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details welcome back to our studio where we have a special guest with us today Tuan Sam from Froot Loops Tuan Sam
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[Music] [Music] side [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
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on our website at truecar.com and that is enough of the business all right everybody gather around grab a chair
00:03:38
grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime [Music] Madison County 911 what's the address of
00:04:25
your emergency uh yes I need the and an yeah apparently a guy just shot you said the guy just shot himself
00:04:40
yeah and that that yeah and is that where you are yeah can you hear me yeah yeah is he
00:04:55
breathing at all yeah no do you think he's be Beyond any help do you want to try
00:05:03
CPR I somehow got in the back of my okay you're cutting out I can't even get turn
00:05:36
hey can you hear me see if he's than he he is breathing he he's gasing forever how old is he do you know how
00:05:54
old is he maybe 20 19 20 21 somewhere like that shot at in the head in the head I can't really see like there is
00:06:12
he alert at all is he conscious uh he don't look like it and when did this happen minutes
00:06:23
ago you said three minutes ago okay hard to hear again you're cutting out sir you're cutting out I can't
00:06:39
understand you to find the spot where I hello I can hear you now okay uh right I called
00:06:52
you what was your name James can you hear me [Music] Dante Martin was born in St Louis where
00:07:16
he lived until he was about 10 years old then he his mom her name is Erica Lotz and his six siblings moved to Park Hills
00:07:26
a town of about 8,500 resid res 60 M Southwest of St Louis Park Hills was a very different type of environment than
00:07:35
the urban one in St Louis first of all of course it was a much smaller community in a town this size most
00:07:43
people know each other it was a much less racially diverse Community Dante and his family were very much in the
00:07:50
minority one article we found describes the old lead belt region of Missouri where Park Hills is located as 95% White
00:07:59
Dante's family is black in the spring of this year 2021 Durante was 19 years old and he had
00:08:07
graduated the year before from Central High School Durante started out at Central but then transferred to an
00:08:14
alternate School due to his less than Stellar attendance record while he was at this other school an assistant
00:08:21
football coach from Central took note of him partially because of his impressive
00:08:25
size and encouraged him to get his attendance on track back so he could return to Central and play football and
00:08:33
he did Dante's cousin Isaiah Welch later told NBC 5 News that the two played on the team together and being football
00:08:42
players changed their lives for the better he said quote when we were kids we used to live in the same trailer park
00:08:49
together he lived right in front of me so our windows were facing each other and when our parents fell asleep we'd go
00:08:56
to the windows and open up the curtains and look at each each other and sneak out of the house and do whatever we
00:09:02
wanted to do because we were bad kids football definitely changed us the coaches and stuff like that just helping
00:09:09
us through this life because we didn't have it easy growing up Durante was 6' 3 in tall and 250 lb and was very athletic
00:09:20
his cousin Isaiah said he could do a lot of things big boys like him couldn't really do he was fast and he could catch
00:09:27
the ball real good there are quite a few stories in the local papers throughout duron's High
00:09:34
School football career in which his prowess on the field is reported he was a star defensive tackle on Central's
00:09:41
Rebels football team and earned himself a scholarship to a small College in another state but the school was
00:09:48
requiring that Durante bring up his SAT scores so he took a year off after high school and worked and studied for his
00:09:56
entrance exams he was he was preparing to go to summer football camp and he held down two jobs one at Walmart and
00:10:04
one at a local restaurant until he was laid off during the pandemic then his mom bought a house in Ferguson a suburb
00:10:11
of St Louis and the family relocated again to the town of about 20,000 people 13 miles Northwest of St
00:10:19
Louis on April 23rd 2021 Durante left the Ferguson house in the company of some friends from his Alternative High
00:10:28
School in Park Hills so he left the house that night with people that his mother didn't know that well he told his
00:10:35
mom that one of them would drop him off at his grandmother's house this is Kimberly Robinson she still lived in
00:10:41
Park Hills but Dante never showed up this next bit of information is all from a statement released by Madison County
00:10:49
Sheriff Katie McCutchen on April 29th on the Sheriff's Department's Facebook page this is what
00:10:57
they put on there captain on Sunday April 25th at approximately 3:01 a.m. Madison County dispatch received a 911
00:11:05
call from a resident located at 1773 Highway Z in Fredericktown in reference to a
00:11:13
21-year-old male shot in the head and was not conscious in the 911 call a man who identifies himself as James Wade
00:11:23
says he needs cops in an ambulance apparently a guy just shot himself he says to the dispatcher he
00:11:30
confirms the highway z address a girl in the background can be heard crying and yelling something like I hate this he
00:11:39
confirms that the victim is not breathing and then tells someone in the background to check and see if he's
00:11:45
breathing he is gasping for air it sounds like he says when asked the victim's age the caller says he's 19 20
00:11:55
21 something like that where was he shot the dispatcher ask in the head the caller says no he was not alert or
00:12:03
conscious the sheriff's statement continued Madison County Sheriff's Office Madison County EMS and Cherokee
