True Crime All The Time - The Lillelid Murders

Episode Date: August 3, 2020

In 1997, the Lillelid family was on their way home from a Jehovah's Witness retreat in Johnson City, Tennessee. Vidar, Delphina, and their two children, 6-year-old Tabitha and 2-year-old Peter stopped at a rest area to picnic. That's where they encountered a group of six young people who were travelling, trying to leave their lives in their small Kentucky town behind. When the two groups met, it started a chain of events that ended in murder.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the brutal and senseless murders of the Lillelid family. The group of six from Kentucky were led by an 18-year-old named Natasha Cornett. Natasha had a troubled life and became fascinated with the occult, vampire role-playing games, and the drinking of blood. Many of the others in the group followed her actions. But, how did a chance meeting between this group and a family of four end up in murder? And, who within the group actually fired the shots that killed 3 of the 4 Lillelid family members?You can support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation information An Emash Digital productionSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

everyone and welcome to episode 194 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 good about you. I'm doing pretty good. You know, I've had a rough couple of weeks. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think if people listened to last week's episode, they heard that my daughter was in the hospital for a couple of days, then she got out. Yeah. But then you and I recorded. Right. And the night that we recorded, she had to go back into children's and was there for four days in total. So that was pretty rough. But the good thing is they took a different approach the second time. And her last CT scan showed that all the clots had had gone away. They'd been busted up. So,

you know, we've been home for a couple days now. Still trying to. I'm still trying to. to catch up on sleep because sleeping in a hospital is tough as anybody that's done it will attest to. And you can get grumpy. Yeah, but we're thankful. And I'm also thankful and one show my appreciation for the concern and the wonderful messages that people have sent in about, you know, my daughter, myself, you, my family. It's a very warm feeling. Yeah.

To know that we have a T-CAT family. and that's what I call it. Right. That cares as much about you and I and our families as they do. Yeah, they're wonderful. Absolutely amazing. All right, Gibbs, let's start out with our new supporter shoutouts. We had Batty Royale Rocks jump out to our highest level.

Royale rocks. Mm-hmm. Royale with cheese. John Calamia. Hey, John. Pam Thomas. What's going on, Pam. Elizabeth Fitzgerald jumped out to our highest level.

level. Hey Fitzgerald. Brian Braithwaite jumped out at our highest level. What's going on, Brian? We had James Huffaker. Hey, Huffaker. It's probably Huffaker. What up Huffacre. Alberta Love. Hey, Alberta. Molly Williamson. What's going on, Molly? Jackie. Hey, Jackie. Violet Moore. Hey, thank you, Violet. Sam Kelsey. Hey, Sam. Jacqueline Chandler jumped out to our highest level. Hey, Jacqueline. Tanika Green. What's up, Tanika. Tiffany Koalczyk. Kowaskitch. Yeah, that's very close. Yes.

Jake Arlo. Hey, Jake. Stephanie McDonald. What's going on, Stephanie? I thought you were going to say, old McDonald. No, because I knew you thought I'd say that, so I changed the day one.

Yeah. You don't use the old thing as much as you used to. Just never know. Jason J. Dobs. Hey, J. Dobs. Kirsten. What's going on, Kirsten? Margo Moser.

Hey, Margo. And Pat Ifflin. What's up? Ifflind. So thank you all for. for the new Patreon support. And then we go back into the vault Gibbs. All right.

This week we selected Allison Hardwick. Hey, appreciate that, Alison. Appreciate that, Alison. Appreciate that new support and that long time continued support. We had some great PayPal donations as well. Well, a fairly large donation from Marion Khan. Hey, thank you, Marion. Sammy Ramsey.

What's going on, Sammy? And also Alyssa, Esper. Espinosa Davis. Espinosa Davis. I like that. Yeah. So thank you all. Gibbs, right now, we have a brand new episode out on true crime all the time unsolved.

We're talking about the disappearance and murder of Gannon Stalk. Yeah, that's a good and current case going on right now. Yeah, I think people are really going to find this interesting. And this is one of those that you and I talk about every now and then where, yes, technically the case is unsolved. Right. But there are elements to it and I don't want to give anything away that people that really like the solved portion of the cases, they will be okay with this one.

Yeah. Does that make sense without giving anything away? Yeah. We also have a brand new Patreon only episode out right now. It's on Cal Harris. And the disappearance of his wife, Michelle. Harris in upstate New York. Man, that was, that was a good episode.

There's a lot of twists and turns in this episode. Yeah. And there are, I'm sure, a lot of people that are familiar with this case, but it's definitely worth listening to it. If you're a Patreon supporter and you haven't checked it out, make sure you do. All right, Gibby, are you ready to get into this episode of true crime all the time? I am. We're talking about a case known as the Lillel Lid Murders.

Three of the four members of the Lily Lid family were murdered in Tennessee by a group of six teenagers and young adults from Kentucky that ranged in age from 14 to 20. There are some occult aspects to this group, a little blood drinking, a little Satan worship. So, you know, we're in the 90s, so we definitely have some satanic panic. but also some real occult type happenings. And this happened not long after the crimes of Rod Farrell that we profiled not long ago, who was also from Kentucky. So,

you know, I kind of got to thinking what in the world was going on in Kentucky in the mid-90s with, with, you know, all these kids kind of dabbling in the occult? Or was this stuff just happening all over? Right.

And we happened to pick, you know, two cases close together from the state of Kentucky. I'm sure it was happening all over. Now, these groups were about 400 miles away from each other in Kentucky. Farrell's group was from Murray on the western side of the state. And this group was from the eastern part of the state, the more mountainous coal country. Right.

Some have said this group and the crimes they committed were less about the occult. And more about just a group of young people wanting to escape life in small town, Eastern Kentucky. My dad's family grew up in eastern Kentucky up in the mountains, the coal towns and things like that. I don't think they ever thought about doing anything what these people did, ever. No, I'm sure they did not. And we're going to talk about Pikeville, where these kids are from.

