True Crime All The Time - Joshua Boren

Episode Date: January 23, 2023

Joshua Boren was a police officer in Utah. In 2014, after failing to show up to work, officers went to his house and saw cause for concern through the window of his house. When they got inside, they found that Joshua Boren had murdered his wife, two children, and his mother-in-law and then took his own life.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss Joshua Boren. The murder/suicide shocked the communities around where it occurred, and it made national news. The information that came out during the ensuing investigation would also be shocking. This information helped shed light on the possible motives for why Joshua chose to do what he did.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.

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 317 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in True Crime. Mike Gibson. Gibby, how are you? Hey man, I'm doing well about yourself. I'm doing really well. Yeah. And probably back to normal, but I even feel so much better because of the, you know, what I went through.

That's good. You're back to life. Yeah. Yeah. I got a song says. What's the song? Back to life. Back to reality.

Back to reality. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I got you. I got you. Hey, let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Lauren McAloon.

Hey, Lauren. Michelle Deval. I appreciate that, Michelle. Amanda Collins. What's going on, Amanda? Lori Christian. Hey, Lori. Shalen Lickset.

Is it Likeset? I think it's like set. Let's go with that. Yeah. Okay. Amy Fleming. Hey, Amy. Heather Queen Fosio.

What's going on, Fasio? Stephen Randall's jumped out at our highest level. Thank you, Stephen. Allie Vedder. Hey, Ali. Regina Abigail Adams. There's a long name. Hey, Regina.

Lakeisha Santa jumped out of our highest level. I like that, Lakeisha. Madison Kokonauer. Kokonawa. Yeah. Beverly Eisenhower jumped out of our highest level. Hey, Beverly. Dora Smarmy.

Hey, thank you, smarmy. Michaela. Hey, Michaela. Patrick Bruno. What's going on, Patrick? And last but not least, Carrie Satterthwaite. I'm just going to say it's Satter's weight. So you're just going to change the emphasis.

Yeah. Okay. And you could be 100% correct. And if we go back into the vault. This week, we selected Amanda Gillen. Hey, Amanda. So we appreciate the new Patreon support, the continued support. We had some great PayPal donations from Samantha Ashton.

Thank you, Samantha. Linda Kempler. Hey, Linda. And Jill Morris. There's Jill. And speaking of Patreon, you know, on our weekly minisode, we talk about. talked about the different ways I'm feeling old. We also talked about this case in Massachusetts where, you know, this guy dismembered his

wife. And of course, when they check his hard drive, he's got searches for how do you dismember a body? How do you dispose of a body? He used to have an episode of dumbest criminals. Yeah. So, uh, yeah, he was not very smart at all. Gibbs right now on true crime all the time unsolved. We have an episode out on.

on 40-year-old wife and mother, Dorothy Forstein, we're headed to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And this one goes back to 1949. She went missing. She was never seen again. But Dorothy's daughter has some interesting claims about what happened that night. Yeah, it's definitely a good episode.

And I don't want to give it all away, but we're going to talk about what happens up to the point of disappearance. And, of course, we're going to talk about what happens after. All right, buddy, are you ready to get into this episode of true crime all the time? I'm ready. We are headed to Utah for this one to talk about a murder suicide involving a police officer named Joshua Bourne. On January 16th, 2014, Joshua Bourne failed to show up to his night shift at the police department in Linden, Utah. After calling his home and receiving no answer, his fellow officers,

decided to call the Spanish Fork Police Department to have them conduct a welfare check at his Spanish Fork home. So he lived in Spanish Fork, the city in Utah County. It's part of the Provo-Orum kind of metro area. Pretty big area. Yeah, a pretty big area. The 2020 Census reported that Spanish Fork had a population of just over 42,000. Okay. So sizable.

Yeah. Pretty good size. It's the 20th largest city in Utah, according to the census bureau. And then by comparison, Lyndon, where he was a police officer much smaller, right, with an estimated population of just over 11,000. That's a small town. Yeah, fairly small town. So here's my question to you. If you were going to be a police officer, would you rather do it in a, a, a bigger, more heavily populated city or town or a smaller one? I would want to be in a more populated town because I think you're going to have a lot more opportunity to see different things. Maybe some things you don't want to see. Yeah, but if you decided to be a police officer, maybe that's what you want to do. Because I would want to advance my career.

Yeah. You know, but then again, I mean, if you're at a small city, small town, you'd probably advance your career right there right to the top. But with maybe less opportunity. Yeah. My thought is being in the smaller town, you're going to get to know everybody. Right. There's definitely going to be less action.

Sure. But also maybe less risk, probably. Yeah. Which comes with less action if there's less violent crimes. Definitely going to be a community leader in a small town. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe more in touch with the people that you're actually serving.

Right. is what I was thinking, but I don't know. Either way, I'd have to be the lead detective. Oh, okay. So now you're already a detective. Absolutely. You've made yourself a detective. I ordered a badge online.

According to KSL, around 11 p.m., police officers peered through the window at Joshua's home after no response to their knocks. The lights in the house were on, which allowed them to see some large pools of blood on the carpet surrounded by shell casings. So that's not good. Large pools of blood pretty much in any scenario. It is usually never good. Then when you see some shell casings next to the blood,

you're putting two to two together and you're saying, okay, there's been a shooting. I think at that point your heart rate's going up and you're, hopefully your training kicks in. Well, the one thing that it did was they gave the officers reasonable cause to enter the home without a warrant, but there's no way that these officers could have been prepared for what they would find when they entered the home through the unlocked front door. The officers followed trails of blood leading up the stairs and discovered Boren's mother-in-law,

Marie King, deceased at the age of 55 in one of the bedrooms. Across the hall, they found four bodies, laying side by side in the bed of the master bedroom. So they discovered the body of Joshua's wife, Kelly. She was 32 years old at the time of her death. And then almost meticulously placed next to her in the bed were there two children, Jaden who was seven and Haley, who was five. And then finally, Joshua born was found dead next to his family. Now, we talk about this quite a bit, right?

