259: Teacher Grooms 15 Year Old, Teen Murders His Parents & BDSM Sex Slaves

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Speaker 10 Hey, True Crime Besties, welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialistly.

Speaker 10 Hey, everybody, welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialously. I am your host, Annie Elise, and I am here to guide you through everything going down this week in true crime.

Speaker 10 And it's only Thursday, guys, but it is a lot. There is so much happening.
Not only are there a ton of new cases that we're following, but Lori Vallo's trial is fully underway.

Speaker 10 I mean, we had opening statements already. She is representing herself, if you don't know that, which is just beyond me.

Speaker 10 There's also an interview that came out over the weekend, another one that she gave after the notorious dateline one with Keith Morrison, where she is just doubling down on everything, that she's the victim in all of this, how this is all happening for a reason, and how she's in jail right now to help save these women and get them through.

Speaker 10 And it's just like, ugh, gag me, honestly. It's like this self-righteous wannabe martyr in all of this.
And it just, it makes me sick. We also have Karen Reed's trial going on, jury being seated.

Speaker 10 That's full steam ahead.

Speaker 10 And I'll just let you guys know right here, while we were planning on covering Karen Reed's trial and giving you guys updates, it looks like we're actually possibly going to be in the courtroom now.

Speaker 10 I'm waiting on a few details, but we have been in touch with Karen's family. And apparently it's such a small courtroom that you can't get in like a regular trial.

Speaker 10 The only way you can get a seat is it's very selective and you have to like get in with a family member or somebody who's a part of the trial.

Speaker 10 And so we may be going with Karen's family and covering the trial so stay tuned for that. Other than that, what else is going on? It's Thursday.
My face is a little bit pink.

Speaker 10 I apologize if you're watching this on YouTube and you're like, Annie, why is your face so red? I went and had microneedling done over the weekend.

Speaker 10 And usually my face bounces back after like 48 hours, but it's taking a little bit of time this time around, which life hack for all my girlies out there.

Speaker 10 Microneedling has like changed my skin entirely. I feel like I've tried all the different skincares like retinol, trentinoin, all these things, but I started microneedling.
Gosh, when was it?

Speaker 10 I guess late fall. I just had my third or fourth session, and I have noticed such a difference in my skin.
So even though I'm a little pink right now, I don't have any makeup on.

Speaker 10 And you can kind of see like basically what it is. And sorry for anybody who's not interested, but I'm going to tell you anyway.
Basically, what it is, is it's like a pen that they use.

Speaker 10 It's not filler, it's not injections, don't worry, but it's like a pen that they use and it has a ton of little micro needles at the tip of it, hence the name. And you can use exomes.

Speaker 10 You can also use like your own plasma with that's extracted from your blood. I don't go that far.
I just use the exomes and they go over your skin with this pen.

Speaker 10 They numb you first, but they go and it takes about 10 minutes, maybe 15. They go over your skin with this pen.

Speaker 10 And it like produces collagen. It's produce, it like triggers your skin to like resurface itself.
I don't know all the correct terminology, obviously.

Speaker 10 But what I will say is that my skin has never been been clearer it has never been glowier and so um you do it like every six weeks you can if you want and only for like three times and then you can i think do maintenance maybe i don't know once a year but anyway um i went and got that so i'm a little you can hear it ASMR.

Speaker 10 I'm rubbing my cheek right now. It's a little sandpapery because the new skin's turning over, but I love it.
I swear by it. So

Speaker 10 everybody should check it out if you're interested. I don't know.
All right. You obviously aren't here because this isn't a skincare podcast.
So let me just shut up and get into the cases. Oh, wait.

Speaker 10 Wouldn't be true annie podcasting if I didn't get distracted. I also, this last weekend, went and saw Crime Junkie.
They're on tour.

Speaker 10 Little public service announcement, if you guys ever listen to Crime Junkie, but I went and saw them with my sister Amy, and it was a pretty good show. It was long.

Speaker 10 It was really long, but it was a great case, good coverage, and I found it pretty interesting. So that's what I did with my weekend.
My husband also is still in Morocco. He's running the MDS marathon.

Speaker 10 If you haven't heard of that, it is wild. It's six days, 155 miles, completely self-sufficient.
You have to carry your water on your back, your food on your back, everything.

Speaker 10 You can't shower for a week, obviously, because you're in the Sahara Desert.

Speaker 10 And then each night when you sleep, it's under a tent that you share with like six other people, but you have like, and you have like a sleeping mat, but that's it.

Speaker 10 And so all of the food he brought, it's, um, I don't know, what would you call it? Like astronaut food, basically, where it's like bagged and that's what he eats. And yeah, no showering.

Speaker 10 I think you have to like dig a hole and poop in it even. There's no toilets, obviously.
So he is finishing up now. He's on, what is it? Now it's the, I think he has one day left.
Yeah, one day left.

Speaker 10 The long stage is, that was yesterday. And that one is like last year.
He did it last year too. I don't know why he's doing it again this year.
He's crazy, but it's like 27.

Speaker 10 It took him 27 hours for that long stage.

Speaker 10 But yeah, so he, he that was my weekend he's still in morocco running because my husband's an ultra marathon runner if i haven't told you that myself i haven't run since i think 2019 but you know god bless him

Speaker 10 so that's what's going on in my life not that you care but figured i would just throw it out there why not give you a few little personal anecdotes of my life right so today i'm going to talk with you a little bit about what's happened with lori vallow and her opening statements where things are at with karen reed as well but i want to talk to you about some new cases that are breaking, and they're really unsettling.

Speaker 10 A lot of these have been also requests coming directly from you guys.

Speaker 10 But we have, once again, a creepo teacher who is a special ed teacher at that, who is now being accused of having sex with her 15-year-old student.

