True Crime with Kimbyr - PART 2 The Heartbreaking Andrew Family Murder - Robert & Brenda Andrew - True Crime Stories | Deep Dive

Episode Date: December 28, 2025

The chilling story continues on True Crime with Kimbyr as we dive deeper into the Andrew family murder. In part 2, Kimbyr unravels the aftermath, examining the investigation’s twists, the shocking evidence uncovered, and the secrets that made this case even more haunting. Discover the overlooked clues, the emotional toll on those connected, and the dark motives that escalated a tragedy into an unforgettable nightmare. True Crime with Kimbyr takes you further into the heart of this case, revealing new details and unanswered questions that will keep you on edge until the very end. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Only at Yamava Resort and Casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You in? Must be 21. to enter. As individuals, they were both wonderful people to all their friends and their family. Brenda was a supportive mother who would do anything for her children, and Rob was a devout Christian helping his community and bringing people closer to the Lord. But that wasn't bringing his wife closer to him. Eventually, whether it was because Brenda had already lived that life growing up and

she just wanted to be free or because the relationship just naturally ran its course, the couples to talk about separating and it's hard. Their lives were so intertwined. They had a bunch of the same friends, a beautiful home where they were raising their young children. These situations are never easy. Rob being the persistent person that he was believed in never giving up. He would never give up on Brenda.

He was always going to try to reconcile the relationship no matter what. But just like Rob had been confiding in his friends and family about his insecurities and his desire to be be closer to Brenda. She had also been confiding in her friends and family about things that were going on in their relationship. And it turns out, she thought that he was kind of an absent father, that he cared more about the church community and his work than being home with his children, that he was a workaholic, oppressive, overbearing, and she had had enough. There's always going to be multiple sides to a story and many different opinions. I guess that Brenda thought strongly enough

about thinking the relationship could not work out. She refused to continue to try over and over again. It was true. Rob was traveling a lot for his job, and as a matter of fact, while the separation was brewing, and their marriage seemed to be falling apart. The Twin Towers in New York City were falling to the ground. This was back in September of 2001.

The terrorist attacks of 9-11 happened just days before Rob's 39th birthday, September 19th. He was stuck in California after the planes were grounded and the entire United States was dealing with an absolute devastating catastrophe. Brenda wasn't exactly happy to see Rob when he returned. She was trying to keep her distance so that they could move on into the next step of their separation. However, she did play nicely because it was his birthday and the families still got together. I told you it was going to be the last time they had an ordinary celebration as a family. However, the day afterward, it was time. She basically kicked Rob out of their home, but wait. Because you need to hear everything.

This case gets so twisted and convoluted and shocking. And I'm sure it's going to affect you as much as it did to me. By October 3rd, Brenda had filed for divorce. And even though he was served for the divorce papers, that wasn't going to stop him. He was going to lean into God and pray that his marriage could be healed. Friends and family expected this to be hard for the Andrew family, but they never expected them to go through what they now know happened to them.

You never think anything like this is going to happen to the people close to you. Brenda and Rob were still there for their children. They came up with a plan that for the time being, Rob was going to get a nearby apartment. They both wanted to be supportive for their children, especially with the Thanksgiving holiday around the corner. They wanted things to remain as normal. as possible. They were still both spending time with visiting their children and being involved in their everyday normal activities. But it wasn't really that different for Rob to be at his apartment because it wasn't around the children as much as Brenda was. She really was the parent in the household.

The children were attached to her. She did everything for them. And divorce can be really messy. But sometimes it can be completely amicable. You're dealing with a Christian man and a woman who was raised with the same upbringing and values. But just because your church-going people doesn't mean that people you associate with are good people. Somebody wanted to cause harm to the Andrew family. Somebody was concocting a plan. And the first clue that something wasn't right was back on October 26. They find this out when they interview a woman that worked with Rob. Her name is Barb Mercer Green. Barb was Rob's coworker friend and confidant. She was like a second mother to him, since Rob was actually the age of her children. She tried to lend an ear, the voice of reason, and give him a shoulder to cry on if he needed one,

and he needed one on October 26. Rob comes into the office, and he's not his normal, cheerful, outgoing self. And Barb wants to know what is wrong. He doesn't hesitate. He lets her know that something bizarre just happened to him, and he's really freaked out. He won't. He wants to know. He walked to his car this morning and he saw a pool of liquid underneath, which was concerning. So he drives his car to a nearby auto repair shop. The mechanic takes one look underneath the car and his eyes get wide and he's shocked. He shares his concern with Rob and he says he thinks that someone has intentionally cut the brakes on his vehicle. So Rob is shaken up. He doesn't know what's going on. He gets a taxi and he goes into work and he tells

Barb, what happened? Now, there's a lot of things you don't know that Barb knows at this point. So I need to go back and explain some of those to you because they are vital to understanding why Barb was so concerned when Rob came in that day. And he shared this news with her. First, I want to tell you about what happened when detectives interviewed the elders of the church. Well, they come to find out that Brenda was dressing inappropriately, but that's not why she got fired from her Sunday school position. It was actually because she was supposedly, possibly allegedly, carrying on inappropriate behaviors with fellow churchgoers, specifically a Sunday school teacher, James Pavatt. Apparently, the interactions were bad enough to where the elders fired both of them

from the Sunday school. So who was this James Pavot person? Well, he was actually a friend of the Andrews family. He's a deacon in the church. He and Rob, they go on hunting trips together. They did business deals with one another. James's wife and family would hang out with the Andrew family. James is about 10 years his senior. He's 48 years old. So what's going on? Well, people have said that James and Brenda looked more like boyfriend and girlfriend than just friends. This was the accusation that was the breaking point for Brenda and she filed divorce because the rumors about her were swirling forever. and they just kept going. And finally, they got into Rob's head. Rob ends up confronting her and she says, I've had enough. I am not doing anything inappropriate with this man, but I'm filing for divorce.

