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Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences.
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Listener discretion is advised. Somebody that beautiful, that love and that kind, that can take you away.
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There's something wrong. I already knew the world was best. If you don't understand that or realize that, you're not paying attention to me.
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they say you build it and they will come i don't know who said that it's probably in a movie or
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something anyway we built it about nine months ago it's called sword and scale television there's
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nine episodes available right now and there's many many more coming next year we made it for
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true crime fans like you because we're true crime fans as well so we wanted to make a tv show
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for the fans, by the fans, in a way that leaves out all the cheesiness of Hollywood,
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all the bad actors, put it that way, and gives you just a solid true crime story.
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Right now it's once a month, and I know we said we were going to do two a month,
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but that's just on me. That's my fault. I've been crashing. I've been unable to keep pace,
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And unfortunately, there's only one of me and I can only do so many things. Unfortunately, when you get to a certain size, you spend most of your time running a business, being a CEO rather than a podcaster.
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It's just the way it is. When you get to a certain size, you just have to hire people and you have to manage people and you have to manage people that manage people and so on and so forth.
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And then you become a CEO and it sucks because I don't want to be a CEO. But there we are.
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we all do things we don't want to do in life. Anyway, what I was really trying to say is just go watch it.
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You know, you can try it, and if you don't like it, you can unsubscribe at any time.
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It's really easy. You don't need to contact support or anything. You can just do it on your phone.
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So if you like true crime, the place to find it is swordandscale.com. The End having is worth the effort to get it. You have to work hard to achieve the things you want in life.
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It won't just be handed to you. And this lesson is mostly true. Sure, there are people out there
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who never learn this lesson and everything is handed to them. But if you see one of these people
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come face to face with opposition, watch out. Anger and chaos will ensue. You see, the lesson isn't really about working hard. You can work hard and still fail. The lesson
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is really about learning the fact that sometimes you just can't have what you want. I know, I know,
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I know it's hard, it's hard to come to terms with such a reality, but it's true.
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So, the quicker you accept it, the better off everyone will be. Because what happens is that with this eventual realization,
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those certain entitled few revert to the mentality of children. And children rarely act rationally, or logically.
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Instead, they act out without regard for the calamity that they will cause. September 2nd, 2016 was a day like any other.
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By 3 p.m. it was 84 degrees and cloudy in Wichita Falls, Texas. On the south side of town, the school bell rings at McNeil Middle School,
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and a flood of children pour into the sidewalks, streets, and alleyways. One such kid, 13-year-old eighth grader, Michaela Smith, looks for her friends before starting her walk home.
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I met Kyra first. It was in front of the school in Rennell. And Alani didn't walk home that day.
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So we walked across the big field that we had. And I saw Lauren over there, and I called her name to see if it was her.
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And we met up with her. We caught up with her while she was walking. Many kids walked home in the city of around 100,000 people.
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This was the first year sixth grade was offered at McNeil, and the neighborhood streets were filled with children more than normal.
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Mikayla caught up with her friend Lauren Londavazo to lament over the first few weeks of school We were talking about school and how we don have any classes to get in
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Does that make you so? You didn't have classes before? Yeah, but I would see her in the hallway and stuff when we would say hi to John Pathy.
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The neighborhood surrounding McNeil Middle School was full of single-family homes very close together.
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There were sidewalks, but many kids chose to take the alley that separated backyards as their route home.
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And we stopped near the dumpsters. Okay. And Lauren, she started walking ahead of us so she could go meet up with her boyfriend, Dalvin.
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So she was right about in the middle of the corner. A mere block from school, the girls stopped to part ways.
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On the next street over, a boy named Garrett had just made it to the intersection when a car flew by.
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It was a gray goldish shop. He was on the sidewalk waiting to cross the street when he saw the Tahoe stop in front of the alley.
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From his perspective, he only saw one person. Lauren. I was on the corner, like where the concrete was, and then I could only stop.
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I was on the door, I saw it right there. Okay, and this is an alleyway, right? Yeah, there was like a fence covering every other girl except her.
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Just as Lauren waved by to her friends and turned to walk away, a vehicle pulled up abruptly.
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Further down the alley were three other students, Elijah, Hope, and Crystal. We just stood there because we thought Lauren and Raquel were getting picked up.
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It wasn't uncommon for kids to get picked up on their route home, but something about this vehicle seemed strange.
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Garrett, on the next street over, noticed the window on the Tahoe was down. Then he noticed something else.
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And then, did you see anything unusual come out of that window that was down on the driver's side door?
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It was a gun. Okay. Elijah, Hope, and Crystal saw the gun, too. but didn't immediately recognize the danger.
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At first, I thought it was a paintball gun or a BB gun because teenagers like to play pranks and all that.
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Then they heard the sound. When I think back to it, it's all silent. I just thought there were firecracks.
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We didn't really think anything of it at first. Garrett, the little boy on the street corner, recognized the sound immediately.
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His father was a cop. I heard some about four, five, six or seven been shots. Did you see what happened to Lauren?
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She fell down on the ground. Suddenly, Elijah, Hope and Crystal knew this was no prank.
