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The more muscle memory that you have, the smoother your weld is. Learn more at meta.com/metiverseimpact. - Hello everybody and welcome back to Small Town Murder Express. - Yeah, choo-choo. - Oh, yeah, indeed, Jimmy. Yeah, indeed. My name is James Petrogallum here with my co-host. - I'm Jimmy Westman. - Thank you folks for joining us so much. All aboard the Murder Train. We got a crazy one for you. Even the town name is crazy. It makes no sense how they say it. We'll get into all of that before we do very quickly top of the show. Thanks for all that you do for us. You're heroes. - Hey, you're far, head over to shutupandgivememurder.com if you want to be bigger heroes and go to a live show. - Oh, yeah. - April 5th, Sacramento, April 6th in San Francisco. First up of the year, first row dates, get your tickets now, everything. They're going fast, there's dates that are sold out at the end of the year. So definitely get in there. Minneapolis, you can be our biggest show ever. - I can't wait. - Make it happen. Also, April the 20th, Saturday night, April 20th, and it's available for two weeks after that. - Two weeks. - Two weeks, you can do whatever you want to watch it a hundred times. Virtual live show, just like a regular live show. The table, the pictures, the story. - The themed up. - The themed up, 'cause it's 4.20. I'll make Jimmy smoke out of crazy things that will scare the shit out of them. We're going to dress up in costumes, get there. Come see it, we cannot wait. We're so excited for it. Shut up and givememurder.com. Quickly patreon.com/crimeinsports is where you get all of the bonus material. - Great. - There's so much bonus material too, as we know. A couple hundred back episodes, anybody that's $5 a month or above, a mere cup of coffee will get you. That money will get you so much more than a cup of coffee. - Stretch your dollar. - Our cup is so much deeper than a cup of coffee. You're going to get a couple of runneth way over, a couple hundred back episodes, and then new ones every other week, and this week is no different. What you're going to get is for crime and sports, which you'll also have access to. We're going to talk about Hans Neiman, or Neiman, who was, he's a chess player, who isn't been accused of having a vibrator up his ass to be signaled of chess moves, or so it seems like something to be more handy for cards, but I guess chess too. - Learning Morse code for this. - You have to learn a lot for this. We'll talk all about that on other up the ass mechanisms people have used over time. - Jesus. - And for small town murder, DB Cooper. Let's find out what happened there. We'll talk about it. - Let's talk about it. - I've read so much about it. The guy obviously had a money and said he had a bomb and jumped out of a plane and never was seen again. So one of the biggest mysteries there are, we'll talk about all that. And more patreon.com/crimeinsports and you get a shout out at the end of the show. - You bet. - Into the main show. That said, let's get to this. - Let's go. - We got a lot of story. Whew, let's do it. I think it's time everybody to sit back. Let's clear the lungs, arms to the sky, everyone. And let's all shout. ♪ Shout out and give me murder ♪ - Let's do this, everybody. Let's go on a trip, shall we? All right. - We should. - We're going to Balton, Tennessee. Now, I say it like that with a little bit of, you know, a little bit of skepticism in my voice because it is spelled Balitin, B-A-I-L-E-Y-T-O-N. And it was originally Balletown. And then they dropped the thing, I guess, 'cause you know, town is a lot to say. And they like to shorten things up in the south, so Balletown. - Yeah. - And then they said, fuck do we need the E-4? Just Balton, screw it. And here we are with Balton, who doesn't look like Balton. - We don't even say it right. - Nobody says it right, I'm sure that goes there, you know? It's in Northeastern Tennessee in that panhandle that comes out of the Northeastern part of Tennessee, about an hour from Knoxville, five hours to Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, which was our last Tennessee episode, which was called Fat Sam and Crazy Crystal. I remember that one. - Oh yeah. - That was a crazy one. Population of this town, 430. - So what? - Very small town here. Median household income here, 36,875, which is about half the national average, is not good. - Yeah. - Median home cost here, also very low, 156,800 bucks. This is a picturesque, this is the hills up here. It's picturesque, it's beautiful. If you flew over, you go, it's beautiful, but there's not a lot going on down there. - Right. - It was originally called Laurel Gap, when it was first settled, it was first settled in 1776. So back in revolutionary times here. - That's a specific year, it's a big deal. - A lot of people lived here, we're all farmers, everybody there. First it came, it was called Bally Town, two separate words, then it was Bally Town, one word. Then for some reason, the W was dropped in 1915, and it was just Bally Town. This was named after two brothers that lived there, Claudius and Thomas Bally, and now it's just Baelton, they call it, so it beats a shit out of me. - That's poor guys. - Wow, yeah, their name just bastardized, it's not even about them anymore. - You imagine having your name, James Town, and they just call it Jameton? - Yeah, well if it was my last name, I'd get it. - I'd be furious if it's name, yeah. - Drop some vowels, I understand, it's complicated. - But if it's named after you, fucking pronounce my name, give me the credit, man. - It's not like, I mean, it's not petrogallow, it's Bally, it's very easy. - It's too syllable, geez. - Not too many, one syllable, Bael, Baelton, and that's it. So whatever, that's fine, it's your town, you can call it whatever you want. - Do this. - Just spell it right. - Spell it, yeah, that's what changed the spelling, like you did when you dropped the W. Reviews of this town, there's only one review here, and they love it, so let's find out. - Really? - Five stars, I've had a good experience in Bally Town, and Baelton, sorry, I have grown up here all my life. Everyone is extremely nice and helpful, and they would help you out with anything. I like how everything is so close, like five minutes from Baelton's school, and eight from North Green. Wow, they're not even saying 10, they're going eight minutes, exact. - James, there are 400 people here, how big can the ship be? - It can't have that much traffic either, like you figure half the people don't have cars, some are too old, some are too young. I would like to see more things added to the Baelton park area, maybe like a volleyball net or something like that. They're not asking for a lot. - Yeah, but you want a volleyball court in a town of 400, head on over to Walmart, pick it up and stake it in the ground. - Set it up in your yard. But I mean, most of these are like, I would like to see more restaurants on a mall, I would like it to not be a small town. They're like, I'd like to see a volleyball net, just put a net up, we don't even need, you don't even need to mark it out, we'll mark out the side, everything. - No, we don't have to say anything. - It's fine, so families can go have and play or have a picnic. Other than that, it's a nice place to park and hang out, like for birthday parties or just to get together at. - Okay. - All right, things to do, not a lot, you gotta go to Greenville. The Greenville Iris Festival, which is in Green County, and it's their annual Iris Festival, and they have-- - Iris, not Iris. - No, no, Iris, the flower, not the Irish Festival. - All right. - No, no, that's St. Patrick's Day, we'll have that already. This is just about flowers. You can shop at over 155 vendors, I don't know if they're only selling flowers or what, but you can also go to the Sundown on Depot, which it says, "Reve your engines and roll into the Sundown on Depot car show." It's got a classic car show. And then, for some reason, at the end of all this, we're celebrating flowers, I guess, and things like that, there's an axe throwing in Renaissance fare. - May as well, why not? - Channel your inner warrior as you try your hand at axe throwing, a sport that recombines precision and fun. - Yeah, I've done it, it's not so bad, but it does fucking hurt the next day. - Yeah, who throws axes in your everyday life? Have we been lumberjacking? No, that's not a normal procedure. No one throws an axe normally. - It hurts so that for several days. - You're not gonna-- - And you're not gonna work those muscles out. - No. - You have to actually throw four times a week to be able to not be sort. - And surprise, surprise, you're all shit at it. - Everyone's shit at it. And if you were good at it, then what? What are you gonna be? Turn pro, who gives a shit? Great, you're good at a hobby, terrific. I'm good at an exercise bike. Good for you, it's the same thing. - There's no three-letter league for this shit. Go back to work. - That said, let's talk about some murder 'cause it's, we're pack chock full of murder today here. - Great. - Well, it's just a wild story that's tragic on many sides. It's one of those-- - Yeah, let's talk about some people first. All right, let's talk about some people. All these people are gonna be from Kentucky. Bailton's gonna kind of be a