Making A Murder Meal - Jeffersonville, Indiana

2h 54m

This week, in Jeffersonville, Indiana, police walk into a bloodbath, in a house, with blood splattered on the walls, and body parts, all over the home. The murderer is still on the premisis, but that just starts detectives down a wild road, with a man claiming to be Zeus, saying he ate the brain "to get the third eye", and yelling at things that aren't there. The craziest part is, this isn't the first time he's killed!!

 

Along the way, we find out that there's never free hot dogs, or ice cream, that you probably don't have a third eye, in your forehead, and that claiming to be Zeus isn't the best defense in court!!

 

New episodes, every Wednesday & Friday nights!!

 

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Listen and follow along

Transcript

Candice Rivera has it all.

In just three years, she went from stay-at-home mum to traveling the world, saving lives and making millions.

Anyone would think Candice's charm life is about as real as Unicorn's.

But sometimes the truth is even harder to believe than the lies.

It's not true.

There's so many things not true.

You gotta believe me.

I'm Charlie Webster and this is Unicorn Girl, an Apple original podcast produced by Seven Hills.

Follow and listen on Apple

For the final trivia question, what is the largest mammal in the world?

Sir, in the orange, phone away, please.

Um, my Kidd of Smart Smoke Alarm sent an alert through the Ring app.

See?

The train monitoring agent is calling now.

Hello?

The Kidd of Smart Smoke Alarm sends real-time mobile alerts in the Ring app.

And with a subscription, emergency help can be requested even when you're not home.

A compatible Ring subscription is required for 24-7 smoke and carbon monoxide monitoring, sold separately.

This week, in Jeffersonville, Indiana, police discover a horror scene complete with blood-covered walls and body parts found all over the house.

And the most surprising thing about this is this isn't the first time this horrible murderer has killed.

Welcome to Small Town Murder.

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder.

Yay!

Oh, yay, indeed, Jimmy.

Yay, indeed.

My name is James Petrogallo.

I'm here with my co-host.

I'm Jimmy Wissman.

Thank you, folks, so much for joining us today on an absolutely insane edition of Small Town Murder.

As usual, obviously, but wow, is it crazy today?

I mean, it's extra crazy today.

It sounds like it.

The act itself is crazy, and the person committing it is even crazier.

It's just the whole thing is nuts.

We'll get into it very, very deeply.

But before we do, absolutely head over to shutupandgivemeurder.com.

What are you going to find there?

First of all, all the merch you could possibly want for all of our shows, including Small Town Murder, but more importantly, tickets for live shows in the fall.

We cannot wait starting back up in September.

Tickets right now, there are a few left in San Diego because we released some.

So a few left in San Diego.

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Otherwise, Seattle, D.C., and Philly still have some tickets left.

So get in there, get your tickets right now, and keep an eye out because we have like holds that they give us.

And every once in a while, we release a bunch of them.

So if you're looking for a specific place that's sold out, check you might find them popping up.

I mean, not a lot, but a few popping up now and then.

So definitely get in there.

Also, you definitely, definitely want to check out Crime and Sports and your stupid opinions.

Our other two shows.

Crime and Sports, we're in the middle of of a deep dive multi-part series on the I-5 killer.

No sports involved.

It's all murder.

It's crazy stuff.

He kills a lot.

He kills a lot.

Yeah.

Well, he's the I-5 killer.

I mean,

maybe the I-5 driver.

Otherwise, it'd be a boring story.

I don't think we can.

I-5 guy stuck in traffic.

I don't think that would be probably a multi-parter at least.

Then absolutely get yourself Patreon.

Do yourself a favor: patreon.com, p-a-t-r-e-o-n.com slash crime in sports, just like the name of our other show there.

What you get there, anybody five dollars a month or above, you're going to get, first of all, immediately upon subscription, you're going to get tons of back episodes, hundreds that you've never heard before, bonus episodes.

Then you get new ones every other week: one crime in sports, one small-town murder.

This week for small-town murder, we are going to cover that Amy Bradley disappearance that everybody's talking about with that documentary.

Because I am intrigued.

I mean, that is so interesting.

Fascinating.

And it kind of piggybacks on poop cruise from last time.

Sure.

Because you think your cruise went wrong with poop everywhere?

How about this?

It could be worse.

This could be a lot worse.

Another reason not to go on a cruise.

Absolutely.

So you get all of this, and now you get all three shows, Crime and Sports, Your Stupid Opinions, and both editions, both Express and Regular, of Small Town Murder, all ad-free on Patreon as well.

It's all we can do for you.

We're crazy.

If we could come over and mow your lawns, we would.

But this is all we can do for our five bucks.

Go ahead and do that.

Patreon.com/slash crimeinsports.

That said, disclaimer time.

This is a comedy show.

We're comedians.

We're going to make jokes and people are going to have horrible deaths.

That's how the show works.

Now, nothing is embellished or anything like that for comedic effect.

Unfortunately, it doesn't have to be because it's that crazy.

Everything we cover is that crazy.

But there's a nice way to do it.

And that's how we feel.

We do it here.

The thing we do is we never make fun of the victims or the victims' families.

Why, James?

Because we're assholes.

What?

But we're not scumbags.

See how that works?

It's real easy.

There's plenty of other stuff to make fun of.

Trust me.

When someone decides, I think I can get away with murder, I'm going to make fun of that person.

That's just the way we do our thing here.

That's how we roll.

So that said, if you think that true crime and comedy never, ever should go together, maybe you might not like this, but I think you might.

That's the thing.

Give it a chance, but no complaining later.

Let's just say that.

That said, I think it's time to sit back, everybody.

Arms to the sky and let's all shout.

Shut up

and give me murder.

Let's do this, everybody.

Okay.

Let's go on a trip, shall we?

We are going to Jeffersonville, Indiana.

I bet I could guess who that's named after.

Yes, you can, because it is absolutely named after Thomas Jefferson.

This is in southeastern Indiana, like far southeastern Indiana, like five minutes to Louisville, far south.

It's almost a different place.

Right over, yeah, almost a different state, right across the river there.

It's about an hour and 45 to Indianapolis.

If you want to go someplace pretty dull, you can go there.

That's fine.

About four hours and 45 minutes to Middlebury, Indiana, our last Indiana episode, episode 568, The Preacher's Daughter and the Soul Stealer.

That was a crazy-ass episode.

Indiana, you guys bring the crazy.

Not playing.

We salute you is what we're going to say right now.

As far as for crazy crazy shows and crazy stories, you guys get the job done.

Uh, this is in Clark County, area code 812.

Nickname of this place, not really all that creative.

No, what do you think the nickname of Jeffersonville is?

Oh, boy,

that gave you just land the time for.

I don't know.

Think real simple.

Yeah, is it a place to live, work, and play?

No, no, not a motto, a nickname.

Oh, oh, nickname, yeah, yeah.

Uh,

I don't know what Thomastown, the Jeff, The Jeff?

The Jeff, which sounds

crazy.

A little bit of history.

It is named after Thomas Jefferson.

It was founded in 1802.

And the county named after Lewisand, right?

I don't know who the county is named after, but possibly because that was during that expedition is when this place became, you know, was founded.

So, yeah, it was named after now.

Thomas Jefferson designed the original platting of the town, by the way.

Is that right?

Was he an architect?

You would think he'd be too busy for that.

He's got a lot of other shit going on.

He was into a lot of stuff, architecture.

He was into science.

He was into like animals.

That's why Lewis and Clark were bringing all those animals back to him because he wanted to like look at them and study them and shit.

He was real interested in that.

He wanted a zoo?

Yeah.

He was a real like intellectual kind of guy.

He was interested in everything.

So in the 1800s, it became known for shipyards along the riverfront.

And it was a big supply center during the Civil War for the Union Army that would support the operations in the Western theater.

It was like you'd stop here and supply and then head west and served as a hospital center as well.

Somehow, it goes from being this little Midwestern town to in the 1930s and 40s, it became a huge hub for gambling and like partying and drinking and

yeah, little Las Vegas, they called it for a while.

Heading over to the jet to get fucked up.

Get wasted and lose all.

I'm going to get wasted and lose the mortgage payment, honey.

I'll be back later.

Get wasted, gamble, and buy some pussy.

wow that's what they did they had dog tracks and casinos and betting parlors and nightclubs this is it's a tiny town in Indiana makes no sense wow

so let's do some reviews of this town here here's five stars I have lived here all my life small town with friendly people we have everything you need yeah we got it all

tracks pussy come come to the jet baby

whatever you need we're also close to big cities such as Louisville Kentucky about two hours away from indianapolis and nashville the school systems here are very are very are are great

sorry this is not my fault this is written weird the school systems

write this way when you're talking about the school system that's always a joke

we make we make that joke about twice a month usually because it's just and it keeps coming up

the school systems here are great very safe place to be so they're great very safe place to be i'm like there's something missing there the school systems is great.

School systems is great.

Very safe place to be, spelled wrong.

B is spelled wrong.

B-E-E.

It's two E's.

Three stars here.

Boring as hell, but pretty good if you just want to live the rest of your life in a calm place.

Well, yeah, that's.

If you require no excitement, this place is fine for you.

Normally there isn't, you know, normally there isn't any crime here and is a good place to raise kids.

There's a lot of diversity diversity here, so you may see people of all places here.

Of all places.

Of all places here.

God damn it.

Three stars.

Jeffersonville is a small town with not much to do in it.

Yeah, boring as hell, we've been told.

I've heard.

I've heard, boring as hell.

I'd like to see more stories to shop or more stores to shop in and other amenities.

Overall, it's not a bad place, and it's close to Clarksville and Louisville, which both have many things one can do.

All the villes.

All the villes.

Jeffersonville, Clarksville.

Here we, this is amazing.

One star.

I love it when people have no context of the outside world.

It makes me laugh.

One star had to move.

The crime rate is ridiculous.

Well, we'll be the judge of that because we have the stats.

I don't know if you do or not.

Just a sec.

Yeah.

We got this.

They keep building and building and building and building.

