-old Brad Sacks, they're sleeping when a home invasion occurred at this nice hillside mansion that they lived in.

Yeah, nice little spread. Now, they were divorced. Yeah, they were. But like a lot of divorced couples down the road, you got kids together. So sometimes you come back to each other. You know, you reconcile. So what happened was an armed killer entered the house with an assault rifle and started shooting. 20 rounds.

And that's going to be loud. I would think that would be really loud. I mean, if you've got neighbors, which they did. Yeah, they lived on a cul-de-sac. That's something that is going to be heard. Yeah. And so, you know, you're going to have people calling the police, and that's what happened. Right.

According to Andres and Brad's 17-year-old daughter Alexis, she heard someone slamming open the door and then she starts hearing gunshots. And it would turn out gives that this was a very scary scene. I mean, these were some brutal killings. And apparently Alexis hid in her bed under her covers just waiting for this gunfire. to stop. I can see that being nervous. You know, you're hearing, you'd be scared to death. Yeah. I mean, first you hear the door slam open. You know, you're thinking, who is that? Right. Because we're all in bed. Everybody's in bed sleeping for the night. What the heck is this? And then they hear pop, pop, pop, you know, 20, you know, almost up to 20 times. And we're going to get into who was in the house and all that. Yeah. Yeah, but I mean,

that would freak me out, wouldn't it? I mean, think about it as a kid, that would freak you out, trying to figure out are they coming here next? I don't know if I pull the covers up over my head. I'd probably go underneath my bed or, well, you know me, I'd take them on. Well, sure, you'd take the guy with the assault rifle on. Yeah, I'd just get my head on. K bar out as a kid and just like wait until I'm coming around the corner, throw it. You know, you're right.

Very scary for the reason you said, you don't know if they're coming for you. Exactly right. But for another reason in that you don't know who they're shooting at. No. Is it your mom? Is it your dad? Is it your siblings? Right.

And then are they coming from you? So a lot of reasons to be very scared. Yeah. And then she hears her eight-year-old brother crying. That'd be tough to hear any of your siblings crying, you know, out. But especially your young one, a really young one, eight years old, man. That's just, what is that? First grade, second grade?

Think how scared they had to be. So obviously the gunfire had. stopped at this point, right? She wouldn't have been able to hear her eight-year-old brother crying while the gunfire was going on. That's super loud. Yeah. So she goes to check on him. She does. She finds that he's bleeding and he's telling her that he can't feel his legs. And then she's because she's freaking out. She's trying to figure out, whoa, what else happened? But she's brave enough. She goes to venture towards her parents' bedroom. But when she gets there, It's not good.

She walks in and she can see that they were shot in the face, severely shot in the face. Multiple time. Yeah. I mean, it was like overkill. It was bad. Well, investigators do describe it as overkill. One investigator said it was a bloody mess, I think. It's a horrific crime scene.

Yeah. I think it'd be hard to get those as anybody would have a difficult time getting that vision out of their head. But to see your parents like that. I mean, I can't even imagine her seeing her parents and how she'll ever get that vision out of her head. And you make a good point, Gibbs. You know, as a 17-year-old, this is pretty brave because, yeah, the gunfire has stopped, but you still don't know what's going on. No. So what we have is her 8-year-old brother Landon is hurt.

Yeah. We know he's been hit. Right. He says he can't feel his legs. her mom, Andrea and her dad, Brad, are dead. Dead. So let's talk about Andrea a little bit. She worked really hard in life and she made a lot of money.

She was very successful. Yeah, she really was, extremely successful. She loved to work out. She was a fit person. People described her as, you know, very feminine, very attractive, curvacious. They don't ever say that about me. Curvacious? Uh-uh.

No. That's good. Do I want to be curvicious? I was going to say, do you want to be? Curvacious, like, uh, nice curved shoulders. Sculpted. But the other thing that people talked about Andra was that she was bigger than life. You know, she had this big personality.

Yeah. I always wanted to know what that meant. Bigger than life. Well, it's kind of a strange saying, really. Bigger than life. You could say she was the life at the party. She was fun to be around. She had a great personality.

It was like a really dead party. and you're the life of the party? Was it really that difficult to bring it up if it was dead party? No, not really. But if it was like a really roaring party and you were the life of the party? You got to work harder. You got to work harder. To be the life of the party.

Yeah. Oh, just some food for thought. The point to get across about Andrea was that she was driven. Yeah. She was successful. And it showed in her, I mean, early career, right? I mean, no matter what she did, she did it well. I mean, she started off as a Frito-Lay salesperson.

Imagine selling Frito-Lays. Wow, how hard is it to sell Frito-Lay? Doritos. I would just go to the nearest marijuana store and say, hey, do you want some Frito-Lay? And open up a little shop right next door. You know, I think you'd do well there. I mean, who doesn't like Frito-Lay products? They're good for...