The whispers actually started before this. James had filed for divorce earlier that summer. And that's when the people at the church started to assume he did that because he was obsessed with Brenda. They were seen acting in the words of the women there at the church like teenagers, giggling and passing notes around. and church service, and the parents started to be uncomfortable sending their children to the Sunday school. So they both had to be terminated from their positions. This is when all of this is going to come

together, but not really, because there's so many twists and turns. Once you find out exactly what's going on, it's still going to be bizarre. I had to know everything, every detail. I just had to find out, and investigators do too. They're speculating that possibly there was some kind of obsession going on here. that James was obsessed with Brenda, that the families had spent time together and somehow he became infatuated with her. And possibly she was very friendly with James. He thought that she wanted something that he did, but he possibly wanted more and she didn't want to give it to him. So he decided to hurt the family. James was pretty respected in the church community as well.

But he was also feared because he was for. formerly in the Air Force, and there were rumors that he was in the special forces. He would actually brag that he had killed people and that he's a really dangerous person. So maybe his past caught back up with him and maybe he's being a dangerous person once again. They have to know more. So this is where we left off with Barb. Rob's confid on at work. After Rob found out the rumors were swirling about James and Brenda, he kind of went off on her, which is what I told you finally led to her. her filing for divorce. I can't know for sure whether it was just robbing paranoid when he walked in that day,

knowing his brakes had been cut, but he told Barb he thought James was trying to kill him. Detectives had gotten in touch with James Pavatt's ex-wife, Sakkuyong Pavat. James met her when he was in the Air Force in Southeast Asia. He was a military police officer, and they had been married for nine years before their divorce in 2001. Investigators asked her what she could tell them about James. She said he's the kindest man that she'd ever met. He was so kind all throughout their marriage, but he said he wanted to get a divorce because she didn't get along with his family.

However, as they got closer to getting the actual divorce, he said it was for her protection because of the problems with his previous duty in the special forces. He told her Korea was the only place that she would be safe in the whole world. She ended up moving back to Korea. But she returned because not long after the divorce, James called her, and he said he made the biggest mistake in his life. But when she came back, she said the man that she had always known, he wasn't there anymore.

It wasn't the same man that she knew for the past nine years. Something wasn't right with him, and it was very concerning. They asked her where he was and she said she didn't know. She said she's not even sure where he's living, but she does have his work address. He was currently working for Prudential Insurance Company, so they went there to talk to a supervisor. And that's when they find out from coworkers that he likes to impress people with his ability to kill. He seemed to have an obsession with trying to brag about how dangerous he was. So it's true.

This is what we heard earlier in. corroborated. Not only that, and this is really disgusting to me personally as an animal lover, specifically a dog lover, but one of his co-workers said that James liked to shoot dogs, and that every time he would see a dog, he would talk about shooting it. And that's sad and disgusting and mean. Another coworker described him as creepy. At this point, he does shoot to the top of the list when it comes to potential suspects for detectives. They're going to track James down, but there's something more important happening. Rob's funeral.

It was Monday, November 26th at Crossings Community Church at 10 a.m. All of Rob's closest friends and family were gathered together to say goodbye to a man that they loved and adored and who will be gone forever. It seemed like everyone had shown up, everyone from church, from Jordan, Rob's entire family, Brenda's entire family, their neighborhood friends.

The entire place was packed. He had a huge group of clients that he worked with over the years, and everyone came to pay their respects. But the funeral kept being postponed. It wasn't starting. And finally, one of the ministers that were presiding over the funeral, he got up. And he said, we're not starting on time because some of the family members are not here. And this raised a red flag, and everybody's looking around trying to figure out, like,

what family member would be missing? What family member would be late? Ten minutes go by. minutes go by, the funeral still hasn't started. Then 20 minutes go by. So many people wanted to say goodbye to Rob and to support Brenda and the children, but that's the thing. And this is so scary. As people were continuing to look around, they were not seeing Brenda or the children anywhere. And this is not like Brenda. This is out of character. They have no idea what's going on. Brenda had planned the funeral arrangements with her family and her neighbor Judy. Everyone is immediately

concerned. They don't want to jump to conclusions quite yet, so they wait. But after 45 minutes go by and they don't hear from Brenda and after making multiple calls that are going straight to her voicemail, family members call the police and say you need to go over there and do a welfare check at the Andrew home. They're worried that something has happened to the children and Brenda. Maybe the criminals have come back to finish the job and it's terrifying. While the funeral is going on, police go out there and they don't find anything out of the ordinary by walking around the perimeter of the home. They looked in the windows and they went back. They tell the family, we didn't find anything. Because the funeral is going on, it's kind of hard for the family to stop what

they're doing to try to figure out exactly what happened. They thought the police were going to take care of it. Well, when nothing was taken care of and the funeral is over, the family insists the police go back and this time they say take a key go inside find out what's going on and inside they find out that the minivan is gone it had been parked in the garage just a day earlier and now it's gone so the police get a phone call and it's brenda's sister kim and she says listen i just found out brenda and the kids are fine i'm going to go track them down and i'll have them call you however after some time goes by and the police do not hear from her, they call Kim back. And she said, you know what? I'm really sorry. I was wrong. I had bad information. I don't know where Brenda is. Wow. How can you make that mistake?

