00:00:04
[Applause] my favorite photo of them this one yeah I that's where he started a skater boy
00:00:18
phase at yeah well he stole your clothes a l too well just my hat no that's Hunter that's how I think of
00:00:28
him as in his long hair skater Hunter Smith was a decent kid he had a child at home uh he was trying to
00:00:37
do was necessary to go earn money to support his child to be a responsible parent we were mother and son but we
00:00:44
were more like best friends you really don't know true love until you've had your first
00:00:53
grandchild once we found out that he was hitchhiking to Nebraska we knew that he
00:00:59
was starting his life over I was a little angered with him so I thought what on Earth are you doing
00:01:07
Hunter on her about October 30th of 2017 uh husband and wife were deer hunting I believe on opening day of deer
00:01:17
season they looked in a small Ravine and saw what appeared to be a human corpse call came in as somebody had
00:01:25
found the remains of a body I didn't even have to have them say it I knew I started crying that that was my
00:01:34
baby that someone did something did something to my baby my baby was no longer part of this
00:01:41
Earth there was nothing like the scream of a mother After figuring that she's
00:01:48
lost a child you're missing a part of you basically you know I'm missing part of
00:01:55
my heart those three took a piece of me when they took my [Music] son baby Hunter we kept him dressed up in the
00:02:27
cutest little things that was his first Halloween yeah it was his first Halloween yeah he was not happy with
00:02:34
that hat no he was not happy with that hat my chunky monkey look I swear that boy did not grow any
00:02:43
hair for the first year of his life no he had hair it just wasn't there [Music]
00:02:55
yeah it was me and him he was my little protector and I was his little [Music] protector being a grandma it was quite a
00:03:06
bit different than having your own children um I got to spoil him and uh send him back
00:03:13
home he would make funny voices he would start singing you know one of my favorite songs and me changing the words
00:03:21
he had a sense of humor on him we all know it if was what I would call my daredo I don't know how many times he
00:03:34
would climb up on stuff and of course he would fall down and he'd laugh thought
00:03:40
it was funny he was always a little jokester he was always smiling having [Music]
00:03:53
fun I think this was a secondary hat that his uncle Johnny had and he said why he says do you think your
00:04:04
nephew would like this and I was like H maybe maybe I think this is his most treasured
00:04:11
hat yeah that was his most treasured possession when Hunter wrapped it was you know it was from the top of his head
00:04:22
he never had anything memorized I was very proud when he performed I knew he was good
00:04:33
he had been offered a couple times to go into the studio and record but they wanted a down payment and you know I was
00:04:39
a single mom so we could never you know afford to the studio time for him we used to talk about life in
00:04:48
general his dreams his quick wit and that silly smile of his oh and he I mean that smile of his
00:05:01
could knock the socks off of any girl he was the lady's man even even from being little uh he went to uh prek
00:05:13
out here and he would get off you know get on the bus and the girls would be going sit with me Hunter sit with me
00:05:19
Hunter and he'd be going uh which one of you did I sit with yesterday okay I'll
00:05:25
sit with you he was always the ladies man he you know I never knew him to not have a
00:05:34
girlo friend as he called him he was kind of a handful when he was a teenager we would get into some small
00:05:44
disagreements you know about the company that he hung with he was a little troublemaker he'd
00:05:52
been on youth probation three four times from the time he was 12 till he was 18 Hunter was the typical laidback skater
00:06:03
boy he had the long blonde hair um he had big feet so he had to use a long board he started smoking weed with his
00:06:14
friends probably when he was like 14 or 15 he was just that that laidback kind of go with the flow
00:06:23
teenager I thought he was going down the wrong path but a lot of the stuff that he'd gotten on probation for I knew he
00:06:31
hadn't done when Hunter found out he was going to be a father he was excited but he was
00:06:37
also [Music] scared it was a light bulb in his brain that was like you know hey you know I I
00:06:46
don't have a high school education I don't have a job I'm living you know
00:06:52
either with my with my mom or I'm living with my girlfriend's Grandma I have to
00:06:58
step up and kind of grow up and I saw him do that quite quickly I looked at him and I said it's
00:07:06
time for you to man up take care of your [Music] responsibilities and do the right
00:07:16
thing said you don't have to marry her but your child should be taken care of Hunter was well- loved by his family