stopover where something bad happens. From people that are outside of it. Talk about a young lady first named Karen Howell. Karen, we're gonna talk mainly about like 1996, 1997. She was born in 1979, late '79. So when all of this takes place, she's 17 years old. She's born in Ohio. Her family moved to Kentucky when she was three. I'm sure her parents got divorced when she was nine. She says they got divorced because her mother was a Christian and her father wasn't. Either one of them would be tired of the other ones' bullshit at that point, you know what I mean? They think whatever the others do when it's wrong. - It's a miracle that they got along at all. If this is driving them apart in the first place, you know what I mean? That's crazy. - That's true. I don't know how they got together or maybe she became more of a Christian. He became lesser. I'm not sure. - Oh, okay. - So some people fall out of it, I don't know. - Yeah. - She had a lot, her parents had some violent nasty fights between them. She also says later on that she was sexually abused between the ages of five and 10 by an uncle and a cousin. - Oh, two Jesus. - I don't know if at the same time, or I really don't want to know. But unsurprisingly, with beginnings like that, by 13, she started cutting herself. - She's doing great. - That's very well adjusted. - Yeah, that's fucking-- - Oh, man. Poor thing. - That sucks, man. Yeah, that's unfortunately predictable with that. - Yeah. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - It comes with the territory, unfortunately. - Yeah. She also attempted suicide a couple of times, twice by cutting her wrists and twice by ODing on drugs. - Oh, Karen. - She's had some stuff going on here for a young lady. Until 14, until she was 14, she lived with her mother and fought with her constantly. And she's not good. Everybody says, including school and everybody else, not good with rules and regulations. Doesn't care for them much. - Both of them are awful, yeah. - Not like in that and also has kind of a hard time functioning at school due to the, you gotta follow a lot of rules and regulations in school as a problem, so. - Those do apply there, yeah. And if you don't like yourself anyway, as evidenced by self-harm, who gives the shit if I succeed or not through this bullshit school that has all these rules? And then it comes along with regulations, right? - Well, she's also doing a lot of drugs at this time too, which definitely changes. - How old? - 14, 13, 14, 15, she'd run away all the time, also developed an interest in witchcraft, which she began by use, she would use her Ouija board and an automatic writing. Do you know what that is? - No. - Okay, let's talk about automatic writing. That's, we gotta talk about that for a minute. This is right from Wikipedia. Also called psychography is a claim to psychic ability allowing a person to produce written words without consciously writing. So like something's channeling you and you're just, it's moving your hand to write words. I don't know that. - As much as you could channel that for English class. - Yeah, you're lucky that the thing speaks English whatever's channeling you, they're not writing it in like ancient Sanskrit or Saudi Beach box. Yeah, what does this mean? Jesus, what am I writing? Symbols and shit, calligraphy. - Yeah. - Practitioners engage in automatic writing by holding a writing instrument and allowing alleged spirits to manipulate the practitioner's hand. The instrument may be a standard writing instrument or maybe one specifically designed for automatic writing such as a plan sheet or a Ouija board. She would do that on there in the Ouija, yeah. So her mother found some of these writings and gave them to ministers who then attempted to quote cast out her demons which I'm sure was great for her psychologically as well. As we all know, exorcisms really do a not great job on people's psychies as we found out at the time. - That ought to fix her. - That ought to do it. So she claimed though that these weren't bad spells. She wasn't trying to do anything black magic or anything crazy weird. She just had created love spells to get two boys she liked to want to date her. That's what she was doing. Which every teenager does that in some way, shape or form. Whether they do it formally through automatic writing or they just try to conjure some positive visualization in their head or spray on some polo sport. Or just close their eyes and jerk off one of the three. - That's a good way for guys, yeah. - Oh, I dated many a girl. - Yeah, all of them, all of the hot girls. - So that's how that goes. She also says she hears voices, which is a problem, obviously. She says she started hearing voices at age 13 and also claimed to have visual hallucinations of things such as snake spirits and demons. - Okay, but she's also on drugs. She's also on drugs and yeah. By 15, she was starting to be sexually active, voluntarily. She also was experimenting with a lot of drugs by 15. Like weed and booze, as a lot of kids do. But also LSD, she's taking acid, dropping acid, doing PCP, so she's doing dust. This is the mid 90s. Dust is very, I smoked dust too in the mid 90s, mixed with weed and blunts. - Not for fun though, right? Not on purpose? - Yeah, on purpose. - Jesus Christ. - You buy the little fuckin' in beakin', you buy the little red devil bags and you fuckin', you mix 'em with blunts and that shit was good. Yeah, that was a fuckin' hooligan, that's why. - You're having a fuckin' mind, man. - And also doing coke and shit, which I don't like any uppers of any kind, so that never my thing. Did that one so many times. - She's really trying. - This is horrible. - Jesus. - She's really trying everything except for meth, huh? - Yeah, I don't know how much meth there was in the mid 90s in a rural area too. - Good point, yeah, that was tough to find. - Probably tougher than now, it's everybody's got it, I'm sure. - Oh God, it's fuckin' what you're saying. - She said she tripped on acid about 14 times, which is a lot, that's a decent amount. - I'll tell you whether or not you like it. - Yeah, I'm still not sure how I feel about it. - It's still on the fence. - I'm on the fence, let me try it a couple more, let's get to 20. She said she had two bad trips, which two out of 14. - Not bad. - That usually happens early, but then you learn how to set up yourself up for success. Like by like the fourth, fifth time you do acid, you have a whole, there's a whole plan and a structure. - Yeah. - You're gonna be our zero variables, yeah. We're gonna watch this, we're gonna watch this. I bought these things to play with, then I got things to do and we're not going anywhere, we're locking the doors. - Zero variables. - Yeah, one time during a bad trip, she had a worse one than I ever had. She tried to chew her friend's arm. She had like a bugs bunny on a stranded, on an isolated island fantasy that her friend turned into a chicken or what? - Jesus. - Number one bugs would be stranded in the-- - Yeah, every time that turkey looked great. - It looked so good and a big hamburger. - I've never had a meal that looked as good as I looked at. - No, no, or whenever they would be barbecuing a steak on a cartoon, it looked sub with a bone in the middle. - The little bone in the middle, what is that? - I don't know what steak, I don't know what that is. - I've never seen a steak before. - But I've been looking for it since I was three. I really am. - I've never seen that steak in my entire life. - If I find one, it's on. I'm gonna eat that shit out of that thing, boy. It's all I'll be doing is barbecuing our dune steak. - It's probably some shit cut, right? It's gotta be like something they throw in the trash. - Some terrible cut from the '50s that this, yeah. - For dogs. - That's made into like, yeah, it's made into good dog food now. That's what that is. So the second time she had a bad trip, she sat alone on the bathroom floor for hours, which that'll make, give you a bad trip. You gotta get around, Pete. - Yeah, you can't, you can't just sit in a room and stare at a wall. - No, it's why you can't take too much acid, 'cause you have to be aware enough to go, you're on drugs, you did this on purpose. - This is what happens, yeah. - This is what you wanted. Now, this is how, these are the steps you have to take to try to fix what's going on here and do positive things. Otherwise-- - You've paid money for this. - Yeah, and she's gotta have friends. That's what you do with friends too, 'cause you look for your friends. You gotta look out for people if you're trippin'. So if you see somebody sittin' on the bathroom floor, you go, "Hey, hey, come on, Karen, let's go. "Let's go do somethin'. "Come on, yay." - Also, it's cartoon time. - There's cartoon time. - You're not capable of handling this. - He was like 15, 16, she was doin' this. - Still a bit young, right? - That's when I was doin' it, I don't know. Still, it's not, I wouldn't recommend it for kids. No, if you're listening and you're 15, I don't recommend acid for you for a long while. - My kid's 15, I don't recommend fuckin' sugar for him. - Yeah, I gotta watch. - He's out of control already. - Yeah, you give my son a sprite, it's on. - Watch out. - Not even the caffeine, just sugar. (laughing) Sprite, and you better fuckin' pat down the hatches. - That's an alien devil on your hands. - Yeah, psychological testing indicates that Karen functions within the cochmetically, I'm gonna use this, quote unquote, border line retarded range of intelligence. Her IQ is 78, which fours dumb was-- - I think that test, yeah. - Fours, gump is 72. So, just a, I'm a gump. - You're just doing all right. - I always do the gump scale. Like, think of fours gump, this is close there, so. - But did they take it on a day that she was drugged up, do you know what I mean? 