But it happened. I guess they were literally playing telephone. But it's only going to get worse. This is when police reach out once again to James Supervisor and they find out James hasn't been to work in a week. At this point, they feel like they're in a race against time. This man is clearly dangerous and sure enough just a few hours later police find James's pickup truck near Southwest 122 in Penn Avenue right here on the map I'm going to show it to you. This is only 13 minutes away from the Andrew residents and it's abandoned on the side of the road. There's something worse.

It's something they find out that makes them very fearful for the safety of these children. Someone comes forward and they say they were a witness to a notarized document presented by James Pavotte that was supposedly signed by Robert Andrew. allowing his daughter, Tricity, and son Parker to leave the country. This document was used by James to have travel visas issued for Brenda and Rob's children. This man is trying to take these two poor little children out of the country. They just lost their father and their mother had almost been killed. And this to me is crazy.

I would be out of my mind. So authorities issue in all points bulletin for Brenda and the children because they're starting to think that James killed Rob. possibly now Brenda, and plans to hurt the children. From all the reports they got, it seems like James has been gone for about a day, but Brenda may have been gone longer, because the neighbor Dean comes forward and says that he tried to call Brenda the night before around 7 p.m. and didn't get an answer. He called back at 8 and still didn't hear back from her.

At this point, no one is sure who spoke to Brenda last and whether her and the children are safe. As investigators are digging deeper, they look into Brenda and James Bank accounts, bank accounts and they find out that Brenda has recently transferred money out of an account that she shared with Rob, her deceased husband. And this isn't necessarily anything to be too suspicious about, but for all they know, she could have been forced to do so. That's what they were thinking until friends start coming forward with more information. And one of those friends was Barb.

Remember her? That was Rob's confidant that he had known for a number of years. Well, over the years, Barb had been there to listen to a lot of stories about Brenda. And these stories came from Rob, so they're only one-sided. But nevertheless, she told investigators that there was a night where the family was eating spaghetti dinner. And Brenda was getting annoyed. She told Rob, she hated the way that he ate food, and she proceeded to dumpy plate of pasta into his lap. But not only that, According to Rob, Brenda had always hated things about him. On their wedding night, she told him she thought that the marriage was a mistake and that she hated him. This is what was said.

If all of this is true, why was Rob still with Brenda? And what was the context? It's not as though either one of these people were forced to marry each other from what I read, but Barb insists that from the day they were married for, Brenda has never been faithful to Rob and James is just one of many of her affairs. Barb says you know who you need to talk to? Ron Stump. He was Rob's best friend. He's the guy who Brenda was flirting with once her husband's own best friend. He's the one that liked redheads and immediately the next time he saw her she had red hair. The floodgates are about to open.

Ronnie Stump is the man who's known Rob the longest. It's his very best friend. He spends a lot of time with Rob. What I heard from this interview made me really sad. It started to make me think about whether I actually know any of the people in my life the way I think I do. Investigators track Ron down for questioning. It was basically the case of how far back do you want me to go? Because clearly he was about to tell them a lot of information about Brenda and his best friend Robb. And it made me sad, like I said, because he explained what they already heard before, that Brenda didn't seem to love Rob the way that Rob loved Brenda. It always seemed one-sided. Ron tells investigators they need to track down Rob's journal, his prayer journal, because not only does he write scripture in there,

he writes everything about his life in his journals. They need to look at them because if they do, they're going to find out everything that Ron is going to tell them. And they're going to be able to corroborate all the stories, starting with the fact that before they got married, when they were engaged, Rob decided to surprise Brenda when she was at college in Kansas, and when he drives up to the campus and he asks where she is, because she's not in her own dorm room, he's directed to the dorm room of Brenda's ex-boyfriend. That's right. She was staying in her ex-boyfriend's dorm room the night before and it's clear that she wasn't being faithful to Rob even back then. He did confide in his dad about the situation and others and he explained it away saying that maybe it was just something

innocent but deep down he knew but he just loved her so much that he let it slide. But it's also true that on their wedding night not only did she say that it was a mistake. She really did say that she hated him. This marriage was a disaster from the beginning and Ron and others could understand why Rob wouldn't see things their way. It's like he just wanted it to work so badly and he thought that he would be able to change her, but it only got worse. Even when Ron would say something like, Rob, wake up, see what's going on around you. The people who loved Rob were only trying to help. But Rob, he had that persistent attitude that was part of his DNA. He never wanted to give up. Ron told investigators he knew for sure there were two affairs that Brenda definitely engaged in. One of them

happened in 1997. So back when Brenda was working at the bank, she met a friend there and that friend had a husband, Rick Nunley. So Rick and his wife would hang out with Brenda and Rob, go on double dates, have fun as a couple, and they would hang out and get to know each other more and more. Well, Brenda started to confide in Rick about some of the issues that she was having in her marriage and Rick confided in Brenda about some of his. So over the years, they become closer, just sharing things about their marriages that they were concerned about

or that they didn't like about their partners. Eventually, Rick files for divorce in October of 1997. When investigators asked him his thoughts on Brenda, he said, she was very hospitable, she was intelligent, she loved her children, she was a good cook and a nice person. But that nice person ends up finding out he filed for divorce and starting to come on to him. And it takes two to tango, but eventually

they end up having a sexual relationship. And this relationship went on for months until the spring of 1998 when it just finally fizzled out. However, Brenda and Rick remained really good friends. They would call each other regularly and talk about everything in their lives. They would also meet in person. But Rick says at this point he promises he swears that they They were strictly platonic. They were just friends. However, Brenda's still sharing information and confiding in him about what's going on

between her and Rob. She expressed many times that she didn't want to be with him anymore. The investigators are pressing Ron more and more for information. They ask him, has she ever talked about wanting to hurt her husband? He says no, nothing like that, nothing of that nature.

