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welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me
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as always is a man who earned his nickname by being lost at sea here is the captain sometimes I wonder if I ever
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made it back it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a
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[Music] friend this week we are very thankful to be sipping on some Route 33 pale ale by
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the good hardworking folks over outer belt brewing in beautiful Fairfield Ohio Route 33 is a splendidly flavorful pale
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ale pleasantly hopped with Columbus Mosaic and Cascade hops garage grade 3 and 3/4 bottom caps out of five and
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let's give some thanks and praise to our friends for helping us fill up the fridge this week first up it shears to
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Kelly cesic from Denton Texas and last but certainly not least we have Kate in Northgate Washington everyone we just
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that's enough of the beers next all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true
00:03:19
[Music] crime an abandoned Barn in rural Ohio Goes Up in Flames fire investigators dig through
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the rubble and smoking Embers only to find that the dilapidated out building wasn't empty as
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suspected first one charred set of remains and then a second is located two sets of human remains were
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Unearthed from the ruins of this barnfire turned body recovery site and of course it wasn't difficult to quickly
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determine that the fire was no accident some someone or someone's had something that they did not want you or
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anyone else to find a peaceful community outside of the big city of Columbus Ohio was about to
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be shaken to its [Music] core two were dead and an arsonist and killer was living among
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them this is true crime garage and this is the case vabby warl and Jamie [Music]
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Kelly September 25th 1994 Karen warl called the Licking County Ohio sheriff's office she told
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the dispatcher that her daughter Abby was missing and so was her daughter's friend Jamie
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Kelly both girls Abby WHL and Jamie Kelly were 16 years old deputies were sent out to talk to Karen at her home in
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basca Ohio Karen reported the following the night before Abby and Jamie went to a party in the Beachwood Trail
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subdivision the two teenagers returned to Karen's home also located in Beachwood Trails they returned by 1 a
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a.m. Karen saw them at this time Jamie was sleeping over and Karen witnessed the two girls getting ready for bed the
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next morning Karen and the girls they had plans at 10:00 a.m. Karen got tired of waiting so she went to aby's room to
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wake the girls she was quite surprised to see that they were not there she found a window open in the room she
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looked around and noticed that the clothes that the girls were wearing the night before were missing as well she
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and the deputies surmised that Abby and Jamie likely went back out that night leaving the house
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voluntarily Jaime's mom and stepdad Connie and Frank swany called the Sheriff's Office later that same morning
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to report Jaimie missing as well so now we have two parents from two separate households calling to report 16-year-old
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daughters missing law enforcement would be told by Karen that her daughter ran away once before at least once before
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and it seems possible that the authorities may have been involved in one of those occasions now unfortunately
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nothing will make a missing person's investigation less of a priority for local law enforcement than the prior
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actions of a rebellious teen who likely ran out to party or meet up with some friends yeah I always complain on the
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show that we need law enforcement to take these missing person reports very serious and they normally jump to the
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conclusion that somebody just ran away on their own so when you have a prior history of this that's obviously more
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likely to have law enforcement jump to that conclusion per the new Yark Advocate sightings of the girls had
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placed them in several locations out of town now we have the Sheriff's Office the Licking County Sheriff's off office
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Captain Ray back he said quote we don't know what they were getting into between
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here and Columbus so we're talking this is about roughly let's say an hour drive from
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Columbus to this location and he's simply saying we got two teenagers out we don't know where
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they are we've had some sightings of them we don't know what they're up to but the girls didn't come home home So
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eventually an investigation was opened and the Sheriff's Department Personnel began talking to other
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teens teens that knew the girls to see if they could get a bead on their whereabouts this is late September now
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we're going to fast forward to Sunday October 2nd this is about a week after the girls went missing the Fairfield
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County Fire Department was called out to a barnfire this was an abandoned Barn off of Ohio Route 158 about 10 Mi south
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of patasca a newspaper carrier who was out on his pre-done route saw the blaze calls it in so the firefighters get to