'Cause-- - No, this is a couple of different times, we'll talk about it, but that's the number. A psychiatrist stated that she does not suffer from a primary mental retardation, but, and she has the potential to function within the average range of intelligence and has an ability to speak effectively, but does not function well under pressure and gives up easily. - She's got a host of problems. - She's got a bunch of problems to her, yeah. All stemming, she needs a lot of health is what she needs. So, she had low grades and she said she never paid attention in school, and they said she probably also has ADD at the same time too. She drops out of school at the age of 16. She started as a freshman at three different high schools, 14, 15, 16. - Oh, yeah, that do. - And then just-- - Why would you even? - Why would you? - She did. She, after her first semester of high school, she moved in with her father, and that was, you know, they never really even talked, she said, which was weird. After a few months, she moved back in with her mother, and she said it was fine with her dad, it wasn't that bad, but she just wanted to move in with her mother, but she couldn't, she said she couldn't perform the required work in school, she couldn't do it, so she was gonna try to get her GED. She was also babysitting for her brother and sister-in-law every day, and her sister-in-law was helping her study for her GED. So her mother, by the way, had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and has similar behavioral patterns to her, whereas the depression and then hyperactivity and rage and these waves, her mother on her, on her grandmother on her mother's side and her grandfather were also diagnosed bipolar. So... - Genetic, yeah. - Certainly runs in the family. She meets some new friends here. - Perfect. - That, yeah, who is she gonna attract? You know what I mean? Who is she gonna look for as a kid that's rebelling? - Yeah. - She finds a young lady named Natasha Cornette, Natasha Wallen at the time, she'll later be Natasha Cornette when she gets married, when she turns 18 for like four months. So she's from Betsy Lane, Kentucky, and Cornette also likes witchcraft and also claims to hear voices. So there are a match made in heaven here. Yeah, it's, wow, it's a lot. She comes from a really tumultuous family here. Yeah, her mother, I guess, well, her mother was divorced and had a kid when she was born. She, her father, I guess, didn't realize that her mother was having an affair, and that's what she is the product of, was this affair that her mother didn't know about. So she thought her father was her father until she was five, when she learned that a guy named Roger Burgess, who was a Pikeville, Kentucky police officer, was actually her father. Oh my God. So that's a little, you're starting on shaky ground when that's what you're finding out of five. That's what made Manson. You can't, you gotta fuck, man. I sometimes facts suck, but you gotta be honest with these kids, man. My God, Jesus, that's rough, man. You gotta tell them who and what they are, fuck. Apparently, one of her boyfriends, one of her mom's boyfriends, made an attempt to be a father figure to her. But when Natasha was seven, her mother left the relationship, and I'm sorry, the guy left the relationship 'cause her mother had persistent infidelities. So, and violent outburst, 'cause she's got mental illness that's untreated at that point too. She's a party. Natasha was smoking cigarettes by the age of five. Okay. She found out her dad wasn't her dad and was like, let me tell you something, sweetheart. (laughing) You think you got problems, honey? - Yeah. - I got it much worse, all right? I got kindergarten tomorrow. I'm doing mornings, I wanna do afternoon. It was all full up, you know. I gotta lie, I gotta polyp over here. I gotta get checked out later on. - Hand me the marvellous, what'd you-- - Hey, honey. Would you hand me the Benson and Hedges, please? Thank you. I smoked the 120s. It's a better value. - Get more for my dollar. - Get more for my dollar. (laughing) - So, in 1985, her mom was treated successfully for breast cancer, so it's really a lot. Really, really a lot, I'll tell you. I mean, just a, she's got a lot of stuff. She's being put with different people, with her mom's six, she's living with her grandmother and all of that. She was fascinated with her grandmother's discussions of the paranormal, apparently. And she got into that from there and got into the occult and her grandmother claimed that she could speak with dead people, so. - Oh yeah. - That's, yeah. So, her mother, then that year, she went back with her mother and then her mother had a nervous breakdown and a back surgery. - I wonder why. - Oh my God. So, then, after having an affair with a married attorney in Pikeville, her mom filed a suit for sexual harassment against somebody else at her job or something. And finally, at this point, her mom gets medication and some psychiatric counseling, which will help stabilize home, at least. So, that's good. - Take somebody literally blowing her back out for a day. - Yeah. - It gets some therapy. - Fuck yeah, but Natasha, by the sixth grade, she's already dealing with bulimia and depression. - Oh my God. - She lost 30 pounds and was hospitalized for an eating disorder in the sixth grade, sixth grade. Her clock is way sped up. She's smoking by five, having eating disorders by fucking 10, 11. - This girl's 19. - This is insane. She's 11 having problems with this. - Right. - So, wow, it's a lot. Her father, I guess, her real father, the police officer, his wife ends up dying. So, he starts to show an interest in her and like calling her and stuff because of her life. This guy's wife didn't want nothing to do with his affair child. - Right, now that lady's dad that hates me for what I did. - Yeah. - Now I can do this. - But that relationship was on again off again. In elementary school, she's a straight A student. Yeah, she'd have to take a few smoke breaks every day, but other than that, when she'd get in the classroom, she was really focused. - She went up with a thermos and a cigarette. - Yeah, no shit. - Thermos full of coffee. - Smoke on, all right. Let's get to these fucking ABCs, what do you say? - Let's go. I brought a nice egg salad sandwich for lunch. Smoking. - Yeah, yeah, the farmer in the doll. Let's go. - Yeah, the farmer in the doll. Yeah, yeah. - And then we'll move there, all right. Jesus Christ. - Bingo is his name, I'll hold another one. - I know the end of this one already. Come on. (laughing) - Suck his fighter, I don't care how big he is. - Christ. - Yeah, she is. - It's eating a little bit, see. - That thing ain't gonna fit down the drain, you know. It's gonna get clogged, you're gonna have to call a plumber. That's, you know, $89 an hour we're talking once. I don't know what you want to spend, but-- - It's 75 from the show up. - Just to get in the door, it's 75. (laughing) - Watch that motherfucker down the toilet, let's get over it. - So I feel terrible for this girl, honestly. She, everybody said before, like the seventh grade, she'd been a good student, polite, conservative, in dress and that sort of thing, by sixth grade, she's cutting herself and she's wearing dark clothing and black fingernails and dark eye makeup and lit makeup, but she's just dressing gothy, '90s kind of Marilyn Nanceney at the time. - Yeah, she's leaning into feeling like an outcast. - Yeah, which would be fine to just, 'cause everybody's gonna express that, except her grade slipped and all that sort of thing. She's become sexually active at about 13, who's a little young. Also, she fought with her mother all the time. In 1993, she threatened to cut herself with a knife and her mother tried to take the knife away, so then she threatened to stab her mother with it. - Okay, that's jail time, right? - Well, yeah, her mom called the police and she was arrested. She was released by police into the custody of her father. While living there, she tried to commit suicide by slashing her wrists. She's hospitalized for 11 days for psychiatric care at that time. Here's a couple diary entries from her, okay? Oh, lucky me to rot in this God forsaken world. This is such a teenager, I mean. - Yeah, this is just a Winona writer and Beetlejuice, I mean, it could just be that, 'cause that's what she did, too, but you never know. Hey, everybody, just gonna take a quick break from the show and tell you about a wonderful company that does fabulous things for your skin, Curology. - Oh, curology.com, see you at OLOGY.com. - Absolutely, and Curology, this is what makes them awesome and different. 