00:07:24
he had a young daughter he had a long-term relationship with a woman he was beloved by his parents so it seemed
00:07:32
that he was pretty close and had a lot of people around him that truly loved [Music]
00:07:44
him him and his girlfriend were fighting so hard that day that I had when I came
00:07:50
in with my mom I had to look at both of them and go either you know straighten up or get out and they you know they
00:07:58
said okay we're leaving honor was such a bullhead there was no way that we could stop him at
00:08:08
that time he had his mindset and he was had one Mission and one Mission only that
00:08:16
was sleep and they walked out my last words to him was I love you and his last words
00:08:24
to me were [ __ ] you it still Burns because as he was getting into the vehicle to leave I
00:08:34
looked at him and I said I love you Hunter and his last words to me was I'm dead to
00:08:44
you do you hear me I am dead to you and I looked at him and I says watch what you wish
00:08:56
for and they pulled away [Music] hon her about October 30th of 2017 uh husband and wife were deer
00:09:15
hunting I believe on opening day of deer season they went to a remote area in Hawaii County and while
00:09:23
accessing uh one of the roadways there they looked in a small Ravine and saw what appeared to be a human corpse and
00:09:31
they promptly contacted law enforcement I got a call on a Saturday night saying that there were remains
00:09:38
found at that point in time I don't think anyone had inspected the remains close enough to
00:09:44
know why they were there or how they ended up there I was in the mountains patrolling when I received a call that
00:09:50
some Hunters had found a remains of a body out in the middle of the desert the weather was uh on that day was cloudy
00:09:57
kind of Co cool went the wind was blowing when I first saw the remains there I knew it had been there for a
00:10:04
while and not seeing any clothes on it it was I thought to myself it's going to
00:10:10
be kind of hard to find out who this person was cuz we hadn't had any missing
00:10:16
person's report in this area [Music] when iot the call what's going through
00:10:34
my mind was somebody came out and committed suicide again we get a lot of suicides out in this
00:10:39
way one of the first things that police are trained to do as soon as they find a
00:10:44
body is to protect the crime scene make sure evidence isn't taken in or out that
00:10:48
was impossible here it was the desert where the body had been there for a long time uh animals had been through the
00:10:55
scene maybe even people had been through the scene and just assumed it was an animal that was there not a person so
00:11:02
there's so many Clues and evidence that maybe could have tied the crime those
00:11:08
were all long gone by the time the police came when we was doing a search we located some brass shells from a 223
00:11:18
rifle and we could see where somebody put bullet holes on a large Rock when we finally got to the location where the
00:11:27
body was I could see what was left of the remains of a skeleton in a dry creek bed the body was located in this dry
00:11:35
Ravine here the the weeds weren't here pretty well washed out clear and it was
00:11:40
well decomposed the body was naked there was no skin left on it no ID around it no shoes or anything like that and the
00:11:48
skull had a hole in in it so we figured that was a homicide the fact that there was no
00:11:54
weapon right at the body was Major alarming because if somebody uh commits suicide by shooting themselves in all
00:12:02
probability that weapon's going to be there unless there's some foul play or
00:12:06
somebody comes and discovers it later we backed off and then called the Ido state police crime lab to come out
00:12:13
and take care of [Music] it when I arrived on scene we identified possible items of evidence or items that
00:12:23
would be important we also called out forensic Services who also help process crime
00:12:30
scenes um and then also we had the local corner with us I think there was evidence of other
00:12:37
weapons haven't been fired in that location and I would say that at the crime scene or the location of the body
00:12:44
the greatest evidence was the human remains and that was the focus of the autopsy
00:12:54
[Music] he had just got into a fight with his girlfriend he was going to be moving to
00:13:04
Nebraska I thought he was starting his life over I thought maybe he had thought that organ wasn't the place for
00:13:12
him that he was trying to get himself ready to start over Hunter been gone 6 weeks his girlfriend's mother had called
00:13:25
me up asked me if the police department Department had gotten a hold of me and I said
00:13:34
no and she said well some chick had called the police department was looking for
00:13:43
Hunter and so she gave me the name and I gave it to Raquel and Raquel had gotten
00:13:49
on the computer cuz she knows how to get a hold of people I was messaging his as I quote