And, you know, these were kids that that stood up. out in Pikeville, right? The majority of Pikeville saw these kids dressed in black, goth, as way outside of the mainstream. Right. In 1990s, small town, Kentucky. But let's start off talking about the Lily Lid family. They were Jehovah's Witnesses. And in April of 1997, they traveled to Johnson City, Tennessee from their home in Powell, Tennessee. near Knoxville, 34-year-old Vidar Lilulet, his 28-year-old wife, Delphina, and their two children, six-year-old Tabitha, and two-year-old Peter, were in Johnson City for a yearly Jehovah's Witness gathering slash retreat. Vidar had immigrated to the U.S. from Norway in the 1980s. He was living in

Miami, Florida when he met Delphina, who was born in New Jersey, two Honduran parents. The two fell in love. They got married in 1989 and eventually had two children. But Miami didn't mesh with their lifestyle. And they moved to Tennessee, in part, I think, to escape the crime down there in Miami. Yeah, a little more relaxed lifestyle, for sure. Well, maybe they saw Scarface and they just thought, you know what? This is not for us. Miami is not the town for us.

We need to move on from here, go somewhere else for a little bit. Let this, you know, Scarface stuff settle down. Well, and my assumption is Powell, Tennessee is about as far, not geographically, but about as far away from Miami, Florida as you can get. Well, you know, I know that we both have been to LaFalette in places like that. Jacksboro. Yeah, Powell's, Powell's going to be very similar. Not quite the crime rate.

No. I would think that you find out in Miami. And I'm not bagging on Miami. Miami's a great city. Yeah. Very interesting. I love the food. The nightlife's amazing.

But there's also been quite a bit of crime down there over the years. Sure there has. On the afternoon of April 6th, the Lillilids were on their way home back to Powell. And they stopped off at a rest area, off Interstate 81, south near Baileyton, Tennessee. They were just about halfway home between Johnson City and their home and pal. When they pulled off at this rest stop, it was less than a two hour trip in total. But every parent knows what it's like to travel with kids that young. There's no two hour trip when you have kids involved.

No. It turns into two and a half. three, there's always something that comes up that necessitates a pull off, right? You know, someone's got a potty. Someone needs a drink. Someone needs to stretch their legs. It's always something. That's what your wife says about you.

And she's not lying. Sometimes I have to potty. Sometimes I need a drink and sometimes I need to stretch my legs. My mom and dad would never stop. I don't know if I've ever told this story, but I have a family member who will remember. remain nameless. Yeah. Who when growing up as a young child, she and her sister were not allowed, uh,

to pull off the, their dad would not stop. You know, it's like Chevy Chase and vacation. Got to keep the schedule. You got to keep that schedule. So they had, uh, you know, something to use the, uh, the bathroom in. Yeah. And the idea was that at some point you're going to slow down and you're going to dump this out the window.

Right. well somebody dumped it out the window while they were going down and came back in the back way it peeled the paint off like the whole side of the car it's a whole big story that's no good i don't want to get anybody in trouble so i don't want to name any names but my mom just passed the peanut butter empty peanut butter jar around that's what we got but gibbs think back to the time when your kids were two three four five years old my kids just didn't even want to be in their car seat so it could have been as simple as that. They just wanted to get out of the car seat and you had to stop and get out and kind of, you know, take them around. I also believe that they were planning on having a little picnic,

maybe, you know, grabbing a bite to eat. What they couldn't have known is that they were about to encounter a group of young people who were on the run and had very little regard for human life. This group consisted of 18-year-old's Natasha Cornett and Crystal Sturgle, 17-year-old Karen Howe, 20-year-old Joseph Reisner, 19-year-old Dean Mullins, and 14-year-old Jason Bryant. And this was a group that found each other because they were all a little different from their fellow classmates, at least the five older ones. 14 year old Jason Bryant was kind of an outlier and we'll talk about him. But, you know, the five, they formed a bond over wearing black. They went with the goth look, um, especially the girls. You know, some of these guys kind of came into the group as boyfriends.

Right. And that's an interesting dynamic that, you know, we'll talk about as we go along as well. But the girls, you know, they were into the Ouija boards, the vampire roleplay. games, which is, you know, again, we talked about that in the Rod Farrell episode. I didn't even know there was such a thing as vampire role playing games. I know there was Dungeons and Dragons, but I don't consider that to be a vampire role playing game. And it certainly wasn't in the Rod Farrell episode. That was a strictly, you're a vampire. And now you do this and act like a vampire. Exactly. Yeah. Natasha Cornette has been portrayed as the ringling

leader of the group. And really the one that was the most into the occult, I believe. Her family has said that at one time Natasha was a straight-A student, but all that changed around eighth grade. That's when she really got into the Ouija board, the role-playing games. She began to self-harm by cutting herself with razor blades. But she also started drinking blood. Yeah, I don't want to say that the other ones aren't important because obviously anytime you're talking about self-harm and cutting yourself, that's extremely important. This is a sign that somebody needs help. But then you start talking about, you know, drinking blood. Okay, well, you're into these vampire role-playing games. You're delving into the occult and there's blood involved. She was hospitalized at the age of 13 for self-harmes. and examined by mental health professionals. But Natasha was in a constant fight with her mother at home. And she dropped out of school in the ninth grade.

She was arrested a number of times. She had a failed marriage at a very young age, maybe, you know, 17 or so that lasted less than a year. Which is, you know, I mean, how many marriages are going to last? If you're married that early, it's going to be very difficult because you're not really ready for that. Well, I'll say this. I was not married at 17, but marriage is tough. Yeah. Marriage is tough at any age. I do think it's tougher the younger you are because you're less mature. You're less stable in your education and your jobs. All of that makes marriage tough.

But Gibbs, one big thing that came up in the research is that Natasha's mother's trailer where she lit. I think she moved out for a while while she was in this marriage, but eventually she ended up back with her mother. This trailer was kind of the hot spot where a lot of kids hung out. And by her mother's own admissions, there was not a lot of parental guidance. So, you know, these kids were pretty much able to do whatever they wanted. Come and go, as they please. Yeah. Alcohol, drugs, seances. I mean. Sex, whatever. sex, whatever they wanted to do. And I don't know about you, but I remember being in school, there was always at least one kid whose parents either didn't really care what they did or,

you know, worked so much or weird shifts that they were never home. And it was a place where a lot of kids congregated. And now, this is a different situation. Natasha. his mother was there. It wasn't like this was being done covertly. She was there. She would later say, well, I didn't know exactly what they were all doing.

