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Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, thank you for listening. I'm your host Nick
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and with me as always is a man that absolutely loves Tuesday night football. He is the captain.
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Yeah, I think people in your country call it soccer. It's good to be seen and good to see you. Thanks for listening.
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Thanks for turning on our friends. This week we are very happy to be featuring Day Raider by the Beer Wizards
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over at Kelso Brewing Company. Day Raider is a Belgian white ale and their take on a classic Belgian wheat beer.
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Brewed with oats, pilsner, malted wheat, and a blend of coriander, chamomile, and
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orange peel. And of course this is a beautiful golden beer color. Garage grade four out of five bottle caps. And
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some thanks and praise is in order my friends. First up a big cheers to Jody in Winston-Salem. And a big shout out to
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Carolyn in Indianapolis, Indiana. Here's a big Texas shout out to our friend Charles down in Cypress. And a big we
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like your jib to Jessica in Little Rock, Arkansas. Next up here's a double cheers
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to Erica and Canyon. I think they're at the Air Force Base in Washington State. And last, but certainly not least, a big
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big thank you and nice jib to Layla and parts unknown. Everyone we just mentioned, they helped us out with this
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click on the donate button. Yeah, the beer fund. And we have to make a beer run. B E E R
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R U N, beer run. For everything true crime garage, check out truecrimegarage.com.
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Make sure you follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @truecrimegarage. And Colonel, that is enough of the
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crispy colonel business. All right, everybody gather around, grab a chair, grab a beer, let's talk some
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true crime. Sunday, October 4th, 2009. A 911 call came into the Milford, New Hampshire police dispatch
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at 4:15 a.m. An almost inaudible caller whispered into the phone. Something that the dispatcher could not
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quite make out. The call then became an open call with no one remaining on the line.
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The dispatcher gathered that a robbery or assault was in progress and sent two responding officers.
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Sergeant Kevin Furlong and Officer Eric Wales responded immediately to the scene
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at 4 Trail Road in Mount Vernon. They arrived at the address a free-standing home
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in a largely unsettled area with only a few other homes nearby. There was a light on inside
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but no one responded at the door. Through a window, the officer could see the body of a child lying on the ground.
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She was moving slightly. Furlong forced his way through the front door which was locked
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and entered the home. The young girl was covered in stab wounds, but she was alive.
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Unable to scream for help, all she was able to whisper was, "They killed my mommy."
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The officer carried the little girl outside and left her with Officer Wales so he could return to the house
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to see if anyone else was present. He followed the trail of blood where the little girl had dragged herself into the
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kitchen to the phone and it led to the master bedroom. Sure enough in the master bedroom
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of the ranch-style home he found the body of a woman. She was lying on the bed naked from the waist down.
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The scene was gruesome. The woman had been hacked to death. No one else was in the home.
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While Officer Furlong cleared the house, Officer Whalen stayed with the young girl and waited for EMTs.
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She was able to tell him that two people had come into the home. She heard one of them say, "Grab the
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jewelry." The victims were determined to be 42-year-old Kimberly Cates and her 11-year-old daughter, Jamie.
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Jamie was taken to Boston Children's Hospital. Her wounds were extensive, requiring
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multiple surgeries. She would remain in the hospital for several weeks. Officer Furlong would require surgery on
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his shoulder, injured as he broke down the door of the Cates home to save Jamie.
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Jamie was able to tell investigators that she and her mom fell asleep in her mom's bed around 8:30 p.m. on Saturday
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night. Sometime later, her mom woke her and asked, "Did you hear that?" Her mom got out of bed
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and went to the bedroom door, where a man attacked her with a sword. Kimberly ran back to the bed to try to
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protect Jamie, but she was stabbed by the man with the sword. And Jamie was stabbed as well.
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A man picked Jamie up and threw her against a glass door, where she lay still, pretending to be dead
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while they killed her mother. She opened one eye in time to see one of the attackers plunge a knife into her
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mom's throat. She told the police that she remembered two men. One was bald and one wore a blue hoodie.
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This is True Crime Garage. And this is the case of Kimberly and Jamie Cates, the Mount Vernon murder.
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It was a scene of brutal carnage in a quiet, affluent suburban town of just 2,000, about 60 miles from Boston.
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There was only one other known murder in Mount Vernon, and this was way back in 1840.
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Kimberly worked as a nurse and was an avid runner and gardener. And her daughter attended the local elementary
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school. Neither of them weighed even 100 lbs. Investigators discovered that a third
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person lived at the home. This is Kimberly's husband and Jamie's father, David. Now, statistically,
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the killer was most likely David. This, the detectives knew. They wondered whether David, who was
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MIA, could have murdered his wife and left his little girl for dead. Perhaps this was another case of a would-be
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family annihilator, like the Chris Watts case that we covered in episodes 269 and
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270. But investigators tracked down David Cates. He was on a business trip in Maryland.
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In fact, he traveled for work as a contract engineer for the government and was gone most weeks. This was normal
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routine stuff. He rushed to Boston to be by the side of his daughter, who was in bad shape in the hospital
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trying to recover from this horrific attack. He, obviously, had nothing to do with
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what happened inside that home. Well, and good for him, cuz we have eyewitnesses that saying there's at
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least two people. Investigators were able to determine how the intruder entered the Kate's home. The screen on
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one of the basement windows was removed and the window was broken. A chest was in the basement under the
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window. This is how the intruder got out, they surmised. But they also noted that on the home's porch, the window AC
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unit had been removed as if someone had entered through this window. So, two points of entry into this home.
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Police also discovered that the electricity to the house had been shut off at the circuit breaker. There was
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blood on the breaker switches. Fresh tire tracks were noted on a dirt area off of Trove Road. It had just
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rained, so the tire tracks were fresh and neighbors confirmed that no one had parked there on that Saturday.