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When you go to curology.com/smalltown, go to curology.com/smalltown for this free offer, that's curology, C-U-R-O-L-O-G-Y.com/smalltown. Trial is 30 days, applies only to your first box, subject to consultation, new subscribers only. - Now back to the show. - Hey everybody, just gonna take a quick break from the show to tell you about a sponsor that can keep you safe, simply safe. - Simplysafe.com, S-I-M-P-O-I, safe.com. - Absolutely, did you know that according to FBI property crime data, most home break-ins happen in broad daylight. - Oh my, is that right? - So as the days are getting longer this spring, you wanna protect your home with SimplySafe, it's the award-winning home security system that Jimmy and I both use, protect our homes, our studios, customers, and experts. Everybody is in agreement about one thing, and that's SimplySafe is awesome. And you install your system your way, it's easy to do it yourself, even we did it. So you can do it, or you can get their professionals to do it for you. You can test it out with absolutely no risk to you with SimplySafe 60-day risk-free trial. You don't love it, return it for a full refund. So protect your home today. Our listeners get a special 20% off any new SimplySafe system when you sign up for fast-protect monitoring. Just visit simplysafe.com/small. That's SimplySafe, S-I-M-P-L-I, safe.com/small. There's no safe like SimplySafe. Now back to the show. I am deaf, look at me, I am hate, do hate me. Never love me, no, for I am the unloved, untouched, and unwanted. Give me, take me, shred me away so I will not harm. Jesus, that's dark for a 14-year-old. That's, she then writes, what's happening to me? I feel my hatred rise unto the inner, the most inner parts of my soul. Love seems to be a common word now. Tears flow, but why do they? Will no one love me? Will hell take me from all this confusion and pain? Will death no longer take my surrender? Stare at me in fright and confusion, for I am different. I am alien to the world you live. Fill my heart of death for what? Said I do not, what is said I do not understand? Jeez, that's a lot. Her diary that all this was written in is a pink book with a unicorn on it. By the way, that's what makes it fucking weird. That's really does. Wow. - Is it like, you know, is it ironic? Is he doing it ironically? Like, I'll buy this cute frilly shit and then write all this dark shit in it. - I bet someone gave her it to gave it to her for a birthday or something. She's like, well, I got a diary, I mean it's pinkish. - Watch this. - She could have sharpened it over, you know? I think she probably found the irony I'm using. She seems smart by her writing. She doesn't seem dumb. - Yeah, that's the other part. She's a very, very sharp girl to understand those words. - And I'll also stuffed in her diary were two movie tickets from an October 22nd, 1995 showing of Halloween anniversary release in one of those deals. So also her walls and ceilings in her mom's trailer, in her bedroom in the trailer, are covered with her writings and she lets her friend write all over the walls and like written on it, not like a tape, - No, no, no, no writing on the wall. - Whoa. - Not her like graffiti. She is diagnosed with severe depression and also bipolar disorder was prescribed Prozac and Lithium which if you watch the Sopranos in the first season when Junior tries to have him killed, spoiler alert if you haven't seen it. Tony's in this haze the whole time where he's just like, until that gunshot happens there's this music and he's like this weird ethereal dream sequence. He's on Prozac and Lithium at the same time. That's what's causing this. - Lithium's heavy shit. - He has for a, especially for a child. - Yeah, he's a 275 pound mob boss and he's having, there's a whole episode that's a lithium hallucination of a woman next door that doesn't exist. Remember he had lunch with nobody. So she's got a lot of issues. She entered at 15 the Big Sandy Kentucky Impact Program which was a treatment program designed to help children through school and cope with family issues but she dropped out because she said it wasn't doing any good. She told a psychiatrist she believed she had lived prior lives and had out of body experiences and believed that her soul may have become pregnant at one point in her life but not her body. I didn't know you could get a soul knocked up but that's a whole new level of scary for all you get out there. - That's a, that's a deep dick. - You can get her, you can get her soul pregnant. - Wow, shit, it's a big old cock, it's a hammer. She drops out of school before completing the ninth grade and by 14 she's arrested for the theft of a box of checks and for forgery, she gets probation for that and then she's arrested for threatening her mother with a knife and the court dismissed those charges. She's drinking, she's using drugs. She's even using like heroin and ecstasy and shit too. Like she's not just having a little fun here. She also found crystal meth too. So she got into, she got into meth. She said she tripped on acid over a hundred times. - What age? - 16, 16, just a lot. - That's dead serious, man. - Yes, she married on her 17th birthday. She married Steve Cornette. That's how she ends up with that last name. And while Natasha, she just said that her, she, they dress different so they make a big deal out of the fact that they dressed in goth shit to get married. They were chained together by collars and shit too. Like all that shit. They were married like four months. That didn't go anywhere. - Chained together. - Yeah, so Natasha had depression after that. You know, when you're 17 year old divorcee, that'll happen. - Yeah, yeah. - And then she moved to New Orleans where she panhandled on the streets with a girlfriend of hers. - In the late 90s? - In the late 90s, 96, 97. - Mr. P is right next to her selling tapes out of the trunk of his car. And she's like, "Hey, can I get a five bucks?" - Let me get the back. - "Hey Percy, you got five bucks?" (laughing) She says she was raped on the street while she was there. - Oh, God damn it. Horrible surprise, yeah. - But what ended up happening is she moves back into her home, she's having problems, but there's no supervision. Her mom lets her do whatever she wants. She's got a group of friends that she believes to have led the group in dark practices, she will say, as well. She considers herself a vampire and named her black dog, Malkavian, after a blood sucking clan in her favorite vampire fantasy board game. - Okay. - A kid from school described her as a dark soul who'd give you the willies. (laughing) - Yeah, so then there's a kid here who will enter named Jason Blake Bryant. He's 14, he's from Marobone, Kentucky. That is a real place. - Marobone, not Marobone. - Marobone, one word, Marobone, Kentucky. - Oh, one word. - Marobone. - Okay, maybe that's the bone that's in the middle of that really good steak. - It has to be, what would be in the middle of that bone? Marob. - It's a Marobone steak. - Now, this kid is only 14 when he meets her in March of 1997 when she's 18. - Oh. - Jason Blake Bryant is his name, Jason Bryant. He's 14, she picked him up on a street corner in Pikeville, Kentucky and took her home with her. Took him home with her. - Yeah. - While he was there, she gave him vodka and bourbon. - Yeah. - Then they kissed and spent the night at her home and she said she didn't know, both of them said she didn't know how old he was until the next morning. - But 14, he's walking out of the street, gets picked up by an older girl, she gives them booze and then makes out with them. - Gotcha. - Oh my God. - Who gives you booze and hangs, yeah. - Best day ever. - None of his friends are ever gonna believe this, by the way, ever. - Yeah, that's a big, big story. - Yeah. - All right, okay. No, she was hot. She had like black lipstick and shit. It was awesome. - Yeah. - It was all over my face. I had black things. - Yeah, all right. - All right, okay. - Sure, sure. - Sure. He has an IQ of 85, which again is, you know, average is 100. So, you know, it's approaching it, but still not great. - It's one of the highest in Kentucky though. - Yeah, well, it's still pretty good. For the panhandle region of Kentucky, not bad. - Not bad, yeah. - He has, according to test, the social skills of an 11-year-old though. So yeah, he has also a history of drug and alcohol abuse. But from the age of, he began to use alcohol as early as the age of three, which I don't even know. - How do you? - No, you didn't. He might've said that felt good when I did that. - I mean, somebody rubbed it on your gums when you were teething. - That's not using alcohol. - That's not using alcohol. - I don't know. - He said he used marijuana and other drugs since the age of nine. I don't feel like there's a lot of parental supervision going on here. - It's going great. - Yeah, he was arrested twice in 1996. The first charge was that he was, quote, "Beyond the school's control." I don't know what the hell that means. - That's a charge? - That's a charge. You get arrested for that. - Beyond the school. And also he was found to be a habitual runaway, runaway because he stole his sister's car and had a joy ride to Indiana. - Sweet Christ. - States across the state line. - Not going well. He is during his period of supervision for probation after that, he passed drug screenings and all of this, but he'll end up seeing Natasha again in April 1997. They don't see each other for a while after the first initial hookup. April 1997 though, they hook up again. And