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So we didn't think any of it until Lauren fell and Michaela ran. Chaos erupted in the alley and the surrounding streets as the Tahoe sped away.
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Some kids froze while others ran for their lives. Elijah, Hope, and Crystal ducked into Hope's backyard, but the back door to her house was locked.
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Garrett took off running and started banging on his neighbor's doors frantically to find help.
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So were you knocking on the door trying to get help? Yes, ma'am. Were you scared?
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Yes. Had you ever seen anything like that before? Never. After the sound of gunshots stopped, Elijah, Hope, and Crystal slowly ventured back into the alley.
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Well, we went back outside into the alley to see what had happened. And we saw Lauren on the ground where she had fallen.
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And we also saw Michaela. She looked like she was out with her phone trying to dial her number.
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I asked her if she was okay, and she said no. And, like, we saw her blood, and so it was, like, calling 911.
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Like, we were asking what was going on, and we asked if it was, like, a real gun or what.
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What did she say? She said yes, and she was trying to hold her hand over her. shot and so at that point then I like uh I kind of got over the shock of it and was more frightened
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at that point and so I pulled out my phone and I called my dad. I looked back towards the other
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side of the alley towards the apartment and I thought I saw that car but I wasn't sure so I
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told Hope to get in her backyard and I ran past everything to the front of Hope's house to go get
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her mom to unlock the back door. In the aftermath, the kids were at a loss for what to do.
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Most called their parents, but Crystal risked herself to keep her friends safe. She had to run past her fallen classmate. I just really didn't want to look at her
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because I was scared. Once her mother answered the door, what did you do? I hugged her and I
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cried a little bit, and then I told her Hope was in the backyard. Nearby, Navy and Army veteran John Lewis heard the shots from his backyard and sprang into
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action. That was actually in my backyard, on my patio, and I was prepping my daughter's 13th birthday
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party. His backyard was just on the other side of a privacy fence from the alley.
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Luckily his daughter hadn taken the alley that day normally she walks down the alley but she didn on that day How she get on that She actually went down Kingston She just bought her a bicycle
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and she didn't want to pop the tiger, so she didn't drive down the alley because there was glass,
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so she took Kingston Street and rode her bike down that way. He was about to head inside
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when he heard the shots. As I went to open the door, gunshots, low, well, I got to the police,
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low caliber, semi-automatic kind of a weapon was fired and all military training I ever had kind of kicked in.
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The first one was a shot and then a second later maybe is when they all just let loose.
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They all got fired off in rapid succession. It was fast. It was real fast. Three to five seconds
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maybe all of them, maybe. His military training kicked in. He even recognized the sound of the gunshots
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and was able to identify the caliber as a .22. A .22 has kind of a short crack sound to it.
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The 9mm has, it's a little heavier and a little more chunkier of a sound. Knowing this was when kids started to get out of school,
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He was worried for the other children in the community. I instantly dropped the cups, and I knew the kids were getting out of school.
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I knew the direction which was the shot they were coming from was the alley. I dropped the cups, and I instantly ran to out of six-foot private fence.
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And I climbed up and jumped over my six-foot private fence. Up over the fence, I hit the ground so hard that my foot-flops came off my feet.
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and I didn't realize I could tell after the police had arrived. This man, in the face of danger, sprang into action.
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Jumping his fence and landing in the alley so hard it blew his flip-flops. With this experience in battle, both in the Navy and the Army,
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it didn't matter that he was barefoot. In the alley, he looked for anyone that was hurt.
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I saw Lauren. Well, I didn't know her name at the time. I thought I just saw a young girl laying there
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and I ran to her as I ran to her after Jimbo events I ran to her coming out like a tunnel vision
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when I did when I ran I didn't know I didn't live in no cars I was just kind of not there
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and I ran there I didn't know if there was another shooter I didn't know I just knew there was kids
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I saw a little girl laying there and when I approached Lauren when I got to Lauren the military
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train kicked in or I was supposed to, you know, use that situation, see what's going
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on, do you know, the active shooter, are there other people wounded, check the person that
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you come up on. And I noticed that I'm not a doctor, I'm not a nurse, I'm not an RN or anything, but my
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training I know when someone's gone. There are signs you look for. One is their blood, like a massive amounts of blood.
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So the heart stops, it's not going to push the blood around. I didn't see much of any on her.
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The way she was laying, if I remember correctly, it was her wrist. It was in a pinch position where anybody was conscious or was alive.
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They wouldn't want her to be in that kind of position. He wasn't a doctor or a nurse, but he could tell Lauren wasn't with us any longer.
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When he looked into her eyes, he was sure. When I approached Lauren, I noticed...
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It's hard. I don't want to take a bigger time. I noticed that in what we refer to in the Army, when I was at the infantry, as the death
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place or the death stare, the feeling of the entrance, like when I got there, it just kind
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It kind of felt like going into a bubble, a bubble, and it felt just like death.
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I didn't hear anything really. It was a flat feeling where something just died or something just happened.
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It was too late for Lauren, but John could still help Michaela. I heard a child off my left, so it came down from the alley saying,
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another travel shop. And I looked up and that's when I saw Michaela. She was standing there.