00:12:10
pass fire department was dispatched to this location upon arrival to the scene the male subject was located in the
00:12:18
Attic area of the residence and was found to be deceased the statement said the dead man
00:12:25
was identified as Dante Martin age 19 Sheriff McCutchen's Facebook statement went on to address the autopsy of the
00:12:34
deceased saying an autopsy was performed on the deceased on Monday April 26th 2021 at the St Francis County morg in
00:12:44
Farmington Missouri the initial investigation was led by the Madison County Sheriff's and Madison County
00:12:50
coroner's office with the assistance of the Missouri State Highway Patrol preliminary evidence revealed the male
00:12:57
subject died from a cell inflicted gunshot wound to the head once the final autopsy results and all witness
00:13:03
statements have been received the complete report will be submitted to the Madison County prosecutor's office for
00:13:10
further review so 4 days after the 911 call about Durante being shot the sheriff had preliminarily concluded that
00:13:21
this was a suicide and said so publicly well we all know my feelings about them making statements too early
00:13:29
take your time say you're doing an investigation let the evidence lead you to your final findings you're exactly
00:13:38
right Captain because they are saying in their own statement this is not the final
00:13:44
autopsy uh it is an autopsy that we performed and this is what we found preliminary evidence is showing us that
00:13:51
this was a self-inflicted gunshot wound my guess is that preliminary evidence that they're talking about is less
00:13:59
scientific and more witness statements right and so you're right if this is not the final autopsy then why release
00:14:09
anything at all because you've not finished your job you've not completed the work and the other thing too if
00:14:15
you're going to make such a statement that could be found to be controversial which ends up being just
00:14:23
that maybe release a more detailed statement back it up with facts an actual evidence it's a very brief
00:14:30
statement that says hey we reviewed it this is what happened but they don't really tell you how they got to that
00:14:37
conclusion makes you question why a 19-year-old is in a house that we he obviously doesn't know the house that
00:14:45
well but why is he in the atct by himself and where did he get this firearm again that goes back to their
00:14:52
statement we don't have much information we don't know what those witness statements would be so so it's hard to
00:14:59
even say that he was in that space in that Attic by himself right it gets really wishy-washy here on this whole
00:15:07
thing and that's what we're going to tear through right now because immediately Dante's mother and
00:15:13
grandmother both dispute the suicide findings they're saying look this kid was not
00:15:20
suicidal they say that Dante was a big happy Jolly kid and that seems to be an opinion that shared by his friends and
00:15:30
family as well well but we all know depression is a [ __ ] right and not always does somebody show signs of
00:15:40
depression to others you're exactly right and that's such a such a sad thing and you can understand maybe Mom and
00:15:48
Grandma have it wrong maybe that he was holding on to some kind of dark secret or maybe this was something he was able
00:15:56
to keep away from his family and of course unfortunately we've all seen cases where the family is the last to
00:16:03
know that their loved one is in fact suicidal but we also have some evidence of his mindset I mean he is working two
00:16:13
jobs that takes a lot of energy um motivation to work at a Walmart and a restaurant so I I'd be interested to see
00:16:24
how many hours he was working but to me that that is evident of somebody that's more motivated trying to do something
00:16:31
with their lives yeah and keep in mind this is going to be going on after everything got shut down and so he did
00:16:39
lose one of those jobs because of the shutdown I this is one thing that's going to perplex me for the rest of my
00:16:45
days Captain I don't understand why the mom and pop small stores and restaurants
00:16:51
got closed during the pandemic but the Giants that don't need any money like Walmart and Target were allowed to stay
00:16:58
open and Shuffle in as many people as they could but what I see here and this is one of these stories that look I
00:17:05
don't love the overall story of this case I love the beginning of the story because what do we see here we see a
00:17:12
young man a teenage a teenager who is not necessarily doing the right things right he's skipping out of school maybe
00:17:20
kind of half-assing it along the way yeah but the system is not set up the school system is not set up for most
00:17:27
kids but what I love about the story and I think where you're going is somebody says okay well you might not like this
00:17:34
system and this system might not favor you but do you like sports do you is there some interest that I could get you
00:17:43
involved in I mean I hated school awful student but because I enjoyed the music programs that that was the gateway to
00:17:53
try to be a good student you didn't want to miss class because you're going to miss
00:17:59
jazz band or you're going to miss Orchestra class or so you went to school because those classes kept you kept you
00:18:06
coming back and so same here oh I want to play sports well I have to go to school I have to do mathematics and
00:18:13
English and science classes in order to be able to play sports well and I don't you know the
00:18:21
system doesn't really apply here in my opinion this is a setup where the kids's just not going to school I mean doesn't
00:18:29
matter no but the reason what set up there if you don't I'm attend what I'm saying is he might have gave up on
00:18:35
school because it just wasn't working for him what I love is exactly what you said you see a kid that that is
00:18:43
presented an opportunity where and kudos to this coach who went out of the his way or her