this time there's more people there we'll talk about too. Now Natasha has her own boyfriend. So, you know, Brian's not going to hook up. Edward Dean Mullins, who's 19, he's from Tolar, Kentucky. And he is at this point in the process of getting his GED. He doesn't really drink, doesn't do any hard drugs. He smoked weed a few times. That's pretty much all he does here. No criminal record. I don't know where, you know, she's-- - How they're too hooked up together, this is great. - That's what I mean. He's like a guy in a romantic comedy that's like her wild spirit, I don't know. It just takes me away. - She's so free. - It's weird, I just quit my job at the-- - She says what's on her mind? - Yeah, I quit my job at the insurance company and we're driving cross country, I don't know. (laughs) - Gotta take your chances sometime. - Gotta do it. He worked at a grocery store for a while and that sort of thing, but he ends up moving in with Natasha and his family did not like his interest in her because they said he had negative changes immediately in his behavior, he used to attend church and then he became involved with her and all of that sort of thing. They're planning to be married, by the way, these two. Why not? - Oh boy. - Joseph Lance Reisner, he's 20 years old from Paintsville, Kentucky. He is dating Karen Howell, the first girl we talked about there, okay. He's born in Hazard, Kentucky. - Wow. - Him and the Duke boys, I guess. - Yeah. - No juvenile record either. He's had kind of a tough life too, has never met his biological father. His mom was married a couple of times, but he said he had a good relationship with the stepdad, so nothing too terrible there. Nothing awful. He did, he started to use, he started, his parents started to do drugs a lot, which kind of, I guess, fucked him up. Yeah, there's, and then his father had an affair, a stepfather had an affair with one of his mother's close friends that blew up the whole family and that wasn't great, so that's not good. He also uses weed, weed, booze, does some acid, does shit like that. Said he first did acid at 11, which is a little too. - Oh. - A little too early. He had sexual relationships with babysitters by 12. - Oh boy. - He was hooking up with the babysitters and flunking out of seventh grade, basically, by that time. - Yeah, I mean, you get a taste of adult woman. Why are you gonna go to school? This is dumb now. - Yeah, it's hard to learn about Abe Lincoln's hat now. - It's not gonna work. Then he gets a stepdad. The stepdad ends up crashing into somebody and pleading guilty to charges of reckless homicide and second degree assault and getting sent away for prison. - Holy shit. - So that screwed him up too. It was a guy who was finally close to this happens. June of '95, Reisner joined the army but gets kicked out immediately for testing positive for weed. So he doesn't even make it through basic training here. - Dishonorable. - Dishonorable, ow. I don't even know if he's discharged. I don't even know if he got a uniform yet. (laughs) - Oh, yeah. - We didn't even issue you anything. Just fuck off. We'll just tear the paper up and throw it in the garbage and never happen. The hell out of here. So yeah, he's got some issues, we'll say here, but he's actually doing good in school at this. He started doing well in school and that sort of thing. So yeah, he was doing all right, but then he's dating this girl and things start to start to go downhill. Also, Krista Rina Sturgill, or Sturgill, Crystal Sturgill, she's 18. - It's gotta be Sturgill. - Sturgill, Sturgill, STURGIL, STURGIL, STURGIL, - Yeah, that sounds like Sturgill. - Sturgill, yeah, probably, especially there. We're gonna call it Sturgill. - That's how Sturgill Simpson spells his first name. So it's got to be Sturgill. - Okay, there you go. Yeah, I think it has to be, that's a good point. So she's in her senior year at Betsy Lane High School in Betsy Lane, Kentucky. That's a town, Betsy Lane, Kentucky. - It's coming after Betsy Lane. - Yeah, Betsy Lane, it has to be. - She's a big deal. - She planned to go to Murray State after graduating. - Oh! - She wants to age her in child psychology. She's very good in school. She does well, no criminal record or anything like that. One time, she did receive an in-school suspension for smoking in a locker room. And she was once suspended for three days for fighting on the school bus with a girl who she thought was picking on her younger brother. - I hope she won. - That's good, that's good character to me here. She's involved in the future homemakers of America organization. Does that still exist? - In the '90s in Kentucky, apparently. She hoped to marry her boyfriend, Patrick Charles, as a means of leaving home. So this is really rewound the clock 30 years from where they were here. She also accused her stepfather of sexually abusing her. She claimed the abuse started when she was four years old. - Oh my God, what the fuck. - And by 13, her stepfather was having sex with her. But then he stopped when she started dating this boy. She wanted to marry. So she's gonna hold on to this guy, like grim fucking death, whether he's good or not, because at least it's not her stepfather jumping up and down on her this boy. - What is that about, do you think? - Oof, man. She told, I guess, her guidance counselor about the abuse and everything too. So yeah, so then she was placed in some other home in a foster home, and she stopped attending school and she made the allegations that basically sent everything into the toilet. - God damn it. - Yeah, not great. - That's supposed to fix your life, God fuck. - Then she had moved to Arizona for some reason, and ended up coming back, and everyone had turned her down as a place to live. She had nowhere to live, so she called Natasha Cornette just 'cause she knew people were allowed to crash at her house all the time. She didn't even know her that well, she didn't even like her. And Natasha said, sure, you're more than welcome, and her mom didn't care, so there you go. And that kind of made her part of that. Now by this time, Karen Howell and Natasha Cornette, they're really close friends. They say that Cornette said she could communicate with Karen during out-of-body experiences. They can communicate with each other from separate places. She also described Karen as her soulmate, but not in a sexual way, she said. - Yeah, it's the best friend. - Yeah, and stated that they cut themselves and drank each other's blood too. - Oh Jesus. - So, yeah, in April of 1997 here, they went to a motel, the Kali Motel in Pikeville, which is closed now, it's 30 miles east on the West Virginia border of Kentucky. Oh, I'm sure it's lovely. They were in, it's a $27 per night motel. So even now it would be 69 bucks, which is not okay. - That's great, that's a terrible hotel. - Unacceptable. - Not gonna be good. You expect, you're taking home bed bugs, just know it. Know it, no luggage, burn your clothes on the way out. - Yeah, you're gonna have ringworm. - Oh, for sure, that's without saying. I'm just bed bugs, you know, you never know. So, they're in room seven, and I guess this night they were, they said that they, her mother, Natasha's mother, later said that they, quote, "did something in a hotel room "that unleashed a powerful demon spirit on them." That's what her mother says. The very religious, Natasha Cornette's mother. It's very weird, but they gathered up to burn black candles and do some kind of bullshit, we'll say here. Apparently, that night, Jason Bryant, the 14 year old who made out with Natasha there the last for a while, he, they tried to burn, I guess he carved something in his skin that night, and also they attempted to burn 666 into the hotel room's carpet. Which teenagers do dumb shit? Okay. - Yeah. - They thought that they, because of this, the next day they were like, "Oh, fuck." They're gonna, we're gonna get in trouble for fucking this room up. So they instead stole some shit from the office and attempted to take off, they're on the run, they're on the land. - Why not just complain and say this was already here? - Oh, there's a big 666 burn in the carpet. - Why would you give me this room? - This place is crazy. No, instead they stole a television set from the office and at several pairs of work boots. - Okay. - Okay. - Sounds like inventory. - Very odd here. - So then they went to a campfire, but there was a bunch of other kids there and they wouldn't talk to them. They were just like, we're by themselves, sat around a fire. Then they stole, they broke into two homes in Paintsville taking two semi-automatic pistols. - Okay, now it's getting real bad. - Yes, so they go from Kentucky, the plan was go to New Orleans, 'cause Natasha said we can go to New Orleans, I know stuff down there, okay? - Yeah. - So they have a nine millimeter and a 25 caliber pistol and they're on the run here. So they realized their car though, Joseph Reiser has a piece of shit Chevy citation, which if you've ever seen one of those, it's a piece of shit. - They didn't even make that in the '90s. - No, oh, it's like an '83 citation. - This is an old car. - It's a shit box, a thing would, the wheels will fall off. Nevermind, it's not gonna run down into Orleans. - Cops stopped using them, they're cheeses of shit. - They're terrible cars. So they decided they should probably steal a car