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the Monday after James kad's murder was a busy day for me at work my assignment was to cover a particularly deadly
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weekend in Bakersfield where within a 24-hour period three separate shootings took the lives of four people I started
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out that morning going to an area of town where historically shootings happen semi often in the front yard of a small
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home a young man and a young woman had been shot they weren't a couple but maybe on their way to be they were just
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getting to know each other really when gunshots rang out killing both of them now their two families were learning
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about each other in the worst way imaginable afterwards my photographer and I headed to the second shooting
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location it was outside a home in a different neighborhood but one that was still no stranger to Crime particularly
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gang violence there I did the most dreaded thing a crime reporter will ever do I went and knocked on the door of the
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house where theur murder took place and inside was the victim's family I remember when the door opened I
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could see how dark it was crowded with people who were almost in a zombie like state of grief but my knock at the door
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had awoken the anger inside of them as the bright light from the outside Shone in their eyes they had a look of
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disbelief that I was there that I would try to speak with them when the death of
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their loved one was still so fresh I remember hearing scream dreams to get out but before I could a young man from
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the back of the room began to Lunge at me before older men inside grabbed him and tried to hold him back the pain in
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his eyes was so raw I'll never forget it even though that day I felt like the furthest thing from an ally to The
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Grieving family later on I built a relationship with the victim's father he explained to me that the young man who
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charged at me was his son and the twin brother of the murder victim they were only 16 years old when they were hanging
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out that Saturday night in their front yard when someone drove by and opened fire one twin was killed quickly his
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identical brother who was also shot laid there next to him screaming for help begging for his brother to hold on as he
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watched him slip away the day I came to their door the twin brother still had a bullet in his leg that hadn't been
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removed yet after that experience I vowed to find a more respectful way to do my job without further traumatizing
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victim's loved ones by the time my photographer and I got to the third shooting location where
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James was killed the afternoon hours were getting away from us and we had a deadline to make we needed to make it
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quick but as soon as we arrived to the neighborhood we both sort of said huh the scene felt very different than
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most 17's Olivia Lavo reports tonight two of the homicides took place in areas where crime is not uncommon but in one
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case murder is the last thing anyone expected to see in their neighborhood it's a quiet safe
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neighborhood and all the neighbors look out for each other here's James's mom die you would never suspect like that
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James when you drive through that neighborhood think that somebody was shot and killed there you know you just
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wouldn't dream of it the neighborhood was quiet and considered safe particularly the culdesac James colad
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was driving out of when he was shot through his car numerous times the homes were big and occupied almost exclusively
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by families except for one though the house was large and nice from the outside like others inside the things
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going on were quite different it was almost like a metaphor for James's life at the time of his murder a lot of
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people told me that to the outside world James had it all together and then some
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that he worked hard to give off that image but inside everything was not okay I'm Olivia Lavo and this is the
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Bakersfield 3 [Music] [Music] he was just always bright and cheerful and mischievous sometimes as a little
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boy and that's his mom die again all the girls loved him he was tall and handsome
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and loved surfing at 65 James had big blue eyes and sort of an effortless coolness to
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him but the laid-back Surfer was just a small part of him his mind was always going 100 m an hour James had a lot of
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ideas ideas for different inventions he loved thinking and designing and making new things which led to a couple of his
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products and patents one of James inventions came from his love of skateboarding and video games on one of
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the games Flames would shoot out of the skateboard so James decided to make that
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a reality and designed a board with wheels that would create a spark when grinded into the pavement another one of
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his inventions was a special baby bib to help reduce the mess when feeding your little one he loved creating things and
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it made him good money in his 20s he bought a condo on the beach in an upscale area of San Diego he split his
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time between there and Baker field but perhaps the most significant event in his early adult life was falling in love
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for the first time her name was Amber that was kind of love at first sight for both of them as his mother die puts it
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James had met his match very jealous of each other's Beauty Amber gave James a run for his
