338: Murder Pact Gone Wrong, Sextortion Scheme, Man Kills GF With a Chainsaw

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Speaker 2 Hey, True Crime Besties, welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialessly.

Speaker 2 Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialous with me, your true crime bestie, Annie Elise. And we have got headlines to talk about today.

Speaker 2 A lot of new cases, actually, but there are a couple of updates that I want to go over with you guys first. And I want to start with what's going on in Idaho right now.

Speaker 2 And I didn't think that I was going to have to utter this piece of crap's name again, but there is some new information happening with Brian Koberger.

Speaker 2 And some of it has been talked about for the last week, but I kind of want to break down for you what it really means.

Speaker 2 So basically, we know that part of his plea agreement was that he was going to be ordered to pay restitution to the victims' families.

Speaker 2 Well, now the defense is arguing that, saying that he shouldn't have to pay for their travel expenses, their lodging expenses, all of those things, to which under Idaho state law, technically they don't need to pay for those parts of the expenses.

Speaker 2 But here's where it's going to get tricky as to how this could potentially lead to Brian Koberger going back to trial.

Speaker 2 Let me first break down what the expenses are, what the judge ordered, and everything like that.

Speaker 2 So, the judge did order that he has to pay $3,000 to cover Maddie and Kaylee's earns, which I don't understand how that like equates to the going rate of murdering four kids is $3,000 for the earns.

Speaker 2 I think it should be far more, but there is that additional expense of the earns. We also know that over the last several months, Brian has raked in about $30,000 in his commissary fund.

Speaker 2 This is coming from people who are choosing to donate to him, whether they are a self-proclaimed pro-burger and think he's truly innocent, whether they're some sort of, I don't know, celebrity fanfare and they're obsessed with him, like people are obsessed with Chris Watts.

Speaker 2 For whatever reason, he now is nearly sitting on 30 grand in his commissary account. Yet he's arguing that he can't pay restitution or that he doesn't want to.
Actually, he's arguing both.

Speaker 2 He's saying, I can't because I don't have a job, and I don't want to because, under the law, I don't need to cover these specific line items. So they've been having different hearings.

Speaker 2 It's been going back and forth. But here's where it's getting interesting.

Speaker 2 And I was actually, I recorded on Nancy Grace's show earlier this week to talk about this, but, and she breaks it down really great over there.

Speaker 2 She has a whole panel of experts and legal experts who break down what I'm going to try to regurgitate to you.

Speaker 2 But basically, what this could potentially mean is he's going back now on what was in his agreement, in the signed contract, where he agreed to pay the victim's families restitution.

Speaker 2 And I believe there was a number that was about a quarter of a million dollars in total, something to that effect, to where then it would be divvied out.

Speaker 2 You know, I don't know if it was at their discretion or whatever. Anyways, my point being, the fact that now he and his team are pushing back on that, it could completely just negate the contract.

Speaker 2 And the judge could say, you know what? If you're not going to pay restitution, then you're basically reading it on the deal. So we are now going back to court.
We are going to trial.

Speaker 2 Do I think that is going to happen? Probably not. I think that if push came to shove, I think that he would just pay the restitution to avoid going to trial.

Speaker 2 However, one of the panel guests on Nancy's show earlier this week did make a great point.

Speaker 2 And they had said that because so much of the evidence has now been released, the recent 2,500-page document dump, the crime scene photos, the phone calls, all of these things now are out in the public arena.

Speaker 2 Not everything, but a good chunk of it. It could potentially work to the defense's favor.
It's going to be very difficult now to find a jury pool that is not tainted.

Speaker 2 It would be able to argue all sorts of different things to either bring new witnesses in, keep witnesses out. So, could it be strategy? I don't know.
Maybe.

Speaker 2 I don't know if Brian Koberger is smart enough for that or his team, but possibly. But the judge was pretty pissed off in this.

Speaker 2 And you can actually hear it in the recorded hearing because he asked Brian straight up why he even agreed to this deal in the first place if he never intended to pay or knew that he couldn't pay any of this restitution.

Speaker 2 And so it's going to be interesting to see where this shakes out. I don't know if I've mentioned it here on my show, but it is something I did talk about when I was doing the live tour.

Speaker 2 Another thing that has been going on in the background with Koberger these last few months, we all know that his team back in, gosh, early spring of 2025, tried to argue that the death penalty should be taken off the table due to an autism diagnosis that Brian had, right?

Speaker 2 The judge ultimately declined it back in, I think it was April, said the death penalty is absolutely going to stick.

Speaker 2 But then, as we know, when the trial was supposed to start in the summer is when the plea deal happened.

Speaker 2 However, they have in the last few months been resurfacing the paperwork about Brian's diagnosis and not only the autism diagnosis, but three others. There's a prescription for a thyroid condition.

Speaker 2 There was, what was the other one? It was avoidant food intake disorder. And then, gosh, there was one other.