from a parking lot or a dealership or something. So they have wheels that work, right? - dealership, brand new, yeah. - Brand fucking new, but that might draw a lot of attention. So they're like, maybe we'll just steal one from a parking spot somewhere. So they go to an Interstate 81 rest stop near the Ballyton, Tennessee exit of the interstate where they encounter a van they find and they're like, look at that fucking van. There's six, I think there's a bunch of us, a van would be great for us. - It would fit all of us, yeah. - The van is not sitting there unoccupied though, there's people that drove the van there. The Lilliard family, oh sorry, Lillilid family, L-I-L-L-E-L-I-D-S. Or L-I-D, S is the whole thing. - Lillid's, right? - Lillilid's, so you got Vidar, who's 34 years old. He's the hotel bellman in Knoxville. He's from Norway, he moved here 10 years ago. - Attaboy. - He met his wife Delphina, who is a New Jersey native, whose parents are from Honduras, he met her in Miami, they got married in '89 and moved to Knoxville in '92. - The man came from another country, shacked up with a beautiful woman I imagine. - You don't find a lot of Honduran chicks in Norway probably, so he's like, this is great, this is way different. - The man is doing it, that's the American dream. - And they're very, very much devout Jehovah's Witnesses. - Okay. - They are on their way back from a big Jehovah's Witness day-long assembly in Johnson City, Tennessee, that's why they're in the rest stop because Delphina, who's 28, that's his wife, they also have two kids with them, Tabitha, who's six and Peter, who's two, they needed to use the bathroom, so they stop the rest stop 'cause as you know, every rest stop you're stopping at. - Road trips are a nightmare with young kids. - So Vidar, while the wife is in the bathroom with the kids, sees these young people over here that look troubled, they're wearing gothy stuff. - It's written right on 'em, yeah. - He goes right up to them and goes, hey guys, and starts trying to, you know, preach to them basically and tell 'em shit and talk about religious views. - It'll help 'em, yeah. - Then he has his son Peter with him and eventually, so he's first he approached Cornette and Howell, so the two girls there, Natasha and Karen, then Reisner and Bryant come over and join in the conversation. By then, Delphina, the wife and the daughter, Tabitha are seated at a nearby picnic table. - Keep your heart rate up month after month with Audible's pulse pounding collection of mystery and thriller titles that you can't hear anywhere else. With captivating sound design, eerie soundscapes, and dynamic performances, you're guaranteed to stay gripped. As an Audible member, you can choose one title a month to keep from their entire catalog. Check out We Play Games for a chilling psychological thriller about a seemingly perfect couple who loves to play a game, only they know the rules too. Together, they scheme to manipulate those around them, and when their perfect facade crumbles, they turn the game on each other. New members can try Audible free for 30 days. Visit Audible.com/Thrill or text Thrill to 500-500. That's Audible.com/Thrill or text Thrill to 500-500. VR training platforms, like the one developed by Fundamental VR and Orbis International, are helping surgeons train over and over before operating on real patients. - As you practice each skill, the muscle memory starts to develop. - Learn more at meta.com/metiverseimpact. - You've got a dead body inspector. - I may be able to help with that. - This winter, all your favorite detectives are streaming on Britbox. Don't miss exclusive new seasons of Death in Paradise. - There must be something we've missed. - Vera. - It wasn't an accident. Was it love? - Father Brown. - What did he look like? - And more. Once you start investigating, you won't want to stop. - Wait, Dawn, when I say wait, Dawn. - Stream your favorite detectives, only on Britbox. Start a free trial at Britbox.com. - And after a time, everybody, they're all talking. The whole family's talking with these people. At some point, Reisner pulls one of the guns out. This guy thought he was making progress with them. And instead, Reisner says, "I hate to do you this way, but we're going to have to take you with us for your van." And he told them to get in the van. Dad said, "Hey, you don't need to take my wallet, take my keys. It's all yours. Just leave me alone with my kids." And he said, "Or just take me, leave the life in kids." And they said, "No, no, everybody's going to go." Okay, so Vidar drove the van while Reisner sat in the passenger seat with a gun on him. Yeah, Mullins and Sturgel, everybody's in the van except for Mullins and Sturgel, who are following in the citation. - They brought the piece of shit. - They brought the piece of shit. Yeah, so the mother, Delphina, tries singing to the kids to try to relax them. And Bryant points a gun at her and tells her to stop singing. Which is ridiculous. - In front of children. - Tells him to go off the interstate and then turn on to a secluded road off the next exit. Okay, now at this point, there's claims that Bryant, this is what the all of them will say later. Bryant, the 14-year-old took charge of the situation. So a 14-year-old with an 85-acre IQ is going to dominate a situation wrought with adults. - Why not? The kid thinks he's invincible. He got to make out with a girl when he was 14. - That's true. - A woman. - So Reisner claims he handed the gun to Cornette, also his gun to Cornette, saying that he couldn't do it anymore about this. He was ordering a woman to stop singing a minute ago. Now he's in front of her consciousness getting to him. Cornette says that she placed the weapon on the floor of the van, while Bryant, who had the 25-caliber, ordered the family to stand in front of a ditch. According to everybody but Bryant, they were pleading for their lives, the family, and especially for the lives of the children. Just let our kids go for Christ's sake. I mean, they're Jesus. - Kids too. - They're saying we won't call the cops. Let's go. They said, we're religious people. The Lord will do whatever. We don't care. They were literally saying that. We won't get the cops involved. They said that all of the kids accept for breakfast. They said that all of the kids accept for Bryant, say that Bryant said no, and then that Karen and Natasha pleaded with Bryant to let them go. That's what they say. But according to everybody else, no, Bryant said, no, no, no. They're going to call the cops. They got to die. Bryant then, he told the girls that I won't hurt the kids. So Natasha and Karen said that they returned to the van, where Rizner was the whole time. Then they heard a rapid succession of gunshots. - Oh my God. - Some say that the father was the first to be shot. Some say it was Delphina that was the first to be shot. So all say that when the shooting stopped, Bryant returned to the van and said they're still fucking alive. He then grabbed the other gun and emptied that one too. - Oh my. - They said, then they said he laughed and bragged about it. After the shootings, Rizner went to his car and removed a license plate, the license plate and the registration from his car. And then he says that as he was trying to get out of there with the van, he accidentally ran the bodies over. - Oh dear Christ, get the fuck out. - Because the Bryant guy ordered him to turn the van around. You know, because he's-- - And accidentally hit the whole family's dead, James? - No, we'll talk about it. - Oh my God. - Bryant says it was Rizner who ordered him out of the van, directed them to stand by the ditch. He said that Rizner first shot, Vadar with the 25 caliber, then slapped Mullins on the shoulder, and then that Mullins also shot at him too. Bryant claims that he kept his eyes closed during the shootings that he never fired either weapon. He says that Mullins and Rizner ordered the others into the van after the shooting. So the sound of these shots are heard by a nearby-- there's a house nearby. - Yeah. - They also heard not only that, laughing and hollering, something like a party. Safe thought kids are out there having a party shooting off gun, so he called the cops. - Well, that lends to one kid not doing it all. - Nope. - And the cops, when they get there, they expect to see kids fucking around in a field, and instead, they don't see that. They get their-- - It's like a fucking massacre. - They find bodies about 260 feet from the abandoned Chevy citation that they left there. They were-- the adults are lying on their back with their feet extending into the road. Vidar's pants and Delphina's shin-length khaki skirt had tire tracks on them. - Oh, God, Jesus. - Tabitha, the daughter was lying across her father's chest still alive but unconscious. - Oh, God. - With her shoulder twitching. A bullet entered near her left ear and traveled through her brain exiting on the right side of her head. - Oh, my God. - She was pronounced brain dead at the hospital. - Right. - And she will die. - She'll die. - Yeah. Together, they had all been shot roughly 17 times put together. - Lord. - They also said the bodies were arranged in the ditch. They said they laid the parents out, laid the children over them in the form of a cross, then got in the van, turned around and came back and intentionally and