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[Music] [Music] % [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you doing thanks for
00:01:45
listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man that is just dying to
00:01:50
hear some three stacks on the radio here is the captain well my doctor did say on
00:01:56
my last physical I am dying it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a
00:02:04
[Music] friend today we are still sipping on some foreign raspberry Blonde by the
00:02:13
unique folks over at odd 13 Brewing Company that's in beautiful Lafayette Colorado this is a refreshing and
00:02:21
lightly tarp blonde ale made with hundreds of pounds of raspberries super delicious ABV 6.3% garage grade 3 and 3
00:02:29
quar bottle caps out of five and let's give some praise and thanks to our friends that helped us fill up the
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fridge this week first up a big cheers to Chris who is in the Poconos and a big we like your chib goes out to Alicia
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Russ and West Cornwall Connecticut and last but certainly not least we have Maran in Springfield Virginia thanks to
00:02:50
everybody for going to True Crim garage.com and clicking on the Donate button and filling up the fridge for
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this week's Beer Run yeah BW R beer run if you haven't subscribed to our YouTube
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subscribe at YouTube at True Crime garage and Colonel that's enough of the business all right everybody gather
00:03:18
around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] [Applause] [Music]
00:03:39
when the coroner's report on Natalie was issued it had some very significant facts in it that altered the trajectory
00:03:47
of the investigation this is an actual excerpt from the coroner's report by Dr Steven Cena quote pathologic
00:03:58
diagnosis one per ating gunshot wound to the Head entrance left temporal region with evidence of close range firing
00:04:07
stippling injury to scalp skull and brain exit above right ear no projectile recovered wound path directed left to
00:04:16
right front to back and downward end quote no time of death was given but the report stated that rigger mortise was
00:04:23
mild in all extremities Natalie is believed to have died closer to the time that she was last seen alive and
00:04:32
reported missing rather than closer to the time that she was found so rigger mortis Peaks at about 12 hours after
00:04:41
death and then it starts to subside if Natalie had only mild rigor then it had either not fully set in yet or had
00:04:50
passed so no time of death in the rigor or mild rigor mortise is quite an interesting angle to this
00:04:57
investigation it's interesting when you review the science of the investigation remember you go back a couple weeks ago
00:05:04
on True Crime garage on the beautiful True Crime garage radio dial to the Browns Chicken Massacre remember the
00:05:11
bodies were found in walk-in coolers and freezers the temperature in this case was in the 30s
00:05:19
at the time that she left her home around Nish and then the temperature drops to the low 20s pretty quickly from
00:05:26
there and stays really cold until about noon the following day from there the temperature shoots up into the 60 so as
00:05:35
the science suggests and as the coroner determined either rigor was delayed due to this
00:05:41
cold or it set in and had passed so mild rigger not Peak rigger it's most likely
00:05:49
that Peak rigger had passed by this time putting her death closer to Thursday afternoon when she went missing and as
00:05:56
the captain stated as we always State here in True Crime garage the timeline is so very important and knowing the
00:06:03
time period and shrinking that window of when the murder took place is going to help us find the proper suspect the
00:06:11
report stated Natalie was shot in the left temple at very close range a 9mm casing was found near her body according
00:06:22
to the coroner's report Natalie also had a potentially lethal dose of heroin in her blood system and had a history of
00:06:30
heroin use as evidenced by needle tracks on her lower left bicep in her elbow and
00:06:38
right hand this is a devastating scene but like you said there's no gun found and somebody halfhazard Le tried to
00:06:45
cover up Natalie's body according to what we found online heroin is processed by the body relatively quickly it
00:06:53
appeared from the high levels of the drug in Natalie system that the ingestion of this substance nearly
00:07:01
coincided with her demise from the shooting this too helps to tell experts that the time of death occurred in that
00:07:10