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Whoever invaded the Kate's home early Sunday morning likely parked off of the road near some tractor equipment and
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walked to the house to carry out their evil deed. On Sunday, this is in the afternoon at
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about 5:15 to 5:20 p.m. As crime scene techs were still working the horrific scene, Jamie was in the hospital
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and Kimberly was in the morgue awaiting an autopsy. Amherst police officer Nathan Berry
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pursued a vehicle that sped off when it observed his cruiser. It had attracted his attention because
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it was sitting in an industrial park where some burglaries recently occurred. When he pulled the vehicle over, he took
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the names of two teens in the car. This was Christopher Gribble and Steven Spader.
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He questioned the two and then let them go. That same evening, police got a phone
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call. The caller was Carol Fenton, who was a mother of teenager Kyle Fenton. Carol said her son had some interesting
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things to say. A trooper went to the Fenton's home to interview him in person. Kyle Fenton said that earlier that day,
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two friends stopped by his house while he was hanging out with his buddy Jamie Hollins.
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The two told him and Hollins that they had broken into a house the night before in Mount Vernon and killed
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two people and stolen some stuff. Fenton told police that his friends even showed him and
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Hollins two knives that they said they used on the victims. They also said they used a machete.
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After the two bragging teens left, Fenton and Hollins saw a story on the news about a murder in Mount Vernon.
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Fenton was bothered by this information and told his mother immediately. Fenton's mother then contacted the
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Amherst police chief. Yeah, cuz I'm assuming at first when your buddy starts telling you, "Hey, we broke into a
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house." you're thinking, "Yeah, right." And then your buddy goes, "Oh yeah, but but we also killed people." and then
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you're going, "Yeah, that's that sounds crazy. Mhm. You're probably just making this up." And then they leave and then
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you see this news report and now you're going, "Well, maybe maybe they weren't lying. Maybe they weren't just
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making up a story to freak me out or pull a prank on me. Like maybe this really happened." Right. You start
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going, "Okay, either these guys did what they said they did or they have some kind of knowledge of something horrible
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that happened the next town over." So, the two that bragged about the break-in and attack were 17-year-old
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Steven Spader and 19-year-old Christopher Gribble. The same two who had been pulled over by
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Officer Barry on the day after the murder. Two others were named by Fenton. This is
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Billy Marks and Quinn Glover. Police started looking for the vehicle registered to Christopher Gribble that
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they had pulled over earlier that day. They tracked the address to Gribble's home. Now, Gribble wasn't there, so
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troopers proceeded to Steven Spader's house where he lived with his parents. Trooper
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John Encarnacao arrived at the home of Steven Spader in Brookline on October 5th.
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Chris Gribble and Steven Spader were just emerging from the house. Another teen boy named Autumn Savoy was
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with them. Police brought the whole crew in. Gribble was dressed entirely in camo
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gear when they picked him up. They took four pocket knives off of his person. Meanwhile, this is now Monday, October
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5th. So, Quinn Glover and Billy Marks, who were named by Kyle Fenton as co-conspirators
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in this murder, well, they're at school. Apparently, Glover was seen crying at school that day.
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A school resource officer from the high school in Amherst called police that Monday afternoon.
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The resource officer told police that he had been speaking with a student who had
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been cutting himself and seemed scared and upset. This student reported to him that Quinn
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Glover and Billy Marks and two others had threatened him. Cops met with this student. His name was
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Elden Spikes. And he said that he, Spikes, had taken a bunch of drugs the day before and then
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hung out with Gribble, Spader, Marks, and Glover who were reveling in the murder they had
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just committed. They openly addressed the murder. In fact, Spikes reported Gribble said,
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quote, it was awesome when he slit the girl's throat. Spader said he wanted to do it again.
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They all went to the Pheasant Lane Mall to pawn some stuff that the teens had taken from the Kate's house. So, let me
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get this right. This guy gets all high out of his mind, doped up on some drugs, starts hanging
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out with his buddies or acquaintances or whatever, and they start acting like laughing
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hyenas talking about this murder. Mhm. And so, he's probably getting a little freaked out.
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And so, now they go to this mall, but the next day he's cutting himself? Yeah, he's at school freaking out. He's
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crying. He's cutting himself. He's I mean, obviously visibly upset to anyone in his area that that can witness this
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boy, this student at school. He's a mess. And then when the resource officer starts speaking with him, I'm guessing
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this is like a a counselor type position, where the boy says, you know, I'm hanging out with these guys,
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and this is what I like about about this kid here. I mean, that's very forthcoming to say, look, I was I did a
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bunch of drugs, and then these these friends of mine or people that I know start telling me all this crazy stuff.
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Right. They're they're they're saying they killed somebody and they enjoyed it, and
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they would do it again. Right. Depending on what drugs he he would do, some could
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make you more paranoid. Well, it's also not like an illusion or anything like that. I mean, you you have to question
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that when you're talking to a young person and or anybody that said, hey, I took a whole bunch of drugs, and
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then this happened." But, there's details inside of this story that would cause anyone to believe, regardless if
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you believe or don't believe, you're reporting this to somebody. And the details are, "Hey,
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they all went to a a mall with the purpose of pawning things that they stole from the house where they say
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that they murdered some people." Right, which would be direct evidence that these kids were in
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that house. Correct. So, the items that were I don't have a a full list of what was pawned or what they were attempting
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to pawn because it sounds like they were not able to sell everything that they took with them.
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But, some of the items included things like rings, bracelets, and so on, which we already have the survivor
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her statement was that she heard someone say, "Get the jewelry." So, this also goes along with our investigation.