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money you know he was tall she was tall and she was fiery and they they would fight and then make up and fight and
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make up like so many young lovers they were consumed by their relationship it was
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passionate with highs and lows and moved quickly especially when Amber found out
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she was pregnant Amber and James welcomed a baby girl and were building a life together they were engaged and soon
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to be married until one Saturday morning they had an argument they were supposed
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to attend her friend's wedding together he didn't go and that was the last time he saw her
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after the argument Amber went to the wedding alone on her way home to James and their baby she got into an accident
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Amber's death sent James into a tail spin I would have to say that was the first time that I really noticed that he
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was consuming alcohol I think he probably stayed drunk for the first year and then
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brought himself out of that to where he wasn't drinking at all undoubtedly what or rather who helped him out of the the
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tail spin was his baby girl Cameron he was my best friend but I also was his best friend Cameron split her time
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living with her dad and her maternal grandmother after her mother died she said life with her dad was always an
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adventure I don't want this to sound the wrong way but my dad was just really cool like he was
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just really really cool and I know that sounds cheesy but like he was really cool and he was a surfer and I just
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looked at him with a like I looked at him like he could do no wrong I mean he really was my best friend her loved ones
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will tell you Cameron should be most wellknown for her Amazing Heart her beauty on the inside but when people see
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her for the first time it's hard to not focus on her looks she has her mother Amber's long strawberry blonde hair
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slender figure her height comes from both her parents and her full lips and green bluish eyes are from her father
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James her striking looks were tough for him to handle I remember the first bikini picture I posted he was like
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calling everybody D her to take that down she can't do that and I was like Dad I'm 14 years old and at the time I
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really felt like I was adult and he was like yeah no that's not happening and then into high school I started
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obviously looking more and more like an adult and no he couldn't handle it he couldn't handle it nope camon remembers
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One Night in particular not long after her 16th birthday I think he had cooked dinner um we ate and then I get up and
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I'm like okay I'm going to go hang out with my friends I think we're going to go to a
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party mind you my dad to me is like the coolest person in the world so it wasn't
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really like I asked I more just said I was going to go and he was like no you're not I'm like what do you mean I'm
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not well first of all you're not going anywhere looking like that second of all because I said so and I'm like okay
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well I'm going I will come back later he was like cuz my dad had never told me no
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before are you kidding me like I said everything was a vacation everything was like candy for dinner okay like he
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didn't care so I'm like oh so now now you care he's like well you know we're spending the weekend together I'm like
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no I'm going got into a huge yelling match but like just me yelling he's laughing and when someone's laughing at
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you when you're yelling it makes you Furious and that memory is just one of the best memories because
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what I would give to scream at him like looking back it was so parent likee and I didn't get much of that growing
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up that's what I want like if I could have him back for 5 more minutes I'd probably spend it
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yelling at him but in the best most loving way possible because it just meant so much to me to be able to have
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I'm like oh he is my dad he's my best friend but he is my father first and he's just looking out
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for me he cared about me deeply everyone agrees that what James was most proud of in life was being a
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father he took a lot of pride Di and being his daughter's best friend he was also very proud of his career his
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dedication to his health and fitness but James also had a secret he was very private person he didn't want you to
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know that he was down he was going to as people would say suck it up and present to public everything is
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everything's great when actuality it wasn't James mom D was one of the first people after James his brothers to find
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out what was going on one of the most difficult things that I had early on was admitting in public
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that James had a substance abuse problem James on that aspect would have been mortified because he tried so hard to
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not let people know because that wasn't him because he was into health and happiness and and being addicted to
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opiates he did not want people to know D is talking about it now for a few reasons one she wants people to know
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what happened to James could happen to anyone she also knows it undoubtedly played a role in his murder I don't
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think his addiction started until he was hit by a car on his birthday the story of his addiction
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started out like so many others being seriously injured and as a result prescribed opioids to manage the pain D