00:18:51
way to say hey look there's some here's something for you a little light at the end of the tunnel if you will if you can
00:18:59
get your attendance up and actually participate in class and attend the classes there might be a spot for you on
00:19:06
this football team and so what we're seeing here to me is a kid that can find motivation or be presented with
00:19:14
motivation and then work toward earning a goal an achievement and he did that so
00:19:19
much so that it translated into a scholarship offer for him and now he's kind of back at that step again where
00:19:29
hey I'm out of school for a year but I'm working toward getting those SAT scores
00:19:34
up because my scholarship is still waiting for me so of course we have his family that are saying they're going to
00:19:40
present the ideas that hey there's good things going on in this kid's life that are I mean everything's moving in the
00:19:49
right direction for Durante at this time and that's why they point out that hey if he were suicidal this point in his
00:19:57
life doesn't make any sense that he would be suicidal at this point in his life because things were bad before
00:20:03
they're not so bad now and they're moving in the right direction like we so we know that his mother Erica recently
00:20:10
purchased a home in Ferguson for herself and her kids this is the first time in Dante's life that he has his own bedroom
00:20:18
rather than sharing one with some of his siblings and then we have video footage
00:20:24
that shows that he was still in the process of settling into his new house and his new bedroom Erica his mom bought
00:20:32
Durante new sneakers new clothes and a flat screen TV for his room so according to the family Durante was very happy
00:20:41
Erica told the TV news reporter that Durante was so excited about their new living situation that he was showing off
00:20:48
his new room to friends on video calls even though there wasn't even Furniture in his room yet right and so again
00:20:56
they're just kind of underlying in and echoing this idea that it just didn't really make sense that Dante who had
00:21:04
challenges in the past would select this time in his life when things were looking up to take his own life and
00:21:10
they'd have more evidence than anybody else in the world you know his mother and grandmother yes and we have NBC 5
00:21:18
News who interviewed Dante's former High School football coach who had visited with Durante just a month before his
00:21:26
death this is Corey schweiss who said he was happy big smile on his face I asked
00:21:32
him how everything was going and he said great and he was having a good time and
00:21:38
again we also Circle back to the idea that we don't always know everything that's going on with an individual if
00:21:47
they don't choose to share well and and suicide is not something that's always something that's a lingering issue true
00:21:56
I believe there are some people that are are very capable and having their life go in the right direction and sometimes
00:22:03
just wake up on the wrong side of the bed and that day they make a decision that's a fatal one like everything else
00:22:10
it can be impulsive at times now there are many things that we simply do not know in this case and we're not going to
00:22:18
sit here in the garage and try to pretend otherwise and what we do know in this case only raises more questions for
00:22:26
example there are no Det Tails th this is this is the [ __ ] sorry this case gets
00:22:32
me a little worked up this is the stuff that that we really really need to be told so we can
00:22:40
make heads or Tales of what the hell happened here because you have a very suspicious looking situation on the
00:22:48
surface underneath the surface however you want to shake it out until we know what the heck happen so what we do know
00:22:54
only raises more questions for example there are no details about where the gun came from whether the gun was collected
00:23:01
at the scene or even what type of gun it was and Sheriff Katie McCutchen isn't talking they're not filling in any of
00:23:10
those blanks for us well that's [ __ ] another thing we do not know is what exactly Durante was doing at this house
00:23:17
in the first place MH what is he doing at the place where he died his family says they have no idea how he ended up
00:23:25
where he did I have a couple of thoughts but we don't have anything that's concrete to tell us why he would be at
00:23:32
this house and there's reasons to point out and suggest that maybe this might not be the most inviting or welcoming
00:23:39
home for Durante to be hanging out at the house where Dante was shot was the location for a party of kids from a
00:23:49
different High School not Central so him being 19 years old makes some sense he ends up at a party amongst his peers it
00:23:58
was a girls 18th birthday party at a home in Fredericktown this is a Tiny Town of
00:24:04
about 4,000 about 27 miles south of Park Hills there are conflicting accounts of
00:24:10
how Dante ended up at this party reportedly he was brought there by some friends another rumor is that Dante did
00:24:18
not want to go to this party because he knew that there would be some guys or a guy that he had a beef with mhm
00:24:27
according to One Source keep in mind Dante's situation he's working hard to and studying trying to get those SAT
00:24:34
scores up because he wants to take advantage of the opportunity of that scholarship this does not strike me and
00:24:41
again 19 we're all a little dumb in different ways I certainly was I was super dumb you and I were leading the
00:24:48
pack of dumbness yeah I was I was the head of the class I'm happy knock on wood I'm happy to be alive but so we
00:24:56
know we we can fact in 19-year-old male dumbness but what I see here is a guy that's not going to screw
00:25:05
up this opportunity that's being handed to him and so showing up at a place where you know something might go down
00:25:11
or police get called yeah isn't going to help you on your way to that scholarship