Four buildings.

And building.

And building and building.

Could have gone on indefinitely at that point.

Take it easy, Dr.

Seuss.

It's like Clarksville now.

Oh, well, that looks crisis.

Might as well be Clarksville, the booming metropolis of Clarksville.

What is this, Fayetteville?

Come on.

Next thing you know, the monkeys are going to sing songs about it.

Fuck this.

This place is crazy.

Is that Clarksville or Clarkstown?

I don't remember because it's way before my time.

I've heard terrible things about that Jacksonville.

When it gets too big, we're going to.

Get a ville going.

Anything's possible.

And then finally, my favorite, a weather complaint, which I just love these.

One star.

This is my favorite complaint of any place ever, all the time.

Weather is very inconsistent.

One day it will be freezing, the next warm, the next rainy, the next windy.

It's constantly changing.

It's always changing.

Like weather.

Wish the mayor would get on top of that bullshit.

You ever heard the expression, it changes like the weather?

That's because the weather changes a lot.

It's an example of something that literally is the most changing thing there is and can change at any time.

Wow.

It's about to get worse, bud.

Yeah, what are you talking about?

People in this town, 49,178.

So not too small, but not a big city by any stretch of the imagination.

I mean, it's not Clarksville or anything.

Let's not go crazy here.

Oh, wow.

It's about, women are about 50.8% of the population here.

So a little over the national average, but pretty close.

Median age is about a few months off the national average.

It's about 37.9.

So it's very, very average here.

Family is 48% married.

It's usually 50-50.

A couple more people that are single with children, but pretty much near the average.

Race in this town, 75.7% white, 13.6% black, 0.8% Asian, 5.2% Hispanic.

Religion, 35% of the people here are religious, which is less than I would have thought, honestly.

It's normally 50-50.

This is a sin town, James.

I guess so.

The number one religion here is other Christian faith.

Oh, the one that likes you to go to casinos and brothels and shit.

Whatever faith.

I don't know what faith that is, but one of those.

They have low unemployment here, I think, because there's a lot of places to work.

You can go five minutes to Louisville.

There's a lot of places around here.

Yeah.

Median household income here, normally it's about $69,000 and change in the rest of the country.

Here it is $60,110.

So not too far off.

The cost of living, $100 is regular average.

Here it's $87,000.

So

it's a little low.

A little low.

And the housing is the lowest one out of everything here.

Median home cost here, $217,400.

So

not bad at all compared to a lot of other places.

It's $338 in the rest of the country.

So not too shabby here.

Now, maybe we've convinced you, damn it.

Maybe.

Maybe you're like, you know what?

I want a booming metropolis that reminds reminds people of Clarksville.

I need it.

I'm going to go here.

We have for you the Jeffersonville, Indiana Real Estate Report.

Average two-bedroom rental here goes for about $1,050.

So

a little, yeah, a couple hundred

under the national average.

So kind of in line with its home cost, I would say.

Here is the house number one, and I'm going to show you a picture of it.

It's

definitely.

I mean, why not?

Look at the inside.

It's a tree that close, but

it's got, well, look at this.

The porch is a tree.

Fuck.

Yeah,

that thing's way too close.

There's paint missing off the walls.

That is a brown carpet from about 1981.

Probably not brown when they laid it.

No, that's funky.

This is a four-bedroom, two-bath, 1,744-square-foot place.

Four bedrooms.

Four bedrooms, 1,700 square feet.

I had a four-bedroom house that was $1,700.

Yeah, $1,700.

0.31

acres.

So, you know, a decent size lot anyway.

It's at auction.

And they're estimating it'll go for about $81,000 is the estimate.

Wow.

So not bad.

Here's another one.

This one's kind of more put together.

It's cleaner.

Four-bedroom, two-bath, $1,643 square feet.

Portland.

It kind of does look Portlandy.

But the inside's done.

The floors are nice.

The walls are painted.

It's not a bad place.

It's the other house finished, basically.

Sure.

And it's $187,900.

So put $100,000 on the other house and you got this house.

Or you can just move into this house, save yourself the aggravation.

Don't pay.

Then there's this house.

Look at this thing.

It looks like Ferris Bueller's house.

It's like the John Hughes movie.

Big driveway.

Two stories.

I don't like...

It's still...

Is that a double staircase?

No, no, that's just two pictures of the staircase.

But it has the carpeted stairs, which is always a bad sign that things haven't been updated in a while.

Yeah.

It's a five-bedroom, four-bath, 5,513-square-foot

on a one-and-a-quarter-acre lot, $799,000 for that.

That's a pretty good deal.

The rest of the country, you're going to pay a shitload more for that, or at least in most of the country.

In Phoenix, that house would be $2.5 million.

Yeah, easy.

Not bad at all.

I just had a $76,000 price cut on that one, too.

Oh, things

to do in this town.

Yeah, what is it?

Okay, not much.

We've heard that.

Yeah.

I feel like it's built to be a, it's kind of like it's a suburb.

And if you want to do things, you should go to Louisville.

Get the fuck out of here.

It's right there.

And so we're not going to put stuff here.

We live here.

You go over there and do shit.

That's kind of.

Let's play there.

Live here.

Yeah, exactly.

Live.

Well, just live and don't work or play here.

Just live here.

Our motto is live.

Damn it.

Live here.

Do all all your other shit somewhere else.

So it's hard to find shit.

Here is Jeff Fest.

Yeah, okay, Jeff Fest.

Jeff Fest, not to be confused with the Jeff Fest in Chicago, which I was very

where I was.

No, that's at like Jefferson Park or something, some shit in Chicago.

And that's if you search, that's what you're going to come up with.

So I was like putting all the things from that, and I'm like, wait, this isn't the right thing, goddamn it.

Dang, the bare-naked ladies are going to be here.

They had bands, they had all sorts of shit.

Ludacris is there, of course, obviously.

There he is.

Nelly's going to be here.

Bare-naked ladies.

No, but Jeff Fest, you don't get that, this Jeff Fest.

You get free children's games, free pony rides and inflatables, free face painting.

So far, I haven't heard one thing for adults.

This is all

very targeted.

Free make-and-take crafts for the kids.

Get your macaroni and your glue ready, kids.

Yeah.

Your elbow macaroni and your glue.

And parents get ready to

get that fridge magnet's ready.

We don't want this shit.

Yeah, nobody wants that.

Hot dogs, and then in parentheses, for sale.

Because everything else said free, so like for sale.

Ice cream, for sale.

Give it away.

Christ.

And free live music as well.

And the live music is so good that they don't mention any of the people who will be performing, which is when you know it's great.

Then we have the Rollin on the River Craft Beer Fest.

Okay.

That seems like it could be okay.

It says, we want to celebrate and further the craft beer industry in Kentuckiana, which is what they call this area.

Oh, boy.

They absolutely call

the Louisville, southwestern

Ohio.

Don't do that.

Kentuckiana is a...

That name's been around for years and years.

They all call that area.

Yeah, they all call it that.

What?

It's that southeastern Ohio,

northwestern Kentucky, southeastern Indiana.

That's Kentuckiana, they call that shit.

And then there's Pennsylvania between Pennsylvania.

Do these people know?

Or West Virginia, as it's known in the rest of the world.

Do these people know that Kentucky is not good?

Not sure.

They're on top of it.

They have to like it.

They're embracing it.

They got to smell it.

With a premiere tasting that event that embodies the craft beer lifestyle.

Okay, I don't know what that means.

Embodies khaki shorts and a beard.

Is that what it embodies?

Because I feel like that's the craft beer lifestyle.

Cargoes.

Yeah.

Cargoes and no shirts.

Guests will be able to stroll the expansive grounds of the museum property while enjoying beer from some of the best breweries in the world.

We also have fine wine distributors, import beers, and more.

Enjoy

amazing grub from local food vendors and listen to live music.

Okay.

It says team up with your friends to dominate at Cornhole, which

dominate.

Sounds like you're going to gang rape a butthole together.

That sounds real.

Dominate at Cornhole.

I don't like that.

You're going to make somebody cry.

God damn it.

Trash can beer pong.

Okay.

And more.

I don't know.

I didn't go to college, so I don't know if drinking games is much trash.

Trash can?

Are they using trash cans on like basketballs or something instead of solo cups and pancakes?

I guess.

It makes it a lot easier.

Drink out of a trash can, though?

Jesus.

Oh, I don't know if you want to drink out of it.

And the music will be done by Runaway Souls.

Yeah.

Don't know who that is, but it says jam out with Louisville's finest slice of fuzz pop.

What the fuck?

I don't know that genre.

Rock and roll with heaps of soul, the runaway souls.

Okay, good for you guys.

Crime rate in this town.

What we're interested in here.

Let's find out if that guy was right.

Property crime's a bit high.

It's about

20%-ish high.

It's a little high.

It's not overwhelming, but it's definitely noticeable, probably.

It's frightening.

And then violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and, of course, assault.

The Mount Rushmore of crime is also a bit high, but not that high, not 20%.

It's just a little bit high.

So there's definitely crime here, but we're five minutes outside of a major city and, you know, that's going to happen.

And there's 50,000 people here.

So, you know, shit happens.

That said, let's talk about some murder, shall we?

Let's do it.

Now, before we start, I just want to do a little program note.

We've had some confusion, apparently.

I didn't realize there was confusion, but I've seen a couple posts and a couple times I've been tagged and sent messages about people,

newer listeners, thinking that the Friday Small Town Murder Express episodes are a shortened version of a longer story we did.

Not at all.

It's not true.

If you listen to that, it's a condensed version of last week's story.

That's what they think, which

understandable because you just think, oh, yeah, they just maybe do a shorter version for people who just want to hear a story.

No, no, no.

It's a whole other story.

It's just a story that's insane enough for an episode, but doesn't have enough background or info to make up two and a half hours.

So that's an express.

They're usually, they're lightning in a bottle.

They're, you know, 10 pounds of murder in a two-pound bag.

So they're, they're crazy episodes.

We're missing that.

Yeah.