Well, that's to me, not to badmouth this woman, but to me, that's because you may not be parenting to your full ability. Right. I mean,

I know some parents do that because they at least want their kid near them, they're in their house. Mm-hmm. where they know at least they might not be doing what I want them to be doing, but at least I know where she's at or he's at. Yeah. You know, and so I don't have to worry about them coming home eventually.

I understand that. I understand that. But I do think, and every parent's different. They have to make their own decisions. And I can only really speak for myself. I don't feel comfortable not knowing what's going on. That's a huge thing with me. Sure.

And for the most part, I think I have a really good grasp. on what goes on under my roof. Now, I can't always know what happens at other places, but I guess the point I'm making is this kind of free for all house environment led to these kids doing a lot of things they shouldn't have been doing. Now, you can make the argument they would have done them somewhere else and you were kind of heading down that road a little bit. But the fact of the matter is they happened at Natasha's mom's house. Exactly. The three. in the group, they had a lot in common. They have all said that they experienced sexual abuse growing up.

There was alcohol and drug use, self-harm, violence in the home. Karen Howe dropped out of school at the age of 16. Crystal Sturgel's home life was so bad that she ended up moving in with Natasha and her mother. So I mentioned that some of the boys kind of came in as boyfriends. Right. Right. into the group. Natasha was dating Dean Mullins while Karen Howell was dating Joe Reisner. Neither of these guys had a criminal record or was said to have been involved with substance

abuse. They became part of the group because they were dating these girls. They were in love, man. They were in love. And then there was 14 year old Jason Bryant, obviously quite a few years younger than the others. Bryant had an extremely low IQ and was said to have been abusing drugs from the age of nine years old. We even saw a report where he began drinking at the age of three. Yeah. I don't know how valid that is, but three years old.

That's not Tang, man. No, you're heading down the wrong road, brother. That's Tang, Tang with vodka in it. And drugs hit nine. I mean, I know kids today are doing things maybe earlier than we did. Right. I get that feeling that kids are experimenting at younger and younger ages. I could be off about that.

That's more of a feeling that I have. I know you and I probably did some experimenting at young ages too. I wasn't drinking Tito's at age three. No, no. And you would have never opened your wallet to actually buy Titos. That's true. It would have been some. them. Whatever the cheapest tequila they had was. But when you start talking about under 10 years old

and you're abusing drugs and alcohol, wow, that's, uh, that's brutal. It is. Now, add on top of that the fact that, you know, he was said to be very low functioning, right? Low IQ. He was very impressionable. And I think that's going to play a big part into what's going to to come. The thing about Jason was he met Natasha about a month before these murders took place. So he was very new to the group. He wasn't classmates of these people. He was younger, but he did kind of meld into the group about a month before. One thing to me seems clear. This was a group that was drawn together for the most part by Nana. Natasha Cornett.

And that's most likely why people look at her as the ringleader. It was a group that shared common interests, dressing in black, playing with Ouija boards, dabbling in the occult. I think different group members had different levels of their dabbling. Natasha was probably at the top with some of the things that she was into. And then it kind of went down from there. But, you know, this was also a group that. didn't fit the image of what most people in Pikeville, Kentucky thought young people should be

doing or the way that young people should look or the way that they should act. It would have been a little different for Pikeville for sure. Yeah. I mean, if you look at Pikeville, this is coal country. Yeah. You know, like I mentioned, it's, it's in the mountains, a lot of religion. Yes. a lot of churches, a lot of people there are very religious. So I think they're looking at these young people dressing in black, hearing maybe some of the rumblings about the occult and thinking, oh, what's going on in our town? Right. This is a small town.

You're not going to look favorable to that. No, not at all. Not at all. It goes against everything that they believe in. Now, Gibbs, one thing I found very interesting in researching this case is that there does not seem to be one single version of really hardly any of the events that took place. You know, a lot of times when you have a group of people, I won't say all of the facts, but the majority of the facts are going to line up. This one is, you know, it's kind of all over the board. all the members of the group differ somewhat in the telling of this story.

Natasha's attorney would later tell the media that she was heavily influenced by the movie Natural Born Killers and that she wanted the group to go out and do something crazy. But Natasha has always denied that she was the ringleader or that she talked the group into going on some cross-country killing spree. I do think some in the group just wanted to get away from small town Pikeville, Kentucky. Yeah. I don't know if they plan on killing anybody to do that. Yeah, I'm not sure that they did.

You know, but again, there is a lot that is unknown or unclear at the very least, but there's no doubt. At some point, this group made the decision that they were going to get away from Pikeville. There was talk about heading to New Orleans. So on April 4th, the group got together at the Collie Motel. And I think this is some place that they visited frequently. Inside a motel room, they apparently drank blood. They cut themselves. They did some other. They did some other rituals or seances or whatever. And I did see one interesting quote in a couple of different papers. And it was from the manager of this collie motel.

Yeah. And he said, okay, you know, yeah, one of the boys, one of the older boys came in. I think he paid like $30 in cash. Yeah. For the motel room. And the guy made some type of comment like, this is really not, you know, a highfalut in place. This is the kind of place where people pay cash.

If you know what I mean, wink, wink. So, and I got a kick out of that because the guy wasn't pulling any punches. He knew what type of establishment he was running. Right. Oh, I think he also said, this is the place that most people use by the hour. I would say pay by the hour. Yeah. Yeah.

But there, you know, there were some reports that they damaged the hotel room. set it on fire, burn things into the carpet, you know. And again, I think they were of the mindset that they were leaving. Yeah, they didn't care, right? They were, they were skipping town. Doesn't matter. We're leaving anyway. They're not going to come after us. They hung out a little bit the next day. But they, they must have known because they started stealing cash from people, from family members. They took two guns, a 25 and a 9 millimeter. And then they took off on April 6th. in Joe Reisner's mom's car, a blue Chevy citation. Did you ever have a citation?