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And I ran to her and I laid her down. By this time, John's daughter had arrived to witness
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the chaos. When I laid her down, my daughter was there. I yelled at her, give me something
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to pull your holes with. And so I got around the house and it felt so fast. And I looked at
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Mikaela, I said, you're a champ. You're going to be fine. We're going to get you fixed up.
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You're a champion. And by that time, I looked up to my daughter with the red to, you know, stop the bleeding.
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Mikaela was bleeding, but she seemed to be okay. She was conscious and coherent despite the shocking events.
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That's when the enormity of the situation dawned on John. I just have to say, this guy's a hero
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he was on scene long before the first responders or the police and thank god he was but there was nothing that could be done for Lauren As the chaos of the scene peaked classmates and citizens alike looked on in horror as the once vibrant Lauren the girl they all knew lie lifeless at the end of an alley
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A regular warm afternoon in Wichita Falls, Texas, became a nightmare. McNeil middle school students would never forget.
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Thirteen-year-old eighth-grader Lauren Londovazo had been gunned down just a block away from school.
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Her close friend Michaela Smith was also shot but would recover. The havoc on that street corner, though, was still unfolding.
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On the next street, Sarah Cervantes saw Garrett running for his life and immediately knew something was wrong.
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When she first saw Garrett running, her mind went to the more likely scenario, that he
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was running from school bullies. But when she got to the stop sign and saw someone lying in the alley,
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she knew that it was more serious. And what did you think had happened to Lauren?
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Initially I thought maybe she was hit by a vehicle. That was my first thought. And then I kind of ran through other scenarios
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and maybe someone attacked her because there were a lot of kids screaming. I just kind of ran through a lot of things that I thought may have happened.
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Regardless of the reason she knew, she had to try and help. She pulled up to the alley, told her children to stay in the car, and approached Lauren to see if she was okay.
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I asked her if she was okay. Did you think she was going to respond? Mm-hmm. Why is that?
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I believe her already had passed at a point. Her eyes are still open. and there was a large wound to her head.
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She still had her mind, her head and her arms. Everything happened so fast. In a matter of a few seconds, the shots were fired and Garrett ran.
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John jumped the fence and Sarah saw Garrett fleeing as she approached the intersection.
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At the same time, Elijah and Hope were ducking into her backyard while Crystal ran around to the front.
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By the time Sarah Cervantes approached Lauren, it had been barely more than a minute since the shots were fired.
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Right behind her was Jamie Lopez. When I turned on to Trinidad, I saw, I first noticed a lady standing at the corner, kind of hysterical, waving her hands.
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And I saw a girl playing in the alley, the opening of the alley. So, you know, immediately I pulled over to see, you know, what had happened and if I could help and do anything.
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Jamie was a home health nurse and had medical training. When I start CPR, I remember seeing there was a blow right about where her heart would have been and thinking, I don't know if I'm going to do more damage or not if I start this on this girl, but I don't know where it went.
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And about that time is when Michaela started running from the alley, coming down from the alley, yelling that she could also move the spot, that she needed help.
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Realizing Lauren's condition, she decided to focus on Michaela. There really wasn't much to do with Lauren because I could tell when I first walked up.
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Do you remember her eyes were open or closed? They were open. The pretty blue eyes.
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She was gone. There were so many people and everyone was staring. And I just felt that.
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Everyone was just staring at their light near. And whatever. So I got a blanket and tried to cover up a little bit.
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It's just so good. Jamie had some first aid supplies in her car and began helping Michaela.
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Sarah Cervantes was unable to help and placed the first 911 call. Hi, I'm an ambulance for 5143 East Street.
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There's a gun like a blade in the grass bleeding. We don't know what happened to her.
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Sarah was barely holding it together, but she knew how important it was to relay as much information as possible to first responders.
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There are young ladies who are laying the ground and bleeding. She did not appear to be clung or have any ice or blood in her.
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They were just on fire at her. Ma'am, can you tell where she's bleeding from? Yes, I'm in.
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I can't really tell. I'm just going to be letting her out of it. Is she breathing right now?
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No, no, no. Okay, do you know how long she's been laying there now? No. Can you touch her?
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Does that mean she's cool with a touch or is she warm? Can you pull your feet? In this tight-knit community, it wasn't long before the news spread through the neighborhood.
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Michaela, wounded and dazed, called her mother. I hear her phone tested, so I'm thinking that maybe she had blood down.
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And so I'm yelling her name to pick up, and so when she found me, and so she was yelling my name.
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From that first woman, I thought maybe she was getting into an altercation with another student,
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and I know that's not her. And so I kept telling her to calm down. I can't understand what you're saying.
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And I asked her to do that the second time, and I thought, what's going on? And then that's when she got out.
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So I was shocked, Mom. and I asked the woman and she said someone shot me and I was like what?
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and just went registered and I did a mask on her you know where she said mommy got shot in the chest
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and she said Lord is not going to be mommy I got shot in the chest imagine hearing that from your child
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Michaela's mother dropped everything and left her job as an elementary school teacher to rush to her daughter.
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Michaela's mother had already made it to the scene when the Landovazos got word that something had happened.
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I heard a commotion outside. I heard that, I'm not sure I heard neighbors and something about kids being down.