afternoon window from the previous day so now we have a better timeline and we have a better sense of what happened to
00:07:17
Natalie we have evidence that we should be looking at one suspect but the family
00:07:22
believes that law enforcement should also be looking into her boyfriend as well yeah Natalie's family was
00:07:28
suspicious very suspicious of her boyfriend early on in this investigation but the very good detectives working
00:07:35
this case come out and say no absolutely not he's not a suspect he's completely innocent he's cleared and very sadly he
00:07:45
is just another victim in this creative young woman's murder so he he has to be put through the ringer he is put through
00:07:54
the ringer and the detective says when I said to Joseph after we figured out and
00:08:02
knew that it was not him he's like it just all came pouring out of this kid this young man just
00:08:10
lost his girlfriend his love the person that's probably the closest to him he had been worried about her for weeks
00:08:18
anyway but then he's getting the stink eye from people thinking that maybe he had something to do with this and the
00:08:24
police were on to him very quickly as we said because they were concerned that hey you reported your girlfriend missing
00:08:30
but you failed to tell us about the the gun not just failed you purposely left out that information that makes you look
00:08:36
pretty bad from my angle but we found the information that tells us no it's an impossibility that you are
00:08:44
responsibility you are responsible for this you are cleared we know you didn't do it and we are sorry for your loss
00:08:51
well that would be so hard to have a loved one go missing and then found dead and in this case all signs point to the
00:08:59
fact that Natalie was murdered to know that you're going to become a suspect that would be very difficult to deal
00:09:06
with especially if you know you're innocent you're going to be thinking hey law enforcement do your job and go after
00:09:13
the right person or in this case there's so much suspicious activity online coming from
00:09:19
Shawn but you have to let law enforcement do their due diligence and once they can clear you like they did
00:09:27
with Natalie's boyfriend in this case now they can move on to other suspects and unfortunately Captain some of the
00:09:32
people online weren't willing to let the detectives do their job and do their their work I mean these online sleuths
00:09:40
not all of them but some of them were overwhelmingly and very vocally angry with the sheriff's office for not
00:09:47
arresting not charging and again more importantly not protecting Natalie from Sha Schwarz but here we go Captain here
00:09:57
we go this is just a another example that sometimes life stops on a dime so on February 8th remember the murder took
00:10:08
place late December for all of January the detectives in the sheriff's office has the online slle in the online
00:10:17
community all over their backs for not arresting Shan Schwarz on February 8th it looked as though the police might
00:10:25
have the answers to all of the questions that everybody was wanting to know here in this case why
00:10:31
they hadn't arrested sha Schwarz and that's because they publicly announced they did make an arrest in the case on
00:10:36
February 8th and they were charging someone with murder in the first degree but it wasn't Joseph the boyfriend and
00:10:44
to many people all over the country following this case to their surprise it was not sha Schwarz on February 8th
00:10:52
Adams County authorities announced the arrest of 22-year-old Joseph Michael Lopez on suspicion of first-degree
00:11:01
murder that means this guy who no one online had heard of no one in Natalie's family had heard of and a first-degree
00:11:11
charge indicated that police believe that this nutless loser intended to murder her and did so with premeditation
00:11:19
yeah and we've looked into so many cases and there's been people that have jumped
00:11:23
out like oh that is a suspect and if you go down that rabbit hole you get thousands of yeses oh they did this and
00:11:31
that was strange and they have to be the Killer and then you get one no they have
00:11:37
a solid Alibi or they're in another state or there's some reason there's no DNA of the individual there's no
00:11:45
fingerprints so you might get a thousand yes but all it takes is one no and then
00:11:51
you have to move on to another suspect everyone had been fixated on this sha Schwarz as a prime suspect but police
00:11:58
had had been going through Natalie's phone this is what's going to lead them who ultimately is the suspect that they
00:12:05
are going to arrest in charge well how did this guy get on law enforcement's radar how did they get to this guy well