I understand.

I mean, well, if you're not that concentrated in it, you're just a casual listener to something.

You just, oh, they have a Wednesday show that's long.

They got a Friday show that's short.

Oh, that's an Express.

It's probably a condensed.

You know, I could see it.

So there you go.

It's not what we're doing here.

We're giving you fresh murder twice a week.

There you go.

So

let's talk about a lady first, shall we?

Let's talk about Tammy Joe Harbin.

Everybody calls her Tammy Joe also.

That's a name for her.

Harbin is H-A-R-B-I-N.

Later on, she will be Tammy Joe Blanton.

Later, she'll get married and divorced.

She, but keep the last name, apparently.

She's born January 7th, 1968.

She is from the Jeffersonville, Indiana area.

She lived here her whole life.

Her dad's name is Daryl.

Her mother's name is Linda.

She's got a couple of brothers, Tim, Jason,

who will live.

And she's got another brother named Darren who dies at some point.

Oh, dang.

I don't know when.

Now, I'm not sure if this was an infant disease or if he like bought it going over the high side on a motorcycle.

I'm not sure.

Bought it.

Yeah, bought it.

Died.

Bought the farm.

Yeah, bought it.

He bought it.

If you're talking about going over the high side on a motorcycle, that's buying it.

You know, that's not dying.

That's the only term I could make work with that.

You bought it, man.

You're giving everything you got for it.

Yeah, so I'm not sure how he dies, but he's dead at some point.

So she's got a dead brother and two live brothers.

She graduated in 1986 from Jeffersonville High School.

Now, in the 2010s, we'll fast forward to here.

In the 2010s, she is working

doing billing and coding at Zermed, which is a big Louisville healthcare

deal.

Yeah.

So she's doing like, you know, medical billing and coding and that sort of thing.

Now, in June of 2014, she has a boyfriend that she met a couple months before that.

Hell yeah.

Okay, so she's got a boyfriend.

At this point, she is like, you know, 46 years old.

Right.

And she's just looking to, you know.

have a wife and have a have a significant other.

So she meets this guy in the spring, and by June, he's moving into the house.

Wow.

Yeah.

So, I mean, that's a quick.

That's a fast courtship.

Yeah.

I mean, when you're in your 40s, what are you really waiting for here?

I mean, you either like the person or you don't.

You're going to make sure they're not fucking insane.

You've been hiding so much for three months.

The thing is, she knows a lot about the guy, which is

makes it even odder that they ended up moving in together so quickly.

Because when you find out who kind of the guy's background, you go, you probably wanted to give that one six, eight months before you invited him into your home.

But I think part of the reason why she was disarmed by this young man is because she met him through his mother.

Oh, yeah.

Meeting someone through their mother is very disarming when it comes to that.

You think, oh, well, good relationship with mom, that equals will treat me right.

That kind of thing.

I don't know.

So did that

Bates guy.

Well, no, he killed his mom and then

pretended to be her.

No, he was obsessed with her.

No, that was a completely different thing.

No, he was abused.

He was abused by her, and it was like that was an Ed Gaines situation where the

horrible mother was inspired by that.

Yeah, yeah, that was a different thing.

But that's what Sarah, my wife, has told me many times that that is what her parents told her growing up was

figure out how they talk about their mom because that's how they're going to talk about you.

So

that's what girls are looking at.

That's what women are looking at here.

If you're like, oh, my mom's a fucking bitch and blah, blah, blah,

unless they have had some problems and they're looking for a bad guy subconsciously.

Sure, if they're looking for someone good, you're out right there.

You might as well have kicked their cat when you walked into their apartment.

Like, that's not

good.

So, but you meet through a mother, I think that disarms you as far as yeah, I don't know what it is.

If someone's mother's vouching for them, it seems like they're nice.

Yeah,

now, this guy's name is Joseph Albert Oberhansley,

O-B-E-R-H-A-N-S-L-E-Y, Oberhansley.

So Joseph here.

He's born in 81.

He's significantly 13 years younger than her.

Which, again, also common for

like a lot of times I notice like when women get divorced, they tend to look for younger guys for a minute.

Not like 20, but like, you know, a little bit younger, age appropriate still, but which is normal because guys do the same thing in like midlife crisis time.

So it's very similar.

So now this this guy,

Tammy Joe's friends are immediately suspicious of this guy.

There's just a vibe they don't like off of Joseph,

which is interesting.

Now, this is in 2014, so you didn't have to hire a private investigator.

You didn't have to like just sit and wonder.

You could just...

pop him up on the internet, you know, on your phone.

Yeah.

Look on your iPhone and you'll have the answer in two minutes.

So they look up all this shit on the internet and they find some

very serious background issues with this guy that we're going to talk about.

And they start warning Tammy Joe that you can't go out with this guy.

Don't let him move into your house.

Look at what he did.

This is crazy.

So

it's very, very interesting here.

So now a little bit about Joseph.

Let's give you his backstory.

Because this is very important

to the whole thing.

Well,

he's from Utah originally.

And his mom's name is Brenda Self, and she'll come up quite a bit.

Brenda is who introduced Tammy Joe to Joseph.

So we got Tammy Joe.

Mrs.

Self.

Tammy Joe and Joe introduced by Mrs.

Self.

Yeah.

Which that's very interesting.

He has a younger brother and a younger sister named Alicia.

Now, I don't know if he has any other siblings, but these are the only two that really come into play, so we'll talk about that.

He and other people describe his childhood in Utah as, he says, quote, good or better than most.

Oh, decent childhood.

Nothing too, you know, no big events, didn't get moved around a bunch.

You know, mom didn't die when he was three.

Salt Lake Provo or like

Salt Lake City.

It's around Salt Lake City suburbs is where he ends up.

So,

yeah, he's got a grandmother named Norma, and she says that she remembers him being such a loving boy when he was just a

beautiful kid.

She said, the kind who would always put his arms around me.

He'd say he loved me and he kissed me.

Okay.

Then he'd bring me flowers and then he'd say, grandma, let's talk about taking this relationship to the next level.

And I was like, okay, now he's getting weird.

Let me help you off with them bloomers.

Yeah, no, no.

Joking, Joe.

So.

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She said he was a sweet kid with kind eyes.

That's what his cousin said, who was 10 years older.

His cousin, Misty, who's 10 years older.

She said that she never heard him so much as swear as a kid.

He was just a real good

kid, a real inline little Utah kid.

Yeah.

I don't think kids in Utah swear as much as we did, probably.

Salt Lake,

there's much less.

Probably, yeah.

So

things happen, though, that end up making him less than bright and bubbly and cheery.

What happened?

Well, he's going to get in trouble a bunch of times.

He's got a bunch of problems, a bunch of like little burglaries and stealing shit, stuff like that.

As a kid?

As a teenager, yeah.

He was doing a bunch of stuff like that.

A couple assaults here and there.

Oh, Jesus.

Now, this could be seen a couple different ways.

You could look at this as like a, you know, a precursor of things to come, you know, this precedent of something that's going to happen.

Or...

It could just be mad litigious parents in the neighborhood when he punched a boy in the face and they're like, that's assault.

You could very easily say, boys will be boys.

You know what I mean?

That's the other thing.

So it's, and that's kind of the, you don't really know which way to go with it.

Because if you have like a good kid, you don't want to ruin his whole life over something that didn't, you know, nobody's dead or anything.

Who cares?

But also, if it's not a great kid, he's on a bad path.

You probably want to try to correct that.

So that's a, it's really tough to figure out what to do with a 14-year-old who's fucking up.

Very tough.

Very difficult.

Now, when he's 16, that's when things really, really, really hit the skids.

Really?

His half-brother commits suicide.

And to him, it's his brother.

He grew up with him the whole time.

He commits suicide.

This devastates Joseph.

Sure.

And then within a few weeks, his father dies of a drug overdose.

Huh.

Yeah, and we don't know if it was suicide or an accident.

Yeah, and we don't know if that kid is his kid or is his stepkid.

Yeah, so either way, it's not great.

Not good for this kid.

Within a few weeks, his brother and father died.

When you're 16, that's a lot of shit to deal with.

It's very close.

Yeah.

There's too many in the house.

If they were both in the same car and got in an accident, you could deal with it all at once.

But to deal with your brother, and then just when you're kind of starting to whatever, then your father dies too.

That's a lot to go on.

So it's just a lot.

So his mother, Brenda, said that's when everything changed for Joseph and when his troubles really started.

The other shit she blew off as just teen kids doing dumb shit.

But this is really a different story.

She said this was just weighing on him so hard, all the trauma and all this type of thing.

And she said, also, everybody said he started doing drugs at that point as well.

Yeah.

Because just, you know, I mean, kids are likely to do drugs now and then anyway, but now if they're real depressed and pissed off at the world, that's when this happens.

So obviously, it's a good time for him to impregnate a young lady, right?

Certainly.

This is the best time.

When you're sad in flux and hopped up on meth, you really want to knock people up.

And 17, the best thing to do is

knock up a young lady here.

So at 17, he has,

gets a girl pregnant here.

Sabrina Elder is her name.

They're the same age and all that kind of thing.

At least she's not 13 or some shit.

That's good.

And on December 4th, 1999, they have a son.

Great.

Which is terrific.

Joseph doesn't think it's as terrific as Sabrina does, though.

No.

Now, she names the child Joseph Oberhansley Jr.

She juniored him up.

Yeah.

She junior him up.

He says, why are you doing that?

That's not my fucking kid.

What?

In the hospital.

Up until this point, like there hadn't been an issue about it, but in the hospital now.

And the kid didn't come out Asian or black or something.

I mean, it was a, it's a fucking white kid.

It's an Oberhansley.

Yeah.

Either way, it's not enough for you to be like, I know that's not mine.

Right.

You know, so, you know, like I said, if the kid came out looking fucking Filipino or something, you'd go, okay, I don't think that's my kid.

Neither of us are Filipino, so there's a problem here.

But no, it's just a white kid.

And so

she says it absolutely is your kid.