As a police officer, you're going to see some really nasty stuff. Definitely can. And some officers will see more than others depending on, you know, where they work or whatever. It just comes with the territory. But I'm telling you right now, if you walk in to this scene, mother-in-law is dead. And then the family of four is dead. and they're all laying in the bed together, okay, you're going to need, if not counseling, you're going to struggle with some things. It's going to be very rough to get that

picture out of your head. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I don't care how strong you are. Yeah. You know, it doesn't matter if you're 6'4, 280 with like 2% body fat. Right. You know, emotionally, mentally, this stuff is going to. to weigh on you. It will. Due to the evidence found at the scene, the conclusion was drawn that the family was killed in the lower levels of the home and then placed in the bed. And basically autopsy reports confirmed what police suspected very quickly.

Joshua Bourne had killed his family, carefully arranged their bodies, and then taken his own life. It came out that Joshua had shot each member of a family. his family twice, once through their chest and once in their cheek. Okay, strange. Yeah. Now, the cause of death for each family member was a fatal gunshot wound in the head. And that was true for Joshua as well.

I found it tough and a little unclear in the research, whether the fatal wound was inflicted first on the four victims. before Joshua ended his life. And then the shot to the chest was to ensure they were dead or if the shot to the chest was first. And if so, why? To cause additional pain? Yeah, I mean, if that's the case, what a piece of shit anyway.

But it makes it even more sadistic. Absolutely, that you would want your kids to suffer. You try to incapacitate them with a shot to the chest as you go back and shoot everybody once again in the head, that's really sick. Don't get me wrong. It's all sick, but that's really sick.

Yeah, it's definitely twisted. I just don't know in what order the shots were fired. I mean, if you've made the shot to the head, then why the need for the shot to the chest? And if you made the shot to the chest first, why?

Yeah. Doesn't take any more time to make the other shot instead. You know, there was a kind of a flash in my mind that we, because you used the word incapacitate, well, maybe he needed to do that to carry everything out as quickly as he wanted to do. But you're not saving any time between a shot to the chest and a shot to the head anyway. Especially a trained police officer that knows how to use a weapon.

Yeah, who goes through training has to be, you know, at least at some level of proficiency with a with a handgun. But I do think this second shot, because there's a second shot, no matter what order they came in, it's one of the questions that's left in this case. The Salt Lake Tribune reported that each victim was murdered with Joshua's police issued service weapon, a 40 caliber gluck. And then I mentioned it. Joshua then, you know, he laid down in the bed next to his family and took his own life.

It was reported that investigating officers never found a suicide note. And toxicology reports stated that there were no drugs or alcohol in any of the victims or Joshua born. It's interesting that he didn't leave a suicide note. Yeah, I thought it was too. The only thing that kind of ran through my mind was maybe he thought, who would I be leaving it too? I'm killing essentially my entire immediate family for sure. I'm even killing my mother-in-law.

So who would I be leaving the note for? So let's talk about the victims a little bit. Marie McIntosh King was born April 30th, 1958 in North Wales. And a lot of the descriptions come from, you know, these individuals obituaries. She was described as a special lady who lived life her own way. She married a man named Jeff King.

And together they had Kelly, their only child. Now, Kelly and Josh met at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah. And I actually did not know that Weber State was in Utah. The only reason I even know much about Weber State is because that's where Damian Lillard played his college basketball. he ended up being this great player in the NBA. I was going to say, I knew you were going to say something to do with basketball. Well, it's part of the reason why I've heard of different, you know, colleges or this or that. I may have never heard of them.

And I'm pretty sure I'm saying it correctly, but somebody else pointed out if I'm not. Now, Kelly was born in England on July 21, 1981, 1981. Her father, Jeff, was in the military. So we've had this recently. You know, it resulted in the family kind of constantly moving, not just from state to state in the U.S., but abroad as well. Loved ones described her as a hard worker who said high standards for herself. She loved fitness. She was a fitness buff.

And it was said that her second home was the gym, much like yourself. Absolutely. Not like myself at all. Yeah. My second home is the gym. studio, even though in the studio in another room, there is a gym. Really? Literally, I can see it from here.

You can. Yeah. Because you just turned your head while you were talking to look at the door where the gym is located. I just never stepped foot inside. No, you do not. My wife uses it every single morning. Yeah.

Now I just go to the gym and look at it and turn around and come back. You know, I need to stay. Well, that is the tough part. Yeah. At the time of her death, Kelly was working in finance with the city of, of Bluffdale. Now, Joshua was born on May 11th, 1979, to parents Kenneth Boren and Cindy Habing. It was said in his obituary that as a child, Josh was a sweet, loving child who had a wonderful imagination. As a teenager, he lived with his grandparents, Milton and Elaine

Patterson. Now, I mentioned that, you know, a lot of this stuff came from obituaries. It's tough to write an obituary. It is. It's not an easy thing to do because you're grieving. Now, add in this scenario where you're having to write obituaries for, you know, not only a mother, two kids and a mom, you know, and Kelly's mom, Marie, but somebody has to sit down and write an obituary for Joshua Bourne. Yeah, that's true.

Even after all of this comes out and it's known that he killed four people, four members of his family. Yeah. What are you going to say? And how do you feel comfortable writing that? Well, I mean, obviously it's going to be written by people who loved him. So they're going to say loving nice things. It's not going to be in the obituary that he was a killer. Right.