Actually, I did. My wife's very first car was a white Chevy citation. Really? This was before I knew her, but yeah, I've seen pictures. Yeah. Didn't have it very long, but I had it for a short period of time. Yeah. They were something.

Let's just say that. Add them next to the Chevette, you know. It's just, yeah. Now, they were no Ford Fiesta. That they were not. But so they were something. Hey, T-Cat fans, a crime is like a puzzle. Each connection helps reveal the big picture, and it can be a thrill to put it all together.

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by a highway patrol officer inside Tennessee. Joe Reisner was driving, the officer looked at his license and let them go along their way. I don't know that the officer had any reason to be suspicious. The car wasn't reported as stolen. Right. I do believe he may have told her that he was going to go on spring break. Then about 80 miles from home, the group stopped at a rest area. And this is where they encountered the Lillel Lid family.

The family, I think, had just. finished up eating at the picnic area when the group piled out of the Chevy citation. And my thought is Gibbs, VDAR probably thought this was a site, right? This group of six young people piling out of this car, they're all dressed in black. You know, and this was a family that took their faith very seriously. And don't forget, they had just come from this weekend long, Jehovah's Witness retreat. So they were probably really kind of amped up with, what's the word I'm looking for?

Religiousness or, you know, religiousness or, you know, they were energized about their beliefs and their faith. They're really pumped. And my understanding is that a big part of being a Jehovah's Witness is to try to share your faith with others. I think that's why, you know, they knock on my door at 8 a.m. every day. Because part of their religion is to witness, I think, with others, they call it, or to share their faith. So because of all this, you know, VDAR saw this group and he decided that he would walk over there to talk to them and to share his faith with them to talk about religion. The details on what happened next are somewhat murky. Because, you know, as I've said, a lot of people in the group are going to have different

accounts of what happened. We'll hear from the group later on or a couple of members of the group. I believe some of them acted interested in what VDAR had to say, even though I don't know that any of them believed in God or religion or anything like that. I think it was a smokescreen because what they were. really after was the Lillilid van. They wanted a bigger ride. Yeah, they didn't want to travel cross country or, you know, however, wherever they were

going, whether it was New Orleans or somewhere else, six people in a Chevy citation is a little cramped. It's really cramped. And the Lillelids had, I think it was a 1987. It was a little older. Yeah. But it was like one of those big Dodge vans. Remember the old van?

Oh yeah. The conversion vans where a lot of them had a couch in the back that would fold down as a bed. And I think that's what they had. It would have been a much better vehicle to travel long distance. Oh, much better. So there was at least one person, if not more, that saw the van and thought, hmm, we need that. And it was Natasha, who later admitted at her.

sentencing hearing that she was the first one to suggest to the group that they should try to get this van. So Joe Reisner, as they're talking with VDAR, and I think he may have even had, you know, his, his daughter with him, Joe Reisner pulled out a gun and the group kidnapped this entire family and put them in the van. So you had Natasha, Jason, Karen and Joe, they rode in the van with the family, while Dean Mullins and Crystal Sturgle followed in the citation. But they only drove about five miles down the road from the rest stop. They pulled off and went down this like real small gravel road called Payne Hollow Lane. Pretty isolated. Yeah, pretty a house. There were some houses around, but yeah, fairly isolated.

I think it was a place where, you know, it was pretty wooded. You wouldn't, they wouldn't have been seen. Once they got there, they forced the family out of the van, line them up and shot all four of them. Now, VDAR was shot first, once in the right eye and then three to five more times in the chest. Delphina was shot as many as eight times. And both of them were later run over. with their own van. But it's been theorized that the initial shots fired into Delphina didn't kill her.

And so she was alive long enough to watch her kids be shot. Oh, wow. I mean, you talk about a mother's nightmare. Sure. Okay, bad enough that you would be shot yourself. Yeah. That's horrible. But no mother wants to have to see their babies.

These are babies. Two years old, six years old. No mother wants to see their kids that small or any, you know, at any age hurt, let alone shot in front of them. For no reason. Even if there was, I mean, you're saying there was no reason to shoot any of these people, let alone the kids. No.

No, absolutely not. They could have taken this conversion van, left them stranded on this little road and said goodbye. But they didn't do that. And it's just a horrifying thought that Delphina witnessed her little six-year-old daughter, Tabitha, being shot in the head and her little two-year-old son, Peter, being shot multiple times in his head. After shooting the family, the group loaded up in the van and they just kind of went on as though they had made a pit stop and were now continuing on with their journey. Time to get back on our road trip.

I'm not convinced Gibbs that they thought any more of it than that. Now, we're going to get into hearing from members of the group later on. They're all going to have interesting things to say. There's going to be some audio from a couple of them. We can judge whether or not we believe what some of these individuals say. Well, I'm sure all their narratives are going to be different and going to change based on maybe some conversations. they had with their attorneys before these statements were made. But there was at least a couple of people nearby who heard the shots and placed calls the

911. When the authorities got to the scene Gibbs, they found a gruesome sight. Vidar and Delphina were dead lying next to each other in a ditch. Their two children were gravely injured but still alive and were lying across their parents. their parents in what authorities believed was the shape of a cross. So they, you know, picture that, right? Mm-hmm. VDAR and Delphina are parallel.

And then Tabitha and Little Peter were placed perpendicular in the form of a cross. They airlifted the children to a hospital in Knoxville. Tabitha died the next day from her injuries. But Peter survived. which when you think about it is almost unbelievable. Based on the wounds he received, he did lose an eye and he was almost paralyzed, suffered some other lasting injuries. But to think that a two-year-old could survive gunshots to the head like that,

it's kind of incredible. Now, back at the crime scene, investigators were trying to piece things together. They found that Delphina had three gunshots to her. left side in the shape of a triangle. These were in addition to other gunshots, but she had these three that were kind of shaped like a triangle. VDAR had three similar gunshots in the form of a triangle to his right side. So investigators put it together that if you lined the bodies up, the triangles would make a

pentagram. Oh. So this is where. this whole, you've got the bodies laid out in the form of a cross. Now they're saying, okay, this looks like it could be a pentagram. Yep. It's got to be Satan. Or it's got to be at least satanic.