00:13:58
her his wife I don't think they were ever legally married but I was messaging them have
00:14:03
you heard from Hunter you know his friend in Nebraska I was messaging her um please tell me you're kidding me that
00:14:12
Hunter's there you guys are just playing a joke on me in my mind he wouldn't have been just
00:14:19
hitchhiking maybe he was hitchhiking with with truckers I didn't see him being the type to hitchhike with
00:14:26
strangers he was the type to trust in people but I didn't think he was that trusting with strangers to get
00:14:34
in a car with them this is the original missing person's photo that went out uh went out
00:14:41
on Facebook and it kind of just gives some basic information description of him a couple of photos approximate time
00:14:48
that he left where he was going the fact that his his grandmother and mother hadn't hadn't heard from him a little
00:14:55
bit but it was they were a little unsure when he when he left but they also described some of the tattoos that he
00:15:03
has I was the one that made his missing person's poster I started sending it on
00:15:10
all my friends and having them send it I was um contacting any Police Department
00:15:19
Facebook that I could find in Oregon sending his missing person's poster I was scouring the internet just
00:15:29
trying to find something or someone that would be Hunter Panic kind of sat in so I went to
00:15:39
the police department and of course the police knew me very well as Hunter's
00:15:46
grandmother deep in my heart it's a mother's you know something's wrong no
00:15:51
matter if you actually know it or not it's somewhere in your body you know that that flesh and blood that you gave
00:15:59
birth to there's something wrong with it I had to get heather to go over to the police department to file the
00:16:06
missing person report and of course the police going well he's a teenager he'll be
00:16:15
back when young people disappear it's hard I have kids too so anybody's going
00:16:21
to be hurt when young people go missing all the time and they're not found or or
00:16:25
it takes weeks to find them that's about the time I put my fist on the counter banged it hard looked at
00:16:33
the police officer and said look he was supposed to be going to Nebraska and that was 6 weeks ago he is
00:16:40
missing time to do something I'm sitting there thinking it happens to other families not mine just
00:16:49
couldn't wub my head around that my son was missing [Music] identifying remains after a body has
00:17:02
been left there is extremely challenging there has been research done to try to establish you know time of death how
00:17:10
long the body has been there for and even to reconstruct the facial features to try to identify a person from their
00:17:17
remains but all of that is extremely difficult requires a lot of Science and expertise and if not done right they may
00:17:25
never identify the body ISP C lab showed up the following morning they had several people there
00:17:33
one person flew a drone to take overhead photos of everything and then they had other people that started taking
00:17:41
measurements and a lot of photographs of the surrounding area and then collecting
00:17:46
all the shell case scenes and anything they find that looked halfway suspicious the investigation show that
00:17:53
the murder occurred in June of 2017 and so you have the month of June all all of
00:17:59
July all of August all of September and most of the month of October so the very end of October was
00:18:07
when the body was first discovered with the condition out here in the desert the body was pretty well
00:18:13
decomposed we couldn't get no fingerprints um the skull was intact so they were going to be looking for dental
00:18:20
records on it because we couldn't find no ID around the ground it been there for a while it
00:18:28
rained it snowed it was in a cck bed so water had run through during the springtime so there wasn't a lot of
00:18:34
evidence left there to collect law enforcement tried to put this together as best they could even
00:18:42
recognizing that there was a lot of time that had elapsed trying to find ID on a body like
00:18:49
this uh with it being decomposed you're going to have dental records and then of
00:18:53
course you check the database for the uh surrounding areas for anybody missing that fits that body
00:19:01
description prior to October 30th of 2017 uh there was simply a report that a young man who lived in Oregon has was
00:19:11
headed to uh South Dakota or one of those of Midwestern states who search for work and that he went missing so it
00:19:20
was unknown where he was exactly what had occurred with him Hunter's family had reported him
00:19:29
missing after they lost all contact with him while he was on this journey that he
00:19:35
was on um and they became increasingly worried because they hadn't had any even
00:19:39
just a call or any type of contact with him uh and then the remains were found in Idaho and it seemed like their worst