He said she never gave me any impression that she would hurt Rob in any way. Cell phone records indicate. there were 87 calls between Brenda and Rick during the months of September, October, and November 2001. If we only knew exactly what those phone calls were about. The next affair that Ron tells investigators about was with a guy named James Higgins, who was also married.

And this happened in 1999. As I'm explaining this to you, I'm telling you what Ron is saying to investigators, and then I'm telling you what the people they investigated are saying back to the investigators, that makes sense. So when they did question Mr. Higgins, they said, where did you meet Brenda? He said he was working at the grocery store and she came in and she started flirting and being really friendly. So they asked, what do you mean by flirting? Higgins said, well, she came in. She was dressed in really sexy outfit, short dresses, tops that had the cleavage showing,

and she would just come on to him until he finally reacted to it. Married man, married woman. getting together. He said it was in March of 1999. She came into the grocery store and she said stick out your hand. So he does. And she put something in his hand, closes it up. And when he opens it, it's a key to a motel room and she said, meet me there when you get off work. So what did Higgins do? Well, he did just that. Investigators asked him, well, who paid for the hotels? And he said, Brenda did. They continued to have the sexual relationship for over a year. And most of the time, they would meet up at the motels, hotels. Sometimes they would have sex in her car. And other times, they would literally have sex in the Andrew home, and that is disgusting. Now, this particular

affair continued until May of 2001. So just before the summer, like right before Rob is found murdered. Why did it end? Well, Brenda told Higgins, it wasn't fun anymore. So running around behind her husband's back, it just wasn't fun anymore. However, just like she liked to keep around her last lover, Rick, she kept Higgins around as well. And not only that, he sort of became a friend of the family. She introduced this man to her children and her husband. And eventually, Brenda hired Higgins to do renovations on the Andrews home, including the brand new paint job that they just had.

done and the neighbors had even commented that the paint wasn't even dry before Robert was killed. It's just an expression. Clearly it was dry. Higgins also tells them that even though they were still friends and he was helping with renovations at the home, he got upset when she started coming on to his sons. I don't know how old his sons are, but the fact is they were over there helping him so they're probably at least teenagers, hopefully, but this is what was said. Brenda couldn't wait to get Robert out of his son. her life. But does this mean that she killed Rob? Because some think it's more of the fact that she let men into her life who would continue to want these relationships even when Brenda doesn't think

it's fun anymore, someone like James. Because according to Ron, James and Brenda were definitely having an affair. Ron tells investigators some things we already knew that James used to be in the military. He recently got a divorce, but this affair started well before that. probably right after she got done with Higgins. Because James and Brenda took a trip together with the children. They went to Texas. And remember how much Brenda loved Texas? And I guess she was mad that Rob made her leave.

And maybe she planned on having a new life with her secret lover and her children back in Texas. However, to be fair, this was after Rob and Brenda had separated. I guess she was free to date whoever she wanted and be with whoever she wanted. She wasn't adult after all and they were getting a divorce. Her intention was to leave Rob. And it was like once those divorce papers were putting into motion, that's when shit started to hit the fan. Ron mentions the break lines. And we already know we've heard this from Barb.

But Ron goes on further to say, Rob called the police about this. He filed a report. You should have that information. So of course, investigators, they're right on it. They want to pull up that information. to see if there's anything there that's relevant to this case. Rob Andrew had filed a report with the Oklahoma City Police. He gave them details that he was suspicious that James Pavott had cut his brake lines

and then he was trying to kill him by getting him to get on the highway so he would get into an accident. Why? Because guess what? When he was at work that day, he got a phone call. And it was a strange woman on the other line. It wasn't Brenda. And she said, is this Mr. Andrew? He's like, yes she said oh my god hurry come quick your wife and your kids they got an accident they've been rushed to norman hospital get her as fast as you can that hospital is 40 minutes away it is not a local hospital he would have had to get on the highway to get there and he knew this so he thought it was weird it didn't sound right something was off his brakes were cut and now he's

getting a phone call it's like the oldest trick in the book so he tells police someone is trying to kill me and I think I know who it is. At this point, he also tells police his friend James, the one he's suspecting, might be having a relationship with his wife. So at this point, Ron is explaining that Rob decides to look into his life insurance policy. Sounds like something that you would do, right, if you thought someone was trying to kill you, especially because his wife is a beneficiary. But what was even more unbelievable was that James Pivot was the one who wrote the insurance policy because he is an insurance agent at prudential life insurance. Months before this, Rob and James are friends. They go on hunting trips together. They're both deacons

in the church. They do business together. And one of the businesses is this life insurance policy, an $800,000 life insurance policy with Brenda as a beneficiary. Rob contacts James. And he kind of confronts him. He says, listen, I need to change the beneficiary on my policy to my children. And for whatever reason, James is trying to convince Rob that he can't change it because he doesn't own the policy. And this is all happening right before the Andrews divorce hearing that was supposed to be scheduled for November 1st. What's even more interesting is that James Pavott was actually subpoenaed to testify at that hearing. But guess what? November 1st rolls around and he's nowhere to be found. So he's held in contempt of court.