Speaker 10 However, what she's saying and claiming that really happened, you will have to hear it to believe it. It's pretty wild.

Speaker 10 We're also going to be talking about a 17-year-old teenager who murdered their parents and lived with their rotting bodies for weeks.

Speaker 10 Some college students who were unfortunately stabbed to death only days apart. A mother who killed her son after a trip to Disneyland.
This is one of the most horrific stories I've heard of.

Speaker 10 And I heard about it for the first time a couple weeks ago. And I wanted to have more details before we covered it because it's just so unsettling.

Speaker 10 And then we also are going to talk about a very successful realtor who allegedly would trap women and then hold them captive as sex slaves. So we're going to talk about all these new cases.

Speaker 10 We're going to talk about Lori, talk about Karen, maybe I'll throw in some other stuff and now let me just shut up and let's get into it.

Speaker 10 So I want to start with this special ed teacher who is now accused of having sex with her 15 year old student. And buckle up because this one is a roller coaster.

Speaker 10 Christina Formella is a 30 year old teacher in Downers Grove, Illinois. She worked at Downers Grove South High School where there she taught special ed.

Speaker 10 She was also a soccer coach for both the boys and the girls teams and was just very well liked. And on paper, honestly, she had it all.
I mean, she's beautiful.

Speaker 10 She recently married her college sweetheart. She had this great job.
And she was also very well respected by all of her colleagues.

Speaker 10 However, like so many cases we discuss, you would never guess what was going on behind the scenes.

Speaker 10 See, back in December of 2023, Christina was allegedly tutoring a 15-year-old freshman boy before school.

Speaker 10 He was also on the soccer team that she coached, and she was supposed to be in this position of trust, right? I mean, she coached him. She was tutoring him.
Seems like a relatively normal situation.

Speaker 10 Well, fast forward to March 15th, 2025. And this kid and his mom just like rolled up to the Downers Grove Police Department and dropped a complete bomb.

Speaker 10 Because it turns out this mom had found some very damning text messages on her son's phone. The text messages that I'm telling you, like made her stomach turn and drop.

Speaker 10 These texts were really explicit, like way inappropriate for a teacher and a 15-year-old student.

Speaker 10 I mean, we're talking about text messages where Christina is saying stuff like, I love you so much, baby. Even though this morning was short, it was perfect.

Speaker 10 To which then he texted back saying, I know, baby, it was so perfect, baby. So perfect.
And then she goes on to say to him, I just love having sex with you.

Speaker 10 Guys, when I tell you the level of cringe that I have from these text messages, look, I think I'm affectionate and sweet with my husband, but I don't even know that I would send him some of these text messages.

Speaker 10 The fact that she is sending this to a 15-year-old, a 15-year-old student, it is beyond. I mean, honestly, I just, what was this woman thinking? What was she thinking?

Speaker 10 So, of course, the police started digging.

Speaker 10 And when they did, they figured out that not only was Christina allegedly assaulting this kid, but apparently she had done so in one of her tutoring sessions in a classroom, a classroom, like the place where you're supposed to learn algebra, not not learn like about the birds and the bees, right?

Speaker 10 Well, I guess technically you can't, but you get what I mean, not like reenacting it. So the cops, they didn't waste any time.

Speaker 10 And on March 16th, they pulled Christina over in a traffic stop near her house. There, they confronted her after she pulled into her driveway.

Speaker 10 Now, her husband was in the car with her, by the way, during all of this. And they arrested her right then and there.
And the cherry on top of this is it was all caught on body cam.

Speaker 10 And I want you to listen to this body cam footage because it is so unsettling. And you know what?

Speaker 10 For those of you listening to the podcast version of this, I highly encourage you after you listen to this, go check out the body cam footage that I have on my YouTube channel.

Speaker 10 You need the visual attached with it to really understand just how unhinged this woman is. Hey, how are you doing? Hi.

Speaker 11 Officer Guzman with Donner's Girl. Do you have your license on you?

Speaker 11 Yeah, I'm going to explain. I'm sure you're confused.
I'll explain everything to you.

Speaker 11 You're Christina?

Speaker 11 Okay, Christina, do me a favor. Can you step out of the car for me? I know you're confused.
I'll explain everything to you.

Speaker 11 You don't have anything on you? You can just grab whatever you need. Whatever I need.
Yeah, whatever you need, like your phone, your person, go ahead and grab it. Is she going somewhere?

Speaker 11 Yeah, we're going to explain everything to you guys.

Speaker 11 Go ahead and grab out. We're not going anywhere right now.

Speaker 11 Of course, of course. Yeah.

Speaker 11 I don't understand what's going on here. I get it, yeah.
You can go grab your things.

Speaker 12 Can he come with me?

Speaker 11 Yes, yes.

Speaker 11 You stay there for right now, sir, just stay there, but yes, you can. But come on back here.

Speaker 10 Should I shut the car off?

Speaker 11 Oh, yeah, yeah. Go ahead.

Speaker 11 Okay.

Speaker 11 Straight back over here. So we do have an investigation going on.
We have to talk to you about it at the police department, okay?

Speaker 11 So we're going to explain everything to you there.

Speaker 11 It's not my investigation. I don't know the full details.
We do have to bring you there, though, okay?

Speaker 11 So I do have to put you in handcuffs and bring you to the police department. Just a downstream.
Yes, unfortunately.

Speaker 10 Yes. I'm like willing to go with you.

Speaker 11 I get it. Yeah, unfortunately, we have to do it that way.
Do me a favor. We just take this off.

Speaker 12 Can I ask you what?

Speaker 11 Of course, yeah. It's not like I said, it's not my investigation.
Obviously, we are here for a reason. So go ahead and turn it around for me.