00:25:16
well also maybe you just don't want to fight somebody true you know hey it's Friday night you're working your butt
00:25:22
off the last thing you want to do on your free time is then have a fight you know you just want to hang out with
00:25:29
people have a good night according to one source and please take this with a shot of whiskey and grain of salt as it
00:25:39
has not been confirmed by any of the authorities again they're not really saying anything but this piece of
00:25:45
information hasn't even been confirmed by Dante's family but what the rumor is is that there was a white teen at this
00:25:54
party who had been arrested for first-degree assault in the p and for whatever reason this guy believed that
00:26:01
Dante had ratted him out to the cops and the rumor that was going around is this dude wanted payback and he was
00:26:10
preparing to get it aided by you know a group of his friends now we were able to
00:26:16
verify that this guy named online as Adam Rulo was indeed arrested for serious assault on another guy and it
00:26:25
involved a shooting we found this article in the Park Hills Missouri Daily Journal dated April 15
00:26:32
2021 just 3 weeks before Dante's death it says an area man faces felony charges in St Francis County after allegedly
00:26:42
shooting another man in February Adam ruo 19 of Park Hills was charged on Wednesday with first deegree assault and
00:26:49
armed criminal action according to a probable cause statement from the St Francis County Sheriff's Department ruo
00:26:56
reportedly shot a man on February 17th at a location on Route DD south of Farmington the bullet reportedly hit the
00:27:05
alleged victim in his stomach area and lodged near the man's spine the report states that doctors are unable to remove
00:27:14
the bullet from the man's body due to its location the lodge projectile now reportedly prevents the man from
00:27:21
engaging in any sporting activities court records show Rulo has pre PR convictions of fourth degree assault
00:27:31
stemming from a 2019 incident and he plad guilty to the charge and was given a suspended sentence of two years of
00:27:38
unsupervised probation yeah so we have this guy that this teenager that wants to be a gangster and then we have this
00:27:45
other teenager that not only is he trying to get his life together his mother is a shining example of
00:27:53
progression through life and and winning at the game of life through hard work and you know this thing we review this
00:28:03
situation from the newspaper article here and we understand it's a totally unrelated incident but it does show that
00:28:10
one this Adam Rulo was involved in a skirmish right before Ron's death with a firearm exactly two he likes to shoot
00:28:20
people yeah so if the rumor was that he wanted to get payback against Dante this
00:28:27
statement could hold some weight this rumor could hold some weight because there is this information backing some
00:28:34
of that thought up right and no matter if you're 63 250 you're not going to go in uh to a
00:28:42
gunfight with fisticuffs so that might be another reason why he didn't want to go to a party where this individual
00:28:50
might be at because he knows this individual whether it's he has extra friends but he knows this individual is
00:28:57
probably carrying a gun and probably going around telling everybody that he's carrying around guns again this could
00:29:04
mean absolutely zero right but what it does is it starts to piece together that we have this guy that we know to be
00:29:14
involved in gun violence that may or may not have been at this party we don't have confirmation that Adam ruo was at
00:29:23
the party just allegations posted online by people claiming to be in know saying
00:29:28
that he was in fact there so we have if they are right and he was there then we have a situation where we have a guy
00:29:37
that we know to be involved in gun violence is at the same place at the same time as someone who ends up being
00:29:45
killed by way of gun well this along with the evidence and thought process of his mother and his grandmother these are
00:29:56
reasons that you don't come out and give findings of suicide until you're absolutely 100% sure thank
00:30:05
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[Music] that all right we're back cheers to the people this nasty people in the front
00:32:37
and uh cheers to you Colonel but also look we're not experts we're not Health mental health experts so anything that
00:32:45
we're saying um know that we take suicide very serious and if you are struggling with anything a number that
00:32:53
you can call is 1 80027 7 38255 that's the National Suicide Prevention lifeline and they will be
00:33:04
happy to talk with you as much as you need it now Dante's shooting Captain took place at a home owned by a man
00:33:13
named James Wade reportedly that night was his daughter's 18th birthday party in an interview with Katie SK St Louis
00:33:23
Wade said that he got home from fishing about 30 minutes before he heard the shot he said he was downstairs and he
00:33:32
heard the gunshot from upstairs he called 911 to try to help he said it needs to be said that this guy Wade has
00:33:41
never been named by police in this case in fact some mainstream media Outlets won't even publish his name but he has a
00:33:49
public Facebook page and has posted openly about this case and acknowledged the shooting at his home in Social media
00:33:57
and in interviews so we consider his name fair game Dante's mother Erica Lotz says that her son had zero connections
00:34:07
to this Wade guy according to NBC 5 News Wade said that his daughter didn't know
00:34:13
Durante well but he showed up at their house with some other friends who the other party attendees were has never
00:34:22
been released to the public my guest here is Captain she turning 18 maybe a certain percentage maybe even
00:34:31
a large percentage of these other party attendees might be minors and that might
00:34:36