Speaker 2 I can't think of it right now, but four diagnoses in total that they were now like resurfacing in a way to potentially, they haven't announced that they're going to do it yet, but to potentially argue that when he accepted the plea deal, he didn't fully understand the deal.

Speaker 2 And let me break that down a little bit more because I know I'm kind of scattering around a bit here. When he accepted the plea deal, there was no room for appeal.

Speaker 2 However, a lot of people, including some of the family members, were very upset about that because if you look deeply into the law, you know that there's never just a black and white, you can never appeal.

Speaker 2 There are always loopholes, always different ways you can appeal, whether it's a new trial because new evidence has been found, ineffective counsel, or because you didn't fully understand the plea when you accepted it and put it into the court.

Speaker 2 So, by them resurfacing these diagnoses, saying that he was diagnosed before he agreed and accepted this plea deal.

Speaker 2 A lot of people over the last several weeks, about six weeks, I'd say now, have been saying that it looks like the defense is potentially trying to lay the foundation and the groundwork for an appeal, for him not fully understanding his rights, all of these things.

Speaker 2 I want to be very clear here. They have not announced anything that way, and they have not made any filings indicating that that is what they plan to do.

Speaker 2 But by resurfacing the diagnoses and the paperwork, it appears that that's the direction that they might be going.

Speaker 2 So now, with this restitution thing in play as well, it begs the question: are they throwing all sorts of different wrenches in what was a plea deal to only go back to trial? But now, with

Speaker 2 a tainted jury pool, new evidence being out there, I don't think it would ever work to his advantage. I truly don't.

Speaker 2 I think if Brian Koberger were to stand trial tomorrow, he would face the firing squad. That's my personal opinion.

Speaker 2 But regardless where it ends up and if he stays in prison, pays the restitution, if it does go back to trial, it's like these families have been put through enough. I think we can all agree on that.

Speaker 2 It's been over three years now. It's time to like just let this guy disintegrate into like the scum gutter of the prison system.
But we'll see what goes on with this.

Speaker 2 The restitution and him refusing could result in the entire contract being voided. So

Speaker 2 TBD on that. I'm going to watch it closely.
But again, for more insights on that, you can watch Nancy's show from earlier this week. I believe it aired on Tuesday, but don't quote me on that.

Speaker 2 You can go check.

Speaker 2 And yeah, she breaks it down in detail as well as we talk a lot about the new lifetime movie that is coming out, how pissed off Kaylee's family is about that.

Speaker 2 I've actually spoken spoken personally with Kaylee's sister very briefly about that and how upset they are because not only were they not consulted about anything going on with the film, but the actors who are in this film are literally going into their trailer between takes and doing TikTok dances while still in full wardrobe of the students.

Speaker 2 It's just very tactless, in my opinion. It just is disgusting.
So we talk about a lot of that as well. And I don't think that anybody's surprised Lifetime is making a movie.

Speaker 2 And there's nothing, there's nothing inherently wrong with that.

Speaker 2 Whether it's Lifetime, whether it's NBC, ABC, whoever it is, people are always going to make recreations and movies about true crime cases. Unfortunately, that's just how it works.

Speaker 2 It's more so the handling of this that has. the families so upset.

Speaker 2 So more to come on everything Koberger, which I was hoping we could just leave him back in 2025, but it looks like this like skeezy rodent is going to be coming with us into 2026 a little bit too, but more to come on that another update sandra birchmore we have talked about this case for i believe the last two years she was a young woman from massachusetts who had joined the police cadet academy when she was just 13 years old it was called um the young explorers program and was groomed by a lot of the law enforcement guys that like the older ones there was also a lot of different layers involved and it became a big point of conversation because some of the same people involved in Sandra's Sandra's case and the handling of her case were also involved in the infamous Karen Reed case.

Speaker 2 And we all know the disaster that happened within that case and the mishandling of things and the cover-ups and all that. But anyway, and that's regardless if you think Karen is innocent or guilty.

Speaker 2 I mean, the case was handled like shit, complete shit. So, anyway, Sandra Birchmore, she started in the Explorers program when she was 13.

Speaker 2 She was coerced and groomed into these relationships with these officers, and then she ended up getting pregnant. She was found inside her apartment with a fabric or rope.

Speaker 2 I can't remember exactly the material attached to the doorknob and it looked as though she had taken her own life.

Speaker 2 Come to find out, she thought she was pregnant by one of these officers that she had been having a sexual relationship with.

Speaker 2 He also went to her apartment that day and didn't want her to have the baby. He had another child born with his wife literally moments earlier.

Speaker 2 And so he ended up being arrested and charged with Sandra's murder and staging the crime scene.

Speaker 2 And that it was all, you know, the thought was, okay, the motive was he wanted to cover up that she was pregnant with his child. Come to find out after DNA testing, it wasn't his child.