Speaker 11 So right now you're just being detained, and there is a detective that needs to talk to you at the police department.

Speaker 10 I'm like.

Speaker 11 I get it. You have a lot of questions.

Speaker 11 Yeah, everything's okay. We just need to talk to you at the police department.
That's all. Nothing else on your pocket right now? Anything else? My phone.
Just your phone.

Speaker 11 Okay.

Speaker 11 Okay. All right, we're going to sit in the back of this car.
On the other side.

Speaker 11 Once you get to the police department, you'll talk to the detective and he'll explain everything to you.

Speaker 11 But you can't even give me like an ICAN of what this is about. Other than that, it's an investigation.
That's all I can really tell you right now. I'm sorry.
I wish I could tell you more.

Speaker 12 Excuse me, is my husband coming with?

Speaker 11 Yes, yeah. He's taking his phone number down.
We're staying in touch with him. We're just going to Downer Drove, though, so 10 minutes away.

Speaker 12 No, I know, but I really would prefer that my husband's with me.

Speaker 11 Of course.

Speaker 11 Am I in trouble? Like,

Speaker 11 I'm so lost right now. I'm.

Speaker 11 I'm sure you are. Like I said, I can't answer any questions.
We're going to hold you just to tell you that right now you're meeting

Speaker 11 more investigation and we're bringing you to the police department. And once you get there, they're going to fill you in on everything.

Speaker 11 I'm just going to put your seatbelts on it. Unless are you able to leave shit down there?

Speaker 11 Sure, you don't want a tissue or something? I'm feeling it with the roll-up.

Speaker 11 Yes, please. Alright.

Speaker 10 Hey, can you get like a bag just in case she gets nauseous?

Speaker 11 Yeah.

Speaker 11 I don't know. Do we have any of those MSS bags like laying around the box?

Speaker 11 I figure she's something better than that.

Speaker 11 All right, here, if you stay with her, I'll go ahead and do it.

Speaker 11 What the fuck?

Speaker 11 I'm just going to put it on the floor here, alright? Okay.

Speaker 11 A few paper towels on the floor here if you need it, alright?

Speaker 11 Okay.

Speaker 11 Thank you.

Speaker 10 Now, I know you're you're going to probably go watch this on YouTube if you are listening to the podcast version, but let me just describe this. She looks genuinely bewildered, shocked.

Speaker 10 She keeps asking why she's being arrested, but they don't give her any details about the investigation. And by the time she gets to the station, she's just like crying.

Speaker 10 She's saying she's going to throw up. She can't believe this is happening, which...
Hi, maybe don't have sex with 15-year-old kids.

Speaker 10 And then you won't be surprised and you won't feel like you need to throw up. Now, when the police questioned Christina, guys, like the audacity, you're not even going to believe what she said.

Speaker 10 She said, quote, oh, I didn't do anything. Everybody comes after me because I'm good looking and I'm just a nice person who cared too much about this kid.

Speaker 10 That was her excuse, which, are you kidding me? That's what you're going to go with, which good luck with that. I think you're going to need a better defense than that one.

Speaker 10 But what's interesting is then she totally flipped the script and she started turning it against this kid, saying he's a stalker. He got her phone.

Speaker 10 He sent these text messages to himself so that he could blackmail her.

Speaker 10 I mean, really trying to sell this story, which kind of almost feels like a plot that you would see in a lifetime movie, but I guess she had nothing to lose at that point, or really everything to lose, so she was going to try anything.

Speaker 10 But luckily, the cops were not buying this story either.

Speaker 10 So, Christina has been charged with one count of criminal sexual assault and two counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse, all of which are felonies, by the way.

Speaker 10 She was led out of jail with some bond conditions, though, like not going near to school, no contact with anyone anyone under 18. I mean, very important conditions.
I think we can all agree.

Speaker 13 We are heartbroken for the victim and also for the hundreds of students, staff, and family who trusted this teacher and feel betrayed by this terrible situation.

Speaker 13 Our top focus now is to support the victim and their family and to ensure the well-being and safety of all of our students.

Speaker 10 She's due back in court on April 14th, and honestly, I am dying to see how this plays out.

Speaker 10 Because is she going to stick to the, you know, I'm too pretty to be guilty defense that she's trying to pull, which is almost like a Lori Vallo reenactment?

Speaker 10 Will there be more allegations that come out? Will we learn how long this truly going on and what really happened? I definitely will be keeping my eye on this one. So I'll let you know.

Speaker 10 This whole case is just disgusting through and through. And as a parent, it's like, we already have one massive thing to worry about by sending our children to school, right? Hello.

Speaker 10 I mean, it's no secret that there is a lot of violence in schools in this country, and it's really scary, which is why a lot of people are homeschooling.

Speaker 10 But it's like now you also have to layer on being worried that these teachers who are supposed to teach, protect, and, you know, look after your children are actually predators and they're preying on your children.

Speaker 10 It's just, it makes me so incredibly mad and it's so disheartening, right? It makes you kind of lose hope in society as a whole, which sorry, I know that's like wah, wah, wah, but I don't know.

Speaker 10 It just, it really irks me. Now let's move into this next case with this 17-year-old teenager who has been charged with killing their parents.

Speaker 10 Nikita Cassep, a 17-year-old from Waukesha, Wisconsin, has now been charged with killing his 35-year-old mother and his 51-year-old stepfather.

Speaker 10 Now, we don't really know many of the details that led up to the murders, but apparently these murders happened on February 11th.

Speaker 10 Then, Nikita allegedly lived with his parents, rotting corpses, for two entire weeks. Apparently, he kept their bodies right where he had shot and killed them to.

Speaker 10 Didn't bother moving them, didn't try to hide them, just lived with them as if life was going on as usual.