be the thought for not releasing the names and we know how high school parties go we don't know if this was
00:34:43
supposed to be this huge Birthday Bash or if it was hey we're having 15 20 people over and then that turns into
00:34:52
everybody and their brother showing up I want to throw something out here too because I think this is lost in the mix
00:34:59
here because there's a lot to get heated about in this case a lot to get worked up on and sometimes we can Overlook or
00:35:06
underthink some of the information that's provided to us and you're not going to hear me come
00:35:13
to the defense of this James Wade very often heck this might be the only time in this episode that I do so but because
00:35:23
we don't have Clarity or an understanding of like you said Captain the the parameters of this
00:35:30
party we also need to keep in mind there's a chance there's a chance that James Wade may not have known this party
00:35:38
was going to be happening in his house right high school kids I I don't know if this is a news flash for anybody out
00:35:44
there if it is um you you late to the party yourself but uh news flash sometimes high school
00:35:52
kids have parties at their parents' homes and the parents don't know about it and maybe they thought maybe his
00:36:00
daughter thought dad's going to be gone the whole night fishing and came home and found oh there's a party in my house
00:36:07
and for all we know he was tipped off by somebody hey do you know there's all these people at your
00:36:12
house and then we go back to something else that we again it's a lot of we do not know um we don't know what Dante was
00:36:22
doing in the Attic of this house or if anybody else was with him at the time that this gun goes off well it's also
00:36:31
not clear because an addict here to me you'd have to get up into somebody's crawl space and so you'd be going
00:36:40
through a little Rinky Dink ladder through a little hole or was there addict something where it was like a a
00:36:48
third level that they just used as storage or something yeah I'm guessing this must be
00:36:54
a I I have no idea you're you're right some of them are quite small and tight spaces there's other ones that uh people
00:37:01
turn into rooms right in their home heck Clark Griswald spent a whole afternoon in his attic one day MH so yeah we don't
00:37:10
know what he was doing up in this space of the house and if there was anyone with him at the time when this gun went
00:37:15
off if you could prove that there wasn't anybody with him then we'd have a pretty
00:37:20
open and shut case right again they've they being the sheriff's department have come to a conclusion but
00:37:28
they're not telling us how they arrived at that conclusion now on the flip side of what I said about James Wade not
00:37:36
knowing about this party that there's a small chance that that happened rumors are that James Wade was known to host
00:37:43
these types of parties where there is underage drinking going on so a responsible
00:37:52
parent right there's also a rumor and if Mr Wade wants to come out at me for some
00:37:58
of these rumors uh this is all stuff that can be found online uh this is not stuff that I'm
00:38:05
just creating and making up so there you need to come out a lot of people but there's a strong I would say there's a
00:38:14
good rumor going around that he might be involved in some drug dealing or low-level drug dealing and maybe these
00:38:25
parties if in fact he is is hosting or allowing these parties to go down at his home right that maybe some of the party
00:38:32
attendees are his customers if you want to call them that again we can't verify any of this these are all rumors and
00:38:39
accusations posted by other people on the Madison County Sheriff's Facebook page and Wade's own page they might not
00:38:48
be customers but he might view this as a business opportunity now this next bit contains information that we cannot back
00:38:57
up we cannot find any articles reporting it but many people in the area have pointed out in the wake of Dante's death
00:39:05
that there was a previous suicide of a young man on James Wade's property now again we cannot verify this
00:39:14
but in a way James Wade himself did so someone screen grabbed a text response he sent to their phone we don't know
00:39:24
what it was in response to but here's what Wade's response said hey stupid ass it's only two suicides that have
00:39:32
happened and I wasn't here for either of them you blank [ __ ] it goes on but it's just more
00:39:40
derogatory and insulting language so we'll leave it out oh come on read it well the interesting thing here Captain
00:39:50
is I don't think it's very hard for people to believe that a suicide went down at
00:39:58
someone's house now if you told me that two of them went down at someone's house something's
00:40:05
wrong right don't you start to question everything at that point you go okay we need to review both of these
00:40:14
situations in detail and really get to the bottom of what's going on because it doesn't make no sense no now what makes
00:40:23
James Wade extremely suspicious in the eyes of the mar family and the activist Community is that he is a racist and
00:40:31
white supremacist his Facebook profile picture is not a photo of himself but rather a cartoon drawing of a middle
00:40:39
finger imposed against an American flag background with the caption here's my apology for being white according to NBC
00:40:48
5 News in 2017 and 2018 Wade posted pictures on his Facebook page including one of a black man with a chain around
00:40:56
his neck and the words my great great great grandfather's tractor oh so this guy weade is a giant piece of [ __ ] yes
00:41:07
yes he is you can smell the racism well and that's what we're we're pointing out
00:41:12
here is that even if Let's Pretend everything went down just as as we're told that it did right this
00:41:22
guy is not a good guy and horrible guy and even just this happening one suicide on his property of a black young
00:41:34