What are you talking about?

And he starts freaking out over the paternity.

Why'd you name him after me?

Why'd you name him after me?

It's not my kid.

And he's the only one who is doing this.

His whole family is like, what are you doing, Joseph?

You're being a nut.

They're embracing Sabrina and helping take care of her.

Yeah, they're at the hospital.

I mean, it's a family affair.

Everybody's on board, except he's crazy.

What the hell?

So December 8th, 1999,

she, Sabrina, is staying at his grandmother's house in West Valley City, Utah.

Jesus.

So she's staying with his family even.

And his mom's there, and his little sister's there, the 13-year-old,

the whole family's there.

And he ends up the night, this is December 8th, 1999.

He's there as well.

Everybody's there.

He punches Sabrina in the face that night.

Why?

He punched a woman who had a baby four days ago.

What the hell?

Which is obviously

small-town murder-approved behavior.

Please don't punch women, number one, but especially if

they're fucking still dragging dragging their vagina behind them.

Don't let them peel up at least before you start acting weird.

Let things shrink back, too.

This is crazy, man.

She's fucking still got a placenta just dragging on, and he's

fuck, man.

So the next night is December 9th, 1999.

And it's quite the night.

Let's just say that.

This is at grandma's house.

We have Brenda Self is there, mom.

We have Sabrina Elder, girlfriend.

We have Grandma, Norma Dodge is her name.

And then we have 13-year-old Alicia,

and we have Joseph Jr., the baby.

That's who's present in the house.

Joseph is not present this night.

Okay.

Then he shows up.

And they didn't know where he was.

They didn't know when they were expecting him.

He just shows up.

He is completely jacked up.

He's on a shitload of meth.

Shows up all fucked up and angry.

Okay.

Walks into the house.

He's still enraged that his family is embracing Sabrina and the baby because he is still, he's screaming that that's not my fucking baby still.

And you fucking, you, you're taking her side is what they're saying, what he's saying.

So he walks into the home, grandma's house, for Christ's sake.

And by the way, everyone in this house couldn't be more, it's mom, grandma.

Yeah, new mom,

baby, and 13-year-old little sister.

All vulnerable people that you should be trying to protect, you would think, right?

These are, if you'd say, who do you want to protect in this world?

He'd say, those people, all of them.

Women and children.

Well, those specific women and children.

And these specific ones in his life, yeah.

That's what I mean.

For him, who would you like to have protected?

He'd go, these people, I'll protect them.

So he's walking up and down, pacing up and down the hallway several times, muttering to himself.

Really?

And he's high on meth, and they can tell he's fucked up.

So they're like, oh, Jesus Christ.

Then he has, I don't know if if it's a backpack or some kind of sack but he has a bag with him satchel yeah some kind of satchel backpack something he reaches into the satchel

and pulls out a 22 pistol why does he have that well we'll find out here um

this is wild he pulls out the gun

aims it on sabrina

yelling at her saying it's not my fucking kid and you're a liar and my parents and that ba-ba-ba-ba and he just opens fire on her he shot her just keeps five times he shoots her what opens fire i mean this is close range in the in the living room he's doing this in grandma's living room

doilies flying everywhere this is crazy shit

so now here brenda his mom sees this and runs over to sabrina to try to help her and basically human shields her right gets between her son and sabrina to try to help her because she's she's like i'm sure he won't shoot me in the back i'm his mother.

Well, wrong.

He shot her too.

Opens fire on his mom.

What the hell?

Bang, bang.

Shoots her twice in the back and in the arm.

And he only stops because he turns his attention to his little sister who's 13.

She bravely, this kid deserves five fucking medals.

She ran in the room, scooped up the baby, and took off.

Wow.

Ran into another room.

Yeah, she saw this guy.

13 years old.

She did this.

Big balls on you, man.

I respect the shit out of this kid, man.

So she scoops the baby, runs into the other room.

He turns, starts firing at her with the baby.

Holding the child.

His little sister and a baby.

The two, I mean,

every guy should want to just in your brain go, I want to protect my little sister and babies.

I don't want to hurt them.

And he's like, I will fire at both of them.

And Meth ruins that thought, evidently.

Apparently, so.

Now, grandma is in a back room, so she's unaffected by this, thankfully, because I feel like I don't think grandma would have done it.

I don't think she's getting some scathed channels.

She wouldn't have fared any better than the rest of us.

He didn't hit Alicia at all?

He didn't hit her at all.

He missed.

Wow.

She was running with the baby, and he missed, so he's not that good of a shot, apparently.

That is,

that's wild.

Because she apparently,

what happened was mom heard the gunshots.

put the baby down and ran over there to help Sabrina.

So the baby was put down.

That's when Alicia was like, oh shit, the baby's on the floor.

Scoop that baby up and run away, which is, wow, that's incredible.

Amazing that he didn't hit her.

That's so lucky.

So, yeah, she just ran out of the room.

At that point, here comes grandma.

Grandma rushes in from the kitchen into the living room.

And he's standing there with the gun, his wounded mother on the floor, a shot five times mother of his child laying there,

and instead of turning the gun on grandma, he turns it on himself.

Turns it on himself, puts it under his chin,

and fucking fires.

Really?

Gun under the chin and fires.

Yeah.

Unfortunately, for everybody, I feel like, especially him,

this bullet does not kill him.

Doesn't even go into his head.

No, it does.

It gets lodged in the frontal lobe of his brain.

Really?

And he's down and unconscious.

Now, this is quite the scene here.

I mean,

this is crazy.

So, grandma calls the cops, and the deputy chief shows up and said when his mother tried to protect Sabrina, he shot his mother, then shot himself.

Yeah.

This is crazy.

Now, mom is going to survive her wounds.

Yeah.

She's going to survive.

Two shots, one in the back, one in the arm.

Sabrina's dead.

She's dead when the cops arrive.

She's already dead.

There's not even a, yeah, she's dead on arrival here.

So now his suicide attempt leaves, like I said, a bullet destroying the frontal lobe of your brain.

It's a pretty traumatic brain injury.

And

if you know anything about how brains work, that's where all of your,

like, all of your...

No, no, no.

That's where your, that's a bad idea comes from.

That's your frontal lobe.

It's decision-making skills.

Yeah.

It's impulse control is your frontal lobe.

So people who have damaged frontal lobes, that's why they often

commit crimes and shit later because they have lessened impulse control.

That's all that is.

Or that's what they're doing.

Either way, I think it's kind of the same thing, isn't it?

He spent three weeks in a coma.

Yeah.

Woke up and they charged him with murder.

Welcome back, Tip Shit.

Hey, buddy.

Hey, there you are.

Good morning.

Warrant for your arrest.

This is for murder.

So

now they said at that point,

he's a he's a you know, he's a mess.

Now his cousin, by the way, that watched him grow up said the person he is now, meaning pre-shooting himself, just in general, I don't know him.

He's a monster.

That's what she said.

So he is going to be charged as an adult

with a first-degree felony murder charge and a second-degree felony attempted murder for wounding his grandmother.

He probably should get, yeah, or his mom, yeah.

He probably should get that doubled up because he definitely definitely tried to shoot his sister and a baby so you're right let's give him a couple more attempted murders on that i would say but yeah they don't just assault with a deadly weapon something instead and this is 1999 they release him

from where they don't hold him for trial somehow what this seems like the last guy you would let out

like

you know what i'm saying if he's not he's a he's obviously a dangerous guy so you want to keep him in and he's got some whatever mental issues, and he's got, you know, traumatic brain injuries.

Let's hold on to him for a while.

But instead, they're going to let him out here.

First, he was jailed in lieu of a million dollars bail.

Now he's going to have to be at his grandmother's house.

His grandmother's letting him come home.

Why?

This kid just killed that woman's daughter or shot that woman's daughter in this lady's living room, and she's like, come on back, your room's ready for you.

Oh, boy.

So Norma is a nice woman.

Holy shit.

Kind is kind.

Different.

Yeah.

Wow.

He has to wear an electronic ankle bracelet to make sure he stays there.

That's all he's got.

He's just got to get a bracelet on.

Wow.

The judge had refused to lower the bail, citing concerns over public safety and his possible suicidal tendencies.

But that was for the last couple of weeks.

But then the judge releases him without requiring bail.

He's not even on bail.

Grandma didn't even have to put her house up.

It's just

ROR to grandma's house.

Whoa.

Which is, that's insane.

This is after a pre-trial services psychologist said there's no longer a threat of suicide.

Doesn't seem suicidal anymore.

Well, he's still homicidal, probably.

Let's worry about that.

But he doesn't want to die now.

So let's let him out so he can fuck with other people.

Now,

they basically, during all this, they're going to go to trial.

Yeah.

And to take him to trial for first-degree murder is going to be complicated, they know.

It's very complicated because his mother and his grandmother don't really want to cooperate.

Oh?

No, they want to protect him.

So they're not really cooperating with anything.

His mother, too?

His mother, too.

Like, they're not, they don't, in court, their testimony is, they don't know what the fuck they're going to say, basically, on the stand.

So

they don't know what to do here because they're the eyewitnesses.

So if if you take him to trial, you need them.

And if they, if you don't put them up, people are going to go, where are they?

And if you do put them up and they say something different, they're victims.

The jury's going to take that with a lot of weight.

So

instead, they said they have to end up working out a plea bargain with him because they really don't have any other choice.

Yeah.

Because the trial could be messy, and he's got a bullet lodged in his frontal lobe, and he's a mess.

So in 2000, he pleads guilty to manslaughter and attempted murder.

Okay.

guilty.

Okay.

He says, and part of this also is he says he was very high at the time, and everybody backs that up, that he came in with his eyes

fucking dancing.

Oh, yeah, that's well, that's voluntary intoxication.

It's not like somebody injected you with something while you were walking around.

Drugged, man.

No, so, but still, they're saying, you know, it complicates things a bit, basically.