Speaker 2 So it's like you killed this girl and covered up the crime scene, made it look like something else because you were so scared that you were going to be caught.

Speaker 2 It wasn't even your kid, like a disaster. But anyway, there have been some updates in that case.
And we actually just did a full deep dive this week on Tend to Life.

Speaker 2 So you can get fully caught up with that case, all of the updates, the whole backstory. It is a wild one.
It really, really is. So if you're watching this on YouTube, it's right here on YouTube.

Speaker 2 But if you are listening to the audio version of this episode, what you're going to want to do is open up your podcast app, search the podcast 10 to life,

Speaker 2 and you'll see the episode there. Just a friendly reminder, new episodes come out every single Tuesday over there.

Speaker 2 So you have new episodes every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, and every other Friday between the two podcasts. So Sandra Birchmore is over there, released this week.

Speaker 2 And the other update that I wanted to just briefly touch on before we get into today's cases is that the Brian Walsh trial is starting this week.

Speaker 2 And they finished up some hearings at the beginning of the week, and they were going into jury selection. But Brian Walsh is accused of murdering his wife, Anna Walsh.

Speaker 2 And this case we covered as well. I will link the deep dive for you so that you can get fully caught up before the trial is like fully, you know, you know, in the throes of everything.

Speaker 2 But but this guy's a moron i mean first of all he looks like who's that character from family guy with the really square head quagmire he looks like him and he is a total moron he like googled all sorts of crazy things when she went missing things like how to dispose of a human body what's the best way to like you know basically a playbook playbook for a murderer and they found all of his google searches and it's kind of been a wild ride since he's been in jail awaiting trial too so the trial is finally starting We will cover it.

Speaker 2 I either will put the updates in headline highlights at the top of the episodes and bake them in, or if you feel like you just want an additional recap episode each week for this trial, since it is set to be a big one, let me know.

Speaker 2 We can definitely look into doing that. But I will link the deep dive to that case so that you can get fully caught up.
That will be in the show notes. That was a lot of updates.

Speaker 2 I didn't mean to be talking to you for 13 minutes and 50 seconds, but there was a lot to go over. So, So now let's start getting into the new cases of this week.

Speaker 2 And I have a friendly face and a friendly voice who is back joining me to help cover these cases. Let's give a round of applause for Amy.

Speaker 3 Oh my gosh. Hi.

Speaker 2 Hi. Welcome back.
Good morning. Good morning.
We have a lot to go over. First of all, I could see you rolling your eyes a little bit with the Brian stuff.

Speaker 3 I mean, he's the worst.

Speaker 2 Literally the worst.

Speaker 3 Well, and of course you want a plea deal, but then you can't pay what you're responsible for paying for.

Speaker 2 No, exactly. And that's actually what I brought up on Nancy's show.
I was like, he basically wanted this cushy plea deal. He was too much of a chicken shit to face the firing squad and go to trial.

Speaker 2 But now it's been a problem from day one. He's complaining about the prisoners that he can overhear in the vents talking about how they're going to

Speaker 2 like he is such a pussy. And so it's like, oh, God, get a grip.
Anyway, enough about Koberger.

Speaker 2 Let's go into this next case because this case is about a former professor who has been caught in a sextortion scheme.

Speaker 2 So I'm going to just start with what police say happened in the very first moments of this case because it is one of the wildest inciting incidents that I have heard in a long time.

Speaker 2 So James Hill, a 76-year-old retired Ohio State professor, walks up behind his wife while she's working in their home office at the desk.

Speaker 2 Almost like he's about to give her a shoulder massage, just like kind of be a husband, like, you know, creeping over a little bit, rubbing her shoulders. He starts doing that.

Speaker 2 She even tells him, oh, like that feels good. But then out of nowhere, he takes a kitchen knife and he stabs her once, straight in the chest.

Speaker 2 And according to court documents, he even apologized while he was doing it. So that's the moment that everything really started to unravel.

Speaker 2 And when the investigators dug into why this happened, the story that he told them, it's almost unbelievable, which let me back up a little bit.

Speaker 2 So James told the police that he had been trapped in a sextortion scheme, scheme, which for those who are unfamiliar, that's basically like extortion, but with the added element of sex, whether it's nude photos, compromising photos, bad text messages, cheating, whatever it is, just the sexual element to it.

Speaker 2 So he had said that he had met a woman on a dating site behind his wife, Mary's back. Then after chatting for a little bit, he sent her nude photos, as I guess one does.

Speaker 2 I will just say, dick pics, no, thank you. Not a fan of them.

Speaker 2 Now, almost immediately, she totally flipped the script on this guy and she demanded $15,000 in return, threatening to leak the images if he didn't pay.

Speaker 2 And I will say, sextortion scams are unfortunately pretty common, but the way that James reacted to all of this, that part is certainly not common.

Speaker 2 According to court documents, James told officers that he felt so ashamed and so concerned that he genuinely believed he only had one way out and that his one way out wasn't calling the police.