Not only they eat tasty, and you can do the walking tacos with them. You know, you open them up and do the walking tacos, you know what talking about? You must be talking about... You're not talking about Frito-Lay. potato chips. No, I'm talking about the Frito-A frito-lays. You're talking about Freetoes. Freetoes. This is what you're talking about. Made by Frito-Lay. Yeah. Okay. Okay. But I like, you can do the walking tacos with them. And you know, you can like those things on fire. Like what things on fire? The fritos. They were light. I just like the way you say fritos. Freetos, man.

You're really putting an emphasis on that tea. That's a heart tea. Freetoes. Freetose. But you can take the Fritos and you can, if you light one, it will burn for a while, man, like a candle. I did not know that. Yeah. Why in the hell would you light a Frito just to see what happens? Or did you read that somewhere? Why wouldn't you light a Frito? No.

That's the question for me to you. Because you're bigger than life. Bigger than life, man. It's what you do when you're a life of the party. So anyway, she worked hard and she sold the, you know what out of them. So, but then she rolls into as her career grows, right? She ends up selling computer chips. Well, at that time that she was probably selling them,

yeah. Great time in California to be in the computer business. Absolutely, man. I would think. So that's what we're trying to get across about Andra, very sharp, very aggressive, successful business woman. I mean, to the point that she started her own business selling computer chips. And as this business grew, so did her wealth. She was a, you know, she became a wealthy woman.

I mean, she invested in real estate, not just in California, in other states as well, Nevada, Washington, and Florida. Got some swap land to sell you. Exactly. Yeah. And then we talk about Andrew's ex-husband, Brad. Brad was very popular. He was a good-looking guy.

They were a good-looking couple. Yeah. California. And he was a surfer-looking guy. Yeah. Surfer dude. He came from money, helped Andrea build her business. So, and I know I've said this before, he is, but he was kind of the all-American jock type individual. He was an athlete, good-looking guy. Yeah, he played football, ran track, you know, kind of sounds familiar like somebody we know.

You can say my name. You don't have to hold back. No, it wasn't referring to you, but. You weren't. But anyway. Yeah, somebody, somebody might, we know, might be something like that. But he was also what was really cool, he was the son of a world-renowned surfer. So that would be cool to have a dad as a surfer, you know? And he was a very good surfer. And he was too. Yeah.

So he looked apart, but he could surf as well. I'd ask you if you ever surf, but I know you hate the beach. You hate the ocean. So that's going to be a big no. That's going to be a no for me, Bobby. Never did a no. Bobby. You never did any.

pipe runs then. Nope, I don't even know what that is. Yeah, probably not even the right terminology. You mean like barrel? Barrel? Yeah. In the barrel? Shooting the barrel.

Shooting the pipe is probably more of a drug-related thing. I was going to say, that's probably a drug reference that we don't even know. Someone's like, give me, shooting the pipe. So we talked about Andrea and Brad being divorced. And it wasn't a recent thing. They had been divorced since 1999. Why do I want to sing Prince's song? 2000? Party like it's 1999?

Okay. Okay. Yeah. Do you think you would even know the words is really the question that comes to mine? No, just the 1999 part. Okay. Yeah. Party like it's 1999. You got that part right. That's all I'd have. I just repeat it. But 15 years, they had been divorced. Yeah. When these killings occur. But like you said, they had reunited and they were living together. Because it felt so good. Because it felt so good. They were raising.

the kids. Yeah. Yeah. And that happens. I mean, we've talked about it early on. I mean, it does. You can, uh, some families go through divorce and then the parents, uh, reconcile. Pretty rare. Well, sometimes they do it for the, just for the kids, but sometimes they do it because they just realized that they made a mistake. That they didn't, they actually, grass wasn't greener. Or that or they, they realized they actually loved each other. Yeah. And they get back to to where they were when they, the whole reason why they got married in the first place. Yeah. I don't think it happens that much. I don't think it does either. But I'm sure, you know, every now then. But they had five kids and they loved their children. That, that much is for sure. Absolutely. They had two

girls. We've already talked about Alexis 17. Yeah. They had Lana 15 at the time. Like Lana Del Rey? Sure. Okay. And then they had three boys. Landon was eight. We've talked about Landon. Miles was 21 and Ashton was 19. Miles. Don't hear that very often. No, not too often. You don't hear the name Ashton a lot either, outside of Ashton Coutcher. I don't hear Ashton a ton.

No, that's true. Miles, I definitely, I can't think of the last time. Or even Landon. I mean, obviously they were people that picked names that weren't, you know, they didn't go Michael. They didn't go William. They went a little, you know, off the. Off the chart. Off the beaten path, yeah.

But they had another child who died tragically in a pool accident 15 years before they were killed. So that would have been 1999. Yeah, and it might have been part of the reason they got divorced maybe. That's exactly what I was thinking about. I mean, that's the type of incident that can put an unbelievable strain on a marriage. Yeah. You get the blame that gets thrown around. You get the just.