00:12:12
they start going through Natalie's phone and remember we said we quoted the sheriff's department and the detectives
00:12:18
in yesterday's episode when the case first broke when they had they had a press conference explaining that we are
00:12:26
investigating this young woman's murder we are aware of is Shan Schwarz individual we have spoke with him we
00:12:34
want to know who spoke with Natalie during that 26 hour time period we don't have any activity on her phone we don't
00:12:42
have any activity of her in social media we need somebody to tell us who she was
00:12:47
talking to dur during that time and we can't find evidence of that this is this is shameful and and I and I'm glad that
00:12:56
I do not know what phone carrier what Service carrier she had for her cell phone because the delay in this
00:13:06
investigation was police requested her phone records the carrier comes back and says you need a warrant so they issue a
00:13:15
warrant for the phone records right in the warrant the language that was written in the warrant stated that they
00:13:24
had 30 days to supply law enforcement with that information that they're requesting or they could seek legal
00:13:33
action against the phone service well the phone service God bless them and I'm saying that as sarcastically as I can
00:13:41
took every bit of those 30 days to get the information back to the Sheriff's Office so here's why I say shame on them
00:13:50
look I'm all for privacy and protecting the privacy of our citizens your privacy
00:13:55
and my privacy the captain's privacy is Paramount to our existence but I definitely need my privacy here's the
00:14:03
issue the information that you guys are holding on to lock and key that you are denying and delaying giving to law
00:14:12
enforcement could take a very violent killer a very dangerous individual who could kill an assault again off of the
00:14:21
streets you could save a life by getting us this information instead they see oh
00:14:27
we got 30 days to do it it probably how long do you think it would physically take them to acquire that information
00:14:33
and send it to the Sheriff's Office well faster than a flicky flicky it it doesn't take physically take 30 days to
00:14:40
achieve that and so I say shame on them for not giving this information to the police first because or sooner because
00:14:47
this is what led directly to this individual it was it was that hangup in the investigation that that was uh this
00:14:55
the major speed bump here in finding the person responsible for her murder yeah I
00:15:00
I agree with you I I don't have a problem with them needing a warrant but once you get that warrant it's like come
00:15:06
on this should take less than 24 hours exactly exactly I'm with you Captain they should have to have a warrant
00:15:13
because we need to protect the privacy of our citizens but privacy once you got that request get that information think
00:15:20
about your own children think about your own family and you could be helping them
00:15:24
all at the same time getting a horrible person off of the street so we have everybody that's fixated on the Schwarz
00:15:31
guy police are doing their digging once they finally get the Poli the phone records back from the carrier and
00:15:38
they're seeing a lot I mean a ton of communications between Natalie R victim this guy who nobody knows it's 111 text
00:15:51
111 text messages between this Lopez guy and Natalie all on the day that she went
00:15:57
missing the Tex were all from the very day that Natalie died right and Lopez had never texted her before that date
00:16:05
and never texted her after that date so he looks very suspicious on February 8th
00:16:11
the police they go to his work he works at a Domino's Pizza not texting or calling after her death is a very Dawn
00:16:19
move I don't say this sarcastically God bless them doing research on this case I
00:16:23
ended up ordering a wonderful Domino's Pizza [ __ ] weirdo # weiro they go and they ask him to come
00:16:31
in for an interview at the Sheriff's Office and Sheriff Macintosh said that when investigators initially contacted
00:16:37
Lopez he makes a comment to them so they say hey we'd like to talk to you they don't tell him what it's about they say
00:16:45
hey we'd like to talk to you could you come to the Sheriff's Office and speak with us do an interview right and he
00:16:51
makes a comment to them he says this has to do with that girl I talked to on Craigslist well Texas are sitting there
00:17:00
going what do you mean Craigslist they don't say that to him right Craigslist never appeared anywhere in their
00:17:06
investigation until this Lopez guy says it to them he agrees to go in and do the
00:17:12