Speaker 2 It wasn't confiding in a friend. It wasn't wasn't telling his wife the truth and coming clean to her.
The only escape that he saw in his mind was to kill his wife and then take his own life.

Speaker 2 Which that brings us back over to the morning of November 9th in Upper Arlington, Ohio. Police responded to a dropped 911 call at the family's home.
Inside, they found 64-year-old Mary Hill dead.

Speaker 2 She had died from that single stab wound to the chest. James, her husband, was nearby and he had self-inflicted injuries, but he was still alive.

Speaker 2 And the details that he gave to these first responders and investigators, they're very disturbing. After attacking Mary, he allegedly tried to stab the family dog.

Speaker 2 Luckily, the dog survived, but then he stabbed himself.

Speaker 2 And while he was bleeding, police say that he sat down at his computer and he just started deleting photos before finally then making the 911 call. But here's the kicker in all of this.

Speaker 2 Every single bit of this, he blamed on the online threat, which honestly, I would be shocked if this person he sent these nudes to was a real woman and not some like middle-aged guy sitting in a basement in like the middle of the country just running a scam.

Speaker 2 Because get this, she also said, oh yeah, pay me the $15,000, but I want payment in Apple gift cards, which what is somebody using 15 grand in Apple gift cards for? I guess.

Speaker 2 Now that I think about that, you could buy like a laptop, a computer, and then resell it, but and get the cash for it that way. And it's less traceable, maybe, but every gift card also has a decode.

Speaker 2 I don't know, whatever. I don't work at the genius bar, but my point being that it was probably not even like a legitimate scam.
This is also a warning for anybody listening.

Speaker 2 Do not ever click any links that are sent to you via text message or via email, even if it looks like it's from your utility company or your cell phone provider.

Speaker 2 Always look at the email address first, like open it and see the full address because they are getting very crafty. But anyway, I digress.

Speaker 2 So James told the investigators that this woman demanded this money in gift cards and that he panicked panicked so badly that he was convinced that murder was the only way to stop his secret from coming out.

Speaker 2 Reportedly, he said that his wife Mary had hidden their gun a couple of years ago, which that's why he opted to grab the kitchen knife instead of a gun.

Speaker 2 Which let me pause really quick because this next part is very important here. Whether this extortion setup was real, exaggerated, a complete catfish, none of that changes what actually happened.

Speaker 2 Mary had absolutely nothing to do with these messages. She had nothing nothing to do with the threats or any of James' choices sending these dick pics over the internet.

Speaker 2 But she unfortunately became the person who ultimately had to pay the price for his skeezy actions.

Speaker 2 So the investigators are still diving into the digital side of everything, checking the messages, trying to confirm who this woman actually was, if she's even a woman, and sorting out what's real versus what James might be just using and saying as an excuse and lying about.

Speaker 2 But what we do know for sure is that the fear and the shame that he claims to have had is what really spiraled him into murdering his wife.

Speaker 2 And I think that's why this case has really taken over the headlines, because it's not just about sextortion or a scam, which, yes, don't get me wrong, are very serious, but it's about how someone made this terrible mistake, then tried to hide it, started panicking, and turned all of that fear inward until it truly just exploded outward and ended in murder.

Speaker 2 And not to mention at his wife, the person who trusted him the most, she literally thought she was getting a shoulder rub. And she said to him, oh, that's nice.
That feels good.

Speaker 2 And he stabbed her in the chest. I mean, Mary deserved so much more than to become collateral damage in her husband's sick, gross secret, but he's now being charged with aggravated murder.

Speaker 2 He's also still hospitalized under guard protection, and he will be transferred to jail once the doctors clear him.

Speaker 2 The prosecutors, they're saying this was planned, it was deliberate, and it it was absolutely not some sort of like heat of the moment panic situation like he's trying to claim.

Speaker 2 So when this heads to trial, we will see what happens.

Speaker 2 Once they do the full digital dump on all of his devices, we will see what happens and see who this woman is and how many Apple cards she's gotten over the years.

Speaker 2 How much has she bought at Apple?

Speaker 3 I mean, probably a hot take, but when I was listening to it, I kind of felt bad for him a little bit.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 3 Well, no, okay. I'm thinking, is he a senior that was like targeted and this is like a scammer and he's like a lonely guy and he's getting attention from someone? I understand.

Speaker 3 It doesn't fair, like, excuse cheating. And like, also,

Speaker 3 and I know you'll probably agree with this, but like, assuming his wife was roughly the same age.

Speaker 2 She was 64. He was 76.

Speaker 3 Okay, 64. So, like, if you were married that long and your husband's like, I sent some naked photos, you'd probably be like, that's why.

Speaker 2 First of all, I was like, laugh at him.

Speaker 2 Nobody wants to see a 76-year-old wiener.