at this divorce hearing that Rob tells the judge he wants his life insurance beneficiary to be changed from Brenda to his children. The judge puts in an order and has it changed. Those new changes were in effect. The beneficiary was the children and one of Rob's brothers was the trustee. So as they're talking to Ron, they're also doing research. The investigators are out there immediately going to track down all these documents, talking to people gathering more information to make sense of everything that's going on and investigators find out when they call the insurance company that the day after the divorce hearing Brenda calls she wants to know if she's still the beneficiary on Rob's insurance policy and guess what

they tell her well you are now again because a document had just been faxed that's right the document had just been faxed in and backdated to March and it contained what looked like Rob's Signature. Interestingly enough, when he was at that divorce hearing and the judge says, what do you and Brenda argue about? He said the only arguments he has ever had with Brenda was about trying to remove her from the insurance policy. So this is what made him believe that James and Brenda were conspiring to kill him by cutting his breaklines. That's why the day after the hearing, he files a more explicit report with the police saying, listen, they're conspiring to kill me to claim by 800. $100,000 life insurance policy and still the police do nothing. This man knew. He knew and nothing was done. This man was so scared that on November 19th, a day before he was murdered, he provides the police with a cassette tape that contains two suspicious calls, urging him to rush to Norman Hospital. After the call that we know about with the weird woman, he gets another call from a man saying the exact same thing.

So at this point, of course, Rob is thinking someone's trying to kill me. Not only that, the investigators dig up the 911 call. You hear him literally telling this 911 dispatcher. That sounds like attempted murder, don't you think? Rob is solving his murder from the grave. I knew about investing, but I really didn't know how to go about it. Meet Corey, a Walthfront client. With Welfront, it could put money in,

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Investment management and advisory services provided by Wealthfront Advisors LLC and SEC registered investment advisor. Investing involves risk to principle regardless of the strategy used. Task performance does not guarantee future results. Meanwhile, they also come across journal entries. And this was sad. The ones from the weeks prior to his death were all about how much pain he was going through and how he was trying to cope with the loss of the wife that he loved. One of the passages said,

I'm in great pain. It was on November 14th. Jesus will intercede for me and will allow right things to occur for me. I don't need to fear failure or have guilt in me. I realize that God is for us who can be against us. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I try not to get emotional because this next part

was hard for me because it connects to what's going to happen later. And when I put it all together, I just couldn't believe how painful this was. But on November 19th, the evening before Rob is killed, he was with Ron and there at Rob's apartment. And around 9.15 p.m., Rob's daughter, Tricity, calls. And she asked her dad to come home to see her new puppy. This little girl has been waiting for a puppy for so long. She's always dreamed of becoming a vet.

And this was possibly either an early Christmas present or an early birthday present since her birthday is near Christmas. But all she wanted that night was to share that happy moment in her life with her daddy. So Rob and Ron drive over to Brenda's house. And when they get there, she's pissed. She didn't want Rob to have a friend over. And why was that? Was something already planned that night? And they're using his own daughter to lure him into the house?

Well, it didn't work because Ron was with him. and Brenda refused to let him inside to see the puppy. But here's the sad part. As they're leaving, Rob said something to Ron, and it honestly just, it gives me the chills and it makes me sick. He said, you know, it feels like someone has a gun on me all the time. If they do shoot me, I hope they get me with the first shot. I don't want to feel any pain.

And that same night, Brenda talked to a friend who came forward, and she literally told that friend that she hated Rob. She said, I hate him. I hate him. Oh, there's more. Ron suggests that Rob was shot with his own weapon, that he owned a 16-gauge shotgun. You know, the more uncommon gauge shotgun, that's right. He told Ron that he tried to retrieve his shotgun. He told Ron that he tried to retrieve his shotgun from their home when he was kicked out by Brenda, but she wouldn't give it back to him. There wasn't a shotgun ever recovered anywhere. Brenda had changed the locks and she changed the security codes so that Rob couldn't get back into the house. Just a week before the murders occurred, Rob told Ron how Brenda refused to let him get in that house specifically to retrieve the shotgun.

And they know that shotgun was in the house. You know why? Because when they were interviewing Higgins, he was doing repairs on the home. He saw the shock on September 2001. It was in the bedroom closet. This is more than a coincidence. But what's worse is that when all of this was going down, Rob made a statement to Ron.

He said, well, she finally found someone to kill me. He was saying that about James. And when James was asked what he was doing the day of the murders, he said he was moving his washer and dryer. And they find out that that washer and dryer was moved into Brenda's house. Yep. Just another piece of the puzzle. So with all this information, it is obvious to everyone that James probably didn't kidnap the kids and he probably didn't hurt Brenda. In fact, they're almost 100% certain.

Brenda and James are fugitives and they're on the run. The last thing that Rob ever said to anyone that we know of besides Brenda the night he was killed was when he left a message on Ron's answer machine around 5.45 p.m. He said that he was on his way to pick up his kids for the long holiday weekend and that he was excited and he was heading over to Brenda's. He was planning to get the children together with his family for the holiday traditions. That was his intention when he went to the home that he used to to share with his wife and children that evening. He called Ron again around 6 p.m.