male should be looked at under the lens of Suspicion yes I mean look we talked about AA Reynolds case and one thing
00:41:46
that was local rumor that we didn't report on in that case because we had a lot of facts in
00:41:53
that case but one rumor that I believe to have been true is that when the police showed up to the call of this
00:42:01
missing little kid there's beer bottles and beer cans and paraphernalia all over
00:42:07
the house paraphernalia don't you go into that situation saying there's a missing toddler and this is what I'm
00:42:13
seeing is going on in the house when all these kids are here and you look at that
00:42:18
under a lens of Suspicion you show up to a racist home where a person of a different ethnicity
00:42:27
dies on his property you're looking at this with a suspicion with some suspicion yeah
00:42:35
because your job is to Serve and Protect every citizen no matter what race they are but on top of that you owe it to
00:42:45
this family you owe it to the community to say this Wade guy is suspicious because of his
00:42:54
ignorant um thoughts on the world and of other people and so we have to do we need to double down on our due diligence
00:43:05
and make sure that we are as transparent as possible not only with the family but
00:43:11
the community well murder and violence involves a certain level of anger and hate and you can obviously see that this
00:43:19
man has some hate in him yes he has a motive the other thing that points to him being a racist is and this again is
00:43:28
from his Social Media stuff was another picture this is of a black dog and the words I had a black dog once I named him
00:43:37
food stamps yeah so these all appear to be memes constructed by other people and
00:43:44
and maybe Wade reposted these but it's clear that he endorses the racist sentiments that they express and we
00:43:52
don't know if dur Durante knew hey this house that you we're going to this party not only is there a guy
00:44:00
that might show up that I don't want anything to do with but her this girl's dad is a known
00:44:08
racist MH and maybe that would be another reason you wouldn't want to go to this party as for who killed
00:44:15
Durante James Wade said in one of several interviews I know that I didn't do it and I tried to help him but
00:44:23
nobody's talking about that so I guess he's looking for praise for calling 911 but there's more after Dante's death
00:44:30
Wade posted the following image on his Facebook page a photo of a white man a middle class dad looking type of dude
00:44:40
with a large handgun pointing at something off camera he's standing in a home shielding a wife and baby behind
00:44:49
him the caption says don't get it twisted I believe all lives matter regardless of color however ever that
00:44:56
belief is Gull and voided if you invade my home and endanger my family I don't know exactly what message
00:45:05
he's trying to put out with that but at the very least when you're being talked about and you have someone who dies from
00:45:14
a gun related incident inside your home not only are you racist and I I know that this these words go hand inand
00:45:24
and are often in the same sentence so I'm no genius here but not only do you come off as racist you come off very
00:45:32
incredibly ignorant at the same time no and the thing too is we we're supposed to applaud you we're supposed to give
00:45:40
you praise because you called 911 like go [ __ ] yourself now many people online saw this
00:45:49
statement as some type of confession particularly because his daughter Carrie posted that there wasn't
00:45:56
a party and Durante was not supposed to be there her posts are clearly trying to
00:46:02
divert blame from her family here's one of the post on Facebook quote there was no alcohol there wasn't even a party my
00:46:10
sister's celebration was over before midnight he wasn't even there or invited to our family [ __ ] he was there with his
00:46:19
friend Zach so so that's where you I sit there and go well which is it you know he wasn't there he was there there was a
00:46:28
party there wasn't a part party it's almost like she's trying to imply well he wasn't there and then so he was
00:46:34
trespassing well public so if you're stating that this individual is trespassing your father is now posting
00:46:42
uh a picture stating hey I I'll shoot anybody that's threatening my family or trespassing on my property so are you
00:46:50
saying that you killed this guy and now you're you're stating into suicide well James Wade publicly has stuck to
00:46:59
his story uh regardless of what his daughter is posting online piece of [ __ ] he said that he was downstairs and
00:47:07
Durante suddenly shot himself upstairs he has not tried to portray Durante as an intruder at any time or cite the
00:47:15
stand your ground defense instead he's saying that Durante did this to himself let's get into some more of the family's
00:47:24
questions that they have in in Greater detail here uh we have Dante's mom Erica who has not been happy with the
00:47:32
information or lack thereof that the family has been getting or not getting from the Madison County Sheriff's Office
00:47:38
but here's my question if they ruled it a suicide then the case is closed and they
00:47:46
would have every opportunity to receive the whole case File have they been able to do this yet
00:47:55
yes they have and and that's where we end up with more so they're saying we got the case fil but there of blanks no
00:48:02
they don't have the case File they don't have the case File but they we have some
00:48:05
more information that is coming from his family rather than the Sheriff's Office and she is saying that his mother
00:48:14
has said publicly that she never spoke with anyone from the sheriff's department until a month after her son
00:48:22
died and she told a reporter that she never received official word of Dante's death she heard about it from someone
00:48:30
else you know they didn't show up with officers on her doorstep to inform her what happened further she was never
00:48:36