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the barn they're putting out the blaze now they got to figure out what what caused this it's a abandoned Barn
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they're looking for evidence of arson or or again just how this fire got started
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and they're going to be surprised and not pleasantly surprised correct cuz they're trying to determine a point of
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origin for the fire and that's when they're surprised they're going to find human remains among the smoking rubble
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and it appeared to be two bodies that they were looking at the corpses were removed Licking County authorities were
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notified and they realiz that they could have a problem on their hands we have Abby and Jamie who were still missing at
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this time right and now there were two unidentified bodies in a neighboring County so on Monday they contacted the
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wars in the Kelly and asked for dental records after receiving them they were identified fairly quickly Abby and Jamie
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were unfortunately dead their bodies found in that abandoned Barn this is 10 mi from their home in a rural section of
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Fairfield County what could have happened here well according to the autopsies it didn't take long to
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determine that the girls had not been killed in any fire the fire was not the cause of their death right Dr Keith
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Norton forensic pathologist and deputy coroner of Franklin County issued an autopsy report stating that jimie
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Kelly's date of death could have been anywhere from 3 to 7 days before the body The Remains were located and the
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same for Abby they were so decomposed and burned that it was hard to determine time of death Abby and Jamie had both
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been shot Jamie once in the head and Abby three times in the chest and once in the head as well for evidentiary
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purposes the best conditioned bullet removed was determined to be a 45 caliber rifling specifications
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correspond to those found in some Ruger black Blackhawk and Dakota brand single action revolvers but could also be found
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in some other types of handguns as well but that's the best that they could seem
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to narrow it down with their findings meanwhile we have the fire scene investigators who are pouring over
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the barn This Barn they determined was owned by a Mary roads she told them that she did not know how the barn could have
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started to burn but it was quickly ruled in our because they were able to determine
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captain that gasoline was used as an accelerant to start this fire yeah very tough situation here you got two parents
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looking for the missing children and the fact that they left the house I I think
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that would bother me as a parent they obviously came home that was their ruse to then go back out what reason did they
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have to go back out into the night who are they meeting up with why wouldn't they just tell me where
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they're going I think this stuff would plague you and then like you said not much later law enforcement is calling
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for identifier dental records and when you hear that as a parent again that'd be
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something very devastating to to deal with but now you have a situation where okay we have two victims
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they were murdered and now there was a cover up just the fire in general and the way these victims were found I would
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think makes it a little more difficult for law enforcement to to figure out what happened yes it does and here here
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gets to be the problem with your investigation right away so you have these other sightings possible
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sightings you can't fully verify if it was actually the two missing girls and then your time of death skews your
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investigation a bit too because you have the experts telling you that they were probably killed 3 to seven days before
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being found well if it's seven days then that means they weren't actually missing
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and a lot of those potential sightings are not true it was not our two victims and what we see a lot of times in
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missing person cases that you have false accounts false eyewitness accounts of seeing individuals that went missing and
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not because and not because those eyewitnesses want to throw law enforcement or the parents off the track
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it's because people want to help so when they hear of these missing girls almost
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eyewitnesses come out of the Woodworks oh I might have saw them here I might have saw them there and that kind of
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gives you a false sense of hope your investigation would lead you to talking to friends of the girls talking to other
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teenagers their peers naturally but in this instance what you have too is you know or at least through talking with
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Mom and what you're seeing at her house it's believed by all parties that the girls willingly voluntarily left that
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home late that night so they sneak out of the house the kickstarter for your investigation as said you would talk to
00:14:46
peers anyway but what you do know is they didn't sneak out of that house to hang out with each other likely they
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were going to be meeting up with somebody else or someone's else so this would lead you this would be the