At this time, he was sitting outside of Brenda's in his car waiting to pick up the children. Ron and Rob talked for a little while until Rob said to him, I'm gonna have to let you go now. They're coming out. And that was sad to me. It was extremely heartbreaking to know

that he's there to pick up his children that he will never see again. I don't never get to say goodbye to. This was all detectives needed to know. The FBI gets involved, and they literally put out wanted posters. These posters have descriptions of Brenda, James, and the two children. They were on America's Most Wanted. They were all over the place. There were a bunch of TV programs asking for the public's help,

and they were believed to be armed and dangerous. They're going back and looking over all the evidence again, everything that they collected, and now they have a new theory. Rob was definitely shot with a 16-gauge shotgun. But conveniently, Brenda wasn't. Because I don't know if you know this, but it's going to leave more than a through-and-through wound that's going to be bandaged up and let you be on your way the same night.

That is why police believe the 22 caliber was used on Brenda instead of the shotgun that was done on purpose. They also found the gunpowder on her pink sweater was in the shape of a ring and it had residue around the bullet hole. That meant it was fired about, two inches away from Brenda so she wasn't running away from a perpetrator they think she was holding her arm out and turning away and just letting her new boyfriend give her a little love tap compared to what her husband Rob suffered

that night and not only that when they started looking at everything else they find Brenda's clothing from that night when they test the jeans they find her blood which they knew would be there but they also find Rob And that makes sense, right? They were both in the garage together. But the thing is, Rob's blood was deep within the fabric. This meant that this was a high velocity. It means that she was standing very close to Rob.

They believe Brenda herself was responsible for at least one of the wounds to her husband. Because of where everything took place right near the furnace, and Brenda had already admitted that she was trying to get Rob to help her light the pilot light. They theorize that that is how she got him into the garage. Under the pretense that, hey, we're cold. We need the pilot light lit. It went out again. And because Rob is the person he is, he still loves his wife more than anything. He was hoping that they would still be able to get back together

because that's another general entry that I'm going to read you. But this man went in to help. And this is how she repaid him. Now for a huge break in the case. Someone tried to use a debit card or a credit card belonging to James Pavot at an ATM in Mexico. And that is not good news. Now investigators know they truly have fugitives on their hands. Now this part of Mexico is called Nuevo Laredo.

And it's right next to Laredo, Texas, which is the largest entry point into Mexico. And remember that the couple, James and Brenda, they took a trip to Texas not too long ago. So maybe this is where the plan came in. Instead of their little vacation, they were planning a murder. This is a place where thousands of people cross the border every single day. Up to 18,000 trucks pass over the border every single. day. And they enter Mexico without being scanned. They only get scanned when they come back into the U.S. That is when the license plate gets scanned. Now I know this sounds crazy, but all this is happening

the same day. It's unreal. The investigators were working through all of that over time to track down any clues because there were children involved who may never see their family again. Because now they're in another country. They issue a search warrant and they're able to go into James's apartment and they find a name change document, a black book containing a list of weapons, ammunition, and two 22 caliber bullets. Not only that, they find out that a week before the murder, James purchased a 22 caliber handgun from a local gun store. The evidence is just mounting and mounting. And on November 29th, James Pavott and Brenda Andrew are charged with first-degree murder

and conspiracy. This also put a couple other things in motion. This is when Rob's parents, ER and Llewellyn, file for guardianship over the children. But you know who else wants guardianship? Brenda's sister Kim and her husband Jim. She's been very vocal that her sister has nothing to do with this, that Brenda would never put her children in harm's way, that James probably did this on his own, that Brenda is probably scared, but she's not involved. And Kim is pleading to the public to wait. You have to know there are two sides to every story. The fact that Brenda has been charged with murder freezes her bank accounts to remember that money that she initially transferred from Rob's account into her account, while she no longer has access to that. The FBI also

make it illegal for Brenda and James and the children to fly anywhere. So they're stuck where they are, They're going to run out of money at some point, and that's when they're probably going to come right back to the United States. That is what the FBI are hoping for. Unfortunately, by December 21st, nothing has changed. That's when the FBI issued a $15,000 reward for any information leading to their arrests. ER and Llewellyn are beside themselves. They want their grandchildren to be safe. They're making public pleas and statements saying, please,

please, please return the children safely. Finally, someone comes forward with information. Nobody was expecting this. A woman calls in to investigators and she says she thinks she needs to make a confession. And she also knows who killed Rob. They say how? Who is she? She was the person who made the phone call to Rob about his wife and children being hurt

in a terrible accident and to rush to the hospital. That was her. She said her dad made her call Rob and say those things. So who is this woman? Turns out, she's the adult daughter of James Pavott, Jana Larson. She says, I swear I wasn't aware of what my dad was trying to do because she realizes that she could be facing attempted murder charges. She promises that she had nothing to do with it and did not know her dad was involved in cutting break lines. She can't believe that her father would put her own life in danger, that she would possibly go to prison

on account of something he was about to do. Something that was so awful and heinous and illegal. And now that she realizes that this was his motive, she's willing to do anything to help the FBI. She gives them other information that was very damning and interesting. She says that James asked to borrow her car the day of the murders and he says, oh, I'm going to go get your car service.

How nice. But when he returns the car, it wasn't serviced. And when she got inside, she noticed something on the floor? A 22-caliber bullet. She confronted James about this, and her dad says, never repeat what I told you in October. So what was that?