So they're going to say, hey, he was a great kid. You know, he had this wonderful imagination. But it would be very tough. Kelly and Joshua married on June 4th, 2005. And then the following year, Joshua graduated from the Police Academy and the couple welcomed their first child, Jaden, into the world. So it's a pretty big year. It's a huge year, I think, for somebody.

You got a lot going on. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot going on. According to KSL.com, Kelly's father, Jeff King, described Jaden as being known for his hugs, which he gave using the force of his whole bun. It was for the best hugs, man. Yeah, he said they were straight from the heart.

That's how he described them. Jaden was only in the second grade at the time of his death. And then his little sister Haley was born on July 12, 2008. Her nickname was Bug. And she was said to have been an energetic girly girl who loved princesses and dressing up. And she just started kindergarten. So always tough when young kids are murdered. But when you think about a second grader, a little girl who had just started kindergarten. Tiny. And they're not killed in a wreck, an accident. No. I know we'll talk about it,

I'm sure more, but they're killed by, you know, a person in their lives who, as we've said, should be the one of the people they trust most in the world. Yeah, that they feel safe around. Yeah. Her grandfather explained she was the cutest girl that you'd ever care to see. She was bossy. She was sassy. The poor little boys didn't have a chance.

She dragged them around and make them do everything at her beck and, call. That's what he said. I can visualize that. Yeah. My youngest was was a lot like that. You know, she had that sassy side. She could be a little bossy. I don't remember her dragging little boys around, but again, I wasn't at school all the time. She's still a sassy. She is. Now it's bordering on a little more than sassy at times. She can cut you to the quick. Oh, she's good. In a heartbeat. Yeah. So you know that the family members of the Borenz, the kings, they had to have been devastated, but so were the Linden and Spanish Fork police departments. They were shocked that Joshua Boren, a man who at least one person described as a big teddy bear

with a laugh that would bring a smile from ear to ear on anybody's face, could have killed his family and himself. This is one of their own. Yeah, it is one of their own. And so I don't know how you would ever make sense of this. How is it ever going to square with the person who you know? Unless that person was a real a hole all the time. But that's not what usually happens in the cases, right, that we talk about.

most people see, you know, some of these individuals as really great people. We're not talking about serial killers here. No, we're not. Who have a pattern who did, you know, people so wrong all the time. So absolutely, it's going to be hard for them to figure out how Joshua could have done it. At first, the only explanation they could come up with was that Joshua and Kelly were having marital issues, and apparently they were living kind of separately at the time. The Linden Police Department released this statement quickly after the scene was discovered.

The Linden City Police Department is sad to learn of the tragic events which occurred at the Spanish Forkholm of Officer Joshua Bourne on Thursday, January 16th, 2014. Officer Bourne was hired by the police department on October 14, 2013, and has worked as a patrol officer since that time. Prior to coming to the Linden Police Department, Officer Bourne worked as a deputy with the Utah County Sheriff's Office for over seven years. Officer Bourne was selected for hire in October from a field of over 70 highly qualified applicants and had performed admirably as a patrol officer, his conduct, behavior, and professionalism

were exemplary. We were shocked and sat by the events as they appear to have occurred. We were working closely with the Spanish Fork Police Department to investigate and hopefully come to an understanding of this tragic occurrence. So he's definitely a seasoned officer of the law. Yeah, I mean, he had what, seven, eight years. at the very least under his belt. Now, what I did find interesting

and what we hadn't talked about up to this point is that he had only been with the Linden City Police Department for like three months, four months. Very short period of time. Yeah, he hadn't been there that long at all. But he wasn't a new officer. He had experience at other places. But to beat out 70 applicants is,

saying a lot. Well, and again, they're coming out and saying his conduct, behavior, professionalism, all exemplary. But what are they going to say? What else could they say? Number one, he's only been there four months. So has he even had time to maybe show him some things, you know, on the bad side? I do know that, no, I don't know if it's all, but a lot of police departments also do a psychological exam of the officers before they bring them on. But I don't know if they required one. Well, they did. And we're going to talk about it.

And what was revealed in that psychological exam. Because during the investigation, there were some secrets of Joshua's life that were uncovered, painting, I think a much darker picture of this guy than pretty much anybody else had. And that seems to to be something that we see quite often as well. What do your neighbors think of you? What do your coworkers think of you? And I know I've said this before. They can only think of you what you're willing to kind of show them. Yeah, what you let them see. And most people put their best foot forward most of the time. They try to anyway. Now, does that mean that a person, you know, doesn't go home at night down to the basement, writing out his lists

of people that he's going to exact revenge on? No. But how would the neighbor? How would a coworker know that? Nobody would know that, right? Yeah. I've always thought that. You never, ever can really know what people are like. When you think about, you know, a neighbor that you see every now and then, a coworker that you see every day that you sit next to. There's still no way for you to really know what's going on at home every night or what they do in their free time that they don't tell you about. Because that's the type of stuff they're going to keep secret. Yeah. And you probably have what you believe they do and how they act. But like you said, we don't know. Well, if you go into work, what are you going to talk about? The fact that you

went to the movies and saw something, or that you're putting together a murder kit. Yeah. You don't tell people that. No, you do not. You talk about the mundane stuff that everybody does that doesn't make you look like you're a bad guy. Yeah, you kind of stick to the status quo. According to the desert news, on his last shift before the murders took place,

Joshua searched the internet for narcissism and America's most brutal serial killers. Okay. Make of that what you will. Yeah. Those are searches that I would do, that you would do. Yeah. As part of our job and research and what we do, that's why I always say, if people were

to look at my search history without a full understanding of what it, you know, of the context, it looks pretty brutal. It's pretty bad. I know that you got a new phone not too long ago and the place you got your phone refused to take your old phone. They did. Yeah. They said, uh, this is probably evidence of something, you know, you're just going to have to keep it.