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They also showed Spikes a machete that was in the trunk of one of the vehicles that they had. Well, just to
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back up a second, a lot of pawn shops or jewelry shops will be told about a crime
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if they believe that something was taken of value to be on the lookout. Mhm. You can take
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it in, but once you take it in, please contact us so we can then take a look at the item. I was in a pawn shop not too
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long ago, and an officer came in looking for some items in particular, which I piqued my interest. I thought was pretty
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cool. empty your pockets and go, "Here it is, officer." They weren't questioning me.
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They were looking for these items in the pawn shop. You never know. All right, Captain. So,
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not only do these guys show Spikes this machete, and they show it to him, it's in the trunk of one of the vehicles,
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they also tell him that the machete was very recently covered in blood, but they
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soaked it in ammonia and bleach. Then, when this whole group they're back at Spikes' house on Sunday
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night, his girlfriend called and said that she had heard some rumors. And she asked if Billy Marks was
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involved in a crime. Spikes told her yes, and this group of guys were all boasting about this
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murder. Then Glover's girlfriend called Spader and yelled at him for killing someone.
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Spader then threatened Spikes with a knife and accused him of being a snitch. Gribble also got out two knives, and the
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two advanced on Spikes in a you know, in a threatening manner. He ran around the car, and Glover
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intervened to protect him. Marks then took him home. Spikes was of course shaken up by this and ratted to
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the resource officer the next day at school. This will bring us back to the police
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interview. Police interviewed both Billy Marks and Quinn Glover separately after school.
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Quinn said he had been asleep on the night of October 3rd and 4th, but then admitted that he was with Marks, Spader,
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and Gribble driving around Mount Vernon. But then he lawyered up and refused to say anything else to the police.
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Cops did some digging into this kid, Quinn, and found that he was a Mormon. He was a singer and a guitar player who
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performed at church functions, and he worked as a handyman at the church. So, they instantly arrested him
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and gave him a life sentence for playing those good Mormon songs. Billy Marks gave police a little more
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information than Quinn. He admitted that he was at the Trow Road house with Gribble, Spader, and Glover.
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Okay, so now we have something alarming, something that the police were looking for directly. We got this kid and he's
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talking. Well, we have a bunch of kids and they're talking to a lot of people, but at least now one is talking to the
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cops. Yeah. Billy Marks says, "Hey, I was with this Gribble kid, Spader, and Glover. We were all at this Trow Road
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house and we were armed with knives." He said that on the way there, Steven Spader said, quote, "We are about to do
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the most evil thing this town has ever seen." End quote. Marks, at 5 ft 3 in tall, was the
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smallest of the quartet. When they broke into the home, they broke into the basement of the house.
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And because he's the smallest, they're going to have him squeeze through this tiny window.
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He's now inside of the house in the basement, but he cannot get upstairs. The others
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broke into the house through the porch. And one of them let him in. Someone cut the power.
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While checking out an empty bedroom in the dark house, he heard a woman's voice saying, "Jamie, is that you? And you
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don't have to do this." Spader called to him, told him to come into the master bedroom, but he says he could not see
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anything until Glover turned the circuit breaker in the hallway back on. Then he
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says that he saw a woman and a young girl, both of whom already looked to be dead. He left the room,
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then took some stuff, and they all changed out of their clothes and they went home.
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Now, I want to tell everybody here right now that what you're getting from this kid, what he is
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telling to police, Billy Marks, he's admitting to being at the home where a murder took place. He's
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admitting to being involved, but you're also getting kind of a vague story, right? I had to squeeze into the
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basement. I heard some things upstairs, but I was not in the room when anything went down.
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When I get into the room, these people appear to be dead to me. Yeah, I mean, this kid's a real ass fruit, but he is
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talking to cops. And then it makes you wonder as an investigator, is he telling you the
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truth? Is he Is he just trying to get this off of his chest or is he telling us part
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truths and omitting himself from the actual crime? Right. And we have investigators here that know that this
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kid is being conveniently vague about some of the details of what he knows. And so they're going to press him some
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more. And after being pressured by these investigators, Marks admitted that in fact the four of them had entered the
00:24:01
master bedroom together before the attack went down. He says it was dark and they were using
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an iPod that they found inside the home as a light. This, he says, is when the woman in the
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bed said, "Jamie, is that you?" So, the first story is he hears this while he's in another part of the house. Second
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story, "I'm now in the room with these other three yahoos and we entered at the same time and yes, I saw the woman when
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she was alive. I heard the woman say, 'Jamie, is that you?'" Yeah, if you could imagine you have one or two
00:24:38
individuals right by the door and the other two right behind them. Kind of like what's happening.
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So, I don't think at any point was this um was any of these individuals separated
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from the group. And this is the middle of the night. So, our victims here, unfortunately, they're sleeping in the
00:24:59
same room in the same bed, mother and daughter, and husband and father is out of town.