Speaker 10 Police said that they also found a camera memory card that contained a video of Nikita lighting candles in the office where his stepdad's body was found. Almost like a seance or a ritual.

Speaker 10 I don't know, but they allege that he recorded this video about a week after he murdered his stepdad. So was it some type of memorial service? Again, ritual?

Speaker 10 I don't really know, but freaking weird and gives me the creeps. And what's even weirder is he was apparently talking to somebody or talking to himself as he was recording this.

Speaker 10 Because according to the authorities investigating the case, quote, the camera is turned facing a chair. And the detective heard the defendant say, quote, so you can see him there.

Speaker 10 I can literally see the fucking rotten body there.

Speaker 10 Now, I don't think I need to explain to anybody how next level creepy this is that this kid was literally videotaping his stepfather's decomposing body. Who does that?

Speaker 10 It's almost like he was using this. I don't even know.
Was it like a trophy to him? Did he want to then show people because he was proud?

Speaker 10 I mean, or was he just so detached and callous that it seemed almost like a movie or a prop to him? I don't really know, but what I do know is something is seriously wrong with him.

Speaker 10 Who does something like that? And as if that's not grotesque enough, after the murders, Nikita was even texting people from his parents' phones, pretending to be them, like they were still alive.

Speaker 10 He even texted his stepdad's work, telling them, you know, I'm sick, I can't talk on the phone, I'm not going to be coming into the office, really trying to get away with this, it seems.

Speaker 10 Now, during this texting frenzy, or whatever it was, he also texted his stepdad's mother. However, what he didn't know was that she was already becoming increasingly suspicious of these messages.

Speaker 10 To her, she could just tell the tone, the conversation flow, it just seemed off. So then on February 28th, his stepdad's mom followed her instincts and called the police.

Speaker 10 She said, you know, please go perform a welfare check. Something is not sitting right here.
I want to know what's going on.

Speaker 10 So deputies rolled up to their house on Cider Hills Drive and the scene that they walked into, guys, it was straight out of a horror movie.

Speaker 10 There they found his mother and his stepdad and just dead and fully decomposing.

Speaker 10 Now, I mentioned that the stepfather was in the office, but the police found his mom, Tatiana, buried underneath clothing and blankets in this hallway near the kitchen.

Speaker 10 She had suffered multiple shots to her neck, upper torso, abdomen, and her right wrist, which I would imagine the right wrist was probably a defensive move, if I had to guess.

Speaker 10 Maybe putting her arm up trying to block it when he raised his gun at her. I don't know, that's just a guess, but it's haunting.

Speaker 10 And what I do think is interesting interesting too, and maybe it means nothing, but tell me what you guys think.

Speaker 10 His mom suffered multiple gunshots, while his stepdad, who was in that downstairs office I mentioned, just had a gunshot wound to his head, a single one. So did he go after his mother first?

Speaker 10 And that's why he shot at her so many times because he didn't know how to be effective. And then he went and killed his stepfather and just was like, I don't want him to fight back.

Speaker 10 I'm going to do one gunshot wound to the head. Or if it were reverse, was the anger really, you know, pointed towards his mom? And was that why she had multiple shots? Like, was it overkill?

Speaker 10 I don't know. But anyways, as the police discovered these bodies, Nikita was nowhere to be found, which you might be wondering, okay, well, where the hell was he? He lived with these bodies for weeks.

Speaker 10 Where was he now? Well, as it turns out, he was halfway across the country. He fully bolted.

Speaker 10 Now, thankfully, he was arrested during a traffic stop in Kansas, and he was arrested the same day that the couple's body was found in that home in Wisconsin. But he was arrested about 850 miles away.

Speaker 10 He had been driving and fled in his stepdad's VW Atlas, and he even had the family dog with him inside the car.

Speaker 10 When the police pulled him over, they also observed, in plain view, a gun sitting right there on the passenger side floorboard.

Speaker 10 Police also discovered spent casings, his parents' IDs, cash, and jewelry. So he was, of course, taken into custody.

Speaker 10 But it doesn't end there, not by a mile, because now is where we really get Lifetime movie, Oxygen movie, Netflix series all rolled into one.

Speaker 10 Because apparently Nikita had been texting somebody in Russia this entire time, asking to get fake plates, maybe even trying to escape to the Ukraine, which like the Ukraine? What?

Speaker 10 I mean, this kid's not just running. He's really planning an international getaway.
Now, look, I'm just going to say this and give my hot take on the situation.

Speaker 10 To me, I feel like it leads me to believe, at least, I'll say that, that this was premeditated.

Speaker 10 and the reason I say that is because these records are showing that he's messaging back and forth with his contact in Russia for literally weeks or even months before the murder so asking questions like how long will I have to hide before I can move to Ukraine who's this quote contact that he was messaging with so to me that indicates that there was a plan being put in place that there was like all the groundwork being done and like strategy so it just again kind of sends a shiver down my spine that teenagers teenagers are capable of this kind of violence.

Speaker 10 I swear, guys, you can't make this kind of stuff up.

Speaker 10 So, while being held in Kansas, Nikita was originally charged with one count of theft and one count of operating a motor vehicle without the owner's consent.

Speaker 10 However, he has now also been charged with two counts of first-degree intentional homicide, two counts of hiding a corpse, and two counts of theft of a movable property. So, eight counts in total.

Speaker 10 And the judge in this case had this to say to the defense team.

Speaker 14 I now have charged and alleged two

Speaker 14 first-degree intentional hominids,

Speaker 14 the highest counts that we have, quite frankly, in our country is what's been alleged here.

Speaker 10 His bail was set at $1 million, and he could spend a life in prison if convicted. The whole case is just wild and still has so many questions.