People are filmed guilty. guilty, dealing with the loss itself and how do you interact with somebody that, I mean, until you have a loss like that, you don't know how you're going to handle it, let alone how your spouse is. And how do you work through that together? That'd be tough. It can be. It can be very tough. So, Brad and Andrew were away at work, and their one and a half-year-old daughter named Sabrina fell in the pool and drowned. Yeah.

I mean, the housekeeper was home watching the kids, but she couldn't get to the. the baby fast enough. So I hate those type of stories. I mean, today they make a lot of devices that float in the pool that when someone falls in, it sets off an alarm. But still, it's too many times you hear it, at least in our area. You know, during the summertime, you hear one or two kids every year die because, you know, the infant or the toddler got away from their parents and fell into the pool.

It's tragic. It is tragic. And it's scary, you know, for, anybody that has a pool. Normally, you know, people with pools that have small kids, they are always worried about that. Yeah. Yeah. And they're keeping an eye on them at all times. Now, they weren't home. There's nothing they could have done, but it wouldn't matter. You know the guilt Gibbs that would come with that. Yeah. The blame. Why did you leave? Why did you leave her alone with the maid? I mean, I can hear it. So the older boys, Miles and Ashton, at the time of the murders,

were living in Washington State. Yeah, they're up in Seattle. So police are investigating this double murder of Brad and Andrea. They're trying to figure out, you know, who would have done this to these people, Gibbs, that were apparently well liked by everyone, popular, successful. Yeah, I mean, just a good, hardworking family. But they did have some business dealings in the, past that went south. They were involved in some litigation. Yeah. Well, look, if you're going to be

successful in life, especially in owning your own business, especially in the computer industry, you're going to have, you're not going to always make everybody happy. One, you're out trying to out bid people. You're out, you know, trying to find ways to reduce costs and increase profit. People are going to get a little upset or a lot upset. Well, I think anytime you're successful, At some point in the path, you're going to have beefs. Yeah. There's just no way around it. You might have to step on top of somebody sometimes to get a little higher.

Most people do that are extremely successful. Yeah. They're okay with that, you know? That's why you and I are not extremely successful and are not being sued on a regular basis. We don't have anything. There you go. And we're not willing to step on everybody in front of it. I normally go ahead and lay down.

Lay down. Yeah. Go ahead and step on me. Just go ahead and step on me. Use me as your stepping stone. That's right. Here. Let me get on all fours.

There you go. So police have to look at that. And they actually had the older boys prepare a list of potential suspects, people that in the past had some type of problem with either Andra or Brad or boat. Yeah. And they came up with like two pages, two pages of names. A potential suspect. Yeah.

So people had a beef with their mom or dad. Well, that tells you something. That's a lot of... Not that they were bad people, but they were involved in things where they were going to make some... I don't know if enemies is the right word, but... Yeah. But I don't think I could come up with a half page for you. I could come up with a half a page, maybe.

Maybe. But people that, you know, want you gone. Yeah. Your name would be first and then... Your wife. My wife. And then you'd go from there. Yeah.

Just kind of take it from there. My neighbors. Yeah. And I'd write really big to get a half page. Yeah. All right, Gibbs, let's take a quick break, talk about some sponsors. First up is Talkspace. Hey, folks, when money's tight, investing in yourself may not be top of mind, but mental health is a necessity. It's not a luxury. And taking care of yourself doesn't have to break the bank. Investing in your mental health has long-term benefits. And with TalkSpace, it can actually be affordable. Change is constant. But in this new normal that we're all going through, it feels like there's something new to grapple with every day. With Talk Space online, line therapy, connect with a licensed therapist for a fraction of the price of in-person therapy, get matched with your perfect therapist from the comfort of your device, and reach out 24-7

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And that always amazes me, man, that people will make verbal, I don't say verbal, but it is, it's a verbal threat online. No, it's written. Written, I mean. It's not verbal. Yeah, that's what I meant. You know what I was going. But people will make a written threat and put it out there.

Because once it's out there, you can't get rid of it, man. Well, and you know for a fact that police can figure out who you are. Yeah. Nobody's really anonymous on the internet. People think that they can send these through fake email accounts. They'll figure out who you are. They can normally track that stuff back pretty easily. Police did find something online, a posting that they considered to be like a threat.

I can see it that way. Yeah, I think you could. It read, frankly, Andrea and Brad are exactly where they belong. Six feet below the surface being cannibalized by the same insects who they had their tenants live within their rentals. So we talked about them investing in properties all over the country Gibbs. They had rental properties. Yeah. And apparently somebody who lived in one of these was not happy with them.

Not a happy tenant. Maybe they didn't like the repairs they did. Maybe they didn't like the... Maybe they got kicked out. Hicked out. Evicted. They weren't happy about that. But investigators would find several people Gibbs that were angry with the couple because they say that they were ripped off by them.