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kickstarter for your investigation we need to talk to all these people the all the peers that of of theirs that knew
00:15:05
them knew them well and might have heard or talked to somebody that maybe they were going to meet up with later that
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night they were hanging out with people prior to going back to Karen's house right so the difficult thing will be the
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interviews and that's what we're getting to now so we have Abby Marie WHL and Jamie K Kelly again both 16 years old
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they're both students at the same school this is Watkins Memorial High School aby's mom was single at this time
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unfortunately aby's father was deceased Jaime's parents were divorced and her mom was remarried their deaths were a
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terrible blow to Watkins which had seen a weird rash of deaths among its student body as of late
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right in July of 1993 a male student accidentally shot a female and then took his own life and while Abby and Jamie
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were still missing you know they're missing for a little over a week a female student had taken her life as
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well so the total number of fatalities among the student body five in just a 15mon time period And if you're law
00:16:16
enforcement I think this would make it a little more complicated because yes we have the student body that we need
00:16:23
to interview and and figure things out but we don't have one victim so we don't have one Inner Circle we have two
00:16:30
victims so we have two inner circles that's correct and Meanwhile we're trying to sort this out and we have the
00:16:38
school who is trying to address this weird situation with its student body and trying to cope and to
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help the student body who many of these young people are sad and confused by all
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the tragedies that are going on around this time now initial media reports state that investigators had no suspects
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and this did not ease the minds of the community obviously the deranged killer or of two innocent teenage girls could
00:17:10
be somebody likely is somebody in their Community the other threat here is that it's very possible that it's somebody at
00:17:19
the high school yeah it makes you wonder if there's two victims are there two murderers yeah you had one freshman girl
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when interviewed by the local news is saying look the killer could be roaming these Halls the halls of this school
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that we're all showing up to five days a week Fairfield County Sheriff Gary demastry took charge of the
00:17:43
investigation he told the Columbus Dispatch that's our major local newspaper here he said quote we don't
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have many homicides in Fairfield County and when we do we like to solve them and
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get the people in jail who are responsible for them end quote not going to argue with that deast assigned all
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nine of his detectives as well as some deputies to the case so this is an all handson deck situation and you have to
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applaud law enforcement for throwing all their resources at this case investigators with Fairfield County and
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Licking County Sheriff's offices jointly set out interviewing family friends and
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classmates of the girls trying to piece together what they could from the stories that they were told mostly from
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youths so this would be about 75 people total that they would interview and they
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had a difficult task of trying to get teens to talk openly with them this was before cell phones and texting was not a
00:18:42
thing of course so police did not have the ability to search social media or phone interactions to get to the bottom
00:18:50
of things it seems that investigators figured out very quickly that the murders had happened close to home
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basing what they're finding talking to these youngsters they're starting to piece
00:19:04
this kind of convoluted story confusing story together one of the first good tips that
00:19:11
they get comes from an individual named Matt Young he's 16 at the time he told police that Abby had a feud going with
00:19:18
an older girl her name was Sonia Hawkins she's 19 remember our victims are 16 Sonia's long long time boyfriend was a
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guy named Robert Daniel he's 16 he goes to whiteall so he goes to a different school but the word around
00:19:37
school was that Sonia hated Abby A source told the Columbus Dispatch that Sonia had beat up Abby at one point
00:19:47
saying quote kids in school were afraid of Sonia she was tough but another kid told investigators that although Abby
00:19:54
and Sonia had a beef in the past that at some point they had made up another kid they talked to was Robert
00:20:03
he's known as Bobby sheets several others had told them that Bobby used to date Abby he told them he heard that the
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girls were missing but he didn't have any idea where they would be but other kids told them this Bobby sheets
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actually had made plans to hang out with Abby to meet up with Abby on the night that the girls went missing that they
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snuck out of the house he was in a car waiting when they did sneak out and went back to his house
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so that's the rumor that's going around town and around the school that police are getting tipped off to apparently it
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wasn't the first time that Abby had fled to Bobby's other teens told the cops that Abby ran away once before and had
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hid at Bobby's home another kid told investigators that Bobby Sheet's Behavior had started to become very
00:20:59
strange in the time that the girls were missing leading up to the time that the bodies would be found in the barn well
00:21:06
and if I'm law enforcement I mean you have this beef between these two high school girls or
00:21:14
one now at high school but that normally does not turn into what it seems to be almost two
00:21:23
executions and then a barn set on fire to cover up the evidence yeah and very strangely too you have a
00:21:31