00:19:47
fear was coming true as we were looking at the remains in the autopsy from what I recall there
00:19:54
were two noticeable um tattoos there was one on on a for for arm that uh said the
00:20:00
words lost there was also a colorful tattoo around the shoulder that we couldn't quite tell what it was we could
00:20:07
just see the colors from it we got some confirmation that there was a gunshot wound um there wasn't a lot else from
00:20:15
the autopsy this autopsy is carried out and the police find out that the deceased died from a gunshot wound to
00:20:24
the head but that's not really that helpful because it doesn't give us any
00:20:27
more information no further evidence to follow and if the police cannot identify
00:20:32
a body then what else can they do they can't move forward with the case the case will be left open and if it was a
00:20:38
homicide then that literally means that somebody has got away with murder when we made the missing person's
00:20:47
report and the 4 months between that and when they found the body I was hoping and looking for what could be happening
00:20:58
trying to to block out the other side that you know something bad happened to him at the point in time that we
00:21:04
suspected that it may have been a homicide the local news had picked it up and put it out that remains had been
00:21:09
found out in the desert and we actually received a call from someone who who we had previously worked with a little bit
00:21:16
but now lived out of state he had heard a story about a man named Keith Raby which involved Keith Raby being with
00:21:24
Nicholas Vandenberg in Montana Reed picking up a hitchhiker and then ultimately shooting him at the
00:21:30
end of that based on the information that we received about the rumors going around it seems like they all came from
00:21:37
Keith Raby as far as I understand when he would get intoxicated um he would feel very bad
00:21:44
about what had happened and uh and he would tell people and that's how the the
00:21:50
rumors around aaii County got started Keith Raby had a criminal history he had spent some time in jail most of his
00:21:58
crimes were things like theft or marijuana possession um I don't believe he had any violent criminal
00:22:06
history Montana Reed was Nicholas vandenberg's girlfriend she was living with Nicholas vanderberg at the time of
00:22:13
the homicide most of the people we spoke to didn't really have a lot of negative
00:22:18
things to say about um Nicholas vanderberg Montana Reed or Keith Raby Nicholas Vandenberg was I think fairly
00:22:26
respected um by the people he worked uh for and with and um and the local people
00:22:34
in the community at the start of their investigation police had no leads to go upon and out of the blue they receed an
00:22:42
anonymous call that leads them to vanderberg Reed and Raby and while this may not be a very promising lead because
00:22:51
there's no real supporting evidence to corroborate this at least it was something that broke open the case and
00:22:57
gave them something to look into during the course of the investigation during one of the
00:23:03
interviews one of the witnesses had brought up that they had seen hundred on a missing person's flyer that had been
00:23:09
texted around between uh some of the people involved we believed him to be the victim of the case we wanted to
00:23:16
confirm it using DNA from his mother when I got the call from the police department stating that they'd
00:23:23
found remains in Idaho I didn't know what to really think [Music] said no that can't be that can't be my
00:23:36
grandson um but they wanted to have a DNA test I'm sitting there by myself after the
00:23:49
call and um I'm thinking they know it's got to be him because of the tattoos
00:23:58
that was the day that my mother and sister came to came to my work again and told me
00:24:06
that they had found a body in Idaho and they thought it was hunters and I needed
00:24:11
to go give a DNA test and you know in the back of my head I'm thinking oh no
00:24:18
no not my baby there was nothing like the scream of a mother After figuring that she's
00:24:26
lost a child and all I could do was just hold her and tell her it's okay all they want to do is just make
00:24:33
sure that it's not Hunter but she kept saying it's him I know it's him
00:24:46
[Music] it was one of the worst feelings in the world to see the pain in my sister's
00:25:05
eyes and to think of my little buddy that might not be in this world but I'm
00:25:13
always the one that's trying to look on the better side of things so I was trying to tell her they think it's him
00:25:19
we're not sure it's him so give them the DNA sample prove them wrong prove them
00:25:25
that it's not Hunter I was always The Optimist we asked the local police in Oregon to collect it from her um it's
00:25:35
just a swab inside the cheek um on both sides and and that collects enough DNA to run as a comparison against Hunter
00:25:44