Speaker 10 So my question, as I'm sure you're wondering too, as you're listening to this, is like, what made this kid snap? What was his motive? I mean, there was no fighting, no big blowout.

Speaker 10 Was he just done with them? Did he just want to live an adult life and he didn't want any rules or repercussions or anything like that? I don't know. And then take that out of it.

Speaker 10 How do you live with these bodies for weeks without cracking, without buckling under pressure or even having like a psychotic break, right? It just baffles me.

Speaker 10 And this next case also just really rubs me the wrong way.

Speaker 10 Not that any of these cases ever rub me the right way, obviously, like duh annihilate, poor choice of words, but I just can't wrap my head around this one.

Speaker 10 There's something I can't understand because now we're going to talk about that stabbing death that I mentioned at the top of this episode about the two college students, because this has just completely sent shockwaves all across Italy.

Speaker 10 And let me break it down for you. So Sarah Campanella and Ilaria Sulla were both brutally murdered in two separate incidents last week.
And here's the tragic part, as if it's not tragic enough, right?

Speaker 10 But they were both 22 years old, both college students, and both just killed and disposed of far too young and in such a evil way. Now let's start with Sarah.

Speaker 10 Sarah, first and foremost, was absolutely gorgeous. I mean, long brown hair, beautiful brown eyes.

Speaker 10 She was a biomedical student at the University of Messina in Sicily and just had her whole life ahead of her.

Speaker 10 But she was stabbed and killed in broad daylight, right in the middle of a busy street, just surrounded by tons of witnesses.

Speaker 10 The perpetrator was Stefano Argentino, and he ended up fleeing the scene as soon as he inflicted this like horrific bloodbath and he took the murder weapon with him.

Speaker 10 However, he was later captured by the police that same night in a nearby town. But according to witnesses, Sarah, as he was trying to attack her, tried to get away.

Speaker 10 She was screaming, stop it, let me go, before ultimately collapsing right then and there. And sadly, Sarah passed away while she was on the way to to the hospital.
So, who was this Stefano guy?

Speaker 10 Well, according to Italian media, he was a fellow student at the university, and he had been infatuated with Sarah for years.

Speaker 10 The police detention order even states that Stefano was, quote, regularly pestering the victim, asking her to go out with him and get to know each other better, and refusing to back down even when she would flat out turn him down.

Speaker 10 Now, unfortunately, Sarah never went to the police. She never reported him.
She just tried to like get him to beat it and back off.

Speaker 10 Her friends even said that she didn't feel like this guy's behavior was particularly threatening or even pathological. She just thought that he was somebody who was persistent and wouldn't give up.

Speaker 10 She, of course, didn't know that it was going to end like this. You just never really know what somebody is capable of, right? You truly never know.

Speaker 10 And it is so heartbreaking and devastating to think about. And my question too is: could this have story maybe had a different ending if she had previously reported him to the police?

Speaker 10 And that's not to victim shame, not at all. It's just when we hear about cases like this, you can't help but wonder: could something have been prevented? Could it have been stopped?

Speaker 10 Then, less than 48 hours later, news of Sarah's horrific murder was pushed out of the headlines by another nightmare that was unfolding.

Speaker 10 Ilaria Sula was an Albanian student studying at the University in Rome. She was reported missing on March 25th because her roommate stated that she left around 9:30 p.m.

Speaker 10 and strangely, she didn't say goodbye, she just vanished. It was odd.
It was definitely not in her like normal behavior.

Speaker 10 So her parents filed a report right away and the police started searching for her. Then fast forward to April 2nd, about a week later, and the police found her body in a suitcase.

Speaker 10 It had been dumped in a wooded ravine about 25 miles outside of Rome. The suspect is her ex-boyfriend, 23-year-old Mark Sampson.

Speaker 10 Now, according to friends and family, they describe Mark as very calm, very non-violent. Mark Mark lived at home with his parents in what's quote called the African neighborhood of Rome.

Speaker 10 He had also just graduated as an architect student, but he really seemed to have so much going for him.

Speaker 10 But ultimately, after the police brought him in for questioning, he ended up point blank confessing to the murder.

Speaker 10 He says he grabbed a knife that had been used at breakfast and then used that knife to stab her three times in the neck.

Speaker 10 Then he took the knife along with the rags that he used to clean the blood up from his apartment and he threw them in a dumpster near his house.

Speaker 10 And what he did next makes me so sick because he proceeded to put Ilaria's body in a suitcase and wrapped it in cellophane as though nobody was gonna notice or find it or like dumping her like she's garbage.

Speaker 10 Later that same day, he loaded the suitcase containing her body into his car and he drove it to a ravine and then just threw it right in.

Speaker 10 It always makes me so enraged when people just dispose of victims like they're literal garbage.

Speaker 10 The fact that he just threw her into a ravine like she was trash, like she was nothing and didn't matter. I mean, this girl was beautiful.
She was smart.

Speaker 10 She had so much life ahead of her and she was just discarded after he stole and snatched her entire life from her. And why? Because he got jealous over a text message?

Speaker 10 Like get a grip, you twerpy douchebag. Like it just...
It's so senseless in every definition of the word.

Speaker 10 Now, in the wake of these killings, rallies have been held in this country to denounce femicide and to really demand tougher measures for the government to put in place to protect women.

Speaker 10 Now, in a really unsettling statistic, considering we're only in April, Ilaria is the 10th femicide victim in Italy this year.

Speaker 15 10th.

Speaker 10 It is April for crying out loud. Like, it is crazy.

Speaker 10 That means, if you do the math, that it's one woman dead every 10 days, all because some guy got jealous, couldn't deal with a text message, couldn't deal with his feelings, felt he was entitled to date her.

Speaker 10 I mean, it is so unhinged. I mean, not even unhinged, guys.
I need a new word. It's just so entitled.
Maybe that's the word. Like the fucking audacity of these creeps, right?