And these were people that potentially wanted to even the score. So they had to be looked at. Yeah. You know what? I mean, I've had rental properties before and it's tough when you're the landlord. You can't make people happy all the time. People come to you with all kind of stories of, you know, why they can't. pay this month, but they don't remember, you still got to make a payment as a landlord.

Sure. Unless you got it all paid off, you're making a payment each month. Which most people don't. You know? No, exactly. So you need their rent money to make your payment on the place they're living in. So when they come to you time after time with a story, it's hard to be sympathetic because, look, I can't dig into my money to pay your rent so I can make my payment on the place.

You know, you pay you stay. You don't pay you, you go. And police found other postings online that were essentially Gibbs saying that people were happy that these two individuals were dead. You know, one said, I have peace of mind while you hide behind your gate at home with a dog patrolling the yard because you have screwed so many people over. Another said, you will have to answer to God for the evil, black-hearted witch that you. You are. Karma is a bitch. Wow, that's pretty strong, man.

That is strong. Wow. There's no doubt about it, Gibbs. There were people that were extremely upset with Andrea and Brad. Because, you know, some of these postings were older while they were still alive. Obviously, the first one we read was after. After they had already been murdered. And remember, the boys had a list of people that stretched two pages.

That's a lot of people that whatever dealings that you had with them, you know, if they were tenants, if they were somebody that was pulled into a partnership that you cut out eventually. You know, money does that, the two people, man. I mean, you steal money from somebody. If they think you stole money from them or took profit from them in any way, that's hard for people to shake. Yeah, how many murders a year committed over, it's either love or money. Sex drug or money.

Sex, greed. I mean, really, if you think about it, a lot of. lot of murders are committed over those couple of things. Yeah, exactly. So let's get back to the investigation. Okay. And specifically the shooting. We mentioned it was an assault rifle, walking through the house. I mean, this shooting was done at very close ring. It was determined that the killer stood feet away from his victims. You know, we're not talking about a 50-yard shot here or even a 10-yard shot. We're talking about a small number of feet.

You're up close with an assault rifle. Kind of goes back to how we describe the murder scene. It was brutal and it was messy. So they do some forensic testing and they're able to narrow down the murder weapon to a Ruger SR-22. Now, we're talking about a 22 rifle here. Yeah, a small caliber. Small caliber, but they called it an assault rifle. And they did that because it looked like a military-style assault rifle.

But it was a 22. Well, and we know that he kicked off 20 rounds. So that's a lot of rounds to be hit in the face with. Yeah, I don't care what kind of caliber are you talking about. That number of rounds that close to the face, that's brutal. even if you're talking a smaller 22, that's going to be very devastating. The other thing that they determine is that the shooter fired 24 bullets. So that's close.

You were close. You're a rounding. You said 20. Yeah. But it was actually 24. So we talked about investigators looking at potential business enemies. But Gibbs, as they would in any case, they have to look somewhat at the family. And they do in this one as well.

They also look at close family friends. So there were three kids in the house that night. Alexis, the 17-year-old that we talked about Gibbs, she was actually shot at. But the bullet missed her. We talked about Landon, eight years old. He was hit, seriously wounded. And then Lana was 15. She was in her bedroom on her bedroom floor.

She was not shot at. Scary times though. Because they're hearing the noises, man. For all three. Yeah. You know, landing because he was severely wounded. But the two girls as well had to be scared to death. Now, the two oldest boys, Ashton and Miles, both gave alibis to police.

And their alibis were that they were both 1,200 miles away, up in Washington State. They were at college. And they were both at college to learn how to manage. properties, right, to get some business experience so they could work in the family business, and at least in the rental part of the business. Miles Sacks, the oldest, he said at the funeral, Andra, I've never met anyone like you, even though you're my mother, I can't help but feel that we had a relationship with one another, which I never knew had even existed. But it was said Gibbs that Ashton, although younger, was known as the smarter of the two boys, older boys.

And at the funeral, he said, the most important thing to them was just the family, all of us, and they loved us all so much. And he talked specifically about his dad. He said, he did everything so well, he was so well rounded. he was the only person I've ever met who could do as much as my mom. They were just absolutely perfect for each other. They were the perfect team. And then in talking about his mom, he said she was just an incredible person.

And she did more in her 54 years than most people can do in 10 lifetime. So he's talking at the funeral about his mom and dad. And what you'd have to say, Gibbs, or the glowing, terms. He's praising them. He's saying that they were great. They loved all the kids. But since both boys were living out of state up in Washington at the time of the murders, detectives didn't really look at them that hard. They moved on to what they considered stronger suspects. But three weeks into this case, they had a major break. And it was from a clue discovered 1,200 miles north of the crime scene in Seattle, Washington. And it's investigators

digging into the phone records of Ashton Sacks. And one of the numbers that they see on there is a call that was placed to an auto transport company. So that peaks their interest, Gibbs. It's not Pizza Hut. You're not calling the movie theater line to, well, nobody does that anymore, right? you just look it up on your phone. Remember the old days when you had to call movie phone? Oh, yeah. Seinfeld did that. Why don't you just tell me what you want to see?