given any details or explanations of the circumstances from the sheriff's department Erica recorded a conversation
00:48:46
she had with Sheriff Katie McCutchen when she finally got her on the phone this was in May of
00:48:53
2021 the sheriff would not discuss things like the caliber of the gun that killed Durante or where the gun came
00:49:00
from which that's a big deal because there's nobody saying that it was durante's gun that he showed up
00:49:06
at the scene with a gun that he had a gun that he owned a gun yeah they're notal where the gun came
00:49:14
from they're not even telling you that they have evidence that he shot a gun and then on so then on top of that you
00:49:21
have this racist known at least low-level drug dealer that might have weapons in the
00:49:28
house possible and if it comes from you know [ __ ] Wade if it's his gun well there
00:49:38
there's more questions well in the recording it can be heard that um Sheriff Katie McCutchen says that she
00:49:45
could not discuss the ongoing investigation with the the victims mother she put Erica in touch with the
00:49:51
Madison County Sheriff's a Sheriff Deputy named Nick Adams who also gave her virtually no information and refused
00:49:58
to discuss the gun part of the case NBC 5 News got a hold of that recorded conversation so you can find that uh if
00:50:07
you do a little bit of digging here's a a piece from it that I found interesting
00:50:12
we have Erica the mother saying do you have anybody a suspect are you going to arrest anybody and the Deputy Adams
00:50:19
replying I can't really discuss any of that but I can tell you I've talked to everyone that was there that night I've
00:50:25
taken statements from everybody and the investigation is ongoing Erica can you tell me where the gun came from Adams
00:50:33
responds I cannot ma'am here's the other difficult thing here we have within a few days of them saying publicly on
00:50:42
their Facebook page we've done a partial autopsy it's not finalized yet we have some preliminary evidence they don't say
00:50:53
what that is exactly but we've ruled this to be a suicide and here you have a recorded conversation that is taking
00:51:00
place after that information is released on the sheriff department on their Facebook page to where the deputy is
00:51:08
clearly telling the victim's mother we cannot discuss an open investigation that's them confirming it's an open
00:51:16
investigation and if it's not then don't use those words M and and that is that's
00:51:23
always the wall that some of these officers stand behind when they don't want to be it's not just
00:51:31
about being forthcoming it's they are aware they're being looked at under a lens of
00:51:37
Suspicion and so their best answer is no answer at all and another odd and concerning twist Erica says she never
00:51:46
recovered durante's personal items she has never like his clothing he was wearing his shoes his wallet have never
00:51:54
been returned to to her the Madison County coroner Scott fallace has told Lots uh his mother all of her son's
00:52:05
belongings went with him to the mortuary which handled the funeral and the representatives from the
00:52:13
mortuary said that they never received the any personal belongings of Dantes from the corner so it's uh one person
00:52:22
pointing the finger at another and then there's a finger pointing right back at them
00:52:29
now this is odd we have a situation where she does end up receiving maybe something that
00:52:38
could provide some evidence in this case and that is durante's phone and this is a few days after his
00:52:48
death one of the teens who picked up Durante from Erica's house came over to her
00:52:57
home a few days after the death and brought Dante's cell phone to Erica and Erica told NBC News through tears all of
00:53:06
his contacts were gone his text messages were gone yeah that's shady I would like
00:53:11
to know more about this phone and this is where look Dante's mother and grandmother and family are doing
00:53:19
everything that they should be doing in my opinion in this case they're getting answers that don't make sense that don't
00:53:26
add up that they don't like so they are going to the public and saying look there's a problem here we don't know or
00:53:34
understand exactly what the problem is but there's a problem so I applaud them for that and I want to push a little
00:53:42
further can we learn some more information about this phone about durante's phone could it be as simple as
00:53:51
someone was trying to access the phone and it and it cleared itself off you know after too many tries of the wrong
00:53:58
password or that's not what would happen you know it lock your phone out but it's
00:54:03
not going to delete your contacts and i' I'd also want to know what what was the
00:54:07
call history do we have do we have call history do we have text message history if all that stuff is
00:54:15
cleared you have a very suspicious item well I would believe that you could obtain some of that information from the
00:54:23
service provider yeah possibly or if it was backed up in some way but again we don't know the make and the model of the
00:54:30
phone but still that's very suspicious that all the contacts and everything would be cleared yeah the service
00:54:38
provider would have a a call log of incoming and outcoming calls and probably incoming and outgoing text not
00:54:45
the actual messages themselves but who the numbers were going to right and so that's what I'm saying I I I would like
00:54:53
if if his family is looking for a public outcry then I urge them to do what the sheriff's department is not willing to
00:55:03
do for them put out some more information let's let's really try to stir the pot with some some more
00:55:10
information because is this there are phones that are are easily wiped clean more than others mhm and that can be
00:55:21
done unintentionally is this something that someone actually had to physically go
00:55:27
through and and clear everything out I would like a little more information on that I would also especially if if Mom
00:55:35