Speaker 10 This is just absolutely awful. And the victims definitely deserve justice.
so I hope that they get that.

Speaker 10 Now, before we get into the next stories, we are going to take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors.

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Speaker 10 Okay, so this next case is the one that I told you I first heard about a few weeks ago, but I wanted to gather more information before I covered it.

Speaker 10 And it actually is happening like right here in my backyard. And it's the case about the mother who went to Disneyland with her child and then killed her son.

Speaker 10 Saritha Ramahu is a 48-year-old woman who moved to Virginia after a very nasty divorce. She then flew into California for a custody visit with her 11-year-old son, Yatin.

Speaker 10 And let me just say, this was supposed to be a very fun visit with her son. Three days at Disneyland, enjoying the Southern California weather, just having a great time.

Speaker 10 Also, I mean, it's worth saying, Disneyland is supposed to be the the happiest place on earth, right?

Speaker 10 However, on the day that she was supposed to check out of the hotel and then return her son to his dad, everything just went off the rails.

Speaker 10 That morning, she called 911 on herself, and she calmly told the 911 operator that she had just killed her son and that she had also taken pills trying to kill herself.

Speaker 10 When the cops arrived at the hotel, they found her right there on her phone outside of her hotel room, just calm as can be.

Speaker 10 And sadly, they found her son, her 11-year-old son, stabbed to death, lying right there on the hotel bed, surrounded still by his Disneyland souvenirs and toys that he bought on this fun trip with his mom.

Speaker 10 Police also recovered a bloody kitchen knife just laying there on the bed, which, if you're wondering like I was, what do you mean a bloody kitchen knife? She was staying in a hotel.

Speaker 10 Well, as it turns out, she bought that knife. The day before, she went with her son to a store and bought this kitchen knife, full well knowing what she was going to do.

Speaker 10 So obviously, this looks like premeditation. I mean, how sick can you possibly be? What kind of mother does this to her own child? And over custody issues.

Speaker 10 But unfortunately, we have covered so many cases like that. I mean, Susan Powell is one that comes to mind.
And there's so many where it's like that mentality of if I can't have you, nobody can.

Speaker 10 And it's just, it's so sad for the kids because they are the victims of this situation that they didn't ask for. They didn't want to be in the middle of.
And now it's like, look what happens, right?

Speaker 10 Now, on this body cam footage, which is very difficult to watch, it also will be on YouTube if you do want to look at it.

Speaker 10 But in this footage, you can hear the female officer say, quote, she has blood on her hands. I literally can't even imagine how horrifying of a scene that this must have been for the police officers.

Speaker 11 She has blood in her hands.

Speaker 11 Blood in her hands.

Speaker 10 Who else is inside?

Speaker 10 Just your son?

Speaker 10 Sadly, this little boy was pronounced dead at the scene.

Speaker 10 Police then took his mother to the local hospital after she had told the police that she had taken those pills, you know, all in an attempt to try and kill herself, which part of me wishes that she had been successful with that, but part of me also is glad that she wasn't because now she can face full responsibility and accountability for what she did, but I don't know.

Speaker 10 She was later released and she's now in custody at the Santa Ana County Jail.

Speaker 10 The Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a recent press release, quote, the life of a child should not hang in the balance between two parents whose anger for each other outweighs their love for their child.

Speaker 10 Anger can make you forget who you love and what you are responsible for doing. The safest place for a child should be in their parents' arms.

Speaker 10 Instead of wrapping her arms around her son in love, she slit his throat and in the cruelest twist of fate, removed him from the very world that she brought him into.

Speaker 10 Which is such a powerful statement, but also such a haunting statement. And I couldn't have said it better.

Speaker 10 Like I said, we are seeing this more and more, these murder-suicide type of situations amid custody battles and it's something to be hyper-aware of because it's just, it's very scary, very reckless.

Speaker 10 And I don't know, my thoughts and prayers go out to the father of this young boy because I truly just cannot even imagine how you reconcile something like this. It is just...

Speaker 10 the ultimate fear come true. Now moving into another type of monster, a more, I don't want to say hands-on, a more sexual type of monster, I guess that's that's the best way of putting it.

Speaker 10 I want to talk with you about this realtor who has now been accused of holding women captive and using them as their sex slaves. And boy, oh boy, is this story a shocking one.

Speaker 10 Austin Cronister is a 38-year-old real estate agent from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and he has now found himself behind bars because he has been accused of running a sex slave operation out of his own home.

Speaker 10 Pause for reaction. I mean, I'm literally here with my jaw dropped.
Like a sex trafficking ring out of of your own home. You're 38 years old.
You are a freak.

Speaker 10 He was charged with multiple felonies, including human trafficking, sexual assault, and false imprisonment.

Speaker 10 And it all started when two women came forward and detailed their experiences of abuse, captivity, and manipulation, all spanning over the course of years.

Speaker 10 In fact, these allegations stem back as far as 2020, which we know a lot of weird shit went down during COVID and people got away with a lot.

Speaker 10 And it seems like maybe that's what kicked this whole thing off. I don't know.
That's just my guess. I could be wrong.
But according to the criminal complaint, Austin also had an alleged accomplice.

Speaker 10 And not just a layperson or a creepy friend, but a Milwaukee attorney by the name of Christian St. Pierre.

Speaker 10 Now, these women who have come forward claim that this attorney held onto their paychecks, their birth certificates, and even their social security cards all in a locked safe to keep them under their thumb.

Speaker 10 Austin and this freakazoid Christian apparently owned this home together, and they referred to it as creepy and cringe and ick as this is, as House Saint Pierre. Like,

Speaker 10 I can't. I get a life.
You are such a loser. According to a criminal complaint that was filed in Milwaukee County, Austin wasn't living alone in this house.
Multiple women resided there with him.