Yeah. Yeah, good old. That was the old days. Good old Kramer. But they're seeing something that would jump out at them as possibly out of the ordinary. So they follow up with this auto transport company that happens to be in California. That's the other thing that probably would have piqued their interest. Yeah.

The calls placed in Seattle to this company in California. And when they follow up with them, they figure out that the person that called placed in order for a vehicle to be picked up from an address in San Juan Cap Astrona. Okay, they have to be even more interested now at this point. And the address turns out to be a commercial property owned by the SACs. Yeah, it ends up actually being a commercial property that they used for their office. So the company is supposed to pick up a car in San Juan Capistrano from this commercial address owned by the Sacks, but they're supposed to deliver it to Seattle. Yeah. So pieces of the puzzle here are starting to fall into place.

They are. Now, the vehicle turns out to be a white Prius, which is still being stored by the transport company, because nobody's picked it up yet. So investigators get a search warrant and they search the vehicle. And it's when they pop open the trunk that they find what they were hoping to find. Because inside the trunk they find a 22 caliber rifle and not just any 22. This is determined to be the 22 caliber rifle used to murder Andra and Brad and to shoot Landon. Yeah, it's it. It's the weapon.

And to top it off, the car turns out to be 19-year-old Ashton Sacks car. Yeah, it's his white Prius. Not too hard for them to figure that out. No. I mean, as investigators go, they had to feel pretty good at this point. I mean, they had the murder weapon in his car. They have him placing the call from Seattle to this auto transport company who did pick up the car. Yeah. and take it all the way back to Seattle with the murder weapon inside.

It'd be tough to defend that one. And it's on March 6, 2014 that Ashton is arrested and charged with the premeditated murder of his mom and dad. But like we said, I mean, they had the semi-automatic rifle found in his car. And because of that, he's going to get charged with two counts of murder. And then he'll have the multiple counts of attempted murder because he shot at his sister, brother. I mean, he hit Landon in the back and the spine. So he'll have to answer for all of that. And we haven't talked about it yet, Gibbs, but the shot to Landon's spine ends up leaving him paralyzed.

On the night, he complained to his sister that he couldn't fill his legs. What turned out that he was paralyzed. And the news that Ashton had been arrested is shocked everyone. In the community, it even shocked people in law enforcement. Number one, because I think until they got that big time break Gibbs, they had kind of discounted the brothers because they had up to that point pretty good alibis. Yeah, I mean, they thought they were in Washington, you know, 1,200 miles away. But the second reason that I think it shocked law enforcement is that at the time, they were still looking really hard at, you know, some of these people that were on the same. suspect list, people that had had some of these business dealings that went bad with the sacks.

And you know the family's shocked. They have to be. Oh, especially after hearing those eulogies. Yeah, how he went on and on about how great his mom and dad was. And who expects, you know, a 19-year-old kid to kill their parents. Nobody in the family's going to. I couldn't imagine someone thinking that was going to happen. But that must have been a heck of a show at the funeral.

if you think about it. To stand there and, you know, say all these glowing, amazing things about your mom and dad, knowing that you stood feet away from them and, you know, pulled the trigger time after time. I mean, one of the things he says at the funeral was that as a kid, I really just always thought I have a pretty awesome set of parents. I mean, how do you say that? Knowing that just days earlier, you shot them like you said, Mike, point blank. How do you do that?

How do you say something like that? Well, there's some disconnect. There has to be, right? So even in another statement, he talks about how amazing his parents are, how perfect they are, how they did everything for the kids. I mean, these are the things that he said, plus all the other stuff we talked about earlier. It was like an Oscar type performance he put on. So you know what everyone's thinking.

What would drive this kid to do something so horrific to his parents? He was described as a decent kid. People called him a little nerdy, said he got bullied at school sometimes, but they also said, you know, he was funny, he was cute, he was happy, he was successful at school. Now, there was an associate to the Sacks that said, you know, they thought he had a little bit of a warped sense of humor and that he played a lot of practical jokes. But none of that Gibbs is leading towards he's got this, you know, unbelievable dark side and he's going to do something horrible. But one of his friends came out and said that, you know, he had been to his house and he said it

was chaotic. He said the house was a mess. It wasn't an inviting atmosphere. He said it felt more like a group home where everyone had to fend for themselves, he didn't like it. He never went back. Yeah, that's just strange. You know, I mean, they're highly successful. You know, I guess they're just working all the time, but not to have a maid come in or something. I think you make that type of money you'd have a maid, but some people are, they don't like that. They don't like people coming into their house. So. Well, and in every case we do, you're going to have differing opinions on not only the killers, but the victims as well. Sure.

You can have a lot of people that come out and say they were great people, but some people don't know them as well, right? Maybe they've never been in their house. That's true. Exactly. It doesn't mean they weren't great people, but maybe it was a little more chaotic and not the all-American family. And this was one person's perspective.