maliciously ran them over. That's what the cops will say due to the evidence on the crime scene there. - Holy shit, man. - Now, Peter, the two-year-old, was cradled in his mother's lap. He'd been shot in the eye and chest but survives. He's listed as stable and stable condition the next day and will survive his wounds. - Babies are so resilient. - Unbelievable. - How is that possible? - Vidar or Vidar had been shot a total of six times, one to the right side of his head and five to his chest. - God. - First shot travel, she shot him in the right eye and it entered out of his ear. It was fucking horrible. That's disturbing as fuck. Yeah, there's all sorts of, and he has 25 caliber and nine millimeter rounds in him. - Yeah. - Delfino was shot eight times. All eight bullets were recovered, six from the nine millimeter, two from the 25. The first of the three shots shattered the bone in her left arm. Second shot from a nine millimeter shattered the thigh of her left leg. Jesus, that's painful. They said that these shots would cause severe pain but wouldn't have killed her, but she wouldn't have been able to stand. Then she was shot six additional times while she lay on her back. Imagine that. With a child, a mother with a child, you're just coming to dump a clip into this fucking person. Three shots in the stomach in a triangular pattern. It's fucking horrible, man. It's absolutely fucking horrible. Six-year-old Tabitha was shot once in the head. It entered her head on the left side, traveled downward, exited behind her right ear, causing brain death. - Yeah. - Jesus. Oh, by the way, she was able to donate her heart, liver, gallbladder, kidneys, pancreas, spleen, and adrenals. - It's nice. - I mean, it's horrible, but other kids got to live. - Silver Lane, yeah. - Silver Lane is, she saved maybe upwards of six lives? I don't know. - I guess Peter somehow, he remained in the hospital for 17 days then was transferred to a rehabilitation center. - Cool. - What's up? - I'm the Lord. - These idiots now, these assholes, take their van to a gas station where they buy a road map. They stop at a waffle house while traveling through Georgia, but they didn't eat because a group of police officers arrived to eat, so they took off. So they said, "Fuck New Orleans, let's go to Mexico." - Okay. - So they get to the border, they're denied admittance because they didn't have proper forms of identification and want a couple of them or children, but they somehow found a way into Mexico. - What? - Don't know. You can get into Mexico if you really want to that bad. - Yeah. - So somehow there, the 14-year-old Brian is shot in the hand and leg in Mexico. (laughing) - It's worse than getting syphilis from a Tijuana, you know. - I think I'd rather have that. - It's disputed how he got it. Brian said that Reisner asked him to take the blame for the shootings because he was a juvenile, which that kind of makes sense the way they were all saying. He said that when he hesitated that Reisner shot him in the hand in the leg. Well, the rest of them said that Brian shot himself in the hand in the leg. - Okay. I believe Brian. - Yeah. (laughing) - So they're stopped by Mexican authorities. They claimed they're lost. They ordered them out of the van and searched. This is the federalis. - Oh, no. - They found a knife and a photo album belonging to a family that clearly they weren't a part of. - Yeah. - So they ordered them to go to the border to go back to the United States. They said, "Go back, get out of here." - They're lucky. - They're lucky they didn't end up in a Mexican jail. - So lucky. - Yeah. - So then the US Customs people did a license plate check and they alerted that the van was stolen and they found out how and everybody was taken in at that point. - Oh my God. - The Tasha. - The Tasha was carrying two wallets. One that was hers and one she referred to as the shared wallet or the community wallet. - Yeah. - The second wallet though contained the Social Security Guard issue to Tabitha, the six-year-old. - The baby. - Yeah. And also a 25-caliber slug found on Cornette was fired by the same gun used to kill them as well. They found the gun inside the seatback cushion of a chair behind the driver's seat in the van as well and the nine millimeter was also found there. Sturgel was carrying a key chain and keys she denied knowing the origin of or how they got in her pocket, but they were Delphina's keys. - I have an idea. - Yeah, used for the front door of their home. - Mm-hmm. - So also howl was found carrying Peter's Social Security Guard as well. - What the fuck, man? - So they take them back to Tennessee. There's some delay on extradition, the juveniles fight extradition, but eventually everybody's taken there. They're also going to be charged, the two adults are also going to be charged with custodial interference with Karen Howell and Jason Bryant who were minors. - Yeah. - They're all going to be charged with that. - That's not good. - When they take them for their initial court appearance, there's a huge crowd outside. It's like a lynch mob that has gathered outside yelling murderers and child killers and they have to protect them. - Wow. - They're all shackled up and getting someone yelled out murderers. You're all going to die. The county sheriff said it really doesn't surprise me. The crowd yelling. - Yeah. - They're a bunch of unruly hillbillies around here, so this is going to happen. They won't even say the full town name. I can't control them. But he said a crime such as this really upsets a community, especially with children involved. That's understandable. He said, "I can understand, but we have our criminal justice system to go through, and we're going to do that. We're not going to just hand them over to the crowd." Cornette's mom said that she talked with her daughter on the phone and told her that her daughter said she was scared. She said, "I told her to get her Bible and pray." She also said that there are three Natasha's. This is good. There is the sweet caring little girl I raised. There is the girl who would do anything for her friends. By the way, that didn't raise that one. It was the one she's responsible for. The language is very telling here. - Very specific, yeah. - And then there is a dark side that likes to play on the Ouija board and do seances and play vampire games. - I got nothing to do with that kid. - Yeah. She said, "My heart goes out to the families of those killed. It breaks my heart to think of my daughter shooting babies." Jesus, fucking Christ. Ah, so Cornette, when she's in jail, she does a press conference from jail. - What? - Saying that Satan will aid me and that all the youth around the world should raise hell while they can before the world ends. She also said that, quote, "I guess it was my calling, evil." Meaning, she said, "The spirits and demons started talking to me when I was two years old and they raised me to be an occultist." So she said, "I've had a lot of rough times. I looked to God and he didn't help, but the demons did." Now, her attorney who's a fucking idiot named Eric Kahn, this is his idea to do the press conference. - He's never done a criminal case before, by the way. - Oh. - This is a death penalty case. - He's shooting from the hip. - He doesn't know what the fuck he's doing. Yes, that's exactly what it is. He's trying to go for an insanity plea. He says, quote, "Every aspect of the case involves the occult. Every single aspect, you cannot separate any part of it because the occult was the driving force for the children's trip. It's the driving force behind anything and everything that might not, that might or might not have happened in this case." So they asked her if she's insane, since they're talking about insanity. She said, "Sometimes I feel crazy, but no, I don't think I'm insane." - Yeah. - Yeah. - He's ruined her. - Your lawyer hates you. - Yeah. She talks about her friend Karen and said, "She's my soulmate. We've kissed, but it's not like that." And she said, "We're not a cult. We're just a group of friends interested in the mystical." - Uh-oh. - Yeah. She said, quote, "For all the children of the world to stand up for their rights and beliefs and to raise hell while they can, the world's going to end soon, my father Satan will aid me." - Oh boy. - So her attorney ends up getting kicked off the fucking case. - Yes. - The judge says, "You don't know what you're doing. This is a death penalty case. This is going to get hard appealed." - Yeah. - So he said this, quote, "She believes she said this in court. She believes that Armageddon has already begun, that in the year 2000, all of mankind will no longer exist and that she and these other antichrists will reform the world into this new being, new shape until the year 2012, and then life will begin to new under a new control. Evil will become greater than it already is and will rule everything." - Oh boy. - Holy shit. So yeah, they ended up saying, "Get the fuck out of here." After that, I feel like that has tainted so much with the trial because that's what they all think, that the new lawyers make a deal with the prosecutors because now the prosecutors are like, "We can't fucking try these kids in the death penalty. It's all fucked up." So he offers them a deal to plead guilty. So they get a deal. We'll get to it in a second here. Now, yeah, the attorney, by