Smith's remains while we were waiting for the DNA evidence it was hard my sister is
00:25:52
mourning she knows something's going on I'm seeing my dad who's us usually
00:25:58
quiet he's a little he's a gentle giant but he's withdrawing more than
00:26:04
usual my my mom is she's she's just as bad as me she's trying to be The
00:26:10
Optimist but I can see in her eyes the [Music] pain it was a rough two weeks I just couldn't wrap my head
00:26:20
around that actually it was so I had to Y give the DNA test and that was the longest two weeks of my life waiting for
00:26:27
those DNA test results to come back approximately a month and a half after the crime we were notified that
00:26:35
the DNA did match but based on his tattoos and information we had um received in interviews uh we were we
00:26:45
were fairly certain that it was Hunter Smith the day that the DNA results were confirmed her dad and I were at home we
00:26:55
got the telephone call I told my husband that it was Hunter and um I says I got to let Heather know he
00:27:09
just says I don't know how we're going to tell her you know how do we tell
00:27:15
her I didn't even have to have them say it I knew I started crying that that was
00:27:21
my baby that someone did something did something to my baby my baby was no longer part of this
00:27:30
Earth it's like somebody reaching in and ripping your heart out and throwing it
00:27:36
on the ground and doing a dance it's got to be the most gut-wrenching heartbreaking thing to watch your
00:27:46
child suffer it was like a dark cloud came we were we were all trying to be supportive
00:27:55
and brave now with the brave face on we still do it you know we try to live one day at a
00:28:05
[Music] time three subjects were ultimately identified as Nicholas Vandenburg Willie
00:28:16
Keith Raby and Montana Reed [Music] as far as we understand Hunter Smith was hitchhiking uh through Idaho uh from
00:28:33
Oregon he was on his way to Nebraska coming through the boisey area Nicholas Vandenberg picked him up
00:28:41
and took him uh down to his house he fed him they spent the evening together in the meantime there was this
00:28:50
kind of side text conversation between Nicholas Vandenberg Keith rabi and Montana Reed um where they kind of use
00:28:58
coted language to talk about potentially maybe shooting this hitchhiker they asked Hunter Smith if he
00:29:07
wanted to go out shooting and he did and they took him out in the desert there's nothing around and they let him
00:29:15
shoot one of their guns it goes without saying that inviting somebody who you met uh to go
00:29:23
shooting and then to kill them is extremely unusual and shocking Behavior but it seems the motivation in this case
00:29:31
was more a pathological sense of thrill seeking uh they were not able to get any
00:29:37
type of thrill out of just you know going out and shooting their automatic weapons in the desert uh they had to
00:29:42
really up the Annie and wanted to commit murder there was nothing in their appearance that would cause the average
00:29:49
person to conclude upon simply looking at them that they were involved in a homicide the investigation showed that
00:29:57
there were uh two weapons involved after the body was discovered I believe all the guns belong
00:30:04
to to Nicholas vanber they let Hunter shoot one of the guns and after he shot all the bullets in the gun and turned
00:30:11
around Nicholas vanderberg shot him in the in the abdomen somewhere from our interviews with Keith
00:30:19
rabby and Montana Reed what appears happened is Hunter Smith pled with Nicholas Vandenberg to to not kill him
00:30:27
to not shoot him anymore more he let the kid get out and shoot at the Rock and stuff and then once his
00:30:35
bullets were all gone that's when Nick got out and he raised his gun up and I heard one shot go
00:30:44
off the kid screamed and said something like why I have a kid as he was on the ground having
00:30:55
already been shot and bleeding someone and then Nicholas Vandenberg uh watched him for a minute
00:31:04
um be in pain and then went up and shot him in the head Keith got out and helped him
00:31:13
undress him then they drag him half into the ditch Montana Reed vly denied any involvement any knowledge even of the
00:31:25
plan of killing Hunter but that contradict the text messages she clearly did know what was going
00:31:31
on it was um ascertained that ultimately uh what the investigation showed was that the defendants Mr vanenburg and Mr
00:31:41
Raby were uh had conspired and involved in a a plan to locate an individual and ultimately
00:31:51
cause his demise Nicholas vanderberg when he first arrived at the police station he seemed
00:31:58
calm I picked him up on the interstate the Chevron The Last Exit in boisey uh for g Road yeah okay I picked him up
00:32:07
probably 300 yards from the exit walking on the interstate with his th out coming
00:32:11
towards Mountain Home coming towards Mountain home okay and he told me he was heading toward