Yeah. We'll still give you the money for the trade in. We don't even want to find. Yeah. Yeah, we don't want our fingerprints on it. The Daily Herald obtained records from Joshua's application to the Utah County Sheriff's office, which stated, Boren had a history of drug use and inappropriate sexual activity. So apparently his drug history.

included acid, cocaine, marijuana, meth, and mushrooms. All right. Marijuana, don't care. No. Now, if you're smoking marijuana at the time you apply to be a police officer, I get that. But if you did it in the past, not that big a deal. When you talk about, you know, acid, cocaine, meth,

it's a little different. I view it differently. Yeah. Differently. Mushrooms. Nah. are legal in some areas now. But the big thing was that he reported that he had been drug-free since 2000.

So you've got this kind of pretty big list of drugs that he had done at one point. But also in the report was a juvenile arrest history of shoplifting, assault, burglary of a vehicle, possession of alcohol, receiving stolen property, and possession of drug paraphernalia. Now, I get it. That's juvenile stuff. We all did things as a juvenile that we probably wish we hadn't done. Some more than others. Some more than others. I will say the one question that jumps out at me is at what point do these types of things preclude you from becoming a police officer? Well, they must come early on because he beat out 70 applicants or they didn't do a really great job of checking into his past. Well, I mentioned it, right?

This was related to his application to the Utah County Sheriff's Office, not the Linden, but still, how do you get on the Utah County Sheriff's Office? And then I think once you've been there for seven years, a little easier to go somewhere else, right? Yeah, I think it probably lend some credibility for sure. Sure, absolutely. And it was said that all police officer applicants were required to receive a psychological exam before being, you know, admitted, you know, onto the force. During his evaluation, Joshua revealed that he had been sexually abused as a child by his mother's boyfriend in that he had had sex with both males and females when he was in his early teenage years. Also included in this psychological evaluation was the information that his father Kenneth completed suicide with a rifle in 1984.

So, I mean, there's some information there. Sure, there is. I don't view any of that information the same way that I view the drug history and, you know, maybe even his juvenile record. he was sexually abused as a child. Okay. How can you hold that against somebody? Right. It's not going to keep you from getting a job.

Shouldn't the fact that you have sex with both males and females or you did at one point, shouldn't mean a hill of beans to really anybody. Right. When it comes to getting a job and the fact that your father took his life. I mean, that's just what happened. but I can see how him being sexually abused might have pushed him to the things he did when he was younger, the drugs and the criminal history. In the stealing.

And maybe how he ended up living with his grandparents at some point. I think that starts to come into focus a little bit. So you had this information that came out. I mean, some of it is troubling. Could you look at some of it as potential? warning signs. I don't know. Maybe after the fact, his father took his own life. He took his own life. Right. But how would you know to be worried that he would do that? It's kind of a looked at in a different light after you know what's already happened. Sure. Type of thing. It's easier to time together

later. Yes. Yeah. I believe that. But there was some pretty bad stuff that investigators discovered inside the born home. In the bedroom where the family was slaughtered, the officers found a green notebook filled with Joshua's writing. The Salt Lake Tribune released an article that listed secrets. Joshua wrote about himself, including, I live the typical normal person's life. I have a sex addiction. I've always hated sex offenders and their behaviors. I have been sexually abusing my wife for several years. All right. So those are some big revelations. Yeah. According to the Daily Harold, Sergeant John Jackson with the Spanish Fork PD said about the notebook, I learned from the writing that Josh was dealing with several issues emotionally. He had been abused physically, sexually,

and emotionally as a child and was still upset with his mother for not protecting him from the abuse. while interviewing people close to the family, multiple individuals, including Joshua's therapist, reported that he had been drugging Kelly by putting Ambien in her protein shakes and then raping her. And it was said that he filmed these assaults on multiple occasions. Now we're getting to an area that's really disturbing. I know in one episode you and I joked about the Seinfeld episode where they were feeding that lady turkey in order for her to fall asleep so they could play with her vintage toys that she wouldn't let them play with. Okay, that's lighthearted.

It's comical. This is not. Number one, this is your wife. It would be horrible to do it to anybody. But you're purposefully drugging. your wife, raping her, and filming it. And why are you filming it? For what purpose? So you can go back and watch it later?

And relive it, possibly, you know, gratify yourself while you're watching. I mean, this is all sick stuff. But tie it back in to him writing in his journal. I have a sex addiction. Okay, there are a lot of people that do. Sure there is. Doesn't give you the permission to do what he did. No, there are a lot of people that that have that either find consensual partners, you know, do things on their own.

Right. Without getting too graphic, but you know what I'm saying. They're not hurting anyone. Right. He is. And not just anyone, his own wife. Kelly's friends came forward and told the police that she had found the tapes of her being raped while she was unconscious in 2013, they got in a fight.

She demanded that Joshua will leave the house. The Salt Lake Tribune reported that during the police investigation into the drugged assaults, the alleged video footage was never uncovered. However, the Green Journal filled with Joshua's confessions, supports the rape allegations. So apparently, at some point in time, he must have gotten rid of these videos. Right. Sometime after she discovered them. But logged him into his journal.