interview after his interview Lopez was arrested for the murder of Natalie Bolinger he was appointed a public
00:17:19
defender and held without bond Joseph Lopez had no criminal history leading up to this point now at a press conference
00:17:28
this is announcing the arrest Sheriff McIntosh said quote at this point to my knowledge we don't have any more Persons
00:17:36
of Interest in this case he goes on to say we believe that from what we currently see that we had the lone
00:17:44
suspect in this case and that Shawn was not involved end quote Yeah I think they
00:17:49
had to make that statement because of the amount of harassment he was getting online and look and and I'm not saying
00:17:57
that he didn't deserve it I mean when you're posting ridiculous comments threatening
00:18:03
comments when you're posting strange things when when somebody has to get a restraining order against you because
00:18:09
they feel uncomfortable there's reasons why he looked like a good suspect but good for
00:18:15
law enforcement to say look this is our guy Lopez is our guy and there's no other suspects reminding them they they
00:18:22
cleared the boyfriend they cleared Sean right and here's the situation we need to now as Detective figure out what
00:18:29
these 100 plus texts are about we also need to figure out what we think went down and how it went down it actually
00:18:37
went down because we're going to be sitting across from this guy in an interview and he while he willingly came
00:18:43
to the Sheriff's Office to be interviewed he may shut down or he may try to manipulate our investigation or
00:18:51
the interview itself so they have to come in there with a game plan they they could tell from the text that a couple
00:18:58
things had happened so this and and we I'll give you the detailed statement as Lopez gave it now
00:19:08
keep in mind this is I'm going to give a summarized version this was a very lengthy interview and of course he
00:19:14
wasn't honest throughout most of this interview so Lopez tells the police that Natalie hired him to shoot her and
00:19:23
according to him he says this is how everything went down he says that he respond responded to a Craigslist ad in
00:19:30
the women seeking men section titled I want to put a hit on myself so Lopez he sees this on Craigslist I want to put a
00:19:39
hit on myself he text the woman who placed the ad which we later learn is Natalie she tells him they introduce
00:19:47
themselves she's Natalie he's Lopez Joseph Lopez they had never met before December 28th he admits that to police
00:19:56
he says that they messaged back and forth multiple times and Natalie's telling him
00:20:01
that she wanted to be shot from behind and that she could Supply the gun Lopez tells police that Natalie quote wanted
00:20:10
to get on her knees and be executed from behind because she did not want to see the gun end quote they made a plan for
00:20:19
Joseph Lopez to pick Natalie up in his car in his vehicle he drove to her apartment in Broomfield picks her up as
00:20:28
and they drive around for a while he says they're driving around for a while because he's trying to change her mind
00:20:36
but he tells police she was determined to die she said she was having issues with her boyfriend and it had all become
00:20:43
just too much she wanted her life to be over so they discussed how he would be paid remember this is supposed to be a
00:20:50
hit he says that Natalie could not settle on a spot that she liked or could not find a place that she liked or she
00:20:58
was wavering in her decision to to end her life so Joseph Lopez says yeah I exchanged the text with her yeah I
00:21:06
picked her up yeah we had this Arrangement through Craigslist right but I ended up taking her home I tried to
00:21:15
talk her out of it I end up taking her home I dropped her off at her home and when I did she was alive she was fine of
00:21:21
course this story was ridiculous because we know Natalie never returned home after she was reported missing and Le
00:21:28
did not buy his story not for one [Music] second this show is sponsored by better
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thanks for telling a friend cheers to you all and cheers to you Colonel cheers to everybody out there and just like we
00:24:27
took a little break in the garage here police take a little break from the interview the detectives step out the
00:24:35
room for a minute and they come up with this plan because they're saying look we
00:24:39
got all this data from from his phone records we got data from her phone records we we can see these text
00:24:46
exchange we know that this guy is trying to feed us some [ __ ] who way it smells like hor [ __ ] guess what store's
00:24:54
closed we ain't buying it so they go back in and and they confront Lopez with all of the data from the phones they're