Speaker 3 Like I feel like you'd probably be like, cool.

Speaker 2 Do you want to get any 76 years? Or like, I don't know.

Speaker 3 I don't think it'd be like requiring murdering me. Like, I wouldn't be that upset over it.

Speaker 2 But you're right. To your point, it's probably somebody who knew that she could scam somebody older.

Speaker 3 Yeah. So part of me feels badly because

Speaker 3 also like too, again, I'm making a lot of assumptions here, but as someone like our age, if you were threatened by a nude or something at this point, it's like everyone's kind of threatened, threatened with nudes.

Speaker 3 So yes, you would be upset over it. And depending on the level to which the threat was, but also

Speaker 3 you may not feel like your only out is

Speaker 2 killing your significant other.

Speaker 3 Whereas an older person who is certainly not well-versed in any of this, this probably never even comes across their radar. This just probably felt like the worst thing in the world.

Speaker 2 Totally, but like.

Speaker 2 So bad that you can't just tell your wife the truth and you're going to not only kill her, but then take your own life, which kind of makes me wonder, based on him still being alive at the scene and him deleting photos before he even called 911, I would be curious, are any of his injuries superficial?

Speaker 2 Did he really try?

Speaker 3 And is he really remorseful? Which, again, it doesn't excuse anything in this poor, poor woman totally betrayed by her husband, especially in a vulnerable moment.

Speaker 3 So, but I just, the whole thing is so sad.

Speaker 2 It is sad. It is sad.
And I wonder who this basement freak is and if we'll ever figure it out. There's so many situations.

Speaker 3 I feel like it's more and more common.

Speaker 2 Why is that creative? Do not click on anything. There was actually one the other day where they're changing like the

Speaker 2 L into a capital I in the email address.

Speaker 2 So like if it's ATT or something, for example, it will look like ATT is emailing you, but that's why I said you have to click into the name to see the full thing because that's where you can usually tell if like they've somehow tricked it.

Speaker 2 But yeah, the phishing schemes are getting very elite. Yes.
All right. What do you got for me? Hit me.
All right.

Speaker 3 This next one is coming from Florida, and it's heavy, as they all usually are.

Speaker 3 This one, we're talking about a family in Lehigh Acres where an alleged pack to take their own lives spiraled into this brutal planned attack that left three family members severely injured and the two parents that were involved facing major felony charges.

Speaker 3 So here's a situation. Deputies in the Lee County Sheriff's Office responded to a 911 call on November 3rd.

Speaker 3 And when they walked into the home, they found 59-year-old Barbara Bates, her husband's 64-year-old Neil Bates, and their adult son who has developmental disabilities.

Speaker 3 They were all bleeding, they were all severely injured, but they were all still alive. And the details of what Barbara told detectives were absolutely chilling.

Speaker 3 And according to the arrest reports, Barbara had told authorities that their family had been struggling with eviction, financial issues, and that the caregiving of their son had just become overwhelming.

Speaker 3 In fact, she said that they had recently received an eviction notice and she believed that their family was going to be homeless with just in a few days.

Speaker 3 She also claimed that her husband had lost their job and that just the overall responsibilities of caring for their son had just become overwhelming.

Speaker 3 And allegedly, she and Neil had been talking about taking their lives for months.

Speaker 3 Investigators say she described planning their last night, watching a movie, giving her husband a nice dinner, telling her son that the next day would even be fun, and trying to reframe the whole thing as peaceful.

Speaker 3 And once everyone is home, they reportedly watched the horror movie The Long Walk, which Barbara told detectives was supposed to set the mood somehow.

Speaker 3 She also told officers she made steak as their final meal. And that's when Barbara allegedly took a kitchen knife, slit her husband's throat first, then her son's, then her own.

Speaker 3 The son later told police his mother came up to him and, quote, cut his neck without warning.

Speaker 3 The son told detectives that he had panicked and he no longer wanted to go through with this plan, but by then the attack had already happened.

Speaker 3 And according to the sheriff's office, Barbara waited roughly 40 minutes before calling 911. And when she did, she flat out told the dispatcher, quote, I slit their throats.

Speaker 3 Which I just want to take a moment here because when I was reading this, I feel like it's becoming more and more common in the stories that we're covering here that a family member is committing these well-intentioned acts of violence and then calling the authorities on themselves.

Speaker 3 So for me, it's just very shocking. And I'm just wondering, like,

Speaker 3 what is going on? Because we're seeing this more and more. In this case, thankfully, all three survived, but barely.

Speaker 3 Doctors told deputies that the son's injuries were life-threatening and required emergency surgery.

Speaker 3 Neil's wound was described as, quote, deep and forceful, while Barbara's appeared to be more superficial, which raised more and more questions about the intent behind this.

Speaker 3 And that's when investigators started digging into more of these conflicting stories. Barbara had said that the pact was mutual.
Neil claimed that their son had suggested it.