situation where we don't have a great grasp of time of death but regardless what the science is telling the coroner
00:21:41
is that minimum 3 days before they were found well that Barn wasn't on fire for 72 hours that Barn was on fire for a
00:21:50
short period of time before it was located and they're attempting to put out the blaze so why the discrepancy in
00:21:59
this time frame why why isn't this timeline a little more direct it almost seems like whatever took place or
00:22:06
whoever is responsible for killing the girls then sat and waited to try to completely discard of the bodies and
00:22:20
completely conceal them maybe for good so if I'm picking up what you're putting down what you're saying is you think
00:22:29
that the crime probably took place on that night that they left their house but then maybe the bodies were placed
00:22:38
into that barn and then a couple days later the barn set on fire that's what I'm thinking and and who knows how long
00:22:46
or where the bodies were concealed but what the statistics would tell us is that typically yes when an individual
00:22:52
goes missing and later found to be murdered it's often that they are killed relatively quickly after the time that
00:23:03
they vanished or disappeared and here's the weird thing too the sheriff's detectives they're kind of getting this
00:23:10
vibe after talking to all these different teenagers one they're they're kind of clued into this beef that's
00:23:16
going on or may have gone on and ended right but now they're they're kind of getting this vibe that some of the kids
00:23:23
don't want to talk and they think that maybe some of the kids are either afraid because of rumors that they've heard or
00:23:31
possibly have been threatened by someone yeah but at least some individuals are talking so even if it's just rumors even
00:23:40
if it's just hearsay at least you're getting some names and some leads so you can go
00:23:47
question them as law enforcement we have one teenager this is a 16-year-old boy we won't name names here
00:23:55
for obvious reasons he's interviewed by investigators and he says he tells them that he had received
00:24:04
a death threat doesn't go into great detail just that he has received a death threat we also have one 15-year-old girl
00:24:15
who tells investigators that she received a phone call on October 5th from a man with a deep voice warning her
00:24:22
to keep her mouth shut about the murders or she would be next the boy that was threatened this is where we're going to
00:24:32
get a little bit more information here because he's having a second meeting with investigators and he tells
00:24:40
investigators that Bobby sheets now this is the second time that we've heard this
00:24:44
name was involved in whatever happened to the girls but as far as he knew Bobby had only intended to tie Abby up to a
00:24:53
tree and beat her up this boy said that he heard it all went down in a graveyard
00:24:59
somewhere behind Bobby's house he also said that uh there was a rumor that Bobby carried a 45 caliber
00:25:08
handgun the rumor was that this gun was hidden somewhere I guess it was like near a bridge or or near Bobby's home
00:25:17
somewhere right the difficult thing here is we we know that this Bobby Sheet's name has come up a couple of times right
00:25:24
we know that it's rumored that when one of the girls had left before that she had even hit out with Bobby we know that
00:25:32
one of the girls had a relationship with Bobby sheets at some point some of this
00:25:37
has got to sound a little strange a little bizarre to investigators when you are hearing these things of oh I I heard
00:25:44
he was involved but he was supposed to just tie her up and beat her up and even that's extreme that's very
00:25:54
extreme so that's going to be interesting to your investigation but also it's and then it went down in a
00:26:00
graveyard behind Bob's house some of this has got to feel like a giant game of telephone to some of these
00:26:06
investigators who was telling who what and how extreme is that are the details becoming after they've been regurgitated
00:26:17
from teenager to teenager to teenager right so now you have to sort out does this
00:26:24
individual actually have real knowledge of something thing or is he just trying to be helpful and he's telling you all
00:26:32
of these distorted rumors that have come about with the because let's face it this is going to create all kinds of and
00:26:41
I hate to use this word but for a lack of better term excitement in the school right extreme
00:26:47
levels of sadness extreme levels of fear extreme levels of of also trying to figure out what happened to these people
00:26:58
that maybe you didn't even know maybe you just knew the name or heard the name because you went to the same school the
00:27:04
other weird thing too here Captain is that another student tells the detective that somebody else
00:27:12
was rumored to have a gun when asked who is this person that has the gun he says
00:27:17
it's aanya Hawkins notice it's a variation of a name that we've heard before Sonia
00:27:25
Hawkins and we know that 19 detectives said early in the investigation two news reports it's all
00:27:39
related but we're still sorting things out they were still in the thick of interviews and information gathering
00:27:46
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Thanksgiving Che cheers to everybody out there cheers to you Colonel I am thankful to have a
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intelligent thoughtful and respectful host and partner in this true crime crazy world so cheers to you and cheers
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to all the beautiful listeners me as well captain and cheers to everybody out there have a safe a very safe week
00:34:48
especially for those traveling to see their loved ones on October 9th this is the big break that police were hoping
00:34:56
for we we get a woman and her boyfriend com into the Sheriff's Office they're reporting that some of their guns were
00:35:02
missing and one of them was a 45 caliber handgun remember investigators believe that this was the kind of gun that may
00:35:10
have been used in the double homicide this couple LTA Carol and her boyfriend Dwayne
00:35:19
Baker they weren't exactly certain when some of their guns went missing they did
00:35:25
tell police look we believe it was sometime between August 15th and September 24th
00:35:31
right this is an interesting lead though they also tell investigators lta's daughter Sonia might know who took the
00:35:42
guns right you got a teenage daughter there's probably teenagers in and out of your
00:35:47
house it's reasonable to believe that maybe the daughter might have a clue who stole these guns so now invest
00:35:56
instigators are going to sit down with 19-year-old Sonia she's a student at Watkins high
00:36:03
school so having a little trouble graduating it sounds like uh to me according to records under questioning
00:36:11
Sonia made statements that incriminated herself and actually two other teens in the girls
00:36:19
deaths the two teens that she incriminated were Bobby sheets age 15 of Baltimore Ohio he remember he's a