or the next of kin could contact the service provider and try to get some information from
00:55:42
them and and I encourage them to do that because you know who's not doing it is the sheriff's department well they're
00:55:47
probably doing it they're just not release any of that information because they want to only release things that
00:55:54
fit their n narrative and I I think the other thing too is with this they didn't
00:55:58
even bother to collect the phone yeah the night when they retrieve the body from the
00:56:05
home so I and I'm I wasn't there I don't know if they were asking about the phone
00:56:10
and and and searching for it themselves but it seems like when you show up and somebody dies from a
00:56:16
gunshot suicide at a party which is very odd a suicide at a at a party at a house that there has already been
00:56:28
another suicide well and the thing here too is I wrote down you know some questions I had
00:56:34
about the case and and the the night the the scene um and some of the the things that
00:56:41
could result in evidence and one of the questions I wrote down here is now that Dante's family has the phone in their
00:56:50
possession uh we know that they received it a few days after after he passed away
00:56:57
but did they at any time attempt to give it to the authorities to turn it over to
00:57:03
law enforcement and yeah but why would you turn over anything to the law enforcement that's not if they haven't
00:57:10
already don't do that because again it doesn't seem that the sheriff's department is overly concerned with
00:57:16
anything other than what they have already found or concluded and again I don't know much about this Fone I don't
00:57:23
I don't know the bank and model but if it has a SIM card or something like that you
00:57:29
could you know all you'd have to do is get that SIM card out and then there'd be no information on the phone well and
00:57:35
you could hire a forensic technician someone that that's that has expertise in this area and they can go through but
00:57:43
I think if that SIM card's gone that there might not be a way to retrieve any of that information but again it's a
00:57:50
expert it's a tidbit of uh it's a little knowledge nugget but we don't have have
00:57:55
the whole meal there right there we don't know if we don't know why it doesn't have any information on it is it
00:58:01
as simple as you said that somebody removed the SIM card again if Dante and this is me pleading with them if you are
00:58:09
looking for a public outcry to get the answers that you deserve us as the public we need some
00:58:15
more information tell us everything about that phone well the sad thing is there already should be outcry I mean
00:58:22
the fact that they're ruling into suicide before they collect all the evidence there's two suicide at this
00:58:28
dirt bag at this known racist house possible underage drinking underage drug use um you also have uh I don't know was
00:58:39
he a convicted felin that was there that had an issue well again I I want to make
00:58:44
sure that we we're discussing a lot of rumors here in the garage today and I'm separating a couple of those rumors out
00:58:53
from the others because we don't have anything to back it up so the things that we need to be very clear on is one
00:59:03
we don't know if James Wade deals any types of any kind of drugs or illegal substances at all we we do not
00:59:12
know that we don't have anything that that really strongly points to that other than there's local rumor that
00:59:19
that's going on we also don't have other than people saying that this this uh felon was there that night
00:59:31
we don't have anything other than that where in some cases we have like James Wade himself saying there was only two
00:59:39
suicides here so that rumor seems to have some truth or at least enough that James Wade is defending himself on that
00:59:47
level uh so well and and it's also the the conflicting stories between him and his daugh
00:59:55
about how many people were there when the party took place it's you know it's very suspicious
01:00:02
now you get his phone back and there's no information on the phone even more suspicious the fact that cops are not
01:00:09
even it's almost like we're not contacting you I mean you're again you're supposed to
01:00:18
Serve and Protect you're not serving this family even if if you you believe 100%
01:00:27
that it was and the evidence shows that it's a suicide sit down with the family explain it to them take the time that's
01:00:34
your job Serve and Protect doesn't doesn't matter what color the victim is well that might be the case
01:00:48
Captain it either they're not they're not sharing this information or doing their due diligence because of the the
01:00:54
color of the victim's family or maybe they just don't do it at all maybe they're just shitty at their jobs maybe
01:01:03
they don't do it regardless of the color of anybody that they're just bad at what
01:01:07
they do and guess what bad sheriffs don't get reelected now it shouldn't you said you have you have a community
01:01:15
that's primarily white and that Community needs to stand up for all their citizens and say this this isn't
01:01:22
right and they need to start thinking what if this was my son what if this was my daughter would I want
01:01:28
answers yes you would and you need to stand up and when it's time to uh reelect any of these Knuckleheads you
01:01:37
say we ain't doing it because they they play privilege and and and use a piece of [ __ ] if you stand by and let this
01:01:50
stuff happen this is not right what's happening to this family and again all they want is answers all
01:01:59
they want is some cooperation that's all they [Music] want thank you for joining us here in
01:02:15
the garage for everything true crime check us out at true Crim garage.com make sure you sign up on our mailing
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list and until tomorrow so much more casee to get to be good be kind and don't [Music]
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