Speaker 3 But regardless of who came up with the idea, detectives say all the evidence pointed to Barbara initiating this attack.

Speaker 3 And while Neil tried to say that his son has suggested it, due to his disability, Police say he couldn't have meaningfully consented even if he tried to.

Speaker 3 Court documents make it clear that the son functions cognitively at a much younger level and would not have understood the consequences of a, quote, pact like this anyway.

Speaker 3 So now Barbara is facing two counts of attempted felony murder and one count of aggravated abuse of a disabled adult.

Speaker 3 And Neil is facing charges of aggravated abuse of a disabled adult and attempted criminal activity, and both have pled not guilty.

Speaker 3 What makes this case so heartbreaking to me is that the son was the one hurt most by this whole decision that his parents made, one that he couldn't fully even understand, let alone agree to.

Speaker 3 So it'll be interesting to see if there really was another motive here, if Barbara was this mastermind behind it all, if the son was somewhat clued in and kind of went along with some sort of a plan that she proposed, if they all three were initially involved, who knows, but thankfully they're all okay.

Speaker 3 And that poor son.

Speaker 2 Well, for him to tell the investigators, too, that he panicked and he didn't want to go through with it anymore.

Speaker 2 I do wonder what he knew about it, because, to your point, too, and I know the police mentioned it, if he was developmentally delayed, he couldn't come up with a plan like that, consent to a plan like that.

Speaker 2 They could have talked him into it, I guess, perhaps. And he probably trusted his parents that whatever they were suggesting, they knew best.

Speaker 2 And then when push came to shove, he got frightened and scared and didn't want to go through with it.

Speaker 3 Well, she said she was framing it as the next day would be really fun. So maybe it's like, after this is over, like whatever picture she painted for him.

Speaker 3 But then, of course, when, like, seeing how this was all going on, I'm sure there was some sort of energy too. Yeah, like their last night, they're getting the special dinner.

Speaker 2 Set in the mood.

Speaker 3 I've never seen that, but that's what I said. Like, set the mood.
That's why I'm like, did he was this this movie that they had watched together? I don't know.

Speaker 2 I don't even know what that movie is about. Maybe

Speaker 2 I can't watch horror movies anymore. No, like, this is so weird.
And here's what, like, makes me sad: the mom is going to probably serve some time, maybe even the dad.

Speaker 2 So, who's going to now take care of this son? It's so freaking senseless.

Speaker 3 And again, like, I feel badly. You know me, I always have the hot take, but I just feel badly.
Did she also feel like she was in this corner of like, she has this adult son that she has to care for?

Speaker 2 There's other options. No, of course.

Speaker 3 But I mean, is this this like they're going to be homeless in a few days, this desperate attempt? And I just, I always just feel bad for everyone involved. And I don't know.

Speaker 2 You know me. We don't want you on a jury.

Speaker 2 No, of course. No, what she did is awful.

Speaker 3 There are other options out there.

Speaker 2 There are others.

Speaker 3 Don't kill people. Thank you.
There we go.

Speaker 2 There's a divorce. That's the spirit.
Don't send news.

Speaker 2 Yes, exactly.

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Speaker 2 All right, guys, so I need you to brace yourselves for this next case because the way that this case begins is already one of the most chilling things that you will ever hear.

Speaker 2 At 3.40 in the morning, a man calls 911 and he tells dispatchers, I had to kill her because she was possessed. That is the exact quote.

Speaker 2 And that single sentence alone is what sent Phoenix police racing over to a home over on the west side, knowing immediately that whatever they were about to walk into, it was going to be very bad.

Speaker 2 And sure enough, what they found inside, it was beyond anything that they expected. This is the murder of 31-year-old Paxton Wallace, a woman that her family described as just pure sunshine.

Speaker 2 And the man accused of killing her in one of the most horrifying ways imaginable was her own boyfriend. 47 year old Jeffrey Rayle.
Now here is how the nightmare unfolded.

Speaker 2 When the officers got inside the home, Paxton was found, quote, chopped up with catastrophic injuries that had been caused by a chainsaw.

Speaker 2 The reports say that she was so severely injured that she was completely unrecognizable. She also had what investigators described as, quote, cutting type injuries all over her body.

Speaker 2 And Jeffrey, he was standing right there. He was holding a hammer and a cross, almost like he was in the middle of some kind of like exorcism or ritual or sacrifice, like very, very eerie.

Speaker 2 Meanwhile, this blood-soaked chainsaw just sat there in the kitchen just a few feet away. So police obviously arrested him on the spot.

Speaker 2 He was later booked into the county jail and he's currently being held on a $1 million bond for the charge of first-degree murder.

Speaker 2 But before I go any further, I do want to talk about Paxton for a moment because she obviously deserves way more than to be defined by what happened to her. But let's talk about Paxton.

Speaker 2 As I mentioned, she was just 31 years old and she was deeply rooted in her faith. She also loved her two dogs.
She was the person who never missed Sunday breakfast with her family.