00:36:29
student at Watkins and Rob Daniels 16 of whiteall he went to a different high school he went to a high school in
00:36:37
whiteall Ohio so this is going to lead us to some searches because this is powerful information in their
00:36:44
investigation having heard from some of the kids that it all went down or the rumor was
00:36:50
that it all went down at Bobby's sheriff's deputies obtained search warrants for the Sheet's
00:36:56
residents which is on Blacklick Road they also obtain search warrants for the sheets
00:37:02
family's vehicles and an out building now they failed to find the gun the murder weapon which was the primary
00:37:11
thing that they were looking for but what we do get is Sheriff deasy saying to the media quote during the search
00:37:19
behind one of the walls in the out buildings we did find some articles of clothing that had stains that appeared
00:37:27
to be blood they also found newspapers with blood stains on them as well after some testing in a little bit of time
00:37:37
they're able to determine that the blood that was found on these items matched aby's blood yeah so now we
00:37:47
have a very big problem we didn't find that murder weapon that we were looking for but we found our victim's blood at a
00:37:55
home at a property where one of the individuals that we've been told by others may have been
00:38:02
involved or may know what happened this very quickly is going to lead to an arrest but not just one
00:38:09
arrest captain four arrests were made so the suspects that were arrested were Bobby sheets as we would suspect
00:38:17
he's 15 Robert or Rob Daniels who we've brought up he's 16 Sonia Hawkins 19 and sheets this one's very
00:38:28
interesting who is LC sheets it's Bobby's mom 54 years old what remember the other weird thing here
00:38:37
too Captain is that we had at least one student who tells police there's somebody else that you know there's a
00:38:44
person that is rumored to have a gun is Tanya Hawkins well we have a Sonia Hawkins who is a suspect that's arrested
00:38:53
so likely that kid was trying to give information good information to law enforcement and just got the the name
00:39:01
wrong right so the charges for Rob and Bobby were actually delinquency counts of aggravated murder theft of a handgun
00:39:10
and tampering with evidence the charges for Elsie Bobby's mom and Sonia three counts each of complicity to commit
00:39:19
aggravated murder tampering with evidence abuse of a corpse and arson Sonia was also charged with theft of a
00:39:27
firearm according to sheriff deasy Abby and Jamie ended up meeting up with Bobby
00:39:34
Sonia and Rob late that night after they snuck out to and continued to party this
00:39:41
apparently is believed to be in a field behind Bobby Sheet's home on Blacklick Road well this would make sense with the
00:39:48
rumors that the murders took place behind his house and possibly in a cemetery the girls were shot
00:39:58
there on the same night that they climbed out the bedroom window both boys were involved in the shooting jimie and
00:40:06
Abby were transported to a barn about 1 and A2 miles away and the barn was later
00:40:11
set on fire this is the belief this is the theory that the police are working with after making
00:40:19
these arrests after collecting a bunch of evidence I wonder after having this evidence if they were able to go back
00:40:25
and talk to neighbors and to to to find out if they heard any gunshots so maybe not
00:40:33
eyewitnesses but possibly some earwitnesses of the night of the murder there is some type of graveyard or
00:40:40
Cemetery that's not terribly far from Bobby's home either so you can see how that kind of got all wrapped up in some
00:40:46
statements that were given to detectives right Sheriff de Master also made a statement that Elsie
00:40:53
sheets was being charged even though she did not witness the murders according to
00:40:59
the allegations against Elsie quote when they returned from disposing of the bodies she made a pizza for everyone at
00:41:07
the home end quote Sheriff deast said that the only motive they could come up with was some bad feelings between the
00:41:15
teens the allegations made by the sheriff were hard to believe of course why would teens kill each other well
00:41:24
hopefully we're about to find out get to the bottom of the story well just so I'm
00:41:27
clear so when they come back the murders take place then they transfer the bodies to This Barn so now
00:41:36
they have the bodies hidden they go back to one of the kids' house and the mother
00:41:42
that's being charged she makes a pizza for the kids correct if if the police theory if the sheriff's theory is
00:41:50
correct then that's really the simple version of how this all played out so then are they assuming that then she
00:41:58
heard information about what happened that night and she just didn't come forward to law enforcement well here's
00:42:05
the best part at this point in our timeline you now have four people under arrest four people charged with some
00:42:12
serious charges some of them you know varying from one another but now you have them in your custody separated and
00:42:20
you're interviewing them individually to try to piece together exactly what happened to make sure that the right
00:42:27
people are getting charged with the right charges no it's a very smart tactic because you can prove
00:42:35
that as far as the timeline you can prove that the mother is involved but there's no proof that she has
00:42:43
information but just by arresting her that's going to put pressure on her that's going to put pressure on her
00:42:48
daughter that's going to put pressure on all the other kids because if you're a kid you go well maybe the other kids
00:42:55
won't crack but you're more likely to believe that an the adult in this situation is
00:43:03
going to do the adult thing and tell the cops the information they know in his post arrest interview Bobby
00:43:12
sheets claimed that Abby called him from a party on the night of September 24th remember that's the night that they
00:43:19
eventually snuck out and went missing and he says that the two of them made plans to meet up later she brought jimie
00:43:27
with her for this later Meetup right they all sat outside Bobby's house drinking Rob wanted to have sex with
00:43:35
Jamie and she refused now keep in mind this is just according to one of the individuals arrested and his post arrest
00:43:43
interview Bobby says that Rob then pulled out a gun and ordered Bobby to kill the girls Bobby admitted to holding
00:43:52
the gun and he said quote Rob told me to do it and I just decided he wanted me to
00:43:57
shoot Abby end quote I said no I wouldn't do it then he just reached over and went trigger happy Bobby sheets told
00:44:06
the police I never shot it he shot Abby one time first and then he reached over and shot jimie and after
00:44:15
that he started shooting a couple of times at Abby Bobby said that then his mother
00:44:22
just sat there in a days just freaking out so they're all Bobby's property you said earlier you want to interview
00:44:29
neighbors to see if they heard anything this is Bobby in his interview after he's arrested saying my mom heard the