Yeah. And I get it. A lot of people like to keep diaries, journals. I don't understand writing stuff down that incriminate you that other people could find. That part I don't understand. Unless he was just so confident in himself of not being caught or not being. That day, his words would never. be seen by anyone else. Right. Yeah, it must have been. In interviews, Kelly's friends confirmed that

she did not report the assaults because she didn't want to ruin Joshua's career as a police officer. I mean, he was the father of their kids, so I'm sure she was trying to protect that in a strange way. You know, it's strange that she's trying to protect him from what he's done to her, but she's probably looking at what's best for my kids. And maybe she thought, the best for my kids is he needs to have a job, he needs to earn money so that they have a roof over their head. Well, sadly, we know there are a large number of rapes and sexual assaults that go unreported. It's been that way for a long time. It continues. And I think there are various reasons why people don't report some of those things. You could be spot on. You could be

completely wrong. Oh, absolutely. She could have a totally different reason. The thing is we don't know. We're never going to know. We can only speculate. Right. Other than she didn't want him to lose his job. We know that part because her friends confirmed it. In 2019, KUTV did a report on the correlation between police officers and domestic abuse,

citing the Joshua Bourne case as an example. According to the KUTV article in 1991 and 1992, there was an investigation. into a connection that stated two studies have found that at least 40% of police officer families experienced domestic violence. And that was in contrast to 10% of families in the general population. That's a big gap. That's a big difference.

10% versus 40%. The report gives some insight into why domestic violence is about four times higher in police families compared to the general American family. The article also gives some explanation as to why it would potentially be more dangerous to leave a marriage with a police officer than it would be for non-police families experiencing domestic violence. They listed it out, right? Number one, the officer abusing them has a gun.

There's no way around that. Right. Police officers carry guns. That can be scary. Number two, the officer abusing them has more access to the location of shelters for domestic abuse victims. Yeah, I'll find you. Yeah, I think it's a great point. Yeah.

You know, my understanding is that they do try to maintain some secrecy, right, as it pertains to the locations of these domestic abuse victim shelters, because they don't want abusers to be able to find. Right. But how hard would it be for a police officer? Not hard. Number three, the officer abusing them has intricate knowledge of the criminal justice system and could more easily manipulate the case compared to someone who's not all that familiar, right, with the ends and outs of family court or criminal court.

And that's a lot of leverage. So I found this study. this article to be very interesting. You know, first of all, four times more likely to be domestic violence in a family that, you know, that involves a police officer. That's shocking to me. But then, you know, when they kind of lay out some of the reasons why and the reasons why it would be even harder, let's say for someone to leave that relationship, it does.

does start to make some sense. This report also states that a 2013 study examined 324 cases of domestic violence involving officers. It found that 281 officers from 226 law enforcement agencies were arrested for domestic violence. Of all the cases, police officers who were arrested, charged, and even convicted of abuse, More than half of them kept their jobs. That seems alarming to me. Yeah. Yeah, I'm kind of stupefied, to be honest with you.

Because that's a position of power. Amends power. Yeah. Sometimes too much power, depending on how an officer chooses to wield it. So then it makes you wonder how the victim reacts to that. I'm sure they don't feel safe. Oh, absolutely not. Now, could you say that that would happen in, let's say, an office job?

It probably would. Sure. But I think that's apples and oranges. You know, if you work in a cubicle, I'm not saying that whatever you did was right, it's not right. But to your point, you don't have the responsibility, the power, the interaction with the public that a police officer does. The National Center for Women in Policing said domestic violence cases are underreported

because victims know that if they called the police, their case would be handled by colleagues and friends of their abuser. So there again gives another reason why it would be very tough, let's say, for the spouse of a police officer to report what's going on. Yeah, I think it's hard for a lot of victims. to come forward with it, period. But now as a member of the police family, for sure, you have to be even more concerned.

Well, let's say you're a woman, your husband's a police officer who is abusing you. Right. You call to report it who comes out, his good friend, Billy Bob. Sure. What's Billy Bob going to do? He's going to probably try to smooth the situation over and say,

I'll talk to him. There's no, no reason to press. charges, we'll make it better for you, or whatever he's going to say. But it's probably not going to be what he should do. It's probably not going to be the same thing he would do in the exact same situation where a police officer was not involved. Yes. I think you can make that argument very easily. They also went on to say, kind of what we just talked about, but, you know, victims of domestic violence at the hands of a police officer, they just fear that the officers, that the officers are going to side with the abuser and that they're not going to properly investigate or

handle the crime. They also say that many police agencies often handle these cases informally. They don't even take an official report. There's really no investigation or later check on the victim's safety. So I think what all of this is kind of leading up to is that Kelly Bourne would have been one of the most high-risk victims as, you know, there was not only domestic abuse, but there was also rape. Both of those things, as we mentioned, they're already wildly unreported for a number of reasons, but I think that gets amplified when the abuser is a member of some type of law enforcement agency. Now, none of this is meant to put down law enforcement. It's meant to put down abusers.

Sure. It is, but, you know, if they're in law enforcement. But I think you made a very valid point. It is tough for many victims to report abuse, get out of these abusive relationships. We have talked about that a number of times. What I don't think we've ever talked about is this scenario where your abuser is a police officer. Yeah. And I do think you can see how it could be even tougher in that situation. I mean, I think even Hollywood has thrown a lot of light at that, like with that Jennifer Lopez

movie. Her husband was a police officer in that one? Yeah. Is that the one where she trained in like martial arts or something to be able to kick ass? Like kickboxing and all that stuff. Yeah. I remember that. I can't remember what it's called. Is that also the one where she was hitting her chest? Yeah. The Salt Lake Tribune found reports that Kelly was having an affair with a man she met at Gold's Gym in Spanish Fork. The man's kind of remained anonymous in the media, but he insisted that Joshua did not know about their affair. He also claims that he and Kelly had exchanged texts during the day of her murder. One of them from Kelly read, Josh is starting crap again. Another said, I told Josh if he keeps it up, I won't let him see the kids.