00:25:02
saying hey not only do we have these text exchange but we can see that your phone on the 28th on the day that she
00:25:10
was killed it traveled from Natalie's apartment or home to the area where Natalie's body was eventually found and
00:25:18
that's when Lopez says okay you got me I was there I was there but she shot herself in the head the cops say nope we
00:25:29
have the science the trajectory of the bullet and that's why we went through that portion of the autopsy clearly
00:25:37
indicates right it'd be impossible for her to do it herself exactly she could not have physically no human being could
00:25:44
have physically done that to themselves so he then he's going to slowly you see as he progresses he puts up and tries to
00:25:55
explain things away making him sound innocent and police keep shooting everything down and pointing out no
00:26:02
you're wrong this is not right it this couldn't have happened this way no matter what you say we have the evidence
00:26:07
to back it up he's progressing a little bit right before he wasn't there when she was now now he's there when she was
00:26:14
killed but she killed herself police say no that didn't happen he he inches in and he says okay she convinced me to do
00:26:22
it I I did the deed she convinced me to do it he says that he stopped the car at
00:26:27
the spot that they found her on Riverdale Road and this next part is from CBS News where he says uh she knelt
00:26:35
down on the ground and he knelt down along her left side and slightly in front of her this according to court
00:26:43
records he said they set a prayer he got up and closed his eyes and he fired the
00:26:48
Fatal shot Lopez used the gun Natalie had given him to shoot her in the head then he took the gun and her purse and
00:26:56
he leaves the scene bizarrely enough he he ends up going into work to Domino's to work his shift afterward he ends up
00:27:06
leaving at some point leaving his shift early that night in his interview he told police that the gun he used to
00:27:12
shoot Natalie which which she brought with her was still in the trunk of his car right so he's at the Sheriff's
00:27:20
Office his car's parked in the parking lot because he willingly went to the interview with them and he says yeah the
00:27:28
gun that I shot her with is in the trunk of my car and they go out and they check
00:27:32
his car boom the gun's right there in his trunk her purse is right there he he hid these items under the spare tire in
00:27:40
the trunk but they recovered them he tells them where they can find them so now police had to look into this
00:27:46
question about Lopez telling the truth right the the Craigslist ad cited by Lopez had mysteriously vanished of
00:27:54
course by this point yeah police though had the benefit of having Natalie's phone information so they could see the
00:28:01
content of the text and whether it was true that she hired him to murder her the investigators did State publicly
00:28:10
that it was confusing because while some of Natalie's confidants said she had suicidal
00:28:17
ideations others said she was happy and had overcome her demons so they're trying to sort through
00:28:24
and figure out what portions of Joseph Lopez's story is truthful and what portions of
00:28:31
his story are a Flatout lie can you imagine being law enforcement during the initial inter interrogation you know
00:28:39
he's feeding you a line of [ __ ] but he is feeding you something and so you you
00:28:45
have to have this mindset of well I I need to dismiss some of these things but but let him know hey it's okay for you
00:28:53
to eventually tell us the truth I mean that'd be a very difficult situation to navigate if you're law enforcement
00:29:00
because I think I'd be so angry with him that I'd just want to rip his damn face
00:29:04
off yeah Sheriff McIntosh said at the press conference that Lopez and Natalie had a brief social media type
00:29:11
relationship the arrest warrant affidavit makes clear that their relationship was not sexual in nature
00:29:17
and indeed they had never met prior to December 28th so a little bit more on those text
00:29:24
messages here Captain so the information that detectives obtained finally that there
00:29:31
were 111 text messages to and from an unknown number from Natalie's phone to and from an unknown number and we later
00:29:41
learned that that is Joseph Lopez's number this starting at 10:58 a.m. on that very sad day there was another
00:29:50
flurry of messages around 12:20 p.m. remember we have her boyfriend that later reports her at as missing so there
00:29:58
were people the boyfriend and her family and friends were in contact with Natalie
00:30:05
that day and again Peaks and valleys I think I got the impression anyway that a couple of them were kind of purposely