Speaker 10 And the investigators say that these women were bound by more than just a lease.

Speaker 10 They were bound by an actual contract, not a rental agreement, mind you, but a document that actually laid out rules and regulations that are straight out of a freaking nightmare.

Speaker 10 I'm talking obedience, sex on demand, wearing a collar at times that's locked, by the way, with only a key that Austin had. I mean, the works.

Speaker 10 And this was apparently all done, and this collar had to be worn to remind these women that they were constantly, quote, being evaluated for service.

Speaker 10 And here's where it gets even more disturbing, if you can believe it. But these women allegedly had matching slave tattoos, and they were even assigned slave numbers, which what does that even mean?

Speaker 10 What is a slave tattoo? What is a slave number? The first thing that comes to mind is Nexium, because if you remember, that's a cult. It was a sex cult with that freak.

Speaker 10 I keep saying freak, but hello, they are all freaks.

Speaker 10 Keith Ranieri. It wasn't tattoos, but they were all branded.
And it's like, you mark them as cattle, as though they're your territory, your product. It is so sick.

Speaker 10 And here's a really strange twist with this one, guys, as if it's not strange enough and as if we need another twist. But Austin's defense argues that all of this was consensual.

Speaker 10 They say that all of these women were willing participants. It was a BDSM lifestyle, which is, you know, bond, submissive, all of that.

Speaker 10 And that they went along with it, that they entered into this contract fully consensual, ready to do it, which Maybe so, okay?

Speaker 10 Because Austin is saying they all knew what they signed up for, therefore he's innocent. And maybe so.

Speaker 10 However, if you are free to go at any time, and if this is consensual, why would your passport, your social security card, your birth certificate, your paychecks, why would those be locked away in a safe?

Speaker 10 Why wouldn't you have the freedom to just leave? But like I said, he said he is innocent and this is what they signed up for. Take a listen.

Speaker 18 Oh, this is really bad. So important to understand these women got into this relationship with this guy, contracts to live in his house, to engage in BDSM consensually.

Speaker 18 But then things turned criminal, police say. Police say that there was trafficking going on, sex assault going on, false imprisonment going on, that these people were subjected to abusive treatment.

Speaker 18 This is far beyond the scope of what they bargain for and illegal. What's going to happen with this case? This is stunning.
This guy also a real estate agent, this defendant.

Speaker 10 At a preliminary hearing on March 21st, his attorney, Nicole Moeller, pushed back really hard.

Speaker 10 She asked the investigators for specific dates, trying to separate, you know, the consensual acts from the alleged crimes.

Speaker 10 And one detective even admitted that one of the victims bragged about her injuries to others in the BDSM community, suggesting that she was, in fact, proud of them. So it makes you wonder.

Speaker 10 I don't think that anything like this could be consensual if they're holding your paycheck, your passport, your identification hostage. But I'm just going to give you a very small but,

Speaker 10 could this be something like a cult, like Nexium, Nexium 2.0,

Speaker 10 where maybe that's what I'll put in the title of this, where they do go into this contract saying, I allow you to punish me how you see fit and I will give you sex on demand, but I also relinquish all my privacy, all my rights, all my pay, all my identification to you.

Speaker 10 You are in complete control over me. Look, personally, I'd lose my mind before I could do something like that.

Speaker 10 I am way too anal, and my husband would tell you so to like ever allow someone to have that much control over me. But I know a lot of people are into that.

Speaker 10 There's a lot of kinky stuff out there, which to each their own, like do you all the live long day, especially ever since 50 Shades. I feel like people are really into that lifestyle.

Speaker 10 And like, you know what? Not that I wish I had it in me, but maybe I'm vanilla. I don't know, but I need control.
I need to know that I have my passport on me. I can leave.

Speaker 10 I call me crazy, don't enjoy wearing a collar, but this could be what people sign up for and what they're into. So I guess we just will have to wait and see what comes out during the trial.

Speaker 10 Because on March 26th, a judge ruled that there was enough probable cause for Austin to stand trial. And there's actually an arraignment that is set for today, April 10th.

Speaker 10 So currently he's out on a $75,000 bond. But I'm really curious to hear what comes out at this arraignment.
He's been staying really quiet, has refused to speak with reporters.

Speaker 10 And I wonder if anybody who was in this bdsm group who has not spoken out against him will speak out in favor for him we also saw that with nexiam so i don't know we've seen crazy things guys All right, now let's talk about the trial of it all and everything that's been going down this week so far with Lori, with Karen, and what we can expect.

Speaker 10 Let's start with Lori Vallow, okay? If you also want, just as a sidebar, if you want to watch the trial or great recaps of the trial, Law and Crime is doing a great job on YouTube, so is Court TV.

Speaker 10 But Lori is representing herself. And I was actually on a podcast last week where the host asked me, what do you think is we should expect with Lori?

Speaker 10 And I said, you know, of course, I think she's going to be self-righteous. I think that she's going to try to manipulate people and act like she's the smartest one in the room, which she is.

Speaker 10 But I also said, I have a really big feeling that since Alex murdered Charles in self-defense, or what he claims was self-defense, I think that she is going to say Charles was abusive, not only toward her, but but toward the children.

Speaker 10 And that because of that, Alex, her brother, had no other option but to intervene and defend these children.

Speaker 10 And the reason I mentioned that or said that I thought that's the direction it was going to go is because I was like, if they're already going with the self-defense thing and she's trying to get out of conspiracy to commit a murder charge, she's going to have to bolster that, right?

Speaker 10 She's going to have to really sell that to the jury. And what better way to sell that than to say he was abusive toward her or towards the kids?