00:32:15
Nebraska he came home with me had dinner I wasn't comfortable with him staying the night he asked if he could
00:32:22
because he didn't have a place to stay I took him to the sh on Mountain home and
00:32:25
dropped him off we confronted him and told him we know that the first part was true but that um
00:32:32
that he wasn't telling us the truth about the second part but we were out there shooting
00:32:36
rabbits drinking that kind of stuff F back in there and we got out he had said he wanted to
00:32:48
shoot and uh he shot at a rock and he just started shooting at it and I was like don't shoot at the Rock like
00:32:55
ricochets happened and he said it'll be okay and he turned around and I was standing just outside
00:33:01
the driver's door and he turned around and I heard the gun click and I reacted what' you do I shot him would
00:33:13
you shoot uh once in the below the rib cage and then in the face from our interviews with Montana
00:33:23
Reed what appears happened is Hunter Smith had finished shooting the all the bullets that in the gun that he was
00:33:29
holding he was saying how he let the kid shoot all the bullets so that he couldn't shoot back
00:33:40
at Nick he was hitch shaking in Idaho and venberg picked him up took him home and fed him let him
00:33:54
take a shower got him stoned and then decided that they were going to go hunting rabbits which still does not
00:34:03
make sense to me because Hunter knew better than to be off with guns with somebody he didn't even know I wish I
00:34:11
would have been the little voice in his head going no this doesn't seem right
00:34:16
let's just uh go that way we executed a search warrant on Nicholas vandenberg's property based on
00:34:24
the story we had heard we were hoping to to perhaps find Hunter Smith driver's
00:34:28
license or other evidence the clothes or some physical evidence we didn't find
00:34:34
either of those things when we were there what did you do with all this stuff bur why did you bur it well I mean
00:34:42
that's just one more thing you know we were able to find the shell casings found um at the scene of the crime it
00:34:50
appeared to be that this was uh essentially in in common vernacular Thrill Kill that uh it was done for
00:34:58
the thrill of taking another life without cause or justification the community around this
00:35:06
area is very close-knit and they they were pretty shocked that this would happen with some of their local
00:35:12
people the first question that comes to mind is a is a large question mark why what would possibly motivate you to
00:35:24
select an innocent non-suspect individual and take him out to a remote place and kill him in that fashion where
00:35:34
he had done absolutely nothing to any of them and absolutely nothing to deserve it how
00:35:42
senseless how thoughtless how heartless it was how disgusting despicable it was what would ever motivate a person to do
00:35:52
such a thing [Music] [Music] I feel like since losing Hunter I've kind of withdrew into myself more
00:36:14
I'm more cautious with people that I don't know I just miss talking to him getting
00:36:23
my hugs being told that he loved me and I told I love him I still talk to him in the
00:36:31
morning sit on the front porch losing Hunters impacted our family in a way where we're we're closer than
00:36:41
we were we're more telling each other we love each other when we leave we're more
00:36:49
tight-nit I feel since Hunter has passed away I still even have conversations with him via Facebook every once in a
00:36:57
while i t you know type out a message I know I'm not going to get one [Music]
00:37:07
back whenever we see a case of a group murder where one person or multiple participate um any one of them could
00:37:14
have done something to intervene they could have you know pulled the gun out of his hand pushed him to the ground
00:37:20
told police if they knew he was planning to commit this crime in many states that
00:37:25
means they're all just as guilty Nicholas vanderberg was charged with first-degree murder while Willie Raby
00:37:33
and Montana Reid were both charged with conspiracy to commit first scream murder I can identify who those persons
00:37:40
are just by looking their uh photos that is Nicholas vanenburg Willie Keith Raby and Montana
00:37:48
Reid and those were faces that I became um very um familiar with during the course of the
00:37:55
prosecution so he of these individuals were young the oldest being know Raby 34 years of age and vanderberg was
00:38:04
28 my impression with respect to Mr vanenburg and his contact with police was that
00:38:11
perhaps he felt that he could maybe talk his way out of the offense and maybe Point blame on someone
00:38:19
else the impression I had from the investigation was that he felt that he would be the more believable between him
00:38:27
and perhaps Mr Raby and that he could explain his involvement and maybe implicate someone other than
00:38:36