Right. Because who else could kill three members of a family like this and almost kill a two-year-old, but Satan worshippers, right? It can't be anybody else. Right. Exactly. Pure evil. Pure evil.

straight from Satan. But the big thing that investigators found, and it's really what broke the case wide open for them, they found the Chevy citation just down the road. So what the group did was, I mean, obviously we know they took off in the Lily Lidd's van. They took the license plates off the citation. I guess thinking that would throw the cops off.

What they didn't do was anything with the van. And maybe they didn't know what the VIN was, the plate with the VIN numbers on it. So not all that hard, right, for police to use the VIN to trace the car back to its owner, who was Joe Reisner's mother. Police also were able to identify the victims as the Lillelids and found out that they owned a Dodge Vann. So, I mean, really fairly quickly, they were able to put information out for authorities to be on the lookout for this van. And it didn't take long for police to figure out who had been driving in the Chevy citation.

The Venn led back to Joe Reisner's mother. She would have said Joe took the car from there. You interview a couple of people. Now you know who all was traveling with them. Joe's girlfriend is Karen. Karen's friend is Natasha. I mean, you can see how her boyfriend is this guy. It wouldn't have been hard to put.

And all these people are gone. Right. Right. They're all no longer in Pikeville. So like I said, pretty quickly, police knew the names of all six individuals that they needed to find. Meanwhile, the group was on the road in the van. And they decided to change up their plan. So instead of heading to New Orleans, they decided that they were.

going to try to make it to Mexico. And there was some talk Gibbs that they were heading to New Orleans in the first place to meet Anne Rice. Really? And, you know, just like in the episode with Rod Farrell, you know, Anne Rice wrote all the vampire books. They wanted to meet her. They had, they put her on a pedestal, I guess. But now they're, they're not going for bignets. They're going for tamales, I guess. Well, and probably too. I have to worry about looking behind their back every second if they're ever found out, you know, across that border, they might feel a little safer. Oh, I'm sure that's why they made the decision to go to Mexico.

Yeah. Yeah, there's no doubt about it. I mean, I don't think we're talking about a car load or what is now a truck load, a van load of rocket scientists. You know, they were just kids that most of them didn't, you know, didn't have high IQs. I think Natasha was pretty bright and it might have been one of the reasons why she was able to be the quote unquote ring leader. Right. And bring this group together.

She was probably the smartest of the bunch. Usually when you're the smartest, you're able to get other people to kind of follow you much easier. This is true. And you know that because you're able to get a lot of people to follow you. Mensa. But like I said, this information had gone out all over. right, APBs, BOLOs, here's the names, here's the van, here's the license plate number. Yeah.

It was about two days after the murders that the group was in Douglas, Arizona. And as they were trying to cross the border, a computer check of the van's license plates came back with the APB and the fact that all the occupants in the van were wanted. I guess they should have walked across that border. Yeah, I don't know. You and I do these cases, and I often wonder how people think they're going to get away with some of these things that they try. Is it that they don't care?

Is it that they don't know the technology and everything that law enforcement has at their disposal? Sometimes I just don't know. Yeah. In this case, I think it was, you know, the latter. Meaning they didn't understand that law enforcement was going to be able to put this information out. So no matter where they went, somebody was going to be looking for them. Yeah. Yeah, you're probably right. All six members of the group were arrested. And it wasn't too tough, right, to figure out that these six individuals had in some way been responsible for

the murders. I mean, number one, they're driving the family's van. That's strike one. It's a huge strike one. And when they were searched, authorities found items on these individuals that they had taken from the Lily Lid family. Crystal Sturgel was found with the keys to the family's house in Powell, Tennessee. Karen Howell was found with Little Peter's Social Security card and Tabitha's Miss Kitty diary. Natasha was found carrying a photograph of VDAR and his daughter, Tabitha. So, you know, are these trophies, are these souvenirs? Why take these items?

It kind of seems like it. So the group was extradited from Arizona to Tennessee. And in all the papers, Gibbs, it talked about the fact that there were moms gathered outside the jail. It was like the old West. Yeah. Where people showed up and wanted to, you know, forcibly remove these six individuals and carry out vigilante justice.

They killed three members of the family, shot a fourth, and knowing that one of the members that died was a child. It's all bad, but to kill a kid. And to seriously wound a two-year-old. Exactly. Why? And like we said, this was a good family. They weren't out to hurt anybody.

If anything, they were seeing if there was anything they could do to help these individuals. Sure. Now, they picked individuals that didn't want to be helped. Right. But they couldn't, they didn't know that. They couldn't have known that. Yeah. But I saw one picture in the paper where I don't know if it was a restaurant.

It was built alongside the road. And it was basically, it looked like a hangman's gallo. Yeah. And it had six nooses hanging down for these six individuals. And it was just sitting. Somebody had made it. And it was sitting by the side of the road. So you could see it as you drove by.

People were very upset and rightfully so about what these individuals had done. And you mentioned it, right? Senseless. I think that's the word. Yeah. It was a brutal crime, but it was also a very senseless crime. After the group was arrested, Natasha's lawyer told papers that his client believed she was one of the antichrist and that the occult was her life. He said she drank blood, considered herself a Satanist.

Now, it later came out that this was a ploy on the part of her attorney to set up a possible insanity defense. Sounds like that's what he was doing for sure. Now, I'm not sure some of that stuff wasn't true, but the idea of him coming out and telling it to the papers, that was definitely a ploy. All six of the group members were charged with the murders and kidnapping. Now, Jason Bryant and Karen Howe were minors, but at a hearing in July, they were certified to be tried as adults. So the prosecution was going to go after those two for life in prison without parole. But with the other four adults, the prosecution said they would seek the death penalty because they could. Yeah.