There were also heated text messages found on Kelly's phone between she and Josh on the night before the murder. She wrote, I didn't fucking quit. You raped me. Then he replied, I did this, but you won't let us support each other through it. She then says, you killed a part of me. I'm done. You're right. I give up.

Now leave me alone. following this volatile message exchange the next morning. Kelly texted Josh that their marriage was over and she was going to be filing for divorce as well as threatening to take the kids away from him. He replied, don't involve the kids. They are innocent. So now we have some more pieces to the puzzle. Yeah.

Kelly's having an affair. I don't know at this point if they're even really husband and wife other than by title. Yeah, I mean, they are living separately. And then I think, you know, these text messages, they shed some light as well. You know, if she threatened Josh, that he wouldn't be able to see his kids, could that have caused him to snap? And then you also have some text messages that really back up what he wrote in the journal, right? She says, you raped me. And he said, I did this, but you won't let us work through it. I don't know if that's something that you can work through. Pretty hard. Yeah, pretty hard. Because she goes on to say, you killed a part of me.

And then the next morning, she says, marriage is over. I'm filing for divorce. Okay. Is that what precipitated him doing what he, what he did? Or was it all that put, you know, combined? Because it was only hours later that Joshua methodically murdered his family. The Salt Lake Tribune reported that the last text message Joshua sent before the murders was at 6 p.m. This text message was to his mother, who we already said he resented, he kind of hated and loathed her for not protecting him from the sexual abuse. He suffered as a child. It said, I hope you are having a good day. Have a long and healthy life. You ever get a text message from someone that sounds very honest? ominous.

Yeah. I have two. It turned out not to mean what I kind of read into it. Yeah. But if I read this, I would think, okay, what does that mean? It's one thing to say, I hope you're having a good day. Have a long and healthy life is I'm never seeing you again. Right.

Should be somewhat concerning. Something is about to happen. Now, it came out that Joshua had met a man named Buck Buffton through the Utah County, SWAT team. The Salt Lake Tribune reported that Buck had urged Josh to get professional help to work through his childhood trauma. He later said he needed help 20 years ago. He was able to fool a lot of us. He was a good officer and deputy, but I knew he had problems. I just never imagined it was this horrible in that Josh was so far gone. During the police investigation, Joshua's therapist was interviewed. According to the Deserate News, the therapist was helping Josh with his sex addiction

and problems with his marriage. However, a large amount of time was directed towards working through the deep hatred he felt for his mother. Clearly, that was the underlying issue. Yeah, it seems like the one that kind of started at all. Apparently, she called Joshua a three-year-old stuck in a big man's body. It was his therapist. who was the one who recommended that Joshua should write his feelings and secrets down in a journal to hopefully help him work through his rage. So that kind of explains why he's journaling. And one of these journals was the green notebook.

We talked about where Joshua listed his sexual secrets. Investigation reports say that Joshua stated there was someone else living inside him. Okay, I don't know what you make of that because that could go a bunch of different ways. Either Jacqueline Hyde or, you know, I'm good Josh most of the time, but bad Josh is in there. Yeah. And he's likely to come out. Or other individuals, multiple. Well, that's possible as well.

His sister was interviewed after the murders and she shed some light on who Josh was before he became a killer. The Deserate News reported that according to her, the unresolved trauma of the sexual abuse he suffered from as a child. child and the negligence of his mother caused him to become increasingly more unstable. At a young age, his trauma led him to a high-risk lifestyle. His relationship with sex became volatile. He was addicted to pornography and he was abusing drugs. She also stated, Joshua usually kept things bottled in. But when he snapped, he really lost control.

Man, I know we have talked about that. Yeah, I have talked about it last week. I believe you're right. Being that, you know, people that bottle stuff up, keep stuff, you know, under wraps for a long time can sometimes snap. And when they do, it could be really, really bad. You don't want to be around when it happens. It was also reported that his sister knew about Joshua drugging and raping Kelly while videotaping it. Even though the majority of people who knew Joshua, including his coworkers, claim there was no apparent red flag.

or signs of trouble, I think it's pretty obvious. Gibbs from the research that there were at least some people who suspected that this guy was struggling. Yeah. And, you know, it goes back to what do your coworkers really know about you? Now, this one officer, Buck. Buck obviously saw the sign because he said, man, you need to get some help. You're struggling.

But he may have just been way more. perceptive than most. That's true. Or he may have had more intimate types of talks than other coworkers had with Joshua. At his last encounter with his mother at a December gathering, she reportedly said his eyes just looked evil. Witnesses of this encounter claim that Joshua told his mother, I'm just like you, mom. I sweep everything under the rug.

Well, he's calling his mom out saying, look, you allowed me to be abused. You turn a blind eye to it, swept it underneath the rug. Hey, I inherit your same philosophy. But what is he sweeping under the rug? Because it seems as though he's doing the bad stuff. Right. Is that what he's saying?

I'm sweeping my bad stuff under the rug? I think so. It's possible. So, you know, no doubt, this quadruple murder suicide shocked the state of Utah. but it was even more shocking because only two days before. In Syracuse, a mother, Kyler, Ramsdale, Olivia, 32 years old, shot and killed her two daughters, seven-year-old Isabella, and 13-year-old Kennedy. But that tragedy was seemingly overtaken in the media when the born King family was murdered.