himself as far as Keith rabi and Montana Reed go um as per Idaho Co they helped participate to some degree and helped
00:38:46
plan it to some degree and then they didn't notify law enforcement afterwards
00:38:52
U makes them accomplishes to the murder what with respect to the culpability of Mr rabi and Miss Reed
00:39:01
there's a concept in Idaho law and jurist Prudence throughout the country those who knew of and participated in
00:39:09
the commission of a crime can be held for the same offense as the person who actually pulls the
00:39:18
trigger and the evidence showed that it was U Mr Vandenberg that was the one who
00:39:24
actually caused the death but important in the investigation was that Reed and rabie were each involved in this
00:39:31
conspiracy and they each participated in it uh to one degree or another that gave vanderberg gevy and R
00:39:40
quite a bit of time to even just go to a pay phone and you know dial the M mystery number and call the police
00:39:49
department and say Hey you know there's a body out in such and such place instead of you know just leaving him
00:39:55
there those three took a piece of me when they took my son Keith R would have been unlikely to
00:40:07
commit a crime like that on his own I think Nicholas Vandenberg was the person interested in The Killing and I think
00:40:16
Montana Reed was was willing to go along with it Idaho has uh the death penalty technically on the books um each of the
00:40:26
three were charged with u either the first degree homicide or conspiracy to commit
00:40:34
murder ultimately Mr Raby pled to first-degree murder I believe that Mr Vandenberg pled to first-degree murder
00:40:41
Mr Raby pled to um being an AER EMB better or a conspirator to um first-degree murder and U Reed also pled to U being
00:40:54
an accomplice or aiding a murder as well as other [Music] offenses they never contacted us to say
00:41:03
that they were you know doing plea deals or anything else like that they just know did it that we found
00:41:09
out most people think if there's a small amount of evidence even if it's a bullet
00:41:15
matching the type of wound sustains for a murder or even just one piece of DNA that a case should be brought against
00:41:22
the offender but that is not always the calculation that police prosecutors make
00:41:28
because once they take that case to trial if there's reasonable doubts and a
00:41:32
jury finds that person not guilty they can never bring murder charges against them again so they knew they really have
00:41:39
one shot and so until they had enough evidence that would convince the jury they really didn't want to bring this
00:41:46
case forward the total sentences that were were rendered I believe uh in the ballpark of 30 years for Mr venberg in
00:41:55
the ballpark of 25 years for Mr Raby and in the ballpark of 18 years for M Reed my thoughts on
00:42:06
vandenberg's sentencing are he didn't get enough I don't think that he should have the eligibility of
00:42:15
parole I think that he should live his life in prison I think he should have been
00:42:22
killed 30 some odd years is not enough know he took my son out of this world he should be taken out of this world too I
00:42:34
but I got no choice and what he got what I'd like to say to Reed and Raby is you will get out someday you
00:42:46
will see your children and hug them tight because Hunter's not able to um I wish you guys would would made
00:42:57
better choices would have given my family closure earlier and for Vandenburg I really don't have much to
00:43:04
say to him he's worthless to me they're not worth even given a second [Music]
00:43:18
thought you know I don't let him live in my head [Music] I know my grandson would be
00:43:31
upset if I had bad thoughts about him so in order of my grandson I don't let him live in my
00:43:41
head just makes life [Music] shorter justice has not been served it will never be served yeah they they got
00:43:51
off easy if I could say anything to Hunter I would tell him that Mimi loves him that
00:44:01
he will always be her Hunter bear we don't get to see his daughter very much
00:44:06
but what we do see she's a beautiful young lady and he would be so proud of her
00:44:14
from what we've seen what would I say if I could to hunor I'm sorry our last words to each
00:44:22
other were not what they should have been if I could I'd hold him tight and never
00:44:29
let him go I talk to people all the time about you know the the dangers of hitchhiking
00:44:39
the only thing you can do is live one day at a time you know keep his memory alive we had a celebration of life I had
00:44:48
invited all his friends to come and you'll write a note to you know to him and we'd send him off in balloons his
00:44:57
best friend showed up with a little baby boy named hunter that he had named after my son
00:45:04
because that he says that uh Hunter is the reason he straightened up I feel that you know with another
00:45:15
little hunter in this world that maybe just maybe my hunter is living through him
00:45:27
[Music] what