00:25:06
So, this is again probably pretty routine stuff for them. One was probably the reason why
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the mom didn't mind her daughter, that's 11 years old, sleeping in the bed with her. Well, and that's why she's going to
00:25:18
say, "Jamie, is that you?" She's She wakes up. She doesn't know what's going on. She hears a noise or perhaps hears a
00:25:24
noise and sees someone in the doorway. And of course, she's going to assume it's her daughter returning to the
00:25:30
bedroom or leaving the bedroom. But we know sadly that it is not. This is when we have
00:25:41
Billy Marks says as soon as he heard the woman say, "Jamie, is that you?" that Steven Spader attacked the woman with
00:25:50
the machete that Spader brought with him to the crime scene. He says that Gribble then attacked the
00:25:56
girl and threw her up against the glass door. Marks also told police that the day
00:26:03
after the murder, which at the time they believed was two murders, and we know this because they bragged
00:26:10
about having killed two people to several of their friends. Right. They didn't know that the little girl
00:26:18
was alive, that she survived. He says that the day after the murder, the group they met up and Spader and
00:26:25
Gribble joked about what they had done the night before. At Glover's house on the evening of the 4th, Spader said, "We
00:26:32
broke up a family. Isn't this great?" Marks later admitted that he helped scout the Trow Road as a location for a
00:26:43
break-in. On the Thursday before the crime, he and Spader drove out to Trow Road and
00:26:49
selected the house next door to the Kates' house. So, this would have been six Trow Road, which was a large and
00:26:57
expensive-looking house. This was their intended target. But, on the night of the crime,
00:27:05
they changed to the Kates' house because it had no security system. They selected it,
00:27:12
if you're going to go by that, at random. All right. Cheers, mates. Thanks for listening, and cheers to you, Colonel.
00:27:47
Oh, well, thank you, Mr. Captain. All right. Billy Marks, he's talking a little bit to the police. He's telling
00:27:54
Farts. There we go. He's telling them some of the things that they want to hear because they've been to the crime
00:27:59
scene. They know the facts of the things that they've seen at the crime scene. He's starting to fill in some of the
00:28:05
blanks, again, a little conveniently vague, but now starting to open up with a little more details.
00:28:11
One very interesting detail that he told investigators was he said that about a week before the Kates' murder, he, along
00:28:20
with Spader and Gribble, while they're sitting around discussing conducting some home break-ins in the middle of the
00:28:27
night. And it was during these discussions, again, a week before, that they all agreed that if they
00:28:34
encountered someone or anyone inside the home during one of the break-ins, they would
00:28:41
kill everyone in the house. Police pulled the records for this gang of clowns. Billy Marks, together with Steven
00:28:51
Spader, had been arrested just a month before. This was for the possession of marijuana.
00:28:57
The two were arrested together again back in June of 2009. Mhm. This is after chasing a group of teens in another car
00:29:06
and then ramming the vehicle. Okay, I get the marijuana charge. And I also get you do.
00:29:12
teenagers horse around. Right. But vehicles, car chases, ramming other cars, that's some dangerous, reckless
00:29:21
stuff. Yeah, but there could have been an accident. You're horsing around and next
00:29:26
thing you know, oh, my car hit your car. It could have been, but it sounds to me
00:29:30
with what they were charged with and and convicted of in that now what we Right. And now what we do know about
00:29:37
these individuals that it seems to me that they probably threatened to ram their car and then followed through with
00:29:42
that threat. Mhm. Steven Spader had a pretty lengthy record for a 17-year-old. This included some domestic incidents,
00:29:52
stealing a car stereo, criminal trespass, disorderly conduct, and resisting detention. And supposedly, he
00:30:00
was really good kid. Wasn't he adopted? Yes, he was a good kid and then I don't know what happened. Like it was
00:30:09
like a light switch, like it flipped the script and he he turned into this different person.
00:30:16
Yeah, that's what his adopted family always said was he was real good and pretty quiet and then all of a sudden it
00:30:22
was just like a light switch went off and instead of going in the right direction, he started going in the
00:30:28
wrong direction. I think by acting up, he was getting attention, but just not obviously
00:30:34
positive attention. Yeah, and also he had a charge, Steven Spader had a charge for interfering with the custody of a
00:30:42
minor. This related to Spader's 17-year-old girlfriend whose father had obtained a
00:30:48
restraining order against Spader back in February of 2009. Three months after obtaining the
00:30:56
restraining order, this girl, Chelsea Cummings is her name, and Steven Spader ran away together. How romantic.
00:31:04
The father, Peter Cummings, pressed charges and Spader pled guilty to criminal trespass charges and the more
00:31:11
serious charges were dropped. Peter told the bostonchannel.com that Steven Spader was a nightmare who
00:31:19
would not go away. Spader continued to see Chelsea who eventually got pregnant. The two posted on Facebook about their
00:31:28
impending wedding planned for December 2009. 40 guests had already been invited, but
00:31:35
after the murder, Chelsea posted, "Just so the world is aware, this will never happen." Oh, good for her. The
00:31:45
baby was born in January 2010 while Steven Spader was in jail for murder. Very similar to West Memphis 3. Chelsea
00:31:54
has cut ties with Steven Spader according to Spader's mother. Now, we could not find records for Quinn
00:32:01
Glover or Chris Gribble. Looks like neither were arrested for anything significant before this break-in and
00:32:10
murder. All right, so we've been talking about these four kids that they're questioning, but wasn't there five?
00:32:16
Yeah, they actually picked up five. Okay, so they picked up another kid named Autumn Savoy. And this is simply
00:32:23
because at the time when they went to pick up Gribble and Spader, this kid is with them.
00:32:29
This Autumn Savoy, they're going to interview him just as they would the other four.
00:32:34
Savoy told the cops that no, Steven Spader and Chris Gribble could not have murdered anyone on Saturday night
00:32:42
because they went to his house. They showed up around 2:00 a.m. that night. They smoked some pot, and they all went
00:32:48
to sleep. Mhm. But he didn't stick to this story for very long because under pressure from the police, who keep in
00:32:57
mind already had different information from Kyle Fenton and Eldon Spikes that Gribble and Spader bragged about the
00:33:05
murder. They pushed this kid a little more, and Savoy admitted the following to investigators.