He came home one day and he said, you're never going to believe with that nuttier than a fruitcake woman asked me to do. She asked me to kill her husband or find somebody that could. Wow. He reminded her at that point, don't say anything or I'll kill you too. And then he told her to throw away the 22 caliber bullet.

So when she realizes what her dad was really up to, she tells the FBI. And she says that she's already been in contact with her father, that he's called her a couple of times. And he's running out of money like they thought. So they come up with a plan. They said, we're going to tap your phone.

And when he calls you next time, we're going to try to see if you can get him to meet you in Oklahoma. so he'll come over the border to get the money. Well, a couple weeks later, it happens. He calls her up, and he says he needs some money. But when she says to come over to Oklahoma, he's not quite having it.

And it doesn't really work out. However, they do have him on tape, talking to her, and they confirm that he's definitely in Mexico. But sadly, they're still in the run. And they probably would be for a very long time, because they had a plan in place. They thought they had everything planned out, perfectly, that no one would ever know what they did. But all of that changed February 28, 2002

at 1155 a.m. For more than three months, Tricity and Parker have been gone. They weren't able to grieve for their father. They missed his funeral. They were never able to say goodbye to him. But because of one special agent at the Mexican-Texas border that paid attention to detail, the most incredible thing happened. And I was crying tears of happiness when I was reading this. And it was something the shows never fully explained and gave credit to this person for. It was something I had to read about when I was going through newspapers. Sergeant Special Agent Martin Hueta had actually been activated by the National Guards Counter Drug Task Force. He was stationed at the International Bridge that links Mexico to Texas and he was undercover. He wasn't just a Border Patrol agent.

Everyone thought he was, but he was actually there to do secondary searches of vehicles in question that had been targeted by the Border Patrol officers, and they were supposed to be given a second inspection that was more thorough. Everyone else thought he was just a normal customs agent. Every single hour, he goes through about 10 vehicles that could be suspected of carrying drugs across the border, and it is a very tedious job. Sometimes he sees so many vehicles that they all start to just blend together, but somehow that day something stood out, around 1140, Martin spotted something, something that stood out.

He saw a little girl and she was crying. And her eyes were red and it looked like she'd been crying for a very long time. This is something that's so important to his job to make sure that these children aren't being trafficked or kidnapped. So Martin looked over and he sees a little boy. And the little boy's also crying.

And then when he looks over at who's driving this minivan, it was a fairly older gentleman. It didn't seem to be the children. father, so he stops the car and searches their bags. Inside the little girl's bag, he finds a diary. And inside are all kinds of hand-drawn pictures of dogs. It's pretty obvious that she loved doggies. There were dogs on every page in that book. But she just kept crying, and he wanted her to stop crying and to cheer her up. So we asked her, do you like dogs? And she just nodded her head, yeah. So we had an idea.

There are these little trading cards that the customs officials always have on hand in case they need to talk to children so they can kind of entertain them, distract them. There's some heavy things that go on at these borders. But some of the cards have border patrol dogs on them. And the cards talk about the dog's history and the dog's career. And he thought, I'm going to hand her some of these cards to cheer her up. So he went over. And he said, you want to see some dogs? and he starts showing her the cards with the dogs on it,

and she burst into tears once again. She was like fully bawling her eyes out. But there wasn't anything suspicious about the man driving or the vehicle. Nothing that could lead Martin to believe anything was out of sorts. So they went on their way, but little did he know that that chance encounter was going to change those children's lives forever. Because he just encountered Tricity and Parker Andrew

with her uncle Jim Bolin, Brenda's sister's husband. He just didn't know yet. But 20 minutes later, after the minivan was gone, remember the tag reader I talked about? Well, they registered a hit. It hit on an Oklahoma license plate, and the customs agents confirmed that the occupants inside were wanted by the FBI,

a beautiful black-haired woman in her 30s, and the slender man in a blue shirt wearing sunglasses. They didn't even resist arrest. Brenda Andrew and James Pavotte were finally captured. After they were detained, Martin was called over by his supervisor to get the things out of the vehicle. When he picked up Brenda's purse, the zipper broke, and things fell out and to the floor. And when they did, the purse opened up and you could see other compartments. When he looked inside, he saw a picture and he recognized the little girl.

He had just seen her in that minivan 20 minutes earlier. And he's frantically rushing around to find that vehicle. He knew it was a Ford minivan, but he couldn't remember the color. All of a sudden, as he's rushing around, he sees the back of the van, and it's parked near the entrance of the immigration office. At this point, they've connected that those are Brenda's children. So they go inside, and they're calling out their names, and as soon as those children turn around and respond,

they run up and they detain Jim Bolin. For the next three hours, Martin is in there with these children and they are crying nonstop. Nothing can stop them from bawling their eyes out. They give them cookies and drinks and games, but nothing helped. All they wanted was to see their mom. But by 430, the FBI had finally taken Brenda and James into custody. They were in jail in Texas. And the children were waiting for their grandparents, ER and Llewellyn, and it was sad.