Sure. So, I mean, you never know how that's, you know, skewed either way. A psychologist that interviewed Ashton after he was arrested, felt that he had an obsessive personality. That coupled with the fact that he smoked a lot of pot. And apparently he played this video game a lot called League of Legends. Yeah, it would have come out eventually that he logged over 1,200 plus hours playing this video game. Man, I mean, I thought I played a lot of video games.

Yeah, that's a lot, man. That's like, what, 50, 60 days in a row. 57.5 days in a row, man. Like full 24-hour day? Non-stop. Just, yeah. I mean, obviously he took breaks, but that's a lot of time. Yeah, I mean, that's like coming home from school and going immediately to your game and staying on it all day.

I mean, the rest of the night until you went to bed. Get the kids away from the video games, guys. No, man, I love video games. One, one hour night during school, two on the weekends. That's it. Stop it right there. Pull the plug. You know that your son plays way more than that.

Get him outside, man. You act like super dead. Get him outside. You're not limiting his play. Get them outside. You know what, though? I don't play. I know you do.

You play a lot. I do. I like video games. I always have. I never. I mean, I played when I was younger. You know, uh, Pong. Pong.

Back in four. Got into a little Atari. In high school, they came out with Pong when you were in high school. Yeah, right. I'm not that old. Anyway, um, no, I just never got into. Like a lot of people did. So, I mean, I could sit down and probably play pretty decent if I had to.

I don't think you could. You don't think so? No. I got good. People that say that. People that say that turn out to be. The worst? Yeah.

When you say you haven't played, no, you're not going to be good. I can be really good at Madden. I know I can pick a good team and I can make those passes. The kids nowadays? Number one, you wouldn't score. Yeah. You probably wouldn't even move the ball. They eat me up.

They would eat you alive. Yeah. Because, just like we talked about, they are. playing non-stop. They got some mad skills. They get so good. Yeah, I kick their ass outside, though. Come on outside.

Can you not, you really shouldn't be kicking little kids' asses? Well, it's frowned upon. Okay. I would. Outside, that's like physical violence. I would. You shouldn't do that. I would outperform them.

You mean on the foot, like real football? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That I get. Yeah. You said you would kick their asses outside. Come on, you little boy.

Come on, you little boy. Come here. Kick your ass. But this is what the psychologist thought was not for the reason why he killed his parents, but added to the issues that he had. Right. Because it would come out in the investigation that his mother, Andra, said at one time, Ashton tried to harm himself, self-harm after breaking up with his girlfriend.

He did it by taking a bunch of pills. Oxycontin. Which we know to be pretty strong. wrong. Yeah, if you're going to take a bunch of oxy cotton, especially if you chew them up, watch out. Is that worse if you chew them up? Oh, yeah. I didn't know it. No, it gets into your system that much faster. But it must have been pretty bad. He was in the hospital for three days. Yeah. And it was just a few months after he got out that he went off to college. Yeah, and during that time, they never got him any help. He never saw anybody. You know, he didn't go to a psychologist and talk

about it. He just came out, you know, I guess after they pumped the stomach and allowed his body to recover, you know, he came back, came home, hung out for a little bit and then I'm guessing he played more video game and then went up to a community college up in Seattle, which he didn't do that great at either. You know, he didn't. He's probably playing video games all day long. He didn't get good grades. He didn't really excel. So maybe he was still depressed and didn't really ever get over the fact that he had this breakup. So Gibbs, Gibbs, we talked about the fact that Ashton Sacks was arrested. What we haven't talked about yet is the fact that he confessed to the murders after being arrested. But at some point, he starts to say that

it was a murder suicide. That was his intention. That becomes his defense. And it's two years later, you know, after the murder, after the arrest, that the prosecution is preparing for trial, and they start really taking a look at the tapes from his confession. So it's investigators on the tape, and it's not just Ashton. They're meeting with both Ashton and Miles, because at this point in time, when this tape is made, Ashton has not yet been arrested. But they already have all the evidence, and they know they're going to arrest him. Now, at some point during the interview, Miles leaves, and it's just the investigators and Ashton.

And they're talking to him about, you know, what should happen when they find the killers. You know, Ashton says, I think they should go to prison for the rest of their lives. And then the investigators kind of start to hone in a little bit. Because they say to Ashton, we just want to make sure that you're saying you were in Washington at the time of the murders. And he says yes. And they asked him, when was the last time he was at John Wayne Airport? And his answer was when he flew down from Seattle after his mom and dad were killed.

And one of the investigators says Gibbs, so if we were to see you on video on February 9th in John Wayne Airport, what would you say about that? And he says flying out, no. And they basically call him out. They say, we've got all the evidence we need. There's no reason to lie to us. And he stops talking. And that's the point where they arrest him. They read him his rights.