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And then as I was sitting there trying to process that, But I heard Bianca, and just the way she said it, something about kids.
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And there was just something in her voice saying something was wrong, something was horribly wrong.
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And as I was coming out of the room to try to find out what was going on, I heard the front door close.
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And by the time I got to it, Bianca wasn't there. So when I went outside, she was already running down the street, and I was kind of caught after her.
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Where are you going? What are you doing? Vern Londevazo didn't know what was going on, or where his wife was running.
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The only clue he had was something about kids being down, and the sound of fear in his wife's voice before she bolted out the front door.
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He hopped into his truck and started driving. As I was driving down there, it's right down the corner.
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I remember at one time stopping the truck and pulling over thinking, there's a thousand things at that school.
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It's not her, it can't be her. So I stopped and I called her cell phone. And I don't know if it rang, it may be rang only one time,
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but somebody answered the phone. and instantly what I heard was screaming. I didn't know at the time that it was Bianca screaming,
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but I heard somebody screaming her name and the way she was screaming. I knew, I knew, I instantly went cold.
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And I just knew I got out of the truck and I walked down to the corner and as soon as I got to the corner
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I could see the crime scene tape. And as I turned the corner, I almost said my tongue was and everything seemed like there was a white fog around everything except for Lauren.
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I saw Lauren lying there. And she wasn't covered. I was moving around her. And I just remember standing at the crime scene tape.
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They wouldn't let me go to her. And I could hear Nanda screaming in the background.
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But that was about all I could hear. and just looking at her and wondering, how come I'm not doing anything?
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How come she's just laying here? Powerless, Vern watched from a distance as first responders finally started to treat Lauren.
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Quickly, the two girls were put into an ambulance headed for the hospital. So they let me into the ambulance
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and as we were sitting there and they were working on her and I was looking back at them
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And that was the first time I had noticed her blood. I didn't notice blood while she was lying there, but when I looked back, I could see her hair.
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And it was blood in her hair. She would be thinking, oh my God, that's not good, blood in her hair.
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But also what I heard was, I don't want to be in my heartbeat. Lauren's parents, Vern and Bianca, held on to a threat of hope as they rode with their daughter to the hospital.
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But when they got there they were let into a family waiting room Bianca feared it was because their daughter was gone When he did come in when the man came in
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Bianca told me he spoke to her knees and started screaming. I was trying to tell her, well, it's not that.
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They're just here to tell us what they're going to do. and that's when they told us that she was gone.
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Most people who knew Lauren knew how special she was. There's always something about Lauren,
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and I know all parents have that to them about their children. There's something special about that child,
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but even in comparison to my sons, there was just something about Lauren. I don't like it. It's hard to explain just that she seemed so much wiser than her years.
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She always said, I remember even being two or three years old and looking over and seeing her look at me
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and the way she was looking at me, that there was something going on behind there.
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And it just seemed she was just so much more advanced than you would think a child would be
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as far as her compassion for people, her kindness, just how tender she was with other people.
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Very kind and open-minded. She was very positive about everything. You couldn't help but love her.
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And not just us, not just the family, but she made friends so easily. We heard the kids at school would just almost idolize her that she was so popular.
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It probably wasn't any of the promised. It was just how she interacted with people, especially other children, how kind she looks to them.
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I never saw her once beaming to somebody, say anything. Quite the opposite. She went out of her way.
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If she knew that somebody was troubled, she might have her way to reach out to that person.
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Definitely a happy, beautiful girl. She had a big heart. was always helping her friends.
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If you're having a bad day, she was the upliftment. She was very well loved. Lauren made a positive impact on anyone who knew her.
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She always wore a smile when she looked at you with her beautiful blue eyes, and you just knew she genuinely cared.
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With the loss of a community sweetheart, the police were pressed to solve this attack.
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They needed to speak with Michaela and hear her recollection of events. It sounded at me, and as I was moving, I got hit, and, like, I thought I got hit in the middle of my chest, and I couldn't breathe.
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And Kyra was asking if I was okay, and, like, I couldn't speak, and I was waving at her to go and kind of, like, motioning for everybody else to move.
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Michaela heard the deluge of shots after she was hit. After she motioned for the other children in the alley to run,
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she wondered why no one else was being hit. Little did she know that Lauren took the brunt of those shots.
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She relayed to the police what she remembered about the man, or boy, who did it.
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I'd say he was between my kids. twenties or like seventeen, eighteen he had brown hair
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and it was like shaggy kind of shaggy big and he had acne and he had a big nose she said she locked eyes with the killer
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and he was a white male between the ages of seventeen and twenty with unkempt long brown hair
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acne, and a big nose. But where her memory failed her was the vehicle he was driving.
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And can you describe the vehicle that you remember? It was a black truck. And it had those silver bars
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that you would step on to get in. As the police addressed the public about the shooting,
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they initially released the description that Michaela gave them. Just right before 3.30 p.m., we received a 911 call in reference to Czech welfare,
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in reference to a shots fired call in the 5100 block of Kingston, actually in the alleyway.