Speaker 2 And as cliche as it sounds, her family says that she lit up every room that she walked into. So this entire situation, as you can imagine, has left them absolutely stunned.

Speaker 2 I mean, the brutality of it, the senselessness of it, the sheer disconnect between who she was and what she endured in those final moments, it has just shaken everyone who has heard about it.

Speaker 2 She was really strong. She did everything with grace and humility.

Speaker 3 She wasn't old. She wasn't sick.

Speaker 2 Somebody chose to end her life. Somebody chose to take her from us.
Paxton Wallace was just 31 years old when she was brutally murdered in her home.

Speaker 2 According to Phoenix police, her longtime boyfriend, 47-year-old Jeffrey Raelle, confessed to the crime. Just wild.
I mean, we've spent holidays with him.

Speaker 2 We've shared our home with him for multiple years. Paxton's sister, Alita, and her aunt Tiffany say they never saw this coming.
This will just be generational pain that

Speaker 2 you can't soothe. Now, as the investigators kept digging, they learned something that made this whole thing even more heartbreaking, if you can imagine.

Speaker 2 Paxton had been trying to get out of this relationship. Her sister Tiffany told reporters, quote, she was trying to get out.
She was trying to reach for help.

Speaker 2 No one wants to admit someone who says, I love you, is actually hurting them.

Speaker 2 Which that last line, I think it will hit hard for a lot of people who are listening because it is something that so many victims struggle with.

Speaker 2 You never do want to admit somebody who tells you that they love you is the one person who's hurting you.

Speaker 2 But Tiffany also had said that Paxton had reached out to different domestic services, but unfortunately, the wait lists were all too long. So she was trying to get help.

Speaker 2 She was trying to leave this situation. She knew that it was dangerous and she was doing everything that survivors are told they should do.

Speaker 2 Yet she still did not get the protection that she needed in in time. Court documents also revealed more of what Jeffrey had told dispatchers that night.

Speaker 2 He claimed that Paxton was, quote, in demon mode, and that killing her was the only way to stop it. Those again were his exact words.

Speaker 2 Now, the scene of the crime, I know I described it and it was a bloodbath, but it was so violent that the officers said that they needed confirmation before they could even identify Paxton.

Speaker 2 And there's also something that reporters had pointed out that really does matter in the bigger picture of everything.

Speaker 2 While violent crime overall has been trending down in the Phoenix area, domestic-related cases have been rising.

Speaker 2 And Paxton's murder, it really does fit into that growing, troubling pattern of domestic disputes turning violent and it being on the rise.

Speaker 2 Paxton's family has been very clear about one thing during all of this. They want people to recognize the signs.
They want them to take those signs seriously.

Speaker 2 And they want people to understand just how quickly things can turn when when someone is trying to get out of an unsafe situation. They've said it over and over and over again.
Paxton was trying.

Speaker 2 She was reaching out. She was asking for help.
She deserved safety. She wanted safety and she deserved protection.
I mean, she deserved so much more than the way that her life was taken.

Speaker 2 And it's so sad when you think about it because I can't think of the statistic exactly when it comes to mind.

Speaker 2 I know it's, I think on average, it takes eight times to successfully leave somebody, but there's another very alarming statistic of how many times somebody actively leaving results in death.

Speaker 2 And I don't know if that's what was happening in this moment, if she, if her being in quote, demon mode was her actually attempting to leave or if she was just pushing back about something or what was happening.

Speaker 2 But regardless, she was taking active steps to remove herself from the relationship and the situation.

Speaker 2 But meanwhile, this monster, and I'm sure the argument when it goes to trial will be something regarding mental mental health.

Speaker 2 But this monster thinks it's his prerogative and his right to take a chainsaw and, quote, chop her up. It's disgusting.
Just 31 years old. It's awful.

Speaker 3 Well, they say that like the crime of passion is usually like most violent.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 3 my,

Speaker 3 I'm going to say probably hunch is that she was probably leaving or like putting up a boundary or saying something and he felt like he lost control and went to the extreme. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 That she's against him.

Speaker 3 But I'm sure or hopefully that when they see all this history of her telling her family and the resources that she's researched, that they'll recognize quickly this isn't some sort of a mental health.

Speaker 3 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 It's just sad because it's like, anytime we talk about a case like this, it's like, I don't want to say it's always too late, but it's like most of the time.

Speaker 2 Warning signs are there. Yeah.
And it's like they're actively trying to get help.

Speaker 2 So it's like, at what point is there going to not be this flaw or break in the system system to where people can get out safely?

Speaker 2 And I don't know if there is even an answer for that or a solution, which makes it so sad.

Speaker 2 And to hear, I mean, the devastation of losing a family member is hard enough, especially, I would imagine her parents, her sister Tiffany, hearing and getting that phone call that everybody dreads.