So in exchange for the two second-degree felonies, the prosecutors promised to recommend concurrent prison terms, meaning

at the same time not to run consecutively, which is a big win for him because otherwise if you stack him long ways,

then he's in trouble a lot more years, where he'll probably, they're saying he could serve up to 15 years rather than a possible 30 years he would have gotten before.

So he can get out in 15 years, basically, at the most, is what they're saying.

Now, the public and a lot of people said, why the hell did you make a plea with this guy?

Yeah, what the hell?

I mean, he obviously did it.

There's ballistics.

There's a a gun.

You know, he did it.

We know he did it.

We have the grandmother's statement from

when he got there.

So whatever she testifies on, that's what happened.

But the prosecutor said that the case was problematic because not only were the only witnesses members of his family, his mother, his 13-year-old sister, obviously all those people, they said not only were they reluctant to testify, but because of a two- to three-week drug binge, lack of sleep, and emotional stress,

the prosecutor said that Joseph was probably not completely rational at the time of the shooting.

Yeah, I mean, if we all do that, then we're just going to be shooting folks.

If you don't sleep for three weeks and do a bunch of meth,

you can't murder somebody too.

I don't know what my behavior would be at that point because your brain is not working right.

You're probably hallucinating at that point, you know?

You go three days without sleep.

You'll start seeing fucking cartoon characters.

You will see SpongeBob at the end of your fucking couch if you if you

do you know three weeks of no sleep and you add drugs to it holy

so um they said also he said he wasn't himself and they said that he they didn't think he was himself they knew something was wrong because they said he wouldn't have shot and wounded his own mother unless there was something real up going on with him

that's not even who he was mad at but it kind of was because they were his whole argument was they're taking your side to his you know what i mean that my family's taking your side but the guy guy said, this is the prosecutor, I'm convinced if we went to trial today, we'd get a manslaughter conviction.

So let's just take a manslaughter conviction, basically.

Now, during sentencing, one of the craziest fucking thing that's ever happened happens.

Okay.

What?

His lawyer, Ron Jengich, who is hilarious, by the way, this guy's got...

balls the size of cantaloupes in a courtroom, man,

and in a judge's chambers, apparently, here,

because

he takes offense to the claim by the prosecutor that this defense attorney, Jengich, had a conflict of interest.

Yeah, so not only does he say it's not true, he takes like personal offense to it and he's pissed off.

All right.

Now, the prosecutor was trying to say that while Jengich was defending Joseph, who was accused of shooting his mother, his mother is paying for the defense.

His mother's paying this lawyer.

Okay.

So,

which is they're saying the victim can't pay for the

perpetrator's lawyer.

So that's a conflict of interest, and that's also why she's a reluctant prosecutorial witness because she's paying for the defense, for Christ's sake.

So as this hearing about this fact, by the way, the judge dismissed that as

stupid.

So after this hearing ended, Jengich, the defense attorney, called for a huddle at the judge's bench.

And he said, quote, I've been attacked personally and unfairly.

And he said, it was a cheap shot.

I think Castle is calling into question my ethics was one of the lowest shots I've ever taken.

And I believe the court has an obligation to defend my integrity.

Yeah, that was a punch right in the dick.

Yeah, you're calling me.

You're saying I'm a scumbag here.

You know, it's a different story.

So the judge says, let's put it on the record.

And he says, no, I want to speak to the judge in chambers.

That's what Jengich said, who continued to complain about Castle and the judge's failure.

Castle said, I don't know what he's talking about, the prosecutor.

I don't know.

And the judge says, well, we're going to find out right now and takes both lawyers into the chambers, says, we're going to get to the bottom of this.

So

in chambers here, Jengich raises his fist up right in front of the prosecutor and says, I'd like to punch you right in the face.

Really?

Which is.

extremely rare in a courtroom or in a judge's chambers.

That's a more relaxed environment.

The judge is about to see a fist fight in his office.

Yeah, so this isn't performative for anybody.

There's only three of us in the room, and I'm going to punch you.

We're about to throw down.

Me, you, him, and the court reporter, and I'm going to beat one of you up, and it's you, motherfucker.

I'm going to punch you where nobody can write about it in shorthand.

So the sheriff's, the bailiff's commander that was there, said that the prosecutor was, quote, a little upset to say the least.

The prosecutor took a complaint to the sheriff who said that the threat was particularly inappropriate inside of a judge's chambers.

Right.

So

the Ron Jengich offered the court officials

an apology here for his clenched fist.

And apparently this guy's known for his outbursts.

That's what he does in court.

That's his lawyer style, angry outbursts.

That's his thing that he does here.

But he had to say that, you know, he lost his, you know, lost his temper and lost his cool there and all that kind of thing.

He said, I reacted angrily.

And he said, because these are very difficult cases, the emotions run high.

And then praise the judge for his handling of the situation.

You know, because he's got to try a case in front of him here.

Of course.

So they said that it was pretty, the prosecutor said, that's as close to an apology that you're ever going to get out of somebody who's like with his temperament, basically.

That's all it is.

The guy said, the prosecutor said, it's over.

He apologized.

A new attorney has been assigned for our side.

So they replaced the prosecutor.

So the guy got what he wanted.

He got rid of this prosecutor.

In the end, it worked out for him.

Now, the defense here, Jengich, argues that the damage that Joseph had inflicted on his own brain is actually,

you should sentence him accordingly because it's actually beneficial to him.

How so?

And society in the greater scheme.

He said that this he's a much calmer person than it used than he used to be yeah and this could long term um make him a much more calm person

maybe the bullet took apart that one piece of him that makes him shoot his mom he shot the murderer in there yeah he shot it right out it's all gone now so that's he did some he did some uh really imprecise brain surgery is what he did.

Yeah,

but it worked.

Fascinating lobotomy.

Yep.

He said this is all going to lead to less aggressive behavior, so you don't have to worry about him in the future.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He said things went wrong for him, and he gave him the sob story about, you know, his younger brother committed suicide.

His father

died of a drug overdose.

And then he blames the media also.

Oh.

Yeah.

He says he turned into a gangsta mentally.

Imagine hearing this guy say that in court.

Yeah.

Only in 1999 would you hear a lawyer say gangsta in court like that.

He turned into a gangsta mentality into a gangsta mentality glorified by the media and music.

Oh.

So it's that's what it is.

It's music's fault.

God damn it.

Yeah.

It's Master P.

Master P that's the problem.

I blame Method Man for all of our

kills.

He's a nightmare and he caused all of this.

That might be true, actually.

Silk the shocker might have caused it.

They're both bad people.

They're bad guys.

So that could be true.

And see murder also.

That whole bunch of those.

There's a bunch of guys, I think, still in prison over.

South Park Mexicans and child molesters.

Fuck, man.

That's fucking crazy.

Crazy.

So then he said an attitude that is being, that being macho is right.

Yeah.

So the media turned him into, I don't know how being macho is right means you shoot your mom.

That doesn't make sense.

That's not macho at all.

It's not macho.

It's the least macho thing.

He walked into a house with a bunch of women and children and started shooting them.

Super macho of him.

How does shooting the mother of your children equate to shooting Tupac on the strip in Vegas?

Remember all those John Wayne movies where he was just mowing down women and children all the time?

Take that, Pilgrim, and he'd fucking sway off and then go do something horrible and fucking racist, probably.

Because he's fucking John Wayne and he's an asshole.

He's a racist, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You ever heard an interview with him?

He's not a good guy.

No, he's such a scumbag.

Not only for that, for other, many other things.

No, for a million other things.

For a million things.

so

he then joseph is going to read from a prepared statement he says that he accepts responsibility for killing sabrina uh and for taking drugs and for quote other poor ass decisions poor ass decisions poor ass

he read that off a piece of paper he wrote poor ass decisions i'll say that in front of the judge that's what he wrote The judge would know what I mean by that.

He said that, you know, he can't trade his life life for hers.

No.

Would if he could, but he can't, so he won't.

You know.

You know how it goes.

But he said he would try to, quote, become the best person I can and the best father I can be to my son.

Okay.

At this moment, the boy was being raised by his aunt.

Oh.

Will Joseph Jr.

He said, I can remember being real, real, real intoxicated from my drug use.

Three reels.

Yeah.

Three reels.

It's less than all the buildings in that one review, but it's still there.

It's still there.

The judge said that basically, quote, it was a serious decision to bring a child into the world at the age of 17, but it was also tragic to then deprive that child of its mother five days after it was born.

That is fucked up.

You're not a good guy, but you, young man, may fuck off 15 years.

Pretty good.

It's two 15-year sentences

concurrently.

Yes.

Now, the reactions are mixed here.

Sabrina's family said that, quote, we did not agree to the plea bargain.

This is the grandfather, Alfred Ermer, and said they just rolled right over us.

Okay.

Yeah, because they said, we're getting manslaughter either way.

So we're taking manslaughter.

You're going to run with it.

And this is, I'll just quickly

bring this to a modern case, which is the Koberger case.

Oh, right.

Where you got half half the families are like, good.

Thank God I don't have to see my kids' autopsy photos splayed in the courtroom and then come to court for the next 20 years and all these appeals and

this will never end.

I'm glad this is over.

And then half the families are very upset because they wanted the death penalty.

They wanted to come to court for 20 years.

You need it.

Yeah.

It'd be one thing if when you say death penalty, then they drag the guy out into the gallows.

That's what you know that's not what it's going to be.

And they can't because you have to make sure that this is the right guy.

Exactly.

And that's why you have appeals and all that because

we have killed so many people who weren't the right people.

And that's not great.

We don't want to do that.

Now, we know Koberger did it, obviously.

I'm just saying that

it's a similar situation here where they're complaining, saying we weren't consulted, and they just did it, basically.

And in Idaho, they did the same thing.

They said, life without with no appeals.

How do you turn that deal down?

He's done.

He's gone.

Because a lot of people are like, you'll never know why now.

You'll never know why.

If he he went to trial, you'd definitely never know why because he'd be appealing it for 20 years, still saying he didn't do it.

Still doing it,

he'd never admit it.

At least this way he admitted it.

Maybe he'll get bored in 10 years and write somebody a letter telling them all about it.