00:30:13
checking in on her and keeping an eye on her even if it was from a distance but thankfully they were because we're able
00:30:20
to narrow down the time that is of the most importance in this investigation that time when she went missing that
00:30:28
time when she's communicating with this Joseph Lopez and he ends up picking her up and then we track his phone from her
00:30:36
apartment to where she is later found it's all stacking up very nicely against this Joseph Lopez who investigators then
00:30:46
discovered through Domino's time cards that Lopez called out he called off sick on the 28th he went in for a little bit
00:30:53
but he left for a little bit uh a little bit into his shift he calls off on the 29th and then on the 30th
00:31:01
he says that he's still ill and he returns to work on the 31st yeah he just caught the I just murdered somebody flu
00:31:10
the GPS data from Lopez's phone showed that he traveled from Natalie's apartment building on the 28th between
00:31:16
12:04 and 12:30 p.m. the phone then drove to the location where Natalie was found on Riverdale Road we don't know
00:31:25
because of we're going off of information that's been released in this case we don't know we can't State 100%
00:31:33
here if they if they drove directly from her apartment to this location or if they did in fact drive around for a
00:31:40
while once he he and his phone are at that location he's only there for a total of eight minutes yeah Lopez is
00:31:47
going to be formally charged with first-degree murder on February 14th if he were convicted of that charge under
00:31:55
Colorado law he could be sentenced to a minimum sentence of life in prison or a maximum of death but it was all over by
00:32:06
the end of 2018 because Lopez decided to enter into a plea deal with prosecutors
00:32:12
whereby he pled guilty to Second deegree murder so the maximum penalty for this charge is only 48 years the judge
00:32:22
Roberto Ramirez sentenced the then 23-year-old Joseph Lopez to the maximum sentence 48 years in prison this
00:32:32
sentence of Lopez definitely upset her family but I think one of the things that you have to consider when you're
00:32:41
law enforcement is if you get him to plead guilty and get 48 years sentence then there's a lot of information about
00:32:50
Natalie that might not have to come out in court yeah Natalie's family was not happy in fact in the sentencing hearing
00:32:58
Ted Binger ripped into Lopez addressing him directly saying you took advantage of my daughter she was vulnerable and
00:33:06
drugged you premeditated brutally shot and killed my baby I asked for an ey for an eye you have been protected the
00:33:14
Ballinger Family had the Ballinger Family had no say in this this is a deal with the devil it's it's difficult here
00:33:24
for prosecutors and I'm not trying to defend prosecutors here in the situation I'm not trying to go against the grain
00:33:32
with the Binger family I've reviewed hundreds of these types of cases and every time I always say the most
00:33:39
appropriate sentence is whatever the victim's family wants and I will always stand that way by that and I will always
00:33:46
feel that way however in this case you can see some of the hurdles that we might have here with the
00:33:55
actual trial and trying to try this guy for first-degree murder in front of a jury there is evidence of this young
00:34:06
woman asking him to pick her up there is evidence of her saying that she can provide a gun and you don't want to get
00:34:15
too far into the weeds at that trial and somebody on the jury going well this just looks like assisted suicide this is
00:34:24
right this guy's being way overcharged but here here's the here's the thing at the end of the day the detectives know
00:34:32
what happened here the prosecutor knows what happened here the family knows what
00:34:35
happened here it's heartbreaking there's no there's no perfect sentence for Joseph Lopez there's no perfect sentence
00:34:42
for any murderer out there that satisfies everyone and here the complications or what could have been
00:34:49
complications with the trial this guy could have ended up getting a lot less time in prison and I'm telling you this
00:34:56
guy is much more dangerous than he looks on the surface and police know that they
00:35:02
said look this guy this guy we reviewed his past we went through his old journals we went this guy was obsessed
00:35:10
with the thought of killing somebody and when he saw that Craigslist ad that was
00:35:15
posted that morning he saw an opportunity he he saw an opportunity to do something that he had always thought
00:35:22
about doing and then this scumbag goes to her apartment picks her up where any other normal person with a heart with a