Speaker 2 And that's your worst nightmare that your family member is deceased and worse that somebody took their life.

Speaker 2 But then to take it even a step further and the manner of which she was killed and how there was just no regard for her her life. It's so horrible.

Speaker 2 And it's an image that you never will, it'll never escape your mind. No, it's awful.
Oh, I know. Well, thank you guys so much for tuning in to this week's episode of Headline Highlights.

Speaker 2 I know we covered a lot today. I also want to give you a quick little update.

Speaker 2 Thanksgiving is coming up. I'm thankful.
Are you thankful? I'm thankful. I hate when people are like, go around the table and say what they're thankful for.
But let's put you on a spot.

Speaker 2 What are you thankful for? I'm thankful for you.

Speaker 3 Actually, I'm especially thankful for you and Jay this week.

Speaker 2 Thinking Thinking about that. Yeah, it's our dad's one-year anniversary.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, I'm thankful for you. And I'm thankful.
Well, it sounds like you're copying me. No, no, no, that sounded really sincere and heartfelt.

Speaker 2 Perfect. I'm thankful for you.
And I'm also thankful that I haven't been getting any disgusting dick pics. Oh, well, yeah.
But have you? Not lately.

Speaker 2 The dating world is wild. It's almost 76.
No, I'm just

Speaker 3 going to shade his ass.

Speaker 2 Let's drag him.

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 2 no, but my point being that we decided to do

Speaker 2 we're going to be doing a Black Friday special on Patreon. So if you've been deciding, should you pull the trigger? Do you want to join Patreon? Now would be the time beginning next week.

Speaker 2 And I'll give you another reminder in next week's episode. But first of all, Patreon is where you're going to get every episode completely ad-free.
You're going to get bonus episodes.

Speaker 2 You're going to get giveaways. You're going to get access to our 24-7 group chat.
You're going to get access to projects and things we're working on before the general public.

Speaker 2 It's basically like our true crime bestie club.

Speaker 2 So if you've been deciding if it's something you want or not, now would be the time to do it because we are going to be offering like huge slashed intro prices, annual prices, what else?

Speaker 2 I mean, extra goodies. Extra, oh, a lot of extra goodies, a lot of fun surprises, a lot of fun giveaways.
Sometimes Amy, so let me just tell you guys right now, Amy spearheads the giveaway process.

Speaker 2 And sometimes she gets a little crazy to where I'm like, reel it in. Let's look at the budget.
Let's look at the budget. What budget?

Speaker 2 Exactly. So now would be the time to join, but I'll give you guys that reminder again next week.
When are we starting it? On Monday. We're starting it on Monday.
On Monday before Thanksgiving. Yes.

Speaker 2 So this upcoming Monday. Wow, I can't believe that.
I know.

Speaker 3 Well, it's hard because you've been in Christmas mode for the last few weeks. So I forget Thanksgiving even exists.

Speaker 2 No, honestly. Okay, first of all, I set up Christmas usually September 30th, which people are like, chill.
What about Halloween? What about Thanksgiving?

Speaker 2 I was actually very good this year and I set up Christmas on Halloween.

Speaker 2 But I will say, now that my kids are getting older, there's confusion because I did take them to see Santa over the weekend to bake cookies with him.

Speaker 2 But because the tree has been up, Emmy keeps saying, tomorrow's Christmas. No, I know.
It's confusing.

Speaker 3 In between, now our brother has a baby. So I get pictures all day long of all your kids with Santa or in their Christmas pajamas.
So yeah, for me, Thanksgiving happened a long time ago.

Speaker 2 No, no, honestly. I know she'll, she'll think Christmas is wrong.
I'm like, well, no, we still have to go through Thanksgiving. What's Thanksgiving? You're right.
You're right. Who knows?

Speaker 2 Give me that hand, put it on construction paper. We'll make it a little jerky and we'll call it a day.

Speaker 2 I just like Christmas. I want to set it up because I want to feel the coziness.
And like, I hear you. My tree's up.
Yeah, okay. So I'm thankful for the honesty here and the self-awareness.

Speaker 2 No, because let's be honest, would you rather sit in a cozy house with a fire on and a Christmas tree and twinkling lights?

Speaker 2 Or would you rather sit in a house that's covered in orange and turkeys and harvest?

Speaker 2 Exactly. They can't say less.
And with that, we are going to get off now. We're thankful for all of you.

Speaker 2 We are thankful for all of you. But don't worry, there will be an actual Thanksgiving episode.
But like everything else in my life, I like to do things early.

Speaker 2 So that's why we've been talking about Thanksgiving.

Speaker 2 Thank you guys so much for tuning in. Until the next one, be nice.
Don't kill people. Don't send nudes.
Don't send nudes. Don't

Speaker 2 be a Brian Koberger in a world in which you can be literally anything else. Watch for red flags.
Watch for red flags. All right.
Bye.

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