The born family case exploded in the media in the U.S. and even reached Kelly's birthplace in England, everyone began asking the question. How could the inevitable breakdown of Joshua Boren kind of slipped through the cracks, right? There were people who had inclinations that he needed help and could potentially be dangerous without professional help. So why was there no intervention? That's the question that, you know,

a lot of people began asking. and this question was posed to the Linden Police Chief Cody Cullimore and the Utah County Sheriff Sergeant Spencer Camp. They reportedly explained that before a potential officer is hired, they are required to go through a mental health check and a background check. However, after an officer is sworn into the police force, they're not required to receive regular checkups. They also stated that there are counselors available

for officers who experienced something traumatic in the field, but that resource is optional not required. Fox 13 reported that Chief Cullmore also added, in the three months Bourne has been on the force, his behavior has not raised any concern within the department. You know, when you look at that policy, it's such a bad policy. If you're going to have the screening before they come on, before they experience any potential trauma,

wouldn't you want them that continue to have screenings? I would think it be more important to have those ongoing screenings. Yeah, almost like a checkup. Yeah. Yeah. I get that. When you do this self-serve thing, you know, we have this counselor for you if you ever need it, but it's up to you decide if you need it.

Nobody ever takes advantage of it. Oh. You know, I think especially as a male police officer, and maybe even a female police officer as well, I kind of view it in the same light as I view a professional athlete. Nobody wants to admit that they're not good to go. Exactly. Because it's seen as a sign of weakness or they think it is.

Right. So that's why athletes try to play through injury. And if you look at police officers and let's look at Joshua, he's struggling. Is he going to go in there and admit that and take a chance that? you know, it's going to become part of his record or that it's going to get out to other officers who then are not going to trust him. Or they're going to put him on leave. Yeah. Yeah.

So I'm with you. The optional thing, it just doesn't get taken advantage of in scenarios like that very often. I wouldn't believe. So apparently prior to the murders, the small town of Spanish Fork was overflowing with rumors. about the born couple. Detective stated word was starting to get out about Josh drugging and raping Kelly. And he may have felt like he was about to be reported, which would have resulted in the loss of his job and probably incarceration.

So I think detectives coming out and saying that is basically along the lines of this could have been maybe what precipitated what he did. I think if you take that and add in the last conversation he had with his wife about, I'm going to file divorce. We're done. We're done. You're going to see the kids. Yeah.

Yeah. That might have just tipped them over. So you have all these kind of rumors circulating through the town, but it was said that there were no official records that showed any history of violent crimes of domestic abuse between the couple. Well, because she didn't report it. to protect him. There had never been a deputy called to the home until the murders occurred.

But again, I think you're right. It's all because she made the decision that she didn't want him to lose his job. And I think she knew that if she were to report that, it would have cost him his job. But it was also said that while a lot of people in the town apparently were becoming more aware of these issues, the police officers working with Josh had no clue. Lieutenant Matt Johnson of the Spanish Fork PD said, investigators received information that there were marital issues in the past, but none of them had been reported to authorities.

Kelly's father, Jeff King, also said that he was unaware of how deeply disturbing the couple's issues were. He said, they got along great. They were doing date nights. We saw nothing, nothing that could possibly. possibly prepare you, I still can't wrap my head around it. Jeff King was in Saudi Arabia during a bombing in 1996, but he said it was nothing in comparison to the news he received that morning. So not only did he get the news that his only child was murdered, which we've always said is,

you know, every parent's nightmare. But he was also told his ex-wife and his two grandchildren were dead as well. For people that he loved. Yeah, absolutely. And then I think on top of that, to make it even worse, his son-in-law, this person that he trusted, he counted on, was the person who took them away from him. Yeah, I'm thinking it's the last person you would ever think, right? He's a police officer, but more importantly, he's the husband, the father, the son-in-law.

Yeah, and I do think that's more important. I often think a lot of times we put police officers up on a pedestal. Yeah. And we expect them to be more than what they can really be. Right. They're just people. Yeah. They're regular people. They're not Avengers.

They're not super. They're not Superman. They're not, they're not Batman. They have the same issues that the rest of us have. Right. Which means they're going to slip and fall and do things that they're not. supposed to do. But a lot of times you don't think about police officers like that. You think of police officers as like being back in the 1950s and wholesome and they're going to do everything

right. Right. But that's not the way it worked. No. Unfortunately, they're just like any of the rest of them. They're even. But when you think about your son-in-law, and I'm probably going to have one here sometime soon, the amount of trust that you're putting in. You're putting in. You're not. You're into that person, you would never expect them to hurt, you know, your daughter, your wife, you're anybody in your family. You've taken them in. They're in the inner circle to use a Focker reference. Yeah. I mean, I get it. You should be able to lay your head down on your pillow when you go to sleep at night knowing that your daughter is in safe hands. Unfortunately, we know that's not always the case. That's true. So what should be or should happen and what

is or does happen is not the same. And we've learned that, right, from doing the show for as many years as we have. In an interview for KSL, Jeff King said they were his whole world. He said, because Joshua also took his life, I can't even question him. I can't strike out of him. He even took that for me. That rage that he experienced towards Josh, he said, is incomprehensible. And I do think that would be a very tough situation on top of, you know, this devastation. You can't even go to prison and yell at this guy. Ask him, why did you do this? You can't do any of those things.

You're just left to sit and wonder. Yeah. Always asking that question. Why? So if you look at it, Jeff King is another victim impacted by Josh Bourne. Sure. Yeah. All of Kelly's friends, they're upset, they're victims.

She's taken away from them. According to the desert news, one friend said, I don't know what state of mind. A person can be in to do that, especially to children. When children are involved, it just makes me sick. It does, man. It all makes me sick, but it does. But you and I have talked about it at length, right? When you talk about little kid, it becomes even harder.

to understand. It's all tough to understand. After a seven-month investigation into the murders, the Spanish Fork PD wrote in a report, Josh was a very troubled individual that felt like he was about to lose his wife and children. Yeah, I think we all can agree to that. Yeah, I mean, this is not a case where, you know, there's information about grand juries and indictments and and a trial, his prison sentence. What are he doing in prison? Where is he at now? We don't have any of that.