But he'd never do that if he had a million appeals lined up.

Right.

This is the best chance you've got to find out why.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Totally.

He's trying not to die.

Then he's not.

Like, that's the

desperate

that they'll ever be.

And they'll never tell you anything in that case.

Because he's saying he didn't do it still.

right?

Yeah, so at least this way he has to say Bundy did that shit up until the last fucking day.

And then he only whispered it, right?

His whispering is the creepiest fucking thing ever.

It's so awful.

The whispering of a serial killer is the strangest shit.

It's a serial killer who says pornography the way he does.

He says it's so weird in the context he puts it in.

Pornography.

Pornography.

He doesn't say the R.

It's fucking so awful.

He says like pornography, like

pornography.

Pornography.

Pornography.

Yeah.

It's so creepy.

Pornography.

If it wasn't for the pornography.

Oh, Jesus, Ted.

No.

That's another reason.

That's not.

It didn't affect me that way at all.

Oh, I just whacked off a bunch.

I didn't want to kill anybody.

I just tugged more.

I was like, there's more of this?

Great.

Maybe if you took my...

Maybe if you took away my pornography, maybe then there would have been an issue.

Then I'll stab you with a pen.

Yeah.

If you're going to let me keep it, I'm too busy.

I'm too weak from whacking it to go kill a bunch of people.

I'm weak.

I'm in a state, man.

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So, but understandable for the family to be upset about that.

Sure.

We get it, but I mean, for the state, the problem is, and I should reiterate, by the way, because there's people that have a lot of emotions about the Koburger thing, that, you know, I have somebody in my family that was horribly murdered.

And like, we, so we all went through this already.

So kind of understand.

And they made a deal with that person.

She's still in prison, this person.

It's been 30

four years.

She comes up for parole all the time and doesn't get out.

But we all understood that at a certain point, whether this is for right or for wrong, but it is what it is,

it's the state versus that person.

Yeah, yeah.

It's not the family versus him.

Once they put the cuffs on, you're not involved anymore.

It's over, man.

You know what I mean?

It's not.

It's what's best for the state.

So if the state's going to save millions of dollars or the state's going to, that's what they're going to do.

Yeah.

It's what they can prove.

Yeah.

And your emotions don't really factor into the.

The state doesn't spend millions of dollars for people's emotions.

They just don't in any other aspect.

So they're not going to do it there either.

I'm just saying logistically why they do it, not that it's good or bad.

Calls and emotions are separate for a reason.

Yeah,

that's the thing.

That's why, yeah, it's, yeah, you, you can

kill the guy yourself, but once the cops are involved and they put the cuffs on, you're kind of out of it at that point.

It's the way it is.

Then we'll prosecute you.

Yeah.

And my family went through that, and we're Italian.

Obviously, revenge comes up first, but I mean, you know, it's done.

So I get it.

So his lawyer, this is Joseph's lawyer, said, I know that I felt very sorry for him.

Jengich said this.

It was one of those cases where you couldn't either read the reports or deal with the people in the case without feeling a great deal of sorrow.

It's just a mess.

The whole thing's a mess.

Oh, fuck.

A random lady from Reno said,

quote, oh, no, this is not a random.

This is the grandfather.

This is Sabrina's grandfather said, he'll be out in three to seven years so he can do it again.

In Nevada, Joe would have got more time for shooting a horse.

Which I don't know if that's true or not.

Now,

during the whole time he's in prison, he complains about hearing voices.

Really?

Yeah, now he does have a big chunk of his brain fucked up, so that's highly possible.

He also,

the Utah Department of Corrections lists two aliases for him that he gained while being in prison, which are Ghost

and Bullet.

He got a couple of nicknames.

Well, Bullet's pretty good.

Yeah, I mean,

it's not great at your parole hearing, probably.

They call me Bullet.

I'm fully reformed.

reformed it's right back there and pointing at his forehead there yeah oh he thinks he has something in the middle of his forehead later on we'll talk about

oh he does he's got some weird shit going on so in July 2004 he's up for parole yeah now the grandfather said two three to seven he thought

we'll see close yeah we'll see so in July of 2004 he's up for parole uh his mom brenda's there and Sabrina's family's testifying against him obviously this is July 1st 2004 During the proceeding, the parole board asked Joseph if he suffered from brain trauma from when he shot himself.

And he said, this is true.

It's a very weird response.

You'd mark that down as no matter what he said, if he said it that way, we're saying yes.

That's weird.

So the parole board asked him how the self-inflicted gunshot changed him.

And he said, quote, I feel that it's kind of, it's really, it's made me calm down, made me a lot mellower.

It made me, to a degree, I feel a bit slower mentally, which from his speech, it sounds like he's a bit slower mentally.

Now, Sabrina's family pleads for him to be kept in prison.

Right.

Yeah.

One family member said a 15-year sentence wasn't tough enough to begin with.

He walked in and in cold blood killed a new mother with her baby five feet away.

That's crazy.

Well, she's still in those mesh panties, for Christ's sake.

It was

so soon after.

That's horrifying.

She fucked.

Yeah, she felt horrible enough, for Christ's sake.

You could have just let her feel bad for a few more days.

That would have been enough.

I assure you, she felt humbled.

Yeah, no shit.

So

another relative of Sabrina said, the primary objective of the board is to protect the public.

The board also has a duty to safeguard the rights of the victims.

That's what we're asking for.

Now,

Joseph's mother, Brenda, was still,

she said she's still

in pain from her back wounds from being shot.

And she continued to defend Joseph and said, I think drugs had a lot to do with it.

Gosh, that's

not the son I know.

Other relatives of his, though,

of Joseph's, ask that he remain locked up.

His aunt and uncle, who have now adopted his infant son,

said he'd become obsessive before the murders, before the murder, and they changed the child's name because they felt it unfair to have the same name as the guy who killed his mother.

And it's kind of a famous name of a psycho-murderer at this point.

So

let's go ahead and give him a little more of a chance.

Whatever.

Yeah.

Apparently, Joseph had sent letters and demanded baby photos calling the boy Baby J.

baby jay

even though he knew that they changed the kid's name he still called him baby j

they believed also he'd sent someone to take pictures of the child while he was like

while they were like doing stuff what some

stranger showed up snapping pictures for joseph like at the park yeah go take pictures of the kid sitting outside the living room window taking pictures of the kid

creepy um also he wrote them things like, looks like he's starting to get pretty big.

A cousin also, meaning he saw pictures of the kid because they didn't send him any, a cousin also contacted the parole board to tell them about a tattoo that's scrawled across Joseph's back.

That

they don't all know about.

They're like, you might want to know, he's got a tattoo that he got in jail that says murderous deeds on it.

Across his back.

Which is not great at your parole hearing hearing for murder.

Right.

That you got that, like you're proud of it.

It's not like you got it beforehand.

You got it since then.

That is crazy.

And basically, this cousin said this

should warn you of his remorselessness, essentially.

A board member asked him, questioned Joseph, and said, do you comprehend the gravity of what you've done here?

Right.

They said he couldn't believe how casual Joseph was.

And he says, you're acting almost like you've shot, like you'd hit somebody's dog, not even shot, like you hit a dog with a car and you're like, oh, accidents happen.

Bolted out in front of you.

And you're like, I mean, I feel bad, but, you know, shit happens, basically.

He's denied parole, by the way.

Okay.

Denied parole.

He is going to be kept in prison until July 10th, 2012.

That is when he's paroled.

Now, there's a strategy here for this.

He has two years left on his sentence

total.

so they can only keep him on parole for two more years.

So what they end up doing here, and they do this a lot, rather than have him max out his sentence in there and then walk out completely free, not knowing if he can do anything,

you got to let him out a couple years early.

That way he's on parole.

That way, if he fucks up, it's a parole violation, an extra charge, and you can keep him longer, basically.

That's the way they do it.

But if he can keep his nose clean for two years, then, hey, look at you.

Maybe you can make it.

So

there's a strategy to that because I've heard people go, why did they let him out on parole?

It's like, well, they were trying to actually.

They're trying to fuck him.

They were trying to fuck him, exactly.

They were trying to screw him, but he went around it.

Now, he has an immediate request once paroled, and that is that he be allowed to transfer to Indiana, where some of his family lives, where he'll be able to stay.

The family that I heard, I want to be near them.

Including Brenda, who has moved out here, his mom.

So he wants to go with his mom.

I mean, his mom, Jesus Christ.

Talk about,

talk about like, you know, being there for your kid.

And like, wow, this is a lot.

The ultimate mom.

This is a lot.

It's too much.

It's to an extreme.

That's, I've seen this before in my life that people defend their kids too much and it's not good.

And then they never get out.

No, they turn out to be jerk-offs.

Yeah, and they just suckle mom's tit for the rest of their life.

That's what happens.

They're never going to not be a jerk-off.

So

they allow his transfer to Indiana because they say that it might be a more

beneficial environment if he's just alone in Utah there.

It's probably not going to be able to get his feet under him.

Because, I mean, he went to jail when he was 17.

Yeah.

He's never been an adult.

And now he's an adult in Utah with brain damage.

Exactly.

And he's got to try to make it.

And they always say, too, like John Douglas in the Mindhunter book says, when they do profiles, they'll say like, you know, we think this guy's, you know, 25 to 27, but if they did time in prison, that's different.

If they did 10 years, they could be 35 to 37 because that stunts your growth in prison.

So he's basically a 17-year-old kid with brain damage walking out of prison now.

So

they want him to stay with mom.

Please stay with your mother, basically.

17-year-old with brain damage that

has no job or life skills.

No, and doesn't know how to get one or do anything.

Has no clue.

No, so he's going to need mom.

So he moves to Indiana, and he still kind of has some, his mental health is not great.

I'm sure.

He's still saying he hears voices every once in a while.

Didn't tell the parole board that.

Told them he's just doing great, but he's peachy.

He's got murderous deeds on his back.

You know, he gets a job at a car dealership.

Yeah, because you've got to wear a shirt there.