00:33:13
He said that very late on the night of Saturday, October 3rd, Gribble and Spader left Savoy's home
00:33:21
saying they were going to murder someone. He thought they were joking. Savoy texted Spader asking him if he was
00:33:29
doing a job. Okay, so keep in mind, they're vocal about this after the fact. They're vocal about this before
00:33:39
they go out. Yeah, they're picking out a house a week before. They were vocal that they were going to break into
00:33:45
someone's home. They tell this other kid, "We're going out to murder someone." Savoy, after these kids leave
00:33:51
his house, he texts Spader asking him if he was, quote, "doing a job." Mhm. Which
00:33:57
he says means a burglary or robbery at that time. Right. Spader responds to this text at
00:34:06
1:30 a.m. It says, "Busy. Will hit you when I can." Gribble and Spader arrived at Savoy's
00:34:15
house shortly after 5:30 in the morning. They had called beforehand and woke Savoy up.
00:34:25
They told him they selected a house in a remote area with no security to burglarize,
00:34:32
and then they killed two people while robbing the house. Right. While detailing the events of their
00:34:39
evening, Spader and Gribble showed Savoy the machete. He could see blood on the sheath, and he
00:34:46
saw blood on a fillet knife the two showed him. The two were wearing different clothes
00:34:53
at this time. Remember, they left his house, then they come back, now they're wearing different clothing.
00:34:59
They had the clothes that they were wearing during the attack and the weapons used, as well as gloves, but all
00:35:05
of these items were in a black trash bag. Gribble and Spader asked Savoy if they
00:35:12
could burn the items at his house. Savoy says, "No, you cannot." It was decided by the group that they
00:35:21
would throw all of the items in the Nashua River. They all drove to the river, and Savoy
00:35:29
was the actual one who took the bag and tossed it in. He says this was around 7:00 a.m.
00:35:37
Then, they went to the convenience store nearby to get a snack. Savoy agreed to show the police where he
00:35:47
had thrown the bag in the river, and of course, they get out there, and the bag is still there. It's caught up against a
00:35:54
tree just a little ways down river. Nearby were floating two jewelry boxes and some sneakers and a wallet
00:36:03
containing the name David Cates. In the trash bag were discovered clothes with Spader's and Gribble's names on the
00:36:12
tags that their mothers or someone had probably sewn into the tags. Right. So, just between
00:36:19
the four kids, they got a lot of information, getting people to turn on each other. Now, this fifth kid is
00:36:25
giving them a lot more information, great eyewitness, great person that you can take to trial. But not only top it
00:36:32
on top of that, what he's telling you, you know is true because you're finding evidence to back that up. Yeah, and he's
00:36:39
involving himself in the crime, but not putting himself at the crime scene. He's
00:36:44
saying, "Yes, they they were at my house beforehand, at my house afterward, and I
00:36:48
helped them dispose of evidence." Yeah, but that's great. That's great if you're law enforcement because then
00:36:54
you're going, "Hey, listen listen up, jackwagon. If you don't tell us all this stuff and testify in court,
00:37:02
we'll put you away for something." Well, we still have the two ringleaders, so to speak, to talk about. We haven't
00:37:09
got to their interviews yet. So, around 1:00 p.m. on the 5th, Chris Gribble was Mirandized and informed that
00:37:18
he was not under arrest. He agreed to the interview, and he agreed that it would be recorded.
00:37:26
He initially denied any involvement in the break-in and the murder. He gave Trooper Encarnacio a song and dance
00:37:35
story about how they just went to Walmart, drove around, bought some jewelry at a yard sale, and then decided
00:37:43
to pawn it at the mall. So, he's not only coming up with some kind of alibi as to
00:37:49
they were doing something different, but he's explaining away other evidence. Right. Officer Encarnacio told Gribble
00:37:57
they needed him to stay while they obtained a search warrant for his DNA. While they're waiting to obtain said
00:38:04
warrant, Gribble starts asking questions, and he wants to know whether the crimes
00:38:10
they were investigating were eligible for the death penalty. He was told by the trooper that he did
00:38:16
not believe so. And then Gribble agreed to talk. He said he now wanted to tell the story
00:38:24
of what happened but would only talk to Encarnacio. Officer Encarnacio recorded this
00:38:31
statement. He told the police that the crimes were a conspiracy. He and his friend Steven Spader were
00:38:40
both psychopaths. The two had robbed a house near Spader's home just a week before.
00:38:47
Once they spent the money they got from a pawn shop for the items stolen in that
00:38:52
robbery, they decided they wanted to do it again. So, Spader and Billy Marks scouted out a
00:38:59
house on Trow Road in Mount Vernon because it was in a remote location, less likely to be seen.
00:39:07
In his interview, remember Billy Marks admitted that he had been on this outing, scouting out which house to hit.
00:39:16
Spader and Gribble agreed that if anyone was home during the break-in, they would
00:39:22
kill them, quote, "for fun." All four of them, Gribble, Marks, Spader, and Glover, were in on the plan.
00:39:33
It would become clear that this was a planned event, thought out in advance. Preparations were made and precautions
00:39:40
were taken. And the plan included murder. As stated in the affidavit, they all knew that the plan was to break
00:39:50
into a house and kill anyone if there were residents home. The plan was that Autumn Savoy would be their alibi.
00:39:59
Gribble went on to detail what exactly had happened on the night Kimberly Cates was killed.