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says when it was time for doctors to wean him off of the high dose of painkillers it would make James feel
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like the pain from his accident was back and worse than ever but really it was his body suffering from
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withdrawal what he explained to me was he was just trying to feel normal to get you know as his addiction progressed
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just to be able to function during the day D say James didn't want anyone to know about the painkillers to the public
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he kept up his image of being a health nut with lots of extra exercising and clean eating and so that was the
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contradiction the opiates are definitely aren't a clean substance to put in your
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body so he was trying to counteract that with how he took care of himself a lot of people never knew that James was
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struggling but in time Cameron his daughter could tell something was different this is how Cameron says she
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thought of her dad for most of her life he loved to be seen loved the way he looked he loved himself and in the
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most not cocky way possible he never treated anyone bad you know but he was just a love he was just a love he was a
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love to love and he loved to love like it was amazing but in the last year of his life
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Cameron says suddenly he wasn't as social he wasn't doing the things he was passionate about he just wasn't him it
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was like drugs have a hold on you that much all the things you love to do like you're
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selling you're selling your toys like your surfboards and your skateboards what I just I can't and I still don't
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understand this man was so adventurous and fearless and so for him to throw that all
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away I could never imagine you know I just drugs are horrible I mean they are that bad they
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will turn the best people into the saddest and then then there's no way out today many of us understand
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addiction is an illness a battle that only people in it can truly understand but until really learning about the
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opioid crisis I still thought of the root of drug abuse as starting with a choice a choice to try drugs whether you
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intend to become addicted or not it might seem harsh because it insinuates that addicts put themselves in that
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situation but I think it's comforting in a way for people to explain it like that
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because it makes us feel in control it makes us feel like so long as we make what our parents and teachers consider
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good choices and not try addictive drugs that will be okay it makes it seem simple
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but there are millions of people in the United States hooked on the most addictive and dangerous drugs who never
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understood they were making a choice to try something that would ultimately make
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them addicts people like James like Micah who simply took pills their doctors said would alleviate their
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pain because James had been successful and so driven from a young age many people who knew James for a long time
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have told me it's still hard to wrap Minds around that he battled addiction it's like his mom puts it it's such a
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contradiction to the happy healthy driven person they knew somebody else I love and who was also my best friend is
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still affected by this which is Ryan perhaps no one understands the contradiction the drugs created in James
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like his brother Ryan James and I were always you know always together their mother Dy has a set of
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twin boys boys who are not Ryan and James but if you asked people who her twins were many would probably assume it
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was the two of them a lot of people would confuse us for each other and a couple times I looked through pictures
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and I was like I don't remember taking that picture and then actually realized wait a minute that's not me that's
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James it wasn't just their looks it was their Mutual interests their Fierce Bond
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and their desire to keep up appearances and block out any strugles and they both
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found themselves in the same struggle at the same time that's how my addiction started you know it started with a
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prescription together the brothers struggled with opioid addiction both used together both tried to hide it from
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others together as much as possible but after James's murder appearances stopped
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mattering to Ryan I've been on this this this [ __ ] self-destructive I don't care you know if I live or
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die since this has happened my whole life is [ __ ] gone I'm like I'm never going to get it back my brother is gone
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like the closest person to me the number one closest person to me since that night Ryan says he spent
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much of his time trying to numb himself from the pain while also trying to remember key details he says he just
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can't as he was there the night his brother was murdered the day started out with Ryan being at someone's house a
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local chiropractor in the nice neighborhood where crime rarely occurs yeah the only reason why I would
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hang out with that chiropractor would be just to you know just to do drugs and get high you know the chiropractor was
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also someone who despite at one point seeming to have it all together owning a nice home and his own practice began
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using opioids Ryan was at the chiropractor's house that day with a woman named Sarah not the Sarah who was
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friends with Bailey and started dating Matt Queen the Sarah that Micah was hanging out with before he disappeared