He's got to wear a shirt.

But, I mean, that's how easy it is to get a job at a car dealership.

Hi, I'm freshly paroled.

Got a bullet in my head.

Never had any work experience whatsoever.

Shot my mom.

Killed my girlfriend.

Did I tell you I shot at my 13-year-old sister while she held my five-day-old baby?

Anyway, let me show you to a new Civic.

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Technology in the Ultimate.

It's fucking crazy.

It's wild.

So 2013, he's working there.

He starts hanging out at a bar, which is probably not the best thing for him.

I can't believe he's allowed.

Right?

He starts hanging out at Johnny Johnny Dee's, a bar in Jeffersonville.

One of the bartenders named Trina said that he would come in alone and play darts.

Doesn't really know anybody.

You're not really playing darts.

You're practicing darts at that point.

You're throwing darts.

That's all you're doing.

You're practicing darts.

I guess if you go out in the driveway, you just shoot some hoops.

You don't really play basketball if you're alone.

It's kind of hard, too.

I guess you call it playing basketball, though, right?

I don't know.

The game of basketball says it's two people against each other.

Yeah, it requires an opponent, similar to fucking darts.

That's what I mean.

Yeah, you're just practicing otherwise at that point.

Yeah.

I mean, Christ.

So, I mean, running around isn't a race unless there's somebody else there.

So he has some trouble pretty quickly, by the way.

Yeah.

Okay.

He's going to, this is wild.

He is going to be, put it this way, in the end, he's going to be arrested for choking out a bar patron and resisting arrest all while naked.

Naked.

All while naked.

They saw the tattoo.

Dude,

imagine that.

Somebody choking someone with their dick swinging and a murderous deeds tattoo across their back.

Balls just dangling.

Wow.

That's interesting.

So I had to give you the umbrella before I gave you the details.

Okay.

Well, that's another whole other issue here.

Yeah.

He's going to be charged charged with strangulation and resisting law enforcement.

Yeah.

Which should get him put away for a long time, I would think.

So, well, we'll find out.

So, what happened is he met a woman.

This is March 2013 and agreed to go home with her, which many witnesses back up in the bar that they were getting along, and she asked him to come home with her, and he said yes.

And that's where shit pops off now.

Okay.

In the middle of the night, the bartender

of a different tavern called Slammers,

another bar,

Slammers, called

police to report the sounds of a fight in the apartment above the bar.

In our apartment, okay.

So this chick lived above a bar, but went to a different bar.

Well, yeah, you don't want to go to, you don't want to.

Shot

and then pick it.

It'd be a lot easier to bring someone home.

Want to go home?

Sure.

Let's go get in your car.

Go up the stairs.

Up those stairs.

No, we can have four or five more drinks.

Don't worry.

It's just stairs.

So they said there's a fight going on upstairs, which, again, to be able to hear a fight over the din of a bar is pretty.

That's pretty

good fight going on there.

So as police arrived, a woman threw the door open and screamed, he's killing my boyfriend.

Oh, what?

Yeah, this has gotten real different real quick.

Why did you do that?

Now there's a boyfriend involved.

Oh my God.

And of everything Joseph does, this is kind of the thing he's least responsible for, I'm going to say.

This is on her.

Cops walk into the bathroom to find Joseph fucking butt naked, dick swinging like a pendulum.

Wow.

Choking a man who is barely conscious.

This is, imagine walking into that scene.

Walking into the bathroom.

What the fuck?

The fuck is going on?

Imagine being the boyfriend, walking in on your girlfriend, fucking someone else, and then that guy kicks your ass while naked.

Well, it's total righteous gemstones at this point, right?

It's the naked guy beating up BJ in his house, jumping on his back with his ball sack dangling, breaking shit.

That's what's going on.

So

Joseph's knuckles on his right hand are swollen and bleeding at the time.

So he's obviously been doing something.

He refuses to release this man's throat.

Not yet.

They have to tase him twice to get him off the guy.

Wow.

That is some shit.

He was intent on hurting this man.

Yeah.

But he said, he tells the cops that I'm the one who was scared for my life here.

Yeah.

I'm naked for Christ's sake.

Yeah.

My dick's out.

He said the women, this woman invited me into her apartment to have sex.

He said, and we're in the middle of it.

Yeah.

And some dude fucking runs in and hits me from behind with a baseball bat.

I don't know who the fuck this guy is.

He's hitting from behind.

He's hitting me from behind.

Yeah, everyone's getting hit from behind.

Lucky he used the bat for hitting instead of for other things.

So that's what he's saying.

He said, I don't know.

I'm a victim.

I got attacked from behind with a baseball bat in a place I was invited.

What am I supposed to do?

He said that, and they noticed he was bleeding from the head.

So he did get hit in the head with a baseball bat.

So anyway, he said the couple took his wallet, his iPod, and the keys to his Chevy Camaro.

What?

They're taking my Camaro.

It's a dealer loaner, man.

They can't steal that from me.

And also, police ended up finding some of the items listed hidden all around the apartment.

They were robbing him.

They were fucking robbing him.

She lured him upstairs.

That's why she doesn't go downstairs to pick up guys.

Yeah, she goes to a different bar.

They lured him up there to beat him up and rob him.

It literally is what happened.

They said the apartment was filthy.

It was gross in there.

The woman first told a police officer that he followed her home uninvited.

Joseph did.

And then her boyfriend rescued her.

Right.

But officers noticed as she was saying this, her shirt was on backwards

and inside out.

And her pants were unzipped.

So anyway.

You look like you threw your clothes on pretty fast.

This is not the outfit.

Yeah.

Did you wear this outfit to the bar?

Oh, yeah.

So you went into the bar with an inside-out backwards shirt on.

Yeah.

And your pants unzipped.

Then she finally convinced, confessed, okay, I went with him willingly.

I invited him.

So the police book him into jail.

They booked Joseph.

Really?

He got set up.

This is crazy.

You still can't fuck around, man.

Not parole.

Well, you could fuck around until the cops tell you to release release the guy, and then they have to tase you twice.

I think that's the problem.

So that's when they're like, I still am

this guy.

So he, no, he's booked in county jail on charges of aggravated battery strangulation and resisting law enforcement.

God dang.

That self-defense is like a, I mean, Jesus Christ, they beat and robbed him.

Yeah.

That's crazy.

So

he had a $1,000 cash bond, and the court record doesn't note whether prosecutors discovered discovered his past or advocated for a higher bond.

They don't know.

But they say

David Dodge, who is his mother's stepfather, so his step-grandfather, bailed him out.

That's who came and got him.

Now, later on, they asked the judge, Judge Weber,

and he said that he doesn't recall how the $1,000 cash bond was calculated.

Typically, he said a bond is set by schedule, meaning anyone charged with the same class of crime would face the same bond.

A class D felony, like strangulation, typically carries a $5,000 bond, which requires a $500 payment for release, obviously.

They said this was actually set higher because it required a $1,000 payment.

Oh.

But they don't know.

He says he doesn't know why that was, and he says he didn't know anything about his criminal past.

He didn't know Joseph's past.

That wasn't why the bail was higher.

He said there was nothing extraordinary about this case.

I wouldn't have remembered this guy from a lump of coal.

Wow.

I would have remembered naked in the bathroom choking.

I would have remembered that.

I'd remember that forever.

That would have been like

when someone asked you, what's some crazy cases you've heard of?

I'd be like, oh, here's one.

Check it out.

A naked guy.

Now, the Utah Parole Board does not receive any reports of violations

on this at all.

Nothing.

He is being supervised by Indiana Parole Officer on behalf of the Utah Department of Corrections through a program called the Interstate Compact.

The program enables an Indiana officer to send reports to a Utah parole officer who would then alert the Utah Parole Board, who are the only people that could actually revoke his parole.

So they got to tell him.

They should tell them, yeah.

And

one of the prosecutors in

Utah said, we would have absolutely wanted to know and definitely would have considered a warrant.

But there's a kind of chain that has to work for the information to get here.

Yeah.

Which is crazy when you think about it because this is not 1982.

This is 2013.

It's unbelievable.

Everybody has Instagram and a fucking iPhone.

There should be a real easy way to do this.

Like there should be an app that they have that they just load up shit to in a portal and it'd be super easy to do that.

Why wouldn't you have an interstate compact app and have everybody on there be able to access everything?

Jesus Christ.

So they said that.

at minimum for the murderers and child molesters, let's

keep an eye on people.

Let's just keep an eye on the people who've done some real bad shit.

Let's just do that.

So they said that Joseph's Indiana parole officer was unsure if the police, unsure from the police report, if Joseph was the victim of the perpetrator.

Because they said, by reading the police report, it sure sounds like he shouldn't have arrested this guy for anything but resisting.

And in the rage he was in,

this is all kind of understandable.

That's what I mean.

I might be pissed off too.

They brought me here and fucking got me naked and tried to rob and take my Camaro.

Yeah.

I'm a tripod, goddammit.

Yeah, that's what I mean.

They're taking Warren's wealth.

No regulators there at all, man.

So

he said that he contacted the prosecutor's office, the parole officer in Indiana, which advised it knew nothing of the case.

And then the parole officer said he sent four subsequent queries to the prosecutor, none of which were answered.

None weren't answered.

God.

So he just went, all right.

I mean, obviously they don't care, so fuck it.

Let it go.

When a quarterly progress report was due in Utah in July, his parole officer said he noted the arrest.

The officer wrote it was unclear if he would be prosecuted and promised to alert Utah if charges were formally filed.

So basically, it's in a holding pattern.

So everyone's like, we'll see what happens, and and then it just kind of goes away.

Sure.

All right.

Now, May of 2013, it was like two months later.

He's convicted of speeding.

Yeah.

As you do, yeah.

As that happens.

Even the best of us can speed once in a while.

2014, early 2014, he gets arrested for driving with a suspended license.

From the suspended license.

From speeding.

Yeah.

That charge ends up being dismissed somehow.

Yeah, but now he's in the fucking cycle.

But he's in this cycle.