00:40:06
All right. Well, let's get into what he told investigators. Chris Gribble told the investigators that he and Spader met
00:40:13
the other co-conspirators, Marks and Glover, at Walmart after midnight on October 4th. Right. Spader had forbidden
00:40:23
any of them from drinking or doing drugs. He said that he wanted everyone to be totally lucid and sharp for what
00:40:32
they were about to do. They all got into Chris Gribble's car after changing into different clothing
00:40:39
and donning gloves. Gribble drove them all to Shrow Road, dropped them at the house that they had
00:40:47
selected, and then parked his car in a turnout down a hill near a tractor. They all left their cell phones in the
00:40:57
vehicle. Mhm. At some point, it was decided to change the target house. The teens intended to
00:41:05
break into the larger home near the Cates home, but changed their minds and selected the home where Kimberly and
00:41:11
Jamie were sleeping because it did not have a security system. They broke into the basement window.
00:41:20
They lowered Billy Marks, the little guy, in, but he couldn't figure out how to get upstairs into the main part of
00:41:28
the house. This, apparently, is because the door to the basement was locked. So, what they had to do was they had to
00:41:38
pull him back out of the basement window. And they decided to take the air conditioner unit that was located in a
00:41:47
window on the porch out of the window and go through that window. Spader went in first and let the others inside the
00:41:57
home. Spader had with him a machete, and Gribble carried a knife. Did the other two know that they had these weapons
00:42:05
before they even got to the house? Not only did they know that these other two had the weapons, but remember at least
00:42:13
one of them has had the discussion and agreed that they're going to kill anybody inside the home, plus the two
00:42:21
themselves have knives in their hands. Because it's not that uncommon. I know these guys are a little bit older, but
00:42:26
it's not that uncommon for 14, 15-year-old, 16-year-old to to dress up in all black or camo gear and go around
00:42:36
the neighborhood, maybe egging a house or toilet papering somebody. Yeah, or just or just being out after
00:42:45
curfew, goofing around. Mhm. But when you go, "Hey, we're going to break into a house."
00:42:52
That's that's another level. And then but I could see some of these kids going, "Okay, yeah, we're going to break
00:42:59
into a house, no big deal." But even when your buddies are going, "Well, but if there's somebody there, we're going
00:43:03
to kill them." And not really taking that that serious. Like, "Ow." You know, that'd that'd be
00:43:10
like going around and like, "Hey, we're going to TP this house, but hey, if the owner comes out, we'll kill him." You
00:43:16
wouldn't believe your friend would actually kill the guy that came out. You'd believe your friend's just going
00:43:21
to run away. Maybe not. And and I agree 100% with everything that you're saying. The thing that's
00:43:28
really terrifying here is that we're only getting short, little, cleaned-up versions of this story from the actual
00:43:36
perpetrators. Right. And you know what they do. They're willing to admit to certain things and tell you
00:43:43
most of the story, but they don't want to look like the monster themselves. Right. And what we do have is we have at
00:43:51
least two stories of people that are saying they were in the vehicle when Spader said the words "Tonight
00:43:58
we're going to do the most evil thing this town has ever seen." Or something to that level. Right. What's left out of
00:44:05
that? That's what they're saying he says in the vehicle. What's left out of that
00:44:09
is it's clear it should be clear to any of these idiots that have had these discussions of yes,
00:44:15
we're breaking into a home and yes, we're going to kill whoever we find inside the home or whoever tries to stop
00:44:21
us that while we're on our way there if I wasn't believing it before and now I hear this guy say, "Tonight we're going
00:44:28
to do one of the most evil things that this town has ever seen." Yeah, if That statement to me means that
00:44:36
this guy he's probably legit about what he says. His intentions seem real and what's even
00:44:42
more scary is that it sounds like this group is expecting to find people in the home.
00:44:48
Right, but but You know what I mean? It's not like it's not like if we find someone in the home, we're picking a
00:44:53
home that we think there is someone there and we've already agreed we're doing this thing. Yeah, cuz but my dumb
00:44:59
ass, if I'm in that vehicle and he yells, "We're going to do the most evil thing this town has ever seen." I'd be
00:45:05
thinking we're going to take a massive [ __ ] in a brown paper bag and light that
00:45:10
son of a [ __ ] on fire and run for our lives. But that's but I also would be interested, like you were saying, they
00:45:19
talked about the break-in way before this. Mhm. And how much did that um conversation entail if we found
00:45:32
somebody would kill somebody? And at some point, those are people that you would want to separate yourself from.
00:45:39
Separate yourself from and I think that it would take an awfully big person to do this because, you know, we've all
00:45:46
been to high school and um we understand peer pressure and things like that and wanting to be accepted by our friends.
00:45:54
But not only separate yourself from these individuals, but probably warn somebody, be it a parent, teacher, or
00:46:01
law enforcement head that hey, this is what these kids are saying they're going to do.
00:46:07
Someone needs to intervene and and speak with them and figure out is this is this something
00:46:14
that's real? Right. I mean, you can't uh let let's continue on because that's that's a whole different road there that
00:46:21
we could easily go down, but as you pointed out, as we were discussing, Captain,
00:46:27
these four guys are now entering this home and all of them are armed. They all have bladed weapons with them. Spay-
00:46:35
Spader has the machete. Once they're inside, they turn off the circuit breaker that was located in the
00:46:43
hallway of the home. This to obviously cut the power, no electricity. They searched some empty bedrooms using
00:46:52
the light from an iPod that they found on a docking station inside the home. Then Spader opened the door to the
00:47:00
master bedroom. And the woman in the room said, "Jamie, is that you?" She tried to turn on a lamp, but they
00:47:08
had already cut the power. Then, as Gribble put it, Spader started hacking the woman.
00:47:15
Gribble said in his interview, quote, "Steve was just hacking away. He just lost it. I was controlled, but I didn't
00:47:23
really feel much of anything. I thought I would, but I didn't." He said, "I was actually kind of scared
00:47:30
of him. He just kept hacking at the bed. I was backing off because Steve was losing it."