Right. Because he chose to end his life. I do agree with you that kind of this report sums it up pretty well. It does appear as though the reason why he chose to kill his wife, his children, even his mother-in-law, and then himself was because everything was crumbling down around him.

Yeah. He was going to lose at all, his marriage, the ability to, you know, to live with his kids, probably and see them every day. No excuse. No. None whatsoever. But you're always looking for the trigger or, you know, what was it that caused him to do what he, what he did?

and I do think that was it. All signs kind of point to that. But they're also saying that, you know, he was a troubled individual. You look back at the sexual abuse that he experienced as a child. He obviously had a very deep-seated resentment and hatred towards his mother. That's an understatement. So how did all of that play into, you know, the man that he became? and what he ultimately did when his world did start to crumble.

We don't know, but my assumption is that it played a role. Yeah. Marie Kelly, Haley, and Jaden were buried together on January 22nd in late in Utah. Joshua's funeral was the next day in Spanish Fork. As we wrap up this episode gives, I probably say it too often, you know, that somebody he kind of seems like they have it all. You know, that, that's on the surface. It's very surface type stuff.

But he did have a loving wife. He had, you know, two kids. It didn't seem as though his wife just got tired of him and said, you know, well, I'm going to look for somebody better. He caused her to want to exit the relationship by drugging her and sexually assaulting her. Yeah, to the point she even tried to save his career. So I think she went beyond. Above and beyond. Yeah, absolutely. She went further than she needed to, maybe to try to save the marriage, his job, hold things together. But at a certain point,

she obviously realized that it's pointless. I can't live like this. He's not getting any better. He's not going to stop. You know, people can only put up with so much for so long before they throw their hands up. Yeah, it sounds like she made the decision that was best for her and the children as well. He just wasn't man enough to accept it. Right. You know, you messed up. This is what is happening as a result of what you did. Now you have to live with it.

And Joshua Bourne couldn't live with it. No, he couldn't. And he wouldn't allow those around him to live either. He didn't want them to move forward. about him. No. So he did what he did. And you talk about the spider web of effect. You know, this is, uh, some murders that affected so many people. Yeah, it's going to spread out to both sides of the family. It's going to have impacts all the way around. Yep. But that's it for our episode on Joshua Bourne. We got some voicemails. You want to check those out? Let's hear him.

Hi, my name is Carissa O' Quinn and I'm from Chelsea, Michigan. I found this podcast a few months ago, and I've been working backwards, so I'm in the mid-100s right now. I haven't started unsolved yet, but I might, so you might want to play this voicemail on just T-CAT. But I have two suggestions for you guys. One is the 1993 murder of my mom's cousin, J.J. Thibo, and that's spelled J-A-Y, last name, T-H-I-E-B-A-U-T, Jr. He was a pastor at the Stockbridge First Baptist Church, and he was advising a woman with

marital problems. He started an affair with her and the woman's husband murdered him in 2003. And then the second suggestion I have is actually from my high school, Chelsea High School, where there was a shooting in 1993. Unlike a lot of school shootings, this was a targeted act and specific people. Actually, my dad's old chemistry teacher was the one that was the shooter and he shot and killed the superintendent and injured two more. And he just went back to his class and started grading papers. Anyway, I love you guys. And I think you might be interested if you looked into these two cases, but stay safe and keep your own time taken. All right.

Yeah, thank you very much for the voicemail, and it sounds like two very interesting cases. Yeah, have to check those out. Yeah, we'll definitely put them on the list. Hey, you guys, Gary's calling from Colorado again. I was just listening to the new episode, the Clifford guy up in college south Canada. Jesus, it's not like you were talking about using the prison wallet

and how the guy had to go to the hospital because he had T-shirted, a handcuffed key, and then Fergie said, I don't understand the whole retrieval process, and it was a prime thought for Fergie to say, he didn't either, but he didn't say it. He had to go to the hospital to get it, like, taken out of his body, because he didn't understand the retrieval process either.

And he just sits there and mumble some nonsense, blah, blah, whatever. Come on, man. Work with me. All right, save, safe, safety. I'm taking time. I love that voice. So basically,

is she saying that by not saying that you didn't understand it either? Yeah. You're admitting that you do understand how the retrieval process works and have experienced it. What's the next voicemail? That's the last voicemail. We're going to talk about this one more. No. No.

It always cracks me up what people catch and what they find either funny or, you know, or they get a kick out of or something like that. Yeah, what they hang on to? That you and I might not think is anything as we're going through it. Yeah. And obviously, probably if we did think it was something, we would have talked about it more and played it up a little. Yeah.

But we just didn't, we don't catch it or we don't think about it. Thanks for that voicemail. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much. I got a kick out of it. I did too. I laughed when I heard it.

Not as big as a kick as you got. Yeah. Well, for me. Because, you know, you get so much love. It's so great. Just, you know, once in a blue moon for somebody to call in and say, Put me in my place. Maybe you could have done this or why didn't you do that?

Very true. We did have mailbag. Kalin, Poirer sent us a magnet, a poker chip, and a postcard from Quebec. Awesome. Thank you. Or Quebec. I've heard it a number of ways now. Quebec.

I feel like here in the States, we say Quebec. and maybe some people do in Canada, but I think there are also some Canadians that I've heard say Quebec. I guess it depends if they're French Canadian or Canadian. Canadian Canadian? Yeah. Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know. I'm going to say Quebec. That's just how I've always said it. I'll just say the Q. Is that what shortened to the Q? That's what I'm doing. Okay. Yeah.

All right. That's it for another episode of true crime all the time. So for Mike and givey. Stay safe and keep your. own time ticking.