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we're calling her Sarah G in the next clip you'll hear Ryan mention Sarah G and his friend
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Rick I genuinely had an interest in Sarah like I said when we first met her I was like oh who's that and then uh
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Rick was just quick to like cling on to her and then she she had called me or texted me for something and then Rick
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kind of got it like hey man what's my girl I'm like oh it's your girl dude like [ __ ] okay well go for it man
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like don't get mad at me sometime after Sarah G and Rick first coupled up things
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fizzled out and she started hanging out with Micah now a couple weeks after Micah was last heard from Sarah G was at
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the chiropractor's house with Ryan Ryan says that's when the chiropractor brought up his brother James and then he
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got really really irritated and said that you know I don't want your brother coming by here and this and that so I
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was like okay well you know I'll tell him you know just kind of in one ear and out the other Ryan says he and James had
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been arguing and weren't talking that day so he had no intentions of inviting James over but the chiropractor
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continued to seem on edge about it he was like pacing the his house Upstairs Downstairs Outside
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Inside and on the phone with whom I don't I don't know and then again you know your brother's calling saying he's
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coming by and then at one point then it was like okay now he's really aggravated that Sarah's
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there I mean she'd been there pretty much the entire time we were there but now it was time for her to to leave so
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I'm the only one with the vehicle so naturally you know it's time for me to take her to wherever she has to go so
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when we were leaving James was outside this is where things get a little convoluted and hard to follow we don't
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know why the chiropractor suddenly didn't want Sarah G at his house but apparently that was the situation Ryan
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says when he walked outside he saw his brother James outside the chiropractor's house after the chiropractor had made it
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very clear he didn't want James coming over Ryan says initially he and James didn't say anything to each other Ryan
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Ryan got in his car and started driving with Sarah G but she couldn't give him clear directions on where she wanted to
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go and then Ryan says Sarah G apparently dialed 911 and quickly hung up multiple
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times which then he chocked up to her being high on drugs confused and annoyed Ryan circled
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back around and drove to the chiropractor's house James was still there just standing in the driveway Ryan
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asked him if he knew where the house was that Sarah G wanted to get dropped off at and he said yeah it's just down you
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know down the street hang a right and hang a left so I said all right thanks and I started backing up and leaving and
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he said I don't know if you're going to be here tonight if you're going to be here later on tonight but things are
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going to get real ugly and that was the last thing that he said I asked Ryan if he had warned James
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at any point that the chiropractor said he better not come to his house that night I think I may have said something
00:22:03
along the lines like oh he doesn't want you here you know and he was more or less like oh I'm not trying to hang out
00:22:10
here I just want to you know conclude my business he owed a money and he was just
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wanting to collect he gave him a check and he owed him for that for why did James give him a check
00:22:24
because he has a business account business account accounts can process third party checks you know long as
00:22:31
they're endorsed as someone who doesn't cover white collar crime this took me a minute
00:22:37
to get here's James's friend Jeremy who breaks it down pretty well and they were
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using his chiropractor business to cast brulant checks that James was getting so
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James would steal these checks and then take them to this chiropractor guy and the chiropractor guy would deposit him
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into his business account and cash him here's Ryan again they have mailbox keys and access to incoming outgoing mail
00:23:02
that's what they were doing that's what this yeah that's this whole thing is is over is is greed it's
00:23:09
money you know credit cards and checks the name of the game was apparently to go through people's mail
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to try to find checks evidently from there the chiropractor would cash them through his business and then they'd
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split it when I spoke to a longtime friend of James about this and his involvement in the stolen checks she
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told me it couldn't be right the whole male fraud I I was shocked I thought he looked down on stuff like that that was
00:23:38
Jessica you might recognize her voice because in addition to being close friends with James she was also good
00:23:44
friends with Bailey Jessica and others told me it seemed unimaginable that James would be involved in anything like
00:23:51
this now back to that night after James gave Ryan directions Ryan left to take Sarah G to to where she wanted to go I
00:24:00
dropped her off and then on my way back um my phone rang and the chiropractor and he's all like worked up and he's
00:24:09
like oh your brother's here and I'm like well my brother's been there dude you know and uh he's like yeah my your
00:24:14
brother's here and my boys are on their way and this and that and I'm like d calm down you know I'm taking care of
00:24:21
everything I just dropped Sarah off and I'm on my way back and as a matter of fact I'm coming into your neighborhood
00:24:28
right now and James is already leaving Ryan says as he pulled into the culde saac I did note that there was a car
00:24:35
parked with its headlights on he says all he can remember is that it was a silver sedan he says he saw James's car
00:24:42
pull behind it and out of my peripheral as I was turning left it seemed like James was starting