And he didn't ask for a lawyer. And very quickly, he starts to confess. And we're going to play some audio of the confession, part of the confession. Yeah. It's really hard to hear, especially in parts. for Ashton. He's almost at a whisper. Yeah, he really is.

I mean, you have to really turn it up and listen closely. But there's some good parts in it. So that's why we want to make sure we play it. Yeah, you won't be able to understand all of it. But we want to play it so you get a sense. And then we'll come back and kind of walk through it. Yeah. What weapon did you have with you?

Explaining me, and you saw your parents in the bed. And then what did you do? He was a lot of me around. and um tell me what's going through your mind so I have your relationship with your mom I thought that she was a cold how about your dad

that made you come to the conclusion that what you chose to do was your own ago now at the time of this interview you know police have already put the pieces of the puzzle together they know that Ashton bought the gun

weeks earlier in Seattle in that he drove 18 hours straight to get to his parents' house. Apparently Gibbs, he only stopped to go to the bathroom once. Right. The rest of the time, he just, he pissed himself, man. To save time. Yeah. Nobody ever heard of a water bottle, I guess.

Or a Gatorade bottle. Or a Gatorade bottle. Makes it much easier. Yeah. I prefer the wider mouth bottle, sure. Right. You said water bottle. Well, I get the, I get the, uh, the, uh, the, um.

All right. Go ahead. Yeah, go ahead and backtrack now. No, I get the Voss water runners. They had the bigger mouth on it. Yeah, you didn't say that at all. So. But they start to question him about, you know, what he was thinking when he started that drive from Seattle to Orange County. And he answers them, you know, shoot them and then kill myself. And when they ask him what went through his mind as he was shooting, he says, I couldn't even remember. It was a rush. I was not myself. I was something twisted. Kind of like an out-of-body experience.

That's the way he's describing it. I don't know how to describe it. My heart was beating really fast. I knew it wasn't normal. It was silent. I walked around for 10 or 15 minutes, went upstairs. I went into my parents' room first, shot at them. I left the room, walked past Landon's room, shot towards him.

him. Then I ran downstairs to Lexi's room, shot at her once and ran. So in the interview, he goes on to say that he got back in his car. He drove to the commercial building that we talked about. He took a cab to the airport. This is around 3.15 in the morning where he played on his laptop. Yeah, until his flight back to Seattle was ready to take off. Didn't seem like he was probably too broken up about what he had done. No, I mean, you figure the flight back to Seattle probably didn't take off till, I mean, if it's the first flight, it wasn't probably till six. So he sat there close to three hours, just playing on his laptop. But in the interview, they ask him, you know, why did he do this? Why did he kill his parents? And you heard the beep.

He says, I was so fucked up because of my parents. He told investigators that he was the least liked kid of the bunch. Yeah, he said they didn't trust them. They favored the other kid. You know, I mean, he had all kind of reasons behind it. He said his mom and dad didn't like him. They didn't want to spend any time with him. When they're listening to this tape, this is two years later, because they're trying to combat this defense of, you know, it was intended to be a murder suicide. Right. But they had asked him some questions in the original interview that were going to be very important. Yeah, I think it's pretty critical, you know, when you're talking about what type of defense he's trying to lay out. And one of those questions is, why were you wearing gloves?

And he answered, don't know, in case I touched anything. And they said, what would have happened if you weren't wearing gloves? And he says, fingerprint. And I like how the detective here kind of walked him right into this. You know, so if you were going to kill yourself, why would you ever care about leaving fingerprints behind. Wouldn't matter. If you're doing murder or suicide, you don't need to wear gloves. This is not important. The only time you wear gloves is if you're trying to keep yourself from being caught,

if you don't want your fingerprints, your DNA to be picked up by anything, you're wearing gloves. Now, investigators saw a lot of similarities in this case to that of the Menendez brothers. and some of the family members would say that Ashton was very fascinated with the case of Eric and Lyle Menendez. So you look at Gibbs the eulogy to laying the blame on the parents for the reason for the murder. Yeah. Giving suspects that were business associates. Yeah. It's a lot of the same things.

And I think an interesting fact that I read in one of the articles was that, He was so obsessed with that case that his senior paper that he wrote. So he wasn't a great student, but one of his best grades he ever got was his paper on that case, that trial, that he wrote. And he was so happy about it that, you know, he told his parents, you know, look, I got this great, you know, I finally got an A. And the parents were like, okay. You know, they weren't as excited as he was. But I guess he was just super obsessed with that case. And like you said, it shows and they can see similarity.

So I think, you know, he learned from that case on what he thought would be the way to do it right. Well, investigators also found some things in his internet search history. He looked up information on the insanity defense. He looked up things about parole, consequences of attempted murder and felony murder. I mean, these are all beforehand. It's pretty incriminating. Yeah, I mean, it really is. I mean, bottom of mind to me, he was just a cold-blooded killer that day.