00:47:39
The child in the bed jumped up and Gribble stabbed her in the face and chest. Per the affidavit, quote,
00:47:46
"Gribble tried to stab the girl in the heart to kill her. He then threw her against the glass door. Gribble assumed
00:47:53
the girl was dead. The mother was still gargling. Gribble stabbed the mother in the neck and chest to try to kill her.
00:48:01
Spader then went over to the girl and kicked her with his boot and gave her a whack with a machete.
00:48:08
They checked the woman to make sure she was dead, but no one checked the girl. The murderous teens seemed to relish the
00:48:17
killing of a woman and a child. They didn't give it a second thought. After they were done with the killing, they
00:48:24
searched the home for items to steal. They went to the car. They changed out of their clothes and they put them in a
00:48:30
trash bag in the trunk. On the car ride home, as if they're celebrating some fantastic
00:48:39
achievement, they're all smoking cigars. Is that a euphemism? No, they're they're actually
00:48:46
smoking cigars. Now, they dropped Marks off at his car that was located at the Walmart. So, again, it's you're getting
00:48:56
these stories, little bits, and there are some little nuggets of truth in there, but
00:49:04
it's just insane what these what these four kids just did. Right. Smoking cigars, celebrating the murder of They
00:49:12
believe they've killed two people. Oh, and a woman and a child at this point, mind you. Right. Smoking cigars, and
00:49:20
then let's drop this this guy off at his car at Walmart, and then the three of them they continue on. Now, we have
00:49:26
Spader, Gribble, and Glover still in the vehicle. They go to Savoy's house. Remember, he's the fifth kid that they
00:49:35
picked up who is not at the crime scene, Right. but has been questioned by police.
00:49:44
They say when they get back to Savoy's house, they told him the whole story of what they did. They show him the items
00:49:53
that they stole and they said, "Look, you're expected to be our alibi. We were here the whole time. We weren't out
00:50:00
doing any of this stuff that we just told you about." Spader told Savoy that he carved the
00:50:06
word die in a piece of wood on the porch. I'm I'm guessing this would be a post or pillar
00:50:13
type thing on the porch. On his porch. On the porch of the house that they hit. Then Savoy threw the garbage bag
00:50:24
containing the bloody clothes and gloves and some of the items stolen from the house into the river as said earlier.
00:50:32
After disposing of this evidence and eating the snack, they went back to Savoy's house and checked the Nashua
00:50:40
Telegraph online to read about their handywork. They're checking the news to see if anybody's
00:50:48
Yeah, like they're getting off on this. Yeah. It was then that they learned that the
00:50:52
girl was still alive. Remember, they thought they killed everybody in the house. This caused some obvious tension
00:51:00
within the group. Yeah, because they're now aware that she's alive. What did she see? Did she know any of them?
00:51:08
Well, and two of them, they start berating Gribble. So, Spader and then Savoy, the guy who wasn't even there,
00:51:17
they're harassing Gribble for failing to kill the girl. Well, so that shows you how big of a pile of [ __ ] he he is even
00:51:25
though he didn't go. Oh, man, you should have killed that girl. Well, and mind you, it it's
00:51:31
it's clear and obvious now that this guy, even though he wasn't there, he was fully aware of what he was told
00:51:40
their intentions were and said, "I will cover for you." And whether he believed it or not,
00:51:47
he said he would cover for them. And when then they come back from doing what they told him they would do, right, he
00:51:53
continues to cover for them. And now, as you're pointing out, big giant piece of
00:52:00
[ __ ] Savoy and Spader, they are harassing Gribble for failing to kill the kid and and Yeah, I'd like to take
00:52:08
the all five of these kids and put them in a brown paper bag and light them on fire and put them on somebody's porch.
00:52:15
Well, and and forgive me everyone out there, I'm simply repeating the words of an obvious monster, but we
00:52:23
have a a story to tell and it's sad and it's true, but what Spader said to Gribble was, quote, "At
00:52:33
least I killed my bitch." All right. Gribble then told investigators that the plan all along
00:52:40
had in fact been to kill whomever they found in the house. From the arrest affidavit, quote, Yeah,
00:52:47
wait, but hold on a second. You're so [ __ ] tough that you show up to a house that they're not
00:52:53
uh suspecting that you're going to come break into their house, and you're going
00:52:57
to show up, and you brought a knife fight to a fist fight, and or machete or whatever, and then you you wake them up.
00:53:05
You or start attacking fight. These people were unaware that any of this is going to Right, right.
00:53:10
And then you start attacking them in their sleep. Oh, you're so [ __ ] tough, you idiot, you know.
00:53:17
Jesus Christ. All right. From the arrest affidavit, quote, "Steve and I are pretty messed up people. I'll be
00:53:25
perfectly honest, I've wanted to kill someone for a long time. It's a it's like an urge.
00:53:32
And it was kind of a time that I thought I could get it out," he said. Continuing on, quote, "But I thought at
00:53:41
least I would feel bad about it. I'm almost sorry to say I don't. I'm not sure why, but I'll be honest with you, I
00:53:50
can't say I was sorry about it. I just felt nothing. It was kind of cool because it was
00:53:56
different, but I'm not really sure if I have a conscience anymore." Gribble stated his only regret was that
00:54:04
he did not kill the child. He said if he had realized that she was alive, he would have killed her.
00:54:11
Quote, "I'm kind of surprised that she's alive. I kind of wish she died for her sake, just because she's going to have
00:54:19
to live with all of that now. If I'm going to kill someone," he says, "I'm going to actually do it so they
00:54:27
don't have to sit and live with a bunch of trauma. I've been through so much trauma, I don't want someone to go
00:54:34
through that. So, if I can just end it for them, I would. If I had realized she was still alive, I
00:54:41
would have ended it for her because there was no way she could recognize us as far as we knew. So, we didn't really
00:54:50
care about that part." Again, just pointing out the depravity in the the sickness of these
00:54:57
individuals, they're not even killing for the sake of getting away with the other crimes. Right.