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When we arrived on scene, we located one subject that had suffered what we believe right now. Keep
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in mind this is all still new. It's still just occurring. We saw we have two individuals that
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that suffered from a parent's gunshot wounds. From what I was told, right now, both victims are female.
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Suspect information, the only thing that we have at this point is a possible suspect driving a black SUV,
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black truck type vehicle, white male, shaggy brown hair. Michaela recalled the killer was driving a black truck but her memory was flawed Everyone else saw a gold SUV except for John the guy who jumped the fence He saw both the gold SUV and the black truck Not knowing which
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description was accurate, or if maybe there were two shooters, they released both vehicle
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descriptions to the public. The shooter was a young white male with shaggy brown hair,
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acne, and a big nose driving a gold-colored SUV. Most likely a Chevrolet Tahoe or a black Dodge truck.
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In the couple of days that followed the shooting, there wasn't a person in Wichita Falls who didn't know of the tragedy
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and the description of the killer. The community banded together to memorialize Lauren
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at the site of her death with her favorite color, purple. happens to be my favorite color, too.
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People who didn't even know her came to pay their respects, like Joanne and Faustino Ramirez.
00:37:03
Yes, we heard it on the radio and the news, who they were looking for. It was pretty widely spread throughout news media and social media, was it not?
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Yes, ma'am. Faustino wanted to go look at a memorial where they had started putting memorials up for Lauren.
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I did not. It was a sad situation and we didn't really know her or we didn't know her at all.
00:37:25
But he wanted to go and just take a try and find her. It was hard for any citizen of Wichita Falls to not be moved by the tragedy,
00:37:36
even if they had no connection to Lauren at all. We drove through the neighborhood trying to find where the memorial was.
00:37:43
We kind of got lost, took some streets we didn't know. and we ended up on Trinidad where the memorial site is.
00:37:50
When they found the memorial, there were crying people everywhere. Not wanting to get in the way of those who likely had a personal connection with Lauren,
00:38:00
they waited in the truck. And we just didn't want to get out of the truck and, you know, be in the way.
00:38:07
So we just kind of pulled over to the side to, you know, just wait. Maybe it would clear and then we could see, but we never got that chance.
00:38:15
Okay. And why did you not get that chance? Because while we were waiting, Fostino, you know, we just said, well, look out for a vehicle, you know,
00:38:22
just to make sure we don't see a vehicle going by. And we saw a vehicle drive by us that was the description of the SUV.
00:38:30
It was a gold SUV. We saw that it was a young white male that they were possibly looking for.
00:38:36
We kind of just followed him. He turned into, Uncle Trinidad, he turned into right into the apartment complex.
00:38:43
and of course we followed. They didn't even know Lauren, but when they saw a vehicle and driver matching the description of the news,
00:38:53
they decided to follow him. He drove past the memorial and stopped at an apartment complex
00:38:59
mere feet away from the alley. He went to the back passenger door. He opened the door and he proceeded to get what looked like a rifle or something.
00:39:11
Then he tucked it up under his arm, like he put the butt of the gun underneath with the blanket,
00:39:17
then to wrap it up, and he took it towards the apartment complex. They had the SUV, the driver, and now the rifle.
00:39:29
Joanne called 911 immediately. I grabbed a pen that was in Faustino's truck and just scribbled it on the palm of my hand
00:39:38
so that I could, while we were calling, let the police know the license plate number.
00:39:43
What color ink was that? It was a purple ink. She wrote down the license plate number in purple ink, Lauren's favorite color.
00:39:54
What a coincidence. Perhaps her spirit lives on. What was your emergency? We were driving by.
00:40:03
They were parked a little ways away and watched. While they waited for police to arrive, the suspect exited the apartment.
00:40:35
Now, without the rifle, he got back in his SUV. Yeah, he's leaving. You ever tell me where you're going?
00:40:45
I don't know. You're coming out of the apartment complex. They expected him to exit the complex the way he entered,
00:40:53
but they lost him when he used an exit on the other side. almost like an episode of Keystone Cops
00:41:01
or perhaps a more modern version would be Reno 911 Still, police knew his approximate location
00:41:10
and they had his license plate number so why put in the work when you have surveillance?
00:41:17
After all, it was only a matter of time before he would be caught and if you're on the government payroll, then what's the rush?
00:41:25
Moments later, the police made a traffic stop of the gold SUV with the shaggy driver
00:41:32
He pulled over and cooperated with the officers They asked him to step out of the vehicle
00:41:38
and they patted him down Then they searched his SUV, but there was no gun But they did find a belt buckle
00:41:48
in the shape of brass knuckles and there was enough to arrest him on misdemeanor charges of weapon possession and bring him in for questioning 20 Cody Lott didn work and wasn in school
00:42:05
He lived in Seymour, Texas, about a 50- to 60-minute drive southwest of Wichita Falls.
00:42:11
He did have shaggy hair, acne, and a big nose. He was thin and kind of looked like an evil Timothee Chalamet, if that helps.
00:42:23
Actually, I'm not sure if the real Timothee Chalamet is good or evil So, too many Timothee Chalamets
00:42:31
Walking around these days, if you ask me I don't even know what that means Anyway, don't take my word for it
00:42:39
Just Google the two people Cody Lott is his name With two Ts at the end He claimed the only reason
00:42:50
He was in town was to feed his mother's dog while she was on vacation. That and pick up some money she'd left for him.