The problem is the prosecution had a number of issues to deal with. They knew this group was responsible for the murders of VDar, Delphina, and Tabitha, as well as the attempted murder of two-year-old Peter. But there was no way for them to be sure who in the group fired the, what turned out to be 17 shots. Right. Into the four members of the Lilalid family. The one thing they did know was that the shots came from two different guns. Sure, the 25 caliber and the 9mm. Yes. And that would be easy to tell. But who was firing those guns, that was a mystery. That's the challenge. Yeah, that was a challenge

that the prosecution had. Yeah, and one of the issues is they never recovered the guns. So that's a hurdle because you can't pull fingerprints on something you don't have. And I don't know if fingerprints would have proved who fired the guns, but because everyone in the group technically could have touched it at those guns at some point, they were going to take all six to trial and try to prove that they were all responsible for the crimes. But as the trial neared in 1998, all six members of the group decided to plead guilty to the charges. In exchange, the death penalty was taken off the table for the four adults. And the way I understood it Gibbs was that it was all or nothing. Either all six members took the plea deal or there was no plea deal. And the part I couldn't figure

out was I get what was at stake and why the four adults would have wanted to take the deal. Right. What I could never understand was why the two minors took the deal because they all ended up getting the same exact sentence. Well, I'm sure the defense attorneys went to the minors and their families and said, hey, your two kids have to agree to this to save these other four from getting death. It's the best we can do, we can save these four from getting death, but we can't get your kids any other special deal. they're going to have to be in prison for life just like all the other ones. Okay. Let me play devil's advocate. I get that. And that's the way it could have happened. So if you know there's no deal for you, why do you not take your chance at trial?

Yeah, I think they should have taken their chance at trial because worst case, they would have received what they already had. Yeah, that's the part I couldn't figure out. To me, it seemed like there was no downside. So it was either your theory of, of they were doing this to help out their friends, quote unquote, friends. I don't know. It seems very strange, especially in light of some of these things that we're getting ready to talk about. In a scenario like that, you have to ask yourself, if things were flipped, would they do that for you?

And that's a big question because I don't know if most people would. I think when you're in that situation, you're every man and woman. themselves. The only other thing that went through my mind was that maybe they thought there was no way they were going to be found not guilty. So why go through a full blown trial? The minors. Right. That's the only other thing I could think of. It was really at the sentencing hearing where some of the details started to come out, right? As each member of the group testified, but as I've said there were a lot of differing versions of how the events of April 6th occurred. One thing most agreed on, though, was that the murders didn't have anything to do with Satanism.

They were after the van. But as to who did the killing, that was all over the map. What would come out is that the core five members of the group all pointed the finger at 14 year old Jason Bryant as the killer. Because remember, he really wasn't a core member of the group. He had only known these people for like a month. Right. And this is why I'm even more perplexed about why he would go along with the plea deal, but maybe he didn't know these people were going to turn on him because they've already pled, right? Now they're just at the sentencing hearing. And I really didn't understand why there was so much testimony at the sentencing hearing if they already,

you know, had made their pleas and, and they pretty much knew what they were going to get. Maybe they thought, okay, we're going to have relatives talk on our behalf. We're going to talk, downplay our involvement, and we're going to get less. I don't know. I don't know. That part was a little perplexing. the prosecutor painted Natasha Cornett as the ringleader of the group saying, you did what Natasha said or you weren't in the group.

Natasha Cornett took the stand and said that Jason Bryant was the person who fired every single shot. So I mentioned it, right? 17 shots were fired. Natasha pointed the finger at Jason as the lone shooter. She said she pleaded with him to spare the child. children, but he refused. Now, Jason Bryant took the stand and said he never fired a single shot. He said that Joe Reisner and Dean Mullins were the shooters. Karen Howell took the stand and identified

Jason Bryant as the lone shooter and backed up Cornett's claims that they asked Jason to spare the children. So if you look at it Gibbs again, it's like the five core members essentially. ganged up on Jason. Yeah. And decided to all point a finger at him. So there's really only two things. Either he was the lone shooter or these five got together and said, we're going to make him the lone shooter. Right. But that's why I said some of the details are murky because there's so many, you know, differing accounts and, and even, you know, in the testimony of, uh, Natasha and Karen. There were some differences. Now, it was mainly in the in the order that the victims were shot, but it was still different. Joe Reisner took the stand and he also said

Jason Bryant was the lone gunman. So again, this was not a full blown trial, right? They accepted plea agreements, but they all had their own attorneys at the sentencing hearing. They got on the stand. they were asked questions. So I do want to play a little bit of the testimony from both Natasha Cornette and Karen Howe. We'll start with Natasha. Delphina started singing to calm Tabitha down. And Jason told her to shut up. I told her it would be okay that nobody would hurt her.

And I promised her with me. I was crying. And Joe told everybody to get out of the van. and Karen said, just let them get their stuff and go. Tabitha was crying again, and Jason said, make her shut up, and Vodora put his hand over her mouth. Jason was asking Joe, what do you think we should do? Do you think we should let him go, or you think we should kill him?

And Joe said, I don't know, man, what do you think that we should do? And he said, I think we should kill him. I started begging Jason not to do it, and he just wouldn't listen. And I knew somebody was going to die, so I walked over in front of the family. And I told him that I couldn't stop him from killing someone. Please don't let him hurt the kids. But Or said, if we die, then the kids will be hurt anyways. and I turned around

I said Please stop this I was staring at the steering wheel And I seen it jerk I seen Joe jerk it to the right And we ran over something And I turned around And I looked in the back window

And we had run over them And Jason said That little girl looks like she just got effed She's all sprawled And he was laughing about it. Horrific. Yeah, it's horrific. And you always lose a little something when you just have the audio.

Right. Now, when you watch this testimony and I kind of cobbled it together, right? Some part she's crying and then all of a sudden she's not. But a lot of it, it seems as though she's really emotional. She's crying. The problem is I never saw Tier 1. Yeah. I never saw anything streamed down her face.