the way, that's the judge. Imagine what he said to that guy. You fucking dipshit. - The admonishment must have been so rad. - So they plead guilty and here is what the judge says to Karen Howell. I'm gonna give you what the judge says here. They say that he says, "Number one, in mitigation, it says that you were abused and neglected as a child, that you have a borderline retarded IQ of 78, which is not what you want in court documents, that you subordinate yourself to the needs of others in the group and that you have shown remorse." The mitigating evidence though is overcome and rebutted by the credible facts of the case that for a long time before this occurred, you'd been doing drugs and participating in things of an occult nature and the occult mark continued on this case throughout the events that transpired. That doesn't make any difference though. That's the thing. This is like West Memphis here. It doesn't make that shit doesn't matter. Did you do it or not? - Is he saying that or is he saying, is he leaning it on the occult or is he saying like, "You are twisted and you're doing twisted shit"? - Well, then he gets into the facts of the thing. You help steal guns and money. You help initiate the plans for the trip with Ms. Cornette. You were at the picnic table at the rest area with the little lids when they were kidnapped and when they were crying. You were outside the van watching them be murdered. You did nothing to stop it when a weapon was available to you 'cause she said she claims she had it. You deliberately and knowingly participated in every aspect of the killings and the things that led to them, including the getaway and cover up. You ma'am may fuck off. Life in prison without parole. - Oh boy. - Yeah, she's 18 right now. - Oh my God, that's so long. That's forever. - That's a long fucking time. Yeah, they talk about Cornette here in Natasha and they talk about all of her psychological stuff from the past and they said, "Yeah, you got some mitigating circumstances." But quote, "Not only do the statutory aggravating circumstances outweigh those, but those mitigating circumstances are in fact rebutted by the facts of this case. A history of some violent behavior, the fact that you had killing on your mind when you left Kentucky, not necessarily a ringleader, but the evidence shows that you were the instigator and orchestrator of the trip and the things that led to the death of the family. You took an active part in the kidnapping and at the rest area you suggested that the guns be obtained. You ma'am may fuck off. Life without. - Oh boy. - Edward Mullins, you had positive gunshot residue on your sweater. You participate, I think Brian's telling the truth by the way. - Yeah, I think so too. - I think you did. You participated in all the events in Kentucky. You left the rest area with the family and Mr. Reisner's automobile. You didn't have to do that. It was a deliberate knowing act following the van. You guys could have turned off if you didn't want to. - And you started this whole fucking thing. - He said, and there's really no proof of it, but the proof is that Delphina and Tabitha were crying at the picnic table before they got in the van. And it seems to me that conversations with them about that, it's illogical to assume beyond a reasonable doubt that you had to know something was wrong. You participated in the getaway and cover up. You were in the van for two days with their property, a baby seat under your feet, children's toys. You had chances to get away to do something about what was going on to report that a child had been murdered and a baby left for dead. You did nothing. You were a participant in it by your own actions and your non-actions. And I find, therefore, if the sentence should be in each of the three counts of first degree murder, life without the possibility of parole. - Take that. - You may fuck off. Jason Bryant, he's 15. - Oh boy. - Quote, "I find that you were aggressively urging others on to do things at that time that you personally carried one of the guns. That, in fact, you were a shooter. I don't know who all were the shooters. I think there was more than one. I have seen no real remorse or emotion displayed by you. I find the evidence shows that you were aggressive in the killings, that you helped use the gun. I helped use a gun to kidnap them in the first place. You had gunshot residue all over you. You were in the van for two days with their property under your feet, including a baby seat. You bragged about the crimes while you were in jail in Arizona. - Oh boy. - You have a history of drug abuse and a callous attitude. - You, sir. - May fuck off, life without parole. - Oh, he's a baby. - Wow. Risner, again, you, sir, may fuck off, life without parole. - Wow. - He said, "You were a leader, not the leader, but a leader. You had the presence of mind to take the tag from your car, your papers, and clothes at the scene." - Yeah, it's like he's never heard of a VIN number. What a door. - That's exactly. It's a grievous car sitting there. And then finally, Crystal Sturgel, they said there's some mitigating circumstances, but they said there was a lot of talking Kentucky about death and killing before you set out. You were present, the rituals, the burglarizing, stealing, getting the guns and preparing. Tabitha and Delphina were crying before you left. Just like I told Mr. Mullins, you may not have pulled the trigger. You may have been horrified by this, but everything that you did showed that you adopted this and gave it your name. - Oh my. - You left a baby for dead at the crime scene. You, ma'am, young lady, may fuck off life without parole again. - Oh my God, every single fucking one of them, life without fucking... - Wow. - That's the deal they made. Reactions, one of the cops involved, said, "I know one thing, they're getting what they deserve, every one of them." Because anyone who would shoot a kid point blank and he shook his head and said, "They're getting what they deserve." - Absolutely. - That's cold fucking blooded, man. They said, the prosecutors said, "It's never entirely clear exactly who shot them and what way and when..." - Doesn't matter. - He said, "When it was all done, they got back in the van and went to Mexico." - Right. - So that's that. They said, "By getting away wasn't what was uppermost in their minds. I think it was the notoriety." They wanted a, "What's the point of doing this if no one knows?" 2001, by the way, authorities alleged that Natasha Cornette tried to help her friend, Krista Gail Pike, who was on death row also for murdering, or was on death row at the time, for murdering an 18-year-old woman, kill another woman in prison. They said that they tried to strangle her with shoelaces. - What the shit? - Okay. Little Peter, by the way, moved back to Sweden with family. - Wow. - Yep. They said he was doing fine in 2007. He was full of life and doing okay. It's wild. By the way, letters in prison, Howell and Sturgel write letters to each other, to the newspaper. And one of them said, "I'm no longer the broken shell of a girl who was too afraid to stand up on that gravel road. I still struggle with the scars that so many years of abuse have left with me, but the woman I have grown into would have done more to hide her face and cry that day. She would fight more than that. She would fight for what she knows is right, even if it put her in the path of danger. - I don't care. - These kids are definitely not all equally guilty. - No. - I don't think, if you've ever been in a group, you know, there's some people that are just going along, and by a lot of their past, they really didn't have the tools to, you know, but still, you can't shoot babies in the face like we can't have that. We can't do it. 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court found the courts couldn't make mandatory sentences of life without parole for juveniles. - What? - The court found that the child's circumstances had to be carefully weighed, so it couldn't be automatic, but you can sentence them to that. - Okay. - It can't be in an automatic thing. So there, they, all the people who are juveniles are filing cases for that that are still going on, because they're all still in prison. 2017, Peter was still living in Sweden, or, yeah, Sweden now. He was from Norway originally. They asked him what he thought of Tennessee, and he said it seemed like a nice place. I don't know. Haven't been there. - Why would you ask him that? Jesus Christ. - 2019, he moves to the U.S. to work in the IT field. - Really? - He got married in 2020 as a wife named Caitlyn, and they settled in Samford, Connecticut. - Good for him. - Suffer for him? - He said he has nothing to say to the murderers. He said, but to the people of Eastern Tennessee, he said, "Thank you. Thank you for everything you did. It played out very well in the end as well as it could have." - He's not right. - He has no recollection of the issue. He lost an eye in his neurological damage forever, though, because of it. - Sure, sure. - That is built in Tennessee, everybody. - Oh, shit. Maybe pronounce it, and bad shit won't happen there. - Fuck it, yeah. I blame the names. So, there you go. If you like that, leave a review on whatever app you're listening on. Shut up and give me murder.com. 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