00:42:58
After all, you know, like I said, he didn't work at all. He denied that anything related to guns
00:43:07
would be in his vehicle and explained that since an incident last year, his family kept guns away from him.
00:43:14
But like I said, I used to be able to kind of get away with doing, but there was an incident that happened in my son
00:43:21
where I had to go to a side court for two months. So, ever since then, my grandma's cat could go into the lake room.
00:43:27
Like, nobody would have access to their function or anything like that. The incident he so casually refers to was an armed standoff
00:43:37
with deputies in Seymour, Texas. His parents reported that he was at his grandmother's threatening to shoot folks.
00:43:46
That's a quote. The event warranted the Texas Rangers and three officers from the Department of Public Safety Criminal Investigation Division.
00:43:56
One of the CID officers was a hostage negotiator and quickly talked Cody out of the house.
00:44:04
He was later ordered to get treatment and diagnosed as bipolar and paranoid schizophrenic.
00:44:11
But yeah, yeah, yeah, there's no connection between crazy people and murder. Just keep telling yourself that.
00:44:17
Ooh, let's not stigmatize. He knew about murder, he fit the description of the suspect,
00:44:23
and he was driving an SUV that also matched the description. But he was adamant that it wasn't him.
00:44:32
The police, though, knew something Cody didn't, and it had to do with what else they found in his Tahoe.
00:44:40
Do you know if they found anything else? No. Well, they found a spent 22 shell casing.
00:44:50
Hmm. It only took a moment for Cody to explain away the shell casing. He had been shooting a year ago.
00:44:59
He was being cooperative, just not very helpful. Two little girls were hurt by somebody.
00:45:06
And whoever did this, we don't want that to happen to anybody else. probably, I mean, from my experience,
00:45:17
whoever did this probably needs some help. Now, what happened to the girls is terrible.
00:45:23
Whoever did this definitely needs some help. And I'm talking about some serious psychological help.
00:45:31
And how are they going to get that unless we can find out who can get that and help them?
00:45:37
Does anyone else get the feeling that they are talking about him? He claimed to be a loner, and only his mother cared about him.
00:45:47
He claimed his father molested him and beat his mother. He had a long list of run-ins with the law and seemed to be spiraling into a life of drugs and crime.
00:45:59
To the police, in addition to everything else, he seemed to fit the profile of someone who would randomly shoot two little girls.
00:46:08
Of course, he continued to deny having anything to do with Lauren's death. I'm not trying to throw my stepbrother under the bus or anything, but you should definitely look at him.
00:46:52
Wow. The police didn't believe it for a second. Remember, they had a witness who saw Cody with the rifle.
00:47:02
They started to press harder. He finally admitted he was on Trinidad Drive the day of the shooting, but he was still claiming innocence.
00:47:29
Cody wanted to talk first, but he needed to be assured that he would be in solitary confinement.
00:47:36
He didn't think he could handle being in prison with real men. So, when officers guaranteed they would make that happen, he began a new story.
00:47:59
Okay. Like, I don't know, I've had a problem, you know, with females for a while now.
00:48:04
You can have seen one of them, they'll tell you absolutely, that's something Cuddy would do.
00:48:09
They'll say, absolutely, he has hate in his heart. They'll tell you, though, I talk about you as a child, Tom.
00:48:16
And, like, I'd seen that girl out there multiple times with her boyfriend. And one of them was just a little Tom-witching kid that wasn't no man.
00:48:24
So it kind of just sparked a jealousy in me, man. and I thought that was the way I was going to handle it.
00:48:32
He had seen Lauren walking with her boyfriend. He described the boy as a little punk-looking kid
00:48:39
that wasn't no man. Those are his words. Remember that we're talking about two 13-year-olds.
00:48:48
Their relationship sparked off a fit of jealousy in them and he decided to shoot her.
00:48:54
What a romantic. If you think this doesn't make any sense yet, just wait. It's only gonna get worse.
00:49:25
20-year-old Cody Lott only tried to lie for a little while before the excitement of sharing
00:49:51
his story got the better of him. And he confessed. That's what simple people do. They just
00:49:57
offer up everything. All at once. They can't keep their stupid little mouths shut. So they
00:50:05
blab and blab and blab. Cody Lott admitted he was the only one who shot Lauren and Michaela.
00:50:13
But his reasoning for why he did it was even more baffling than the act itself. Tell me more specifically
00:50:21
What did you do and what happened? Well, the day before, I got an autograph and I was going to just go approach the girl and I thought,
00:50:29
man, I brought it from the beast. Well, man, I just got to go. So the end of the end pissed me off.
00:50:36
You know, I was telling the rest of the end when it's a nothing. I tried to be respectful to the United States.
00:50:42
They said, the definition of crazy is just repeating the same thing. So it's like, it's an obvious thing that, I guess, just, you know, me being, looking at how I did or whatever,
00:50:54
me being nice is something that makes me indignable. You know? I have to trust something else.