00:44:35
shots right and so he tells police my mom just sat there in a days just freaking out as he meaning Rob and Sonia
00:44:45
moved the bodies to the barn he said Rob and Sonia carried Abby inside and Rob came out wiping blood off of a knife and
00:44:53
told Bobby that he and Sonia had stabbed Abby and she was dead they then dumped Jaime's body in the barn as well when
00:45:02
they got inside to their surprise Abby was still moaning at this Rob picked up a concrete block and threw it on her
00:45:10
head to kill her of course Bobby made sure that in his version of the events he hadn't
00:45:18
actually done anything wrong right he he didn't stab anybody he didn't shoot anybody he didn't throw the concrete
00:45:25
block he didn't even move the bodies according to his version of the statements right sorry his version of
00:45:32
the story he also said that Rob had been the one to order the barn to be burnt to
00:45:37
the ground in order to hide all of the evidence now of course Bobby's not going to be the only one to give a story to
00:45:47
police Rob was interviewed as well on the day of his arrest in his statement Rob claimed that two weeks before the
00:45:55
slangs Bobby sheets Jr and his mother Elsie sheets and Sonia Hawkins all three of the other people that were
00:46:03
arrested plotted to beat up Abby WHL because she and some friends had been harassing the Sheet's
00:46:10
family speaking of lsie sheets Rob stated yes she knew exactly what was going on cuz she helped Bobby plan it so
00:46:19
according to rob that he's telling a very different story right that this was something that was planned out not hey I
00:46:25
tried to have sex with this girl she refused and then I went trigger happy like Bobby says right he's saying these
00:46:31
three told me about this plan weeks before they were killed he goes on to tell police that
00:46:38
Elsie was involved and so much so that she paid him Rob $40 to keep quiet so Rob says he had known about it
00:46:48
for weeks but did not get notified that they were actually going to do the deed until that night Major Robert Lowry
00:46:57
later testified that in his interview in this interview with Rob Rob changed his
00:47:03
story multiple times he says that first Rob admitted to firing a gun but that he
00:47:10
had been told the weapon was loaded with blanks then he said that Bobby shot Abby
00:47:15
four times and then Rob shot jimie because she was a witness Rob also said in his statement that we were supposed
00:47:22
to kill them in the cemetery but Bobby got scared so we went back to his house so Rob while there might be some truth
00:47:31
to Rob's story we have the officer saying he gave us several different versions of how this all played out well
00:47:39
and this becomes the issue for law enforcement because yes you have these suspects arrested but you have to put
00:47:45
together a case to get a conviction and so when you have differing accounts in court you can play that
00:47:55
against each each other and possibly not get somebody charged and sentenced for this crime yeah you run that risk I
00:48:03
think the the bigger risk that you have here too is if these trials are going to
00:48:07
go to a jury is not being able to lay out a clear cut narrative backed with evidence and witness statements to
00:48:18
confirm that narrative that that theory that you're laying out for the jury right and if you get confused juries
00:48:24
then what what it looks like to me by this point Captain given these statements given some of the evidence
00:48:30
that they have that they have a pretty solid case against at least the three youngsters the mother gets a little bit
00:48:40
tricky here and but we still have two more post arrest statements to get to right but but the but the risk you're
00:48:47
exactly right the risk you run here is that maybe they don't get charged to the fullest to the to the full extent of
00:48:53
what their actual crimes were so Sonia in her interview she admitted that she and Rob had stolen three guns
00:49:01
from her mom in Dwayne's house so Mom and Dwayne were right you might want to ask our
00:49:08
daughter she might have an idea who stole these guns Well turns out she admitted to stealing him with her
00:49:14
boyfriend Rob Bobby was on the lookout during the theft of the guns according to Sonia their plan was to sell the guns
00:49:22
she said but instead one of them was used to kill Abby and Jamie Sonia initially had told authorities that
00:49:30
Bobby shot Abby and Rob shot Jamie but then later changed her story and she said Rob killed both girls then she said
00:49:39
that she didn't see the first shot fired as she was running to hide behind a tree
00:49:44
but then did see Rob fire the gun shooting jimie once and Abby three times so this is really just a mess a big mess
00:49:53
for investigators as we've discussed the interviews and the statements we got them we got we got a bunch of different
00:50:00
statements here it looks like we got the right people the problem is none of their stories are meshing well together
00:50:07
so it looks like a a soup of lies at this point well on top of that the evidence we do have is we do have these
00:50:14
victims were shot so when you have these suspects saying well we threw a concrete
00:50:21
block or this individual stabbed them some of that evidence is covered up by the
00:50:29
fire and so that makes it even a little more difficult to partiel out what what is the truth and what is lies because if
00:50:36
you know that evidence you have a clearer idea of what happened and so whatever they tell you can't muddy up
00:50:44
the actual facts a lot of the upcoming information comes from The Columbus Dispatch which did ter terrific coverage
00:50:51
on this case and of course we relied heavily on them for the research of this episode
00:50:58
but what you get here captain now that you have these arrests remember there were some threats made there were some
00:51:03
of the teenagers that were scared and now some of that fear has gone away now that you've got people
00:51:10
behind bars and charges that have been filed while the investigators still sort out the details of what exactly happened
00:51:18
so now we have others coming forward that that were previously talked to that are giving further details and some
00:51:24
rumors that they had heard one of them was that Bobby had told a few people that he wanted Abby Dead uh for several
00:51:33
reasons apparently that there was some beef or some harassment between her and Bobby sheets and his mother Mrs sheets
00:51:44
remember there was talk of some kind of harassment going on there's also a report that said that Abby was trying to
00:51:51
collect $200 from Bobby sheets because he had taken her class ring and we know that they were in a relationship at some
00:51:59
point prior to these events others were now telling detectives that Bobby said that Abby was pregnant with his kid and
00:52:08
that at some point she had aborted his baby now to be perfectly straight up here we do not
00:52:17
know whether this is true or not this is just some of the information that was coming out there was also information