00:24:51
to pull out from behind that car as if he was going to follow me and see where I'm going Ryan says he was pulling out
00:24:57
of the cold Des back and down into another part of the neighborhood and then once I got around
00:25:03
the corner then I I heard what you know was gunshots but it didn't sound like a typical pop pop pop you know it was like
00:25:12
a an echoing sound the sound wasn't just gunshots it was James crashing his car after it was struck by several bullets I
00:25:23
just left my car in the middle of the street and got out and you know grabbed James and I was like trying to tell him
00:25:30
get up I was like get up and he wasn't he looked like he was lost like he kept looking around like he
00:25:39
was lost and you think with all me like jerking him by his hand and calling his name
00:25:46
that he would have immediately you know responded but he didn't and then when he
00:25:51
finally did uh he looked at me and he he didn't take his eyes off me and he had just
00:26:00
looked like he was scared like he wasn't scared for for him it looked more like he was scared for me because he knew who
00:26:09
who shot him his brother Ryan called and said Mom hurry you need to come quick and the police had it roped off
00:26:21
about a half a block away and I just went crazy just started screaming I wanted to get
00:26:31
through I wanted to get to him by the time D got to the scene with her other son Steven it was total
00:26:39
chaos I tried to get through the caution tape I remember the police officer um telling Steven he need to try to control
00:26:48
me um I think they would probably would have arrested me um Steven bear hugged me and just held me as tight as he could
00:26:57
and just kept saying saying Mom calm down it's going to be okay you know and I just couldn't
00:27:05
breathe could barely stand up it was just my head was spinning kind of like it's starting to do
00:27:13
[Music] now I just wanted to get to him hold him at this moment Dy and Ryan were both
00:27:23
having the same thought I never dreamed that it would kill him you know I knew there was the
00:27:32
possibility but when I got there I expected him to still be alive I mean James has been through so
00:27:40
much I mean just been through a lot of uh you know injuries I guess you would say and has always came out you know on
00:27:49
top so I didn't think in my mind at all that this is a life-threatening situation Ryan continued to try to get
00:27:58
James to speak to stand up but he couldn't James just continued to stare into Ryan's
00:28:04
eyes when I saw the color of his his lips you know matching the color of his skin like all that you know I was
00:28:13
uh that's when I got emotional and I got down and I kind know stopped trying to get him up and then I just got down and
00:28:20
I just hugged him and [ __ ] told him you know I had my head against him and I was right in his ear just telling him
00:28:27
how much that I loved him and I was sorry we were fighting and hold on that help was
00:28:34
coming James died at the scene it happened the night of his daughter Cameron's senior prom this is a clip of
00:28:41
an interview I did with her while working at 17 news and I don't know how to deal with
00:28:47
it I don't know how to wake up in the morning and not think like was he scared like was he scared when that person was
00:29:01
shooting at the car like what was going through his mind back then the one-year anniversary
00:29:09
of James's murder was approaching and Cameron hoped to send a message to his killer I want that person to look at me
00:29:18
and see me and like really see me because that person took away everything from me
00:29:32
going on one year it seemed unimaginable then that an arrest hadn't been made yet
00:29:38
you would think that it would be just as plain and simple as the chiropractor said
00:29:45
that he was going to call somebody to come and they were going to come strapped you know as the words that he
00:29:52
used and that's exactly what happened but you know everything else didn't point to
00:29:59
that as Ryan said it seemed the case was open and shut But as time went on with no arrests people started pondering
00:30:06
other theories one involved Sarah G the Sarah that Micah had been hanging out with
00:30:12
before he went missing who was also there the night that James was killed first there was talk that someone killed
00:30:19
Micah over his relationship with Sarah G and then Ryan was told James may have been killed over her too
00:30:28
over some checks and over Sarah like over Sarah like really as it turns out Ryan also had
00:30:35
some involvement with her though Ryan says Sarah G quickly blew him off we hooked up and then I tried to like hang
00:30:43
out with her again and then she kind of like just you know and I felt like a chick like I feel so used Ryan says
00:30:50
James never told him that he also hooked up with Sarah G but it's been a longtime
00:30:55
rumor that most people say is true I think I even asked Sarah too I'm like come on you could tell me and she's like
00:31:04
no no you know but other people are convinced that they did so there was that theory that possibly both Micah and
00:31:14
James were killed by a jealous boyfriend of Sarah G's but it didn't stop there theories
00:31:20
kept coming people started thinking the case must not be as straightforward as it looks on the surface there must be
00:31:27
something more more to it maybe it wasn't an ambush by a stranger over money James would have never at 1:00 in
00:31:35
the morning pulled behind a car that he did not know even being in a safe neighborhood whoever was parked there he
00:31:42
knew it's a question that started to drive some of James's loved ones crazy the constant wondering who and why now
00:31:51
more than 5 years later James's daughter Cameron has tried to adopt a new outlook I just
00:31:58
just I had I had gotten to the point where I cared so much about who that person was that I
00:32:06
was losing sight in who my dad was they already took that person from me so I can't let them take the memories too I
00:32:16
have to remember all the good things there's so much more to unpack about James's murder and how it may or
00:32:23
may not tie into the disappearances of Bailey and Micah but for now I want focus on the way Cameron remembers her
00:32:30
father how today as a young woman she realizes she is who she is because of him so if I could only talk to him one
00:32:40
more time I would just tell him thank you over and over again I think about him when I look at the
00:32:55
stars I think about him when I hear birds chirping I think about him when I hear
00:33:04
ocean sounds I think about him when I see strawberries cuz he always brought me them there's all these reminders and
00:33:12
there's so many memories a little editor's note when I interviewed James's brother Ryan in
00:33:26
January 202 too he was in a dark place I just want to [ __ ] numb myself from reality he told me that day he was using
00:33:37
fentanyl the number one cause of Overdose deaths unable to afford rehab Ryan thought getting clean was hopeless
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but a few months after that interview completely on his own Ryan got sober as of this writing he's been clean for over
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a year and a half [Music] next time on the Bakersfield 3 you're going to end up either dead or you're
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going to go missing that was the last I ever spoke to [Music] her for