00:51:01
Because it's like, all these girls were just ignoring me and disrespecting me. And all I ever wanted was an opportunity to be respectful and treat a variety.
00:51:12
He tried to explain that he first thought about introducing himself to her. but then remembered how young she was.
00:51:21
This too pissed him off. This is where his rationale begins to get a little twisted.
00:51:28
It's important to remind everyone that a sign of schizophrenia is disorganized thinking.
00:51:35
Somehow he went from the thought of her being too young to the idea that trying to be nice to her
00:51:40
or any girl wasn't going to get him anywhere either. so he had to change tactics.
00:51:49
Sure, if being nice to a girl doesn't get her attention, the next logical step is to
00:51:55
kill her. He watched her for a year from his mother's apartment. Every day building on his infatuation with her.
00:52:45
She matches my, absolutely matched my description of food. I don't want it. She was pregnant Yes And she was too young I know but she was attractive I never had the opportunity to even be in the presence of a girl that that beautiful
00:53:01
Like, I've seen girls only like, I hate the child, I don't mean the cross, there's no way that I ever have lust or bonds about this girl.
00:53:08
The only kind of girl I've ever seen that was that gorgeous or in porn videos. He pined for a woman.
00:53:16
And when the women his age wouldn't have anything to do with him, Lauren got caught in the crosshairs.
00:53:23
He found the barely pubescent girl beautiful. But he equated Lauren's beauty to the women in porn videos.
00:53:32
If you're thinking this guy couldn't get any more out of touch, think again. So I got told people, I wasn't wearing a gloves, man.
00:53:39
I was wearing a prophecy. You know what I mean? I was like, man, I was some of the devil.
00:53:43
This was deep, man. This was spiritual. This was, I wanted God to know. Hey, man, I've had enough.
00:53:48
You've loved me. Like, this is awesome. I was on vacation about it. I'm being patient, you know.
00:53:54
And it's nothing but hell here. And I don't care what people say. She, you know, people say, well, she never even got a chance in life, is what I read.
00:54:02
Like, trust me. I'm sure she saw that her innocence was going to slowly start being punished.
00:54:08
You know what the hell we say? No good deed goes unpunished. It's like she would have ended up going to, like, a clarity and being raped.
00:54:14
or she literally did something a lot worse than what I did would have happened to her.
00:54:18
So I thought I was just going to go ahead and save her from the evils of the world.
00:54:23
If he couldn't have her, the only thing he could do to save her from the evils that he knew would eventually befall her,
00:54:31
he had to, you know, sacrifice her to the devil. Because all of that shit makes sense.
00:54:39
I felt like I didn't even prove I was a man. I'll tell you that right now. I don't know how else to go about it.
00:54:45
I'm glad I went ahead and went about it. You know what? I finally got to show how I feel.
00:54:53
I finally got to show the pain that's been going on with me and Alex and others.
00:54:59
You can feel it. He was glad he did it so people could feel his pain. What a little bitch.
00:55:08
Boy, would I love a couple minutes with this kid. in a locked room with no cameras.
00:55:15
Yeah, that's a fantasy. Eventually, he would express some regret. Regret that he didn't kill her instantly,
00:55:24
so he didn't have to hear her scream. He said he never intended for her to suffer.
00:55:38
He only wanted for her to die. He didn't regret what he did, only that he should have done it differently.
00:55:47
Think about that. I certainly wish I already just killed myself, because I should have just run out of evil and shot myself.
00:55:56
Hey, Cody, I'm sure that there's plenty of people in Wichita Falls that feel the same way.
00:56:02
It's not surprising that after Cody admitted to finding the 13-year-old Lauren attractive,
00:56:07
they found several images of child pornography on his phone. One of the images was confirmed by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
00:56:18
as being that of an 8-year-old engaged in a sexually explicit act. Cody was arrested and charged with murder,
00:56:29
aggravated assault, possession of a prohibited weapon, and three counts of possession of child pornography.
00:56:37
This guy is going to have a lot of fun in prison when the inmates find out not only that he killed a kid, but that he's also, you know, interested in them sexually.
00:56:50
You hear that inmates at the Skyview unit in Rusk, a correctional institution that's part of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
00:56:59
You hear that, guys? His name is Cody Lott with two T's. anyway Cody wasn't charged
00:57:09
with capital murder which meant the death penalty was off the table at the time the law in Texas
00:57:16
only allowed capital murder charges to be applied under a few circumstances including causing
00:57:21
the death of a child under the age of 10 but Lauren was 13 I hope that Cody Lott
00:57:29
gets the fullest sentence he can and it's a shame that the death penalty can't be
00:57:34
can't be instated. I don't want him to get insanity because he clearly thought it out,
00:57:45
probably for a long time Two years after the murder the trial finally began Cody hair was longer and somehow he was even thinner
00:57:56
He looked kind of like White Jesus on meth. Or Jared Leto. Of course, his defense tried to play the insanity card, but Cody wasn't as crazy as he sounded.
00:58:11
While he did suffer from a mental illness, and maybe it played a part in his plan,
00:58:16
he thought about committing this crime for a year. Surely, there were moments of lucidity within that year.
00:58:27
A year of opportunities to decide, Nah, I'm not going to kill her. Maybe I'll just play some Xbox instead.