00:55:03
His own words are, "We never There was no reason for us to believe that this kid would be able to
00:55:10
identify any of us." It's killing the people in the house for the sake of killing them.
00:55:17
Right. Not not to Well, if they wake up, we will have to we'll have to kill them to protect our
00:55:24
identities. The criminal motivation at one point in the discussions that were had well in advance before these crimes
00:55:31
were committed was to break in, steal, and rob from a a That motivation changed at some point
00:55:38
into murder and they all agreed to do it and that's what they did. So, what else did
00:55:45
Gribble say in his interview? Well, this is weird. He expressed surprise to the investigators when the
00:55:52
investigators informed him that Jamie, the 11-year-old, was a black belt. And he says, "Really? The girl,
00:55:59
honestly, was a black belt? This is just surprising to me because she didn't really put up any struggle."
00:56:06
Right, you attacked her in her sleep, you idiot. He says, "I mean, she was brave to
00:56:12
actually jump up and run. I mean, I think most kids would probably just kind of blubber for their mom, but she did
00:56:19
try to run for the door. If I hadn't been there, she would have gotten away, probably. It's kind of cool. 11 years
00:56:26
old and a black belt. I'm impressed." Gribble then asked about the girl's condition. Officer Encarnacio said that
00:56:34
he did not know her condition. "Thank you, officer." Uh one, of course, her condition was
00:56:41
in flux, right? They're trying to save this this young girl's life. Right. But thank you to the officer for not giving
00:56:48
this dude any satisfaction, be it if the girl's condition were bad, good, or improving, or otherwise. You don't
00:56:55
deserve to know. You don't get to know anything, bub. Right. Well, on top of that, this would be a very
00:57:03
tough day in the office. Mhm. Because there would be so much like you're you're in a room alone with this scum
00:57:11
and he's he has the nerve to say things like, "Oh, I'm surprised she was a black
00:57:15
belt. She didn't really put up much of a fight." At some point, I'd have to leave and
00:57:20
say, "Look, I can't do this anymore because I would love to put my hands around his neck for just a little bit
00:57:26
and just talk [ __ ] to him." Well, Gribble goes on to tell the officer, "Okay, I'm just curious to see
00:57:33
how she's doing. I kind of feel like now that I hope that she gets better." So, I
00:57:39
mean, how how thoughtful of of Chris Gribble to all of a sudden care about people.
00:57:45
Now, per the Nashua Telegraph, quote, "Gribble also said that Spader had started his own brotherhood, the
00:57:53
Disciples of Destruction, and the Mount Vernon murder was something of a test for Gribble and the
00:57:59
other potential members, this being Quinn Glover and William Marks." He said that he had gone along with
00:58:07
lying to the police because he was worried that Spader might have killed him. Spader, he said, was, quote, "the real
00:58:15
deal." Right. And just to dive a little further into Chris Gribble and his personality,
00:58:23
we want to play you a clip from the trial, and this is Chris Gribble's father talking about his son. And did
00:58:31
your wife go to meet with Chris at the jail? She we were able to meet He was able to
00:58:35
meet with her twice, on Christmas and New Year's. Um he had expressed a very clear desire, repeated multiple
00:58:43
times through your office, that he had no desire to meet with her. And I had sent him letters saying, you know, it's
00:58:49
Christmas, would you like to meet with your Could your mom and brother come up and meet?
00:58:54
Okay. We saw him on Christmas Eve, and we saw him uh the following week on New Year's Eve.
00:59:00
And that Those were the only times that she saw him. And you said you saw Chris up until July
00:59:05
of last uh And when when we talk about you your wife going to see him, that was the
00:59:10
previous Christmas. It's the previous year. Not this most recent Christmas, but Christmas before that. That's correct.
00:59:15
And you said you had met with him up until July of this past summer. Yes. And then he said he didn't want to meet with
00:59:23
you anymore? Yes. Did he ever give you any sort of um reasonable explanation as to why he
00:59:29
didn't want to meet with you anymore? A reasonable explanation? Yes. I don't think it was reasonable, no.
00:59:34
What was the explanation that he gave you? Um I had offended him. He had asked me what I thought of him.
00:59:43
Uh and I said I think that you're so involved in your own problems and how and how how difficult they are that you
00:59:50
fail to see that there are a lot of other people out there who are hurting. And your belief is that
00:59:55
because you're you're going through much worse things than they are by being in jail, that
01:00:01
they should ignore what they're going through and and come and see you. I said I recall I told him that he suffered
01:00:06
from center of the universe syndrome. And at that point he said, "Well, then maybe I don't want to see you anymore."
01:00:12
Hung up the phone and walked away from the visiting area. And so today in court, is this the first
01:00:19
time you've seen him since last July? Other than pictures, yes. Other than pictures on TV? No, we don't
01:00:29
we haven't watched the news since he was arrested, but occasionally the front page of the paper has a picture.
01:00:35
Sometimes that's hard to avoid. Yes. For all of our old episodes, download the Stitcher app. They are free and we
01:00:56
also have a bonus show called Off the Record. Check that out. Yes, Captain. I got an email from somebody earlier this
01:01:04
week that said, "Hey, I'm a new listener. Can you guys cover this case?" My email back was, "We already did. You
01:01:11
got to check out the old episodes. There's hundreds of them on the Stitcher app.
01:01:17
Please join us back here in the garage tomorrow. Until then, be good, be kind, and don't litter.