00:52:24
that came out that Elsie sheets hated Abby because of that P perceived harassment that we talked
00:52:31
about but she also believed that Abby had vandalized Bobby's car at some point and we don't know what's discussed
00:52:41
between mother and son but if he seems to believe that Abby was pregnant and aborted the baby well
00:52:49
it's likely she could be very upset about that situation as well so it turns turns out what we end up hearing is that
00:52:58
Rob Bobby Sonia and Elsie had all discussed killing Abby and other people were somewhat
00:53:06
aware of pieces and parts of that information or those rumors right which would make all this premeditated so we
00:53:14
know from the four arrested their statements and now the statements of others that we have the right for
00:53:21
suspects that doesn't seem to be in question it just remained unclear how everything went down exactly now the
00:53:27
best that we can tell from sorting everything out is it seems likely that Bobby Rob and Sonia Abby and Jamie all
00:53:36
walked back together to the sheets residence from the graveyard at some point Bobby pulls out
00:53:44
a gun and shot Abby then at some point Rob grabs the gun and shot Jamie this took place behind a garage on
00:53:54
the sheets property now keep in mind that we are talking about a very large property one but also we're trying to
00:54:02
sort this out from multiple different Tales of who shot who Sonia said that she didn't see the first shot that hit
00:54:11
Abby but she saw Rob shoot Jamie once and then shoot Abby three more times Rob said that he shot Jamie but Bobby shot
00:54:21
Abby all four times and Bobby said that Rob did all of the shoo so we we got a bunch of people pointing the fingers at
00:54:28
one another the New York Advocate news summed it up the best I believe they said quote despite testimony regarding
00:54:37
the statements of three people charged in the deaths of Jamie Kelly and Abby warl it is still not clear who fired the
00:54:45
shots end quote but if we're law enforcement we have to take all these stories and try to piece something
00:54:52
together that we think makes sense and that you can back up some of it with the evidence now keep in mind remember that
00:54:58
Barn it does not belong to the Sheet's family right and it's now believe that the girls were killed on the Sheet's
00:55:05
property so at some point the three teens transported the bodies the I'm basing this off of the
00:55:13
vehicle that they had a Pontiac Firebird and the number of individuals involved here and based off of some of the
00:55:20
further details of their statements that that we don't have time to get into all
00:55:25
those details but it sounds to me Captain like it's likely that they transported the bodies one at a time
00:55:31
back to this Barn area or to this abandoned Barn area discarded of the gun at some point in the process and then
00:55:42
afterward driving back to Bobby's house now here's where things get more mind-blowing and this is not something
00:55:48
that's really in question here this seems to be hardcore fact So eventually the kids arrive back at at the sheets
00:55:55
house this around 4:00 a.m. at this point they're all covered in blood and they actually tell Bobby's mom what had
00:56:03
happened that and one of the statements one of the perpetrators says it was done we told Bobby's mom it was
00:56:11
done that backs up the the prior statements that some of this was premeditated if not all premeditated and
00:56:18
all discussed by all four people Elsie does not freak out like Bobby said she did she did not sit the kids down and
00:56:26
tell them hey turn yourself in nor did she call in even an anonymous tip to try to be helpful no Elsie actually tells
00:56:33
the kids take off all your clothes remember they're bloody they're dirty at this point she washes the clothes for
00:56:41
the kids and meanwhile the kids are out washing and cleaning out the vehicle that they use to transport the bodies so
00:56:50
as she's doing laundry she's like hey I might as well make them a pizza well she
00:56:55
goes even a step further Elsie then went to the grocery for frozen pizza and cigarettes and they all sat around
00:57:02
eating pizza and smoking sigs what's wrong with this world then the four discussed how they were going to keep
00:57:07
this whole thing quiet how they were going to get away with it now according to Rob Elsie said that she would pay him
00:57:15
$120 to keep quiet but she only had 40 on her so that's what she gave to him later that same day the teens drove
00:57:24
Elsie's Pontiac to Big Walnut Park in Columbus where they hid a black garbage bag and a drain pipe inside the bag were
00:57:33
Jim's and aby's jackets one of the leather jackets had several bullet holes in it
00:57:40
police later recovered these items from the drain pipe so they're able you see how they're able to verify parts of
00:57:46
these stories based off of the evidence a week later Bobby Elsie and Sonia decided to burn the barn now
00:57:55
whether or not Rob actually ordered it to be burned is a matter of contention right but it has been stated that Elsie
00:58:04
was the one who knew where the barn was and actually that she may have been the one who selected it as a place to
00:58:11
conceal the bodies in the first place so she's very Hands-On it appears in this whole
00:58:18
operation Elsie drove Bobby and Sonia to a gas station to buy a 5G can of gasoline and then drove them out to the
00:58:25
barn where it said that she waited in the car while they set the entire place including the bodies on fire the record
00:58:33
reflects that Rob stated Abby was killed because Bobby sheets was tired of her and that he and her mother did not like
00:58:40
her at all that they they they had this problem with her and he further stated that Rob killed Jamie because she was a
00:58:47
witness and we didn't want any Witnesses so unfort unfortunately Abby was the target get all along and it looks like
00:58:56
jimie was just a collateral victim the legal proceedings got very difficult and the
00:59:02
early stages Captain the best way to sum it up is we have a couple of people that
00:59:06
are miners here so you have the the problem the hurdle of well do we try them as adults or as minors and just as
00:59:16
we saw in our episodes the Jordan Brown case in episodes 551 and 552 it's a similar situation if these
00:59:26
juveniles are convicted as juveniles they'll only be held in prison till or an institution till the age of 21 yeah
00:59:33
but if they're tried as adults they could face life in prison which I think that's what they deserve well some would
00:59:40
say or could make an argument that these individuals deserve to be executed and lit on fire premeditated murder is a
00:59:50
very serious charge and so with that should come very serious consequences if found guilty now in January of 1995
01:00:00
Sonia actually pled guilty to the charges against her and she sat and cried and in
01:00:09
throughout the the guilty plea the judge sentenced Sonia to a concurrent 15 years to life
01:00:18
for the two complicity to murder charges the judge also sentenced her to 13 and half years for the convictions on the