00:58:35
and after he fired his gun into an alley full of middle schoolers he tried to get away with it.
00:58:43
He ditched the gun and then went back to retrieve it when he thought he was home free.
00:58:49
The bottom line, he knew at the time of the murder that it was morally and legally wrong.
00:58:58
In court, he sat still, seemingly detached as the terrified children recalled the events
00:59:05
of that day. I just hope he has a long, miserable life in prison. I hope he never sees a
00:59:12
free moment, and I hope he lives a long time, and maybe someday, when he's old and gray, and maybe
00:59:21
then he'll show some remorse. We've not seen any signs of that so far. Watching him in court, he's not
00:59:29
just emotional, and I think that's indicative of how he committed such a heinous crime and shows no remorse for it.
00:59:43
After five days of trial and less than an hour of deliberation, the verdict was guilty,
00:59:50
and he was sentenced to 20 years for the aggravated assault on Michaela, 10 years for each count of child pornography
00:59:58
and a life in prison for the murder of Lauren. He is, though, eligible for parole on September 3rd, 2046,
01:00:10
a day that's quite fitting because it's one day after the 30th anniversary of Lauren's death.
01:00:19
He robbed so many people, so many kids out there that day of their innocence. and it feels true here.
01:00:28
Sometimes it feels like it was just yesterday. Sometimes it feels like it was a million years ago.
01:00:33
But we've had this day in our sights since that happened, hoping that the person responsible for so much suffering
01:00:43
would finally face justice for that and have to do some suffering of his own. The result of today, it doesn't bring Lauren back.
01:00:52
It doesn't make us miss her any less. It doesn't make her death any less tragic.
01:00:56
There is a kind of a closure that you get when you know that the person responsible is going to suffer.
01:01:05
But that wasn't good enough for the Land of Vazos. They sought to change the law that governed capital murder charges.
01:01:13
They wanted to raise the age requirement from 10 to 15 so that killers like Cody Lott in the future would be able to be sentenced to death.
01:01:26
It's something that keeps coming up over and over again, but I don't think anyone can truly understand the importance of the death penalty unless you've had someone taken from you like this.
01:01:41
the need for revenge, the need for justice, for accountability, is overwhelming.
01:01:52
Even though you may not agree with the government killing citizens, this is a case where the citizens themselves demand it.
01:02:05
And they did it, too. The following year, on the day before the third anniversary of her death, Governor Abbott signed Lauren's Law into effect, raising the age limit to 15 years of age.
01:02:20
I'm going to be signing Senate Bill 719, which is known as Lauren's Law. We all agree that there's nothing more vulnerable, nothing more precious than our children, and we have to be able to change the law to reflect that.
01:02:33
There are going to be future victims that are children. This is for them. This is for them And I know our daughter would approve
01:02:55
Hopefully, Cody Lott will never get out of prison. Why should he? The effects of what
01:03:02
he did linger in the minds of her family and friends. It will until their dying day. So
01:03:11
But why shouldn't he have to suffer until his? Crystal suffered panic attacks after the event.
01:03:19
Many kids were no longer allowed to walk home from school. Michaela will always be reminded of the violent end of her beloved friend
01:03:28
every time she feels the bullet fragment still inside her chest. The devil didn't make Cody Lott kill Lauren.
01:03:39
That's silly. Stop believing in fairy tales. You're an adult. That was just how his drug-riddled brain, which wasn't too great to begin with,
01:03:50
rationalized the guilt he felt for doing such a thing. He didn't hear voices shouting commands. He didn't talk to the devil.
01:03:59
He certainly didn't talk to God, that's for sure. He was just a leech to his mother, a parasite to his community.
01:04:08
He was an uneducated, unemployed, lazy piece of shit who thought the world owed him something.
01:04:17
Does this sound familiar yet? Because it describes everyone we've ever talked about over the last 11 years now.
01:04:27
And when the world didn't hand him a girlfriend, he didn't wonder what he was doing wrong.
01:04:34
Of course not. No, why would you do that? Why not just blame everyone else instead?
01:04:42
Blame the world around. It's not me. It's everybody. It's everything. Right? Right?
01:04:51
You know how this pattern of thinking perpetuates and wiggles its way into our brains?
01:04:59
Every one of us. Not just idiots like Cody. this entitlement this sense that somebody owes you something
01:05:09
it's cancer this is the result of cancer Cody Lott never learned the lesson that sometimes you just
01:05:20
can't have what you want you just can't it doesn't work that way but then again it's not like he even
01:05:30
tried to work hard and make a life for himself. No, no, that'd be too hard. Instead, why not take it out on poor Lauren,
01:05:43
to which a good life just seemed to come naturally. A senseless act, committed randomly,
01:05:51
that only made sense in one man's mind, but affected those kids and their families
01:05:55
for the rest of their lives. Why blame yourself when you can blame the world instead?
01:06:28
Speaking of being disappointed, this is our last regular episode before I take a much-needed break,
01:06:50
which I promise you is very necessary. We'll have one more plus episode before we go.
01:06:55
We'll see you right back here next year for Season 12. Stay safe. Thank you.