Well, because getting back to the fact of, you know, if your intention is to commit a murder suicide, you don't need to know what the consequences are, right? It's like wearing the gloves. You don't need any of that. So all of that points to the fact that he had no intentions of dying from, suicide that night. Right. And if you went out and bought gloves to wear, that means he thought about it ahead of time. So it was definitely something that was premeditated. So as they get into trial, Ashton has a public defender, but he fires the public defender and he decides to represent himself, which we talked about before Gibbs. Doesn't usually work out very well. But then

he surprises everyone by pleading guilty. And the judge even warns him, you know, that if he does this, he's never going to get out of prison. But he goes on to say that he did intentionally kill with premeditation and deliberation, both Brad and Andrew Sacks. So he's ultimately given multiple life sentences, a couple of which Gibbs were life with no possibility of parole. So he's never getting out. There's no doubt about that. And then on top of that, he got almost 100 years tacked on for using a firearm and other special circumstances. Yeah. So he will die in prison. But this is a case that is very hard for me to figure out. You know, a wealthy family seems like they have it all, but you have this kid that feels like he's not loved,

at least in his words, right, we're going by what he says. And that's the reason why he would drive from, Seattle to California, set up this elaborate plan to murder his parents. This seems too extreme for me, man. It just doesn't make any sense, but a lot of the things that we talk about don't make sense. You can't make sense out of them. No, no, you can't. I mean, I'd like to find a happy ending to this, but there isn't any. It's tragic all the way across.

And we know that as far as the rest of the family goes, you know, Miles, the older brother will take over the family business. He had to battle an aunt a little bit over the company and the funds, but he would eventually win. And then he would also gain custody of his three siblings and will always have to take care of, you know, at the time, eight-year-old Landon that is paralyzed from the shot that he took in the spine. Tragic for that family. They'd lose both parents and then your brother is sitting in prison. for the rest of his life, knowing that he did that, but it's still your sibling. So I don't know how you handle that, you know.

Some people would probably be write them off and want nothing to do with them. And then other people, they're going to say, it's still my sibling. I still have feelings for him. I just don't know. I don't know how they feel, but just tragic. It really is a tragic case all the way around. But Gibbs, that's it for the case of Ashton. Sacks. We've got some voicemails, so let's listen to those.

Hi, Mike and Gibby. This is Cassie calling from Calgary, Canada. I just listened to your latest true crime all the time on Ryan Jenkins, and I just had to give myself a really good chuckle because you were talking about Big Brother and how you guys think Big Brother's only on season 12, I think it was. They're actually on season 22, so you're off by about 10. But that's okay. Not everybody's a Big Brother fan. However, I think your Big Brother, I think, your Big Brother, I with the true crime twist is genius. I would watch that any day because this season's quite a bore. Anyway, I want to say, I love your podcast.

I've been the fan for many years now. Just keep on doing what you guys are doing. You're the best. I love you both. I'm either Team Mike or Gibby because I couldn't choose. You can't have one without the other, like peanut butter and jelly, I guess. Anyway, keep your own time ticking. Love you guys.

Bye. Well, thank you so much. We appreciate that. Yeah, if Gibby and I had the money, we would start that reality show, ourselves and we draw from a pool of T-Cat listeners. We just have however many people they have on Big Brother, it'd be T-Cat fans, solving mysteries. It'd be like an adult Scooby-Doo. Hey, Mike and Gibby.

This is Julie Boregard from Carson City, Nevada, not Nevada. Just calling to say, I love you guys' podcast. I've listened to every episode. I'm going to them again. Huge Gibi fan. Love you guys. You're great. Keep up the good work.

Well, thank you very much, Cassie, and Ghibie will love to hear that. You know how much he loves to hear his supporters give him shoutouts? If you could see his face in studio, it just lights up. Hi, it's Heather in Manhattan, Kansas. Just wanted to let you guys know that I'm really enjoying your podcast. I just discovered it probably about two months ago. and I probably listened to maybe 60 episodes so far. I just listened to the episode about the two cases that were made into laws that they brought laws about.

And I asked my husband, because he's from Florida. He actually grew up in Crystal River, which is right next door to Homo Sassa. And he was 10 when little Jessica was murdered in Homoasa. And he said that it was a huge deal. You know, his grandma sat him down and was like, you can't go with strangers. They were all of these schools and everything like that were on high alert. And I thought that was very interesting. You said that nobody in that town will ever forget her name.

And it's very sad, but I'm glad that it brought about a law like it did. And I just wanted to say keep up the good work. And I'm trying to find your true crime all. the time Unsolved podcast. It's not on Audible anymore. So I'll try to find that. But thanks. Have a good day. Keep your own time ticking. Well, we appreciate that voicemail. Yeah, the T-Cat Unsolved podcast, pretty easy to find. It's out there. Now, if you're looking for episodes that are older than six months, those are only on Stitcher Premium. But they have a free 30-day trial. And a lot of people use that to binge to get caught up. All right. That is it for another episode of

true crime all the time. So for Mike and Gibby, stay safe and keep your own time ticking.