So to me, and again, this is just my opinion. I could be totally wrong. I didn't see it as real emotion. I saw it as somebody who was putting that forth, but, you know, wasn't crying. There was no eye dabbing with the tissue. There was none of that. Right. It was just this kind of quivering voice kind of mock.

crying voice is what I took it to be. Again, I could be totally wrong, but you hear her, right, put it all on Jason Bryant. We tried to stop him. I couldn't stop him. I said spare the children, you know, all of that. He thought it was funny. He laughed. Yes, he laughed. Now let's hear what Karen had to say. The fina said, please don't hurt us. And that's when Jason took out the 25 millimeter. and not a millimeter, but caliber pistol, and, uh, point to that Tabitha and Delphina. Fadar took out his wallet and said, just take her money and take the vans. Don't hurt us. I remember Natasha, like, trying to make Jason promise not to hurt the little kids.

Fadar, like, tightens his grip on Tabitha. Like, he has one of his hands over her mouth because she was crying really bad. And he has an arm around Tabitha, and he tightened his grip on him after he said, if we let him go, do I already be dead or something like that? Next thing I remember, I heard Jason shooting. I remember he had the 25 first time, and I remember he shot the daughter first. I remember Jason yelling, saying they're still effing alive. He grabbed the nine out of the floor, and he ran out.

And I looked back and... What'd you say, huh? Tabitha. What was she doing? She was standing over her mother. What Jason did? I yell, no. And he went right up to her.

He went right up to her and shot her. he shot him all over again. When he came back, when he came back, he was laughing. He said that Delphina was laying there speaking in tongues, and the door was jerking really bad. He said that he had to shoot him all over again. So I think you hear in Karen's testimony that there's quite a bit of it that backs up what Natasha said. Sure. The difference to me is that when you watch it, you know, for much of

when Karen's talking, and this is cobbled together, it's not right, obviously all the testimony. She's pretty matter of fact in, you know, kind of talking her way through what happened. It's really when she gets to talking about Tabitha and saying that Jason shot Tabitha, she really starts to up. And when I looked at it, I saw it as much more real than what I saw from Natasha. Yeah. Not that it makes it, you know, more true or less true. It was just kind of an observation that I had when I, when I watched the videos. So I found an interesting listening to both of those clips that these girls were all tough when they wanted to do all this. And now they're at the hearing and they're crying and they didn't really want anybody to be shot.

Like you said, I don't know if you can really believe that, but they really tried to make it sound like maybe this was just for fun and games until it really got real. And then they didn't want anything to do with it. But they couldn't persuade the guys not to go ahead and shoot the family anyway. Yeah. Again, it's impossible to know who's telling the truth. Yeah. There's just no way.

the only people that really know are the six people that were there. You can make the argument that some of these people were trying to minimize their involvement, no doubt. I think everybody was because Jason Bryan said, hey, I wasn't a shooter. Everybody else pointed the finger at him. Yeah. Either he's right or the other five are right. But then with the other things they said, it does sound like they're probably trying to make themselves maybe look a little better.

Sure. By saying, I told him not to hurt the children. I did this. I did that. Keep in mind, their families are in the courtroom. Yeah. So do you want to come out and say that, yeah, I was totally fine with them being killed? We all said, let's kill them.

No, probably not. No. Maybe they were just trying to make themselves look better in front of the judge. Yeah. That's entirely possible because I don't know. to be honest with you, at what point in time they knew what their sentence was going to be. I think the plea deal was, okay, we'll take the death penalty off the table. I don't know if they knew at that point 100% what their sentence was going to be. But it didn't, it didn't work because

all six members of the group got the same sentence, life without the possibility of parole. So maybe they went through all that posturing and all of that for nothing. Maybe it was for their family. They didn't want their family to think bad of them. Or maybe they were telling the truth. I don't know. So all six shipped off to serve their sentences and presumably to die in jail. Yeah.

That's what life without parole usually means. Little Peter, the only. the only member of the Lilid's to survive went to live with relatives in Sweden. Then in 2018, there was a bill in Tennessee to give parole eligibility to minor sentence to life without parole. It was, I tried to follow up with it in the papers. It looked as though the bill stalled. I really couldn't find anything more about it. But it does seem as though there is at least a possibility that for Jason Brown,

and Karen Howe, they may one day have a chance at parole. The other four, I don't believe, will ever have that chance. Yeah, I don't think so either. I think if anybody gets that chance, maybe Karen, because if you go back and you have to listen to what we just heard, when you have all those five members saying, Jason pulled the trigger, Jason pulled the trigger, probably doesn't look good for him at any parole hearing.

At a parole hearing. But when you hear everybody say that, Karen did not pull the trigger that she was just there. I think she has probably the best chance of getting parole if it's allowed. You know, the one person that we really haven't talked much about at all is Crystal Sturgle. And she got the same sentence as the others. And the same with Dean Mullins. Yeah.

I really didn't find much about, you know, if they did take the stand, I didn't find much about what they said. You know, Crystal really was not implicated in. in much of anything. But they were all there together. Yeah. And I did see where the judge told her at sentencing, you had opportunities to walk away. Yeah. And you didn't do it.

So you're as guilty as everyone. You're all lumped in together. So as we wrap up, Gibbs, I mean, there are aspects to this case that are undisputed. Few, not many. there are a ton that are very cloudy. You know, which members of the group actually did the killing? Was it 14-year-old Jason Bryant, as the rest of the group has said? Or did they all point the finger at him because, you know, he wasn't a core member.

He was new. And that core group was going to stick together. I don't know the answer. And like I said, I think the only ones that really do are the six that were there that day. But I kind of agree with that judge. You know, in my mind, they're all guilty and they got what they deserved. Yeah. Yeah.

And I don't have any problem with it. You can argue that as a minor, it's rough to get life without the possibility of parole. And I'm okay with that argument. Yeah. But for four adults, I'm totally fine with that. And just because you would get the possibility of parole, like you said, it doesn't, mean you'll ever get out. No.

I would put my chances of Karen getting out higher than than Jason. Right. But then you could look at it and say he was only 14 years old. Well, the girl that he killed was only six. Very good point. Very good point. But like we said, most of the, almost all the victims that we talk about in our cases.