These grandparents, they did so much to prepare. They set up rooms in anticipation that they were going to be found and they would get them back and they love them so much. It's the only piece of their son they have left. They're just amazing people. I want to tell you a little more because I was able to find out some current and recent information about the children and I wanted to share it. But before I do, I just want to tell you one thing that Special Agent Martin said

that he was proud to be someone who played a role in finding the children, but he was haunted by something that he saw in that diary. When he was going through it, he saw that Tricity had written something to her best friend. It was about her new puppy. The entry was from back in November. He can't exactly remember what she said, but it was before her father was killed. She never wrote in that journal. again. That was her last entry, and it's hard for me not to become emotional about that. It's like

her world ended for her at that point. She had nothing to write about. Both Brenda and James waived extradition, and we're back in Oklahoma within 10 days of being detained. District attorney West Lane decided to seek the death penalty against both of them, and I wanted to know what you thought about this part, because it's actually pretty controversial. I want to know about everything that I've told you about, but what are your thoughts specifically about the death penalty being on the table in this case? The police released photographs of the severed brake lines, even the tape of the phone calls. So all this is going out to the media and they're gearing up for trials. Brenda denies she has any involvement.

She pleads not guilty. And James does as well. They're both denied bail. And you know what else comes out? Remember how the children were with Jim Boland, Kim's husband, Brenda sister. husband. Well, guess what? The prosecutor say Kim was waiting in a motel room in McAllen, Texas for them to all arrive. So they think they might have had something to do with helping Brenda get away with this. Can you remember back to when Kim also made that phone call to police? And she's like,

oh, don't worry, Brenda's fine. And she's like, oh, sorry, I made a mistake. Never mind. I don't know where she is. Kind of sketchy. I'm not going to go into details about this trial because it is just long and crazy and there's so many things that came out. Like the fact that years before this, Judy had given Brenda a key to her house and she'd forgotten about it. So they think that Brenda gave that key to James and James used it to get into that house to hide after committing the crime. So many people testified. That's where I got a lot of this information because I read through all of the trial documents. The men that she had affairs with were at the trial testifying, family members, friends, coworkers, the list goes on and on. There were two separate trials.

There was James that happened one year before Brenda's. His was a three-week trial. They reached a verdict, murder in the first degree with a fixed punishment of death. Brenda's trial was highly publicized. It garnered national media attention mostly because statistically it's men who commit these kind of crimes and Brenda was a woman. So it was kind of But big deal. Not only that, media, well, they saw this as a really good story because it was love and religion and sex and lies. It was like a lifetime movie or something. They had handwriting experts for all kinds of things. And guess what? Remember the insurance documents that were faxed over and then backdated to March? Well, Brenda would always brag to her friends for some reason that she could sign Rob's signature just as good as he could and that she would sign documents for him all the time for work. However, he started using a little symbol.

I'll show it to you on the screen. It's a little symbol for a fish. It's a Christian symbol. He started putting this right under his signature. Well, when they analyzed the insurance documents, it was missing. So those documents were forged. The prosecution believes Brenda did this for money and because she didn't want to lose custody of her children.

After a six-week trial, Brenda was found guilty of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder, and she was also sentenced to death. She's currently awaiting execution on death row. However, I did want to add, there is some controversy here, and it's the last thing I'm going to mention right before I tell you something about tricity.

This case was sexual in nature, and I say that because a lot of the evidence that the prosecution submitted was about Brenda's character. not evidence of her being there when this crime was committed. Yes, they had some of that as well. But what they had more of was evidence of her affairs. As a matter of fact, there is a article I read called

Sex Shamed to Death, where they think that Brenda got the death penalty because she was a promiscuous woman, for a better word. The prosecution's closing arguments were interesting, to say the least. They brought a luggage out that she had brought to me. Mexico and they opened it up and one by one they're pulling out pairs of thong underwear and they're saying does this look like the underwear of a grieving wife does this look like the underwear of a woman who loved her husband and wouldn't have an affair with one of his best friends like just going through it like this and this and lingerie and whatever else was in there the point of this was kind of her shock value

and to make her look like a terrible woman a terrible wife that she didn't care about rob whatsoever But it was also argued that it had nothing to do with the fact that she was on trial for murder. Yes, she could be promiscuous and a cheater, but does it make her a murderer? When Brenda made her appeal, those were the things that were in there. That's evidence to prove maybe she wasn't a Christian woman, but it's not really supposed to be evidence to prove you committed murder. By the way, James isn't on death row. He had his death sentence commuted. That's right.

When he appealed, his sentence was reduced to life in prison. He alleged he didn't have a fair trial because there was a person who confessed to shooting Rob, Tyrone Wood. There was a letter that Tyrone sent in, and it was never introduced to evidence. So I'm not going to go into it all, but because of the way his counsel did or did not submit certain things, his sentence was commuted to life. In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Brenda's appeal. And last time I checked, there were only 42 people awaiting death in Oklahoma. right now and Brenda was the only woman that I was able to find. Now I told you I wanted to end with something, something positive. Tricity has grown into an amazing woman. After graduating

high school, she attended University of Tulsa in 2009, and she graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics, with a minor in biology and business administration. She went on to achieve her master's degree in applied mathematics from North Carolina State University, and then she graduated June 2020 with her PhD and applied mathematics. That's freaking amazing. She was active in the Association for Women in Mathematics and she held roles as president, vice president, and treasurer. So Rob, I think you got your wish. I'm sure somehow, somewhere, there was a button or a sticker or a sign that said electricity. Even though her father couldn't be there in the flesh, He was there walking down the aisle with her

because a picture of him and her together was tied to the bouquet. I spent hours looking through her Facebook. I feel like I got to know this family and I have so much respect for Rob's parents. They're still together. They have raised wonderful children and I just want to thank all of you so much

for watching this video and giving your time to this family. It really means a lot to me. So thank you so very much for watching. I will see you in my next video. Bye.