01:00:27
Lesser charges plus a mandatory three-year term because a gun was used in the slanging so in total her term is
01:00:35
going to be 282 Years to Life Sonia will become eligible for parole in 22 years she was going to have to spend her 20s
01:00:46
and her 30s in prison thinking about what she had done now as part of her plea agreement Captain Sonia was requir
01:00:54
wired to testify against the three other suspects Elsie Bobby and Rob Elsie's case actually goes to trial and her
01:01:05
defense is simply that she didn't know exactly what was going on and what parts she was involved in she was defending or
01:01:14
protecting her son yeah and she could state or make whatever defense she wanted to but at the end of the day we
01:01:22
know that she was involved and that she helped cover this all up exactly and that's going to be the jury's findings
01:01:30
as well they deliberated for four hours on day one five hours on day two but eventually they'll come back with a
01:01:37
guilty verdict on all of the charges for and against Elsie that leads us to Bobby
01:01:44
who's really to me at the very center of all this as far as looking at each and every one of these suspects eventually
01:01:53
he's going to to this was quite the surprise move because what he does is to everyone's surprise he pleads no contest
01:02:04
to the charges of complicity to commit aggravated murder and in fact pleads no contest to all of the charges so he he's
01:02:14
saying look he's admitting to the truth of The Facts of the indictment without actually admitting any actual guilt
01:02:20
normally when you make a plea deal you you are stating that you are responsible for the the crime this deal not so much
01:02:30
he doesn't have to admit responsibility exactly he doesn't actually have to tell the court or
01:02:39
confirm for the court that he actually shot anyone and so it's a it's a bit of a chicken way out or or maybe he's
01:02:51
got hopes that he's going to get some kind of lesser sentence right in the end he's going to get convicted of and
01:02:59
sentenced to very similar punishment as the other two perpetrators in the end Bobby will serve about 36 years in
01:03:09
prison before he is eligible for parole and if he is released at that time he'll be in his 50s at that point
01:03:18
and then what we have here is Rob who had that he shot Jamie because she was a witness to the murder of Abby
01:03:29
it was decided that he's going to be tried as an adult as well just like Bobby was and he's 16 and a half at the
01:03:37
time of the killings now he tries to do the insanity plea and so a psychological
01:03:45
evaluation is court ordered yeah which eventually finds him to be competent to stand trial they also so determined that
01:03:55
he was a piece of right uh and then on May 25th judge Joseph T Clark sentenced Rob to
01:04:05
consecutive terms of life in prison so what happens here this is weird captain because he tries the insanity plea they
01:04:15
confirm that he is competent to stand trial and during this hearing and during this process once the it's ruled that
01:04:24
he's competent he then says I want to plead no contest to the charges as well so this gets a very similar
01:04:35
sentence as Bobby did so he will not be eligible for parole until he serves 36 years but overall I mean this is
01:04:47
just it's it's pathetic it's sad and yes you have these conflicts when you're a child entering
01:04:58
adulthood but just they could have just let it go these are these seem like very
01:05:05
juvenile problems that turned into double homicide yeah and now at each one of these trials or the court proceedings or
01:05:15
the hearings you know we have four different situations here with each of the accused who all end up
01:05:22
convicted we get the the families who stand and they give very powerful statements but I do want to read two of
01:05:30
the statements this both from Rob's sentencing and we have Jaime's mom Connie sweny who stood up in front of
01:05:41
the court in front of the judge and says quote Rob Daniel you are the only person
01:05:46
that night that took my daughter away from all of us who loved her I gave her life which you took away in two or three
01:05:55
seconds you changed all of our Lives including your family I'm sorry I can't ever forgive you for what you took away
01:06:03
from us for what you took away from Jamie end quote and then you had Karen Warren who stood up she gave very
01:06:12
powerful statements at all of the sentencing hearings for each of these individuals at this one she says in her
01:06:20
statement that she believed that it was wrong that Rob was allowed to plead no contest to the charges instead of
01:06:26
admitting his guilt saying quote he was a killer for hire remember he actually says Elsie said she going to pay me $120
01:06:36
she only had 40 on her and paid me that that Night 40 bucks to keep quiet so Karen Warren says he was a killer for
01:06:43
hire paid in money and goods to murder my daughter Abby then he summarily executed Jaimie to silence a witness in
01:06:51
an effort to avoid capture he is is a coldblooded psychopathic killer who was not even charged with all of the crimes
01:06:59
he committed end quote so as you said Captain horrible situation very sad situation these seem like juvenile
01:07:09
problems that did not need to escalate to this level at all so here we sit all these years later with two dead teenage
01:07:18
girls four people convicted of murder but really no real concrete answers as to exactly what happened right what
01:07:27
is the truth about the identity of the shooter or Shooters on that fateful night perhaps as Sonia testified both
01:07:35
Bobby and Rob were the Bad actors here but Sonia at 19 was more than complicit as someone who notoriously hated Abby
01:07:45
she seems like she might have been the driver of the plot right and then there's Elie sheets the one actual air
01:07:52
quotes actual adult in the group who rather than being a guiding force for good and a moral compass for these kids
01:08:01
was vengeful vindictive calculating and conspiring it seems possible that the whole murder plot was her brain child if
01:08:10
she had a brain Apple doesn't fall too far from the tree but if she had not goated and urged these youths to murder
01:08:18
Abby who's to say that they would have taken things this far Elsie's internal approval was surely a factor for these
01:08:26
kids in the tragic irrevocable decisions they made that night decisions that ruined countless lives and the time it
01:08:35
took to pull a [Music] trigger want to thank everybody for joining us here each and every week in
01:08:52
the garage Colonel do you mind if I give the audience the beautiful listeners a recommended reading Happy Thanksgiving
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don't know who that guy is the crispy Colonel it should say Nick Edwards aka the crispy
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other great True Crime titles check out our recommended page at true Crim garage.com and until next week be good
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