Speaker 10 And sure enough, as Lori, it's a mouthful, as Lori is lawyering right now, she

Speaker 10 kind of is well put together. She's objecting, she's doing all this, but the thing that she dropped is that Charles was coming at Tylee and that Alex had no other option but to protect her.

Speaker 10 And we kind of all, I guess, knew that that would be coming, or at least I figured that would be coming, but now she has said it.

Speaker 10 Interestingly enough, too, two jurors have been released in her trial as of day two, which does does not bode well. That is not great.
We will see what comes of that.

Speaker 10 But it continues to just be a circus. And I don't think the jury is buying any of it, guys.
I really don't.

Speaker 10 There was a lot of talk about worries that it's mostly a male jury, that there's only three women. I personally do not think that's going to work in Lori's favor.

Speaker 10 People were concerned she would manipulate them. I may have mentioned this already, so I apologize if I did, but I don't think that's the case.

Speaker 10 I think that if anything, she should have tried to get more women on the jury because maybe they would be able to relate to her if she was selling the story of being abused and the kids being abused.

Speaker 10 And maybe there would be a woman who had been wronged by her husband or abused or cheated on like she was saying Charles was doing. So I don't think anybody's going to buy it.

Speaker 10 I think we're going to see another conviction for Lori, but I guess only time will tell.

Speaker 10 Now, sidestepping over to Karen Reed a little bit here, I was in touch with one of Karen's family members this afternoon.

Speaker 10 I'm not going to mention who, but this is the person who will be getting us a seat, I believe, at the Karen Reed trial since it's so tight there and how we'll be giving the updates.

Speaker 10 But they're having a little bit of a struggle seating the full jury as of this recording. Friday, they didn't agree on any jurors.
Monday, they didn't either.

Speaker 10 And it's just kind of been this slow process.

Speaker 10 So I believe that right now, assuming that the jury gets seated, and maybe it will be at the time that this recording goes live, but I think right now, tentatively opening statements are scheduled to begin Tuesday.

Speaker 10 Again, don't quote me on that. I could be wrong, but that's what I'm hearing.
So we will keep you definitely updated on that case.

Speaker 10 And I actually think what I'm going to do, guys, I haven't done live streaming in a hot minute here for like years. I think I'm going to live stream the entire Karen Reed trial.
I really do.

Speaker 10 I mean, I know we will be in the courtroom as well, but there are pool cameras. There are feeds in there.

Speaker 10 I think that I'm going to live stream it so that all of us can be in the chat together as it's happening, asking questions, talking about the case.

Speaker 10 So if that does start Tuesday, head over to YouTube beginning Tuesday and watch the stream with me, watch this trial with me and let's talk about it. And we will talk about it in real time.

Speaker 10 So just as a little note, and again, that's 10 to life over on YouTube. I wish I could stream it on the podcast, but I don't think there's any software that does that yet.

Speaker 10 All right, guys, that is it for this week's episode of Headline Highlights. As I said, I think we are going to go and actually cover Karen's trial in the courtroom.

Speaker 10 So if you're not following this podcast yet or the YouTube channel, take a second, look on your podcast app, make sure you press the follow button. I think it's in the top right corner.

Speaker 10 Same over on YouTube.

Speaker 10 Press the subscribe button because we are going to be dropping those episodes probably outside of the normal release schedule and getting you all the updates as they're happening in real time.

Speaker 10 That way too, you won't miss any other updates regarding other cases or deep dive episodes and all of that.

Speaker 10 And if you're listening on Apple and have an extra five seconds and want to leave a rating and review, I would greatly appreciate it. It's a free way to support the podcast and I would love that.

Speaker 10 So that is it for headline highlights. I will be back with you first thing Monday morning with an all-new deep dive.

Speaker 10 As a reminder, you know, there's so much more content to binge if you feel like you're running out of episodes. You can get access to those on Patreon or on Apple Podcasts.

Speaker 10 We have a library of, I think, well over 80 now extra deep dives that are exclusive to those subscribers. So that's where you can get access.
Last week, I did an update on the Idaho case.

Speaker 10 I also then the week before talked about the breaking news case of the husband who is accused of trying to push his wife off the cliff in Hawaii and like what really is going down with that case.

Speaker 10 So, and then we of course just do other mini deep dives on there too. So, again, you can get access to that either on Patreon or Apple Podcasts.
All right, that's it, guys.

Speaker 10 I will talk with you again very soon. I'm gonna go put like something on my face to cool down this redness a little bit.

Speaker 10 And I hope you guys have an amazing weekend, a good rest of your week, and I will talk with you again on Monday.

Speaker 11 All right, bye.

Speaker 15 Every story begins somewhere. For your child, it could begin with a Guardian bike.
Built right here in the USA, engineered for safety, and designed for confidence.

Speaker 15 Kids of all ages are learning to ride in just one day. No tears, no frustration.

Speaker 15 It's why Guardian is America's favorite kids' bike, and the New York Times and Wirecutters top pick three years in a row. This holiday season, give the gift that's safer, smarter, and built to last.

Speaker 15 Visit GuardianBikes.com to save up to 40% on all bikes, plus a free accessory bundle worth over $100.

Speaker 16 Owning a home is full of surprises. Some wonderful, some...

Speaker 16 Not so much. And when something breaks, it can feel like the whole day unravels.
That's why Home Serve exists.

Speaker 16 For as little as $4.99 a month, you'll always have someone to call, a trusted professional ready to help, bringing peace of mind to 4.5 a half million homeowners nationwide.

Speaker 16 For plans starting at just $4.99 a month, go to homeserve.com. That's homeserve.com.
Not available everywhere. Most plans range between $4.99 to $11.99 a month your first year.

Speaker 16 Terms apply on covered repairs.

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