00:35:32
beating heart and real emotions would have helped this young lady would have tried to find help for this young lady
00:35:40
would have tried to talk her out of it he's driving around trying to talk her into it well death penalty trials are a
00:35:46
lot harder for prosecution it could be longer for the family so I see that there's pros and cons either way and
00:35:54
police as said the detectives they very quickly learned that there's this pretty
00:36:00
straightforward normal looking dude that everyone else saw in Lopez right but they knew that this guy had another
00:36:10
completely other side to him an alter ego if you will he had all these crazy characters online that he created that
00:36:18
uh many of them were obsessed with murder or they were they were characters that he labeled as psychos and he seemed
00:36:26
to celebrate them being psychos right and so it was through these journals and it
00:36:33
was through going through his computer and his information that police found look this guy was harboring this dark
00:36:41
secret these dark fantasies and he took advantage of this young woman when she was at her lowest and needed some help
00:36:49
he swooped in and took advantage of the situation now the other thing too and I don't want to throw too much blame
00:36:56
around and too much shame around right but situations unfortunately there's other situations this is not the first
00:37:04
time nor will it be the last time that somebody post a suicidal ad or a suicide type ad on Craigslist or
00:37:13
some other Outlet there is one situation where a woman did just that thing however people helped her they they
00:37:24
helped to get her help right one thing that I didn't like when reviewing this was the detectives stated that that
00:37:33
after getting this information from Lopez they were now able to go to Craigslist and figure out what had
00:37:40
happened and confirm that part of his story there's like a 4minute death window there Captain that's you you you
00:37:48
you review these cases and their heartbreaking but there's these little pieces these little tiny nuggets of
00:37:57
information in these cases that are even more heartbreaking it was a 4minute death window she posted that ad he
00:38:05
responds to it two minutes later two minutes after he responds to it it's flagged and removed from Craigslist a
00:38:12
lot of people looking into this case wonder if that post is real and and obviously it was but you'd think with
00:38:21
these algorithms and everything they'd be able to flag these even faster right not just flag them faster but you wonder
00:38:30
well I don't wonder I my reaction to that is isn't there something more they can do than just remove the ad right
00:38:39
there's I mean a welfare check on somebody again I don't I don't know how that would all go into place it's not my
00:38:45
job to sort through the logistics of that but it just seems to me like there could be something more that would be
00:38:51
done than just removing the ad and again it's not the first time that this kind of ad was placed won't be the last time
00:38:58
there's also homicidal ads that appear on occasion let's do more than just remove the ad well and just to be clear
00:39:06
like you said it's not your job or your responsibility it is called Craigs List Craig is responsible but again you hear
00:39:15
us describe the situation you hear us go through everything the lies that Lopez tries to tell the detectives the
00:39:22
detectives sorting through those lies and extracting the truth and the little truths along the way to put together
00:39:29
this complete Narrative of what they believed happened and ultimately charge him with first-degree murder they're
00:39:36
saying first deegree was the right charge initially the prosecutor agreeing before the plea deal and this is because
00:39:42
think about how this whole thing plays out when he got in his car that day that morning and drove he's making an effort
00:39:50
to be involved in this right and and murder this young woman he thought this through he didn't just show up to where
00:39:59
she was found and find himself in a situation with a gun in his hand no he had time to think through this to to
00:40:07
either keep putting himself in this situation or to get his ass out of that situation and you know what he didn't do
00:40:14
he didn't get out of the situation he got in his car he drove to her apartment he picked her up he didn't try to talk
00:40:20
her out of of this at all he didn't try to help her he didn't try to get her help instead he drives her to the spot
00:40:28
where she's later found and he pulls the trigger and again shame on the phone company you should have got
00:40:39