Yeah. Are killed in such a senseless manner. And this is one of those cases. You know, just like somebody that walks in. to rob a store and decides that, okay, they're going to kill everyone in the store. They didn't have, they don't have to do that. These people did not have to kill this family.

They could have driven them out to the middle of this road, taken their van and left. And the rest of their journey would have gone the same way with the exception of there probably wouldn't have been as much heat on them. They actually put more heat on themselves by killing this family. Yeah. I mean, at that point, the worst thing that could happen would have been grand theft. Mm-hmm. Right?

If they would have just stole the van at the rest stop and moved on. Yeah, we're not advocating stealing people's cars. No, no, no, no. But, I mean. When you put the two side by side. Yeah. Instead, they end up kidnapping and then murder. And it's just like, didn't need to do all that.

But that's it. That's the case of the Lillid murders. We've got some voicemails. You want to check those out? Yeah, let's hear them. Hello, my name's McKenna. I'm from Arizona. I'm an E&C.

And so your podcast is something that truly gets me through my 12, 15-hour days. Thank you for all that you do. True crime has been something that I think is just super fascinating. And although it can be super difficult, I love how you guys incorporate humor and just are real with everything that happens. And with, of course, respect for the family. I appreciate everything you guys do. Have a great day and keep your own time ticking. Bye.

Well, we thank you very much for that email. We appreciate what you do for sure. I didn't mention it up front, Gibbs, but the nurses at children, they were amazing with my daughter. Yeah. I mean, just flat amazing. It's a good group there. You know, they could have been having the worst day of their lives.

When they walked into that door, it was, hey, honey, how you doing? What can we get for you? Yeah. Just the way that they. treat kids. It's just amazing. That's why they do what they do. It is. It was very blown away by the dedication and just how they were able to kind of lift my daughter's spirits. It was awesome. Hey guys. How's it going? My name is Tom and I am from Milwaukee, Wisconsin and I am a huge

fan of true crime all the time. I listen to it pretty much every single night. And one of the stories that you guys did actually back in 2018, the Gypsy Rose Blanchard story, which is just really messed up, is that I actually happened to go to the same high school as her boyfriend, Nick Otajan. Now, when I went back in high school, he was just this quiet kid who kept to himself. And when I saw that about it in the news, I just became sick to my stomach.

And just that whole entire show, it just, it's absolutely just messed up. And I absolutely love what you guys are doing with this podcast. Keep up the good work. And hope you guys are staying safe. All right. Love that voicemail. And again, I find those stories of people and their connections, you know, however tenuous they are.

Right. To individuals in some of these stories, I find them fascinating. And that was a crazy case. Oh, it was. It definitely was. You can tell you this is Donna from outside Cincinnati. I just want to say I want to love your podcast. I have caught up completely with TCAT and criminology.

And I drug my feet with unsolved. So when I started going back and listening to old TCAT episodes, then the Unsolved mysteries came out on Netflix, and I love that show that made me think of, why am I not going ahead listening to this? So I started listening to Unsolve, and I absolutely love it. I don't know what took me so long to actually listen to it. I am not Team Mike or Tim Giddy,

and Team Cheekat, because I love you both equally, and Biggie, please don't stop your movie references or your accent. I absolutely love it. You guys keep Mike's day going. Thank you. Have a good day. Bye. All right.

We appreciate it. Yeah, we need more people to jump over to Unsolved. We absolutely do, because it's very important that you listen to Unsolved. It's a very classic podcast. Or Gibby won't be able to afford his Chef Boy, R.D. I won't be able to do my Chef OrD on any more podcast. Hey, guys. My name's Alita.

I've been listening to your podcast for a really long time. I was a little nervous leaving a voicemail. but I've listened to so many other different true crime podcasts and they love to tell the story of the killer and the, you know, who the victims are, but they centralize on the killer. Whereas you guys have always kept women in the forefront of your brain, which has always made me really like your podcast the best. Keeps my head on a swivel, making sure that I'm aware of my situation, always having a backup plan. has always been, you know, something that I've always thought about. And you guys, as two males, do bring that to your podcast, and I truly, truly appreciate it. So you guys keep on doing what you're doing.

And good job. Well, that's some good praise, Gibbs. Yeah, that's awesome. It is something that we try to do. I think it's the way we live our lives, too, but it's also something that we try to do with the podcast, which is be genuine. Sure. but at the same time, make sure that we're not sensationalizing the killers.

That's not our goal. Our goal is to tell the story. Now, I do feel bad sometimes when we can't get as much information on the victims as we'd like to. Exactly. Because we'd really like to tell their story more. The problem that we run into is media outlets, papers, shows. they often do have more information on the killers than they have on the victims.

Yeah, makes it a little bit hard. You know, you can dig and dig, but sometimes you just can't find it. But you're right. We do want you to keep your head on the swivel. We do want you to do all that. That is a definite yes to that. Yeah. Because we want everyone to stay safe and keep their own time ticking.

Yes. You should be wearing a shirt that says stay safe and keep your own time ticking. I had the tattoo. Did you order that shirt? I got that shirt and I got the tattoo. Did you? Sweet. I didn't realize it wasn't removable though.

The tattoo. Yeah, you'd be all right. I thought it was one of those ones that the ink goes away eventually. Like a hen of tattoo? Is that what they called those? Yeah, I misunderstood. Gibbs, we had mailbag. Yeah.

Megan Crane sent us some very cool t-shirts from her business. Cool. And you know my motto Gibbs, you can never have enough t-shirts, you know, especially because that's about all I wear nowadays. That's all you ever wear. Yeah, I wear a lot of T-shirts to work in my professional setting, when I could get away with it. Yeah, and your flip-flops. And flip-flops. Yeah. Shorts. Yeah. I was kind of a rebel. Maybe that's why I don't work there anymore. Maybe that casual attitude and that business atmosphere just didn't go well. Maybe not. It works for me, though. It does work good for you. All right.

everyone. We appreciate you listening. 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.