that information to the detectives much sooner right if if we were able to walk into that building and say to Mr or Mrs
00:40:50
director of personnel or Mr Mrs president of this company or or whomever they put us in contact with
00:40:57
if we knew then and there that day that this is how this went down this dangerous man went and picked up this
00:41:02
young woman and then killed her and if you give us her phone records it could help us catch this dangerous man but
00:41:09
they don't know that at the time they don't know that her phone records are going to yield anything so I say to
00:41:15
those out there when law enforcement comes to you for help and they have the paperwork and the warrant that's signed
00:41:22
by a judge to get information from you that will help their investigation and help to keep our citizens and our
00:41:30
streets safe please don't delay give them that information this guy if if he had done
00:41:38
this partici you know we know he did this we know he participated in this we know that it was premeditated by the
00:41:44
definition of premeditation he thought this through and continued to push the situation forward who's to say that he
00:41:53
wouldn't have just started killing people the next day right who's to say what this guy would have done what we do
00:41:59
know is when he leaves that crime scene that day leaves Natalie there that day guess what he has now in his possession
00:42:07
a gun a firearm he has the ability to do what he's been thinking about doing for
00:42:12
all these years all that sick stuff that that they found in his journals talking
00:42:17
about torturing people killing women he's got a firearm now he's got a gun now and it ain't in his name he's got a
00:42:25
gun that they very likely cannot Trace back to him if they don't find it on his person this guy is incredibly dangerous
00:42:33
and you guys drug your feet helping the cops get him off the street well this is
00:42:37
why mental health needs to be more of a common place because it seemed on some level you know Natalie was talking about
00:42:47
some of her struggles with some people but there's but it's almost like she got to
00:42:55
the point where the only answer the only solution to her struggles was to end her life and I
00:43:04
think if we make mental health definitely something that's more commonplace not only can we talk about
00:43:11
the struggles but we can also talk about like overcoming these struggles and that
00:43:17
some not every person that has deal dealt with drug addiction or dealt with depression has it ended in suicide a lot
00:43:26
of people have success stories and we need to be able to share those more so people know that there is there's other
00:43:34
Solutions and the Ballinger Family is exactly right a heavier sentence greater consequence for Joseph Lopez certainly
00:43:47
warranted and would be ideal however I can understand the issues the problems with going to the
00:43:55
tribe it's the second degree murder charged maximum penalty is 48 years in prison
00:44:03
thankfully the judge gives him the max of 48 years in prison and I'm hoping that that 48 sticks because keep in mind
00:44:12
Joseph Lopez was only 22 years old when he was charged with Natalie's murder that will make him about 70 years old
00:44:20
when when he's able to get out of prison and I hope they keep him there every minute of that maximum sentence it's all
00:44:28
around a sad case it's all around a sad story The One bright spot is thankfully at the end of the day they got the right
00:44:38
guy for this [Music] murder you could be anywhere but you're here with us in the garage and we want
00:44:56
to thank you thank you so much for the support onwards and upwards Colonel do we have any recommended reading for the
00:45:02
beautiful listeners we do and this is a very inspirational story we're recommending a book called hope A Memoir
00:45:10
of survival in Cleveland and it's by Amanda Barry and Gina De Jesus who spent years in captivity after they were both
00:45:19
abducted and held captive and they survived this is a true crime book in every sense so if you want to hear about
00:45:28
an abduction case if you want to read about their case check this out but also check it out because it is an
00:45:35
inspirational story as well it's a story of survival in these strong wonderful young women check out hope A Memoir of
00:45:44
survival in Cleveland by Amanda Barry and Gina De Jesus you can find that great title and many more on our
00:45:51
recommended page at true Crim garage.com and while you're there check out the new
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douche canoe hoodies and douche canoe t-shirts don't be a douche canoe pick one up today and until next week be good
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