He also is starting to fall apart mentally a little bit here.

He's got some issues.

We'll talk about it.

He also thinks his family is trying to kill him.

Let's get into that.

Anyway, he reported to the police that his family was trying to kill him.

At one point, we'll talk about that later.

He is caught driving recklessly and runs from the cops for 40 minutes.

40-minute chase, by the way.

That's a long time.

That's a long chase.

Like, I'll watch like on patrol and they'll have a good a good chase and it's like eight minutes is like holy shit this is going on a long time this is crazy you you've lost all ability to say I didn't see you back there no

40 is eight minutes you can't say that just saw one last weekend where the guy did something just like that he was going like a buck 40 in a Cadillac and when they finally pitted him and knocked him out, he's holding his hands out and he goes, pedal stuck, pedal stuck, man, pedal stuck.

Meanwhile, earlier in the chase, he had stopped and done a U-turn with the pedal stuck, man.

There's bees in there.

Yeah, bees.

He goes, pedal stuck, pedal stuck.

And fucking, they're like just ripping him out of the car.

Shut the fuck up.

The pedal's not stuck.

Oh, dude.

So that's, we'll talk about that.

Now, that's going to lead to charges of criminal recklessness and resisting law enforcement.

What happened was, though,

he's taken to the hospital after he is

after this arrest because his mental state is all wacky.

And he claimed the FBI was following him.

Awesome.

Okay.

He asked the nurses to shoot him or give him a gun.

Which

nurses are notoriously heavily armed.

They're not there to heal.

They're there to bust a cap in that ass.

That's what they're there for.

That's it.

We're putting them down like cattle today.

He then referred to himself.

They said, well, what's your name?

When one of them came in, and this is what he would say the rest of the time, he said that his name is Zeus.

Oh.

Zeus is his name.

Ghost.

No, no.

Or bullet.

No, it's Zeus.

And he also bit his own wrist really hard, like, drew blood and was ripping his flesh out, basically.

So a few days later, he's taken for inpatient psychiatric treatment where he's prescribed medication.

He bonds out of jail and sought medical treatment and was found to be paranoid and delusional.

This is after he bonds out of jail,

but he actually goes and seeks medical treatment.

So that's good.

That's positive.

He's not running away.

So does Utah hear about any of this?

Not a word.

Guy running from the cops calling himself Zeus and shit.

You might want to know about that.

Just saying.

He's yours.

None of these encounters with police were reported to the Utah

Board of Pardons and Parole.

Wow.

The head of the board said we had no reports of violations, so we didn't even consider a warrant or extradition.

The information we had was that there was no violations, and he was doing well.

Wow.

Doing just fine.

So that was July of 2014.

That is when Indiana authorities,

I guess he was driving erratically, and he did a 40-minute chase that ended in a slow-speed pursuit.

He did an OJ after that and just went slow.

This is just before midnight one night.

And it ended up in Louisville is when they finally caught him.

So the prosecutors agreed to reduce the bond from 25,000 cash to 5,000 court cash, which means 500 basically, 10%.

So

the judge, who has presided over most of his cases since then, since he got to Indiana, set the initial cash bond for $25,000 and then they lowered it.

So yeah, he's Zeus.

The FBI is following him, all that kind of shit.

He approved an agreement between the prosecuting, the judge did, between the attorneys to lower it to $5,000 in court cash.

And the judge said there was no dispute.

They basically,

they had simply tendered an agreement.

So the judge wasn't involved.

The lawyers came to the judge and said, we've got this worked out.

We've tendered an agreement.

The judge said, basically, it short-circuited me out of the process.

And he said that

decreases in bonds due to agreements are not that unusual at all.

It happens all the time.

Whoa.

When he was in his inpatient thing there, saying he was Zeus and everything,

they were in the hospital.

They noticed the severity of his

condition here and said that, holy fuck, he needs some help.

So, yeah,

like I said, he went out and then went back in again into a hospital.

When he came back the second time, he was found to be paranoid and delusional.

Yeah.

His parole officer, though, here

said Ryan Harrison, who's a supervisor of the Indiana Parole District 9, said that Joseph showed up for meetings every month in first parole, passed drug tests, and seemed like a straight-laced guy.

And a boy.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Very, very interesting.

So

luckily for Joseph, during this time with his, you know, whole issue with the driving, he has someone to bail him out.

Really?

Who?

Because I don't think mom can afford it.

No, no, no.

His new girlfriend, Tammy Joe Blanton.

Remember her?

Yeah.

That's a whole reason why we're talking about him.

Tammy Joe.

Tammy Joe.

She paid $1,000 to get him out of jail.

What a gal.

Yeah, she's a superstar here.

Now, during all of this, is when he starts dating Tammy and moves in.

All of this stuff.

In and out of the hospital.

I'm Zeus.

I bit my arm.

Slow-speed chases.

She's like, you're fine.

You're my guy.

Wow.

And apparently, according to Brenda, his mom, when he was with her, when he's with

Tammy Joe here,

he's a different guy.

Really?

Yeah, he said they all went out.

The families, meaning Tammy Joe's family and his family and Brenda and Joseph, were all very close, saying they had regular outings together.

Saying that Tammy Joe and Joseph had a real good relationship, quote unquote.

Yeah.

Now, like we said earlier,

the co-workers, Tammy Joe's co-workers, are kind of leery of him.

Right.

As women are of friends' boyfriends.

They question things, yeah.

The amount of like friends-boyfriends I've heard, you know, like Sarah talk about when we discuss whether he's a serial killer or not is remarkable.

It's remarkable.

We judge them from a thousand miles away or whatever and just, he sounds like a murderer.

She should stay away from him.

Bad guy.

Bad guy.

The weird part is people come to us for like a judgment on people.

Like, you guys know about murderers.

What do you think about this?

I don't know.

Let me know if he kills somebody.

I don't fucking know.

I'll

tell you.

Doesn't sound like a murderer to me.

I'm a comedian who knows how to use Google.

That's all I am.

I'm a comedian who's real good at finding shit.

Other than that.

The thing about murderers is they're not one until you do it.

Yeah,

I don't think we can pick them out.

No.

So,

anyway, the co-workers said that it was pretty obvious that Joseph was mentally ill,

even to them, who probably didn't spend a lot of time with him.

I guess also Tammy Joe had told coworkers about him.

One thing was that he was hearing voices,

that he hallucinated.

Both of those are, first of all, bad.

If you hear your friend's boyfriend is doing either of those things, advise dumping him.

Isn't hearing voices a form of hallucination?

That's delusion.

Okay.

Hallucination is seeing.

Oh, God.

Delusion is believing.

Yeah.

So hearing voices is that.

And also, he was telling people that he was God.

Not God, a God.

Not the God.

Yeah.

Not the God.

I'm not presumptuous.

A God.

You're like Groundhog Day, where he's like,

I'm not the God.

I might be a God.

I might be a God.

A God.

Not the God.

So

now he told Tammy Joe about his past, but he was a little bit vague here.

Her friend Tanya said that, that she was just, he was real vague.

And he said that he was a kid when it all happened.

He was only 17.

And,

you know, he's tall, he's changed now.

He did his time in prison and he really reflected on himself.

And he did a lot of growing and took classes and whatever the fuck, other bullshit he said.

So the friend said that she loved him.

Really?

Tammy Joe loved him.

The friend said, quote, she was trying to give the man a second chance.

That's what Tammy Joe's dad said.

She was trying to give the man a second chance.

He seemed at first like a pretty ordinary guy.

He even helped her dad build a deck.

Hell yeah.

That's good stuff.

Yeah.

You get in there and help somebody build a deck.

They're going to like you after that.

But then her friends grew suspicious,

which makes sense.

And they grew suspicious because Tammy Joe became withdrawn and would never see her friends anymore.

And they worried that that she wasn't allowed to see her friends

type of thing.

Not that she didn't want to.

Joseph also added his name to her Facebook page.

So it wasn't Tammy Joe Blands, but it was Tammy Joe and Joseph now.

So you know those couples' pages.

Yeah.

They're weird, but that's usually somebody, people who've been married for 20 years.

They do that.

They're only posting pictures of their kids anyway, and it's just for their grandparents or something.

One of them fucked up and isn't responsible enough to be on social media shows.

That's the real reason, but

they definitely pose it in a different way.

Yeah, as we're just in a relationship and we just see we are one.

Somebody was getting private messages.

So

instead,

this is to monitor her online activity so he has access to her shit.

There's that too.

They've only been together for a few fucking months, man.

Is it March to June, July, whatever?

That's crazy.

It's crazy.

It's crazy to have a Facebook page together at that time.

That's so fast.

Yeah, live together, but a Facebook page, that's serious.

Live together, have a baby, but don't a Facebook.

Now we're talking.

Oof.

So Monday, September 10th, 2014.

Okay.

Tammy Joe tells a co-worker that Joseph assaulted her over the weekend.

Oh.

So they talk her into not going home that night to him, obviously.

He lives in her house now.

So

she does not go home.

She stays somewhere else and avoids the home completely.

So she wanted to avoid Joseph at that point.

Then she sent him a text message ending the relationship, basically.

Ended it over.

Oh, she broke up.

Saying, quote, no one, and I mean no one, gets to terrify me the way you did on Sunday.

Right.

That's one thing.

She's 46.

She's not 19.

Right.

You know, a 46-year-old, unless she's had a lot of problems and trauma in her life, they're not going to put up up with that show anymore no even if she would have when she was 25 by 46 no not happening yeah yeah so she told him to take all of his shit and that the locks are going to be changed so go home i'm not there go get your shit and leave because i'm changing the fucking locks yeah the next day joseph visited her at work because obviously she wants to he showed up at her work at her job

oh my god wow she's lucky that he's lucky she didn't call the cops on him so

he ended up leaving because she wouldn't talk to him.

So what's he going to do?

At least he didn't have a freak out and jump up on her desk and

pound his chest and say, King Kong, ain't got shit on me.

Some weird shit.

So that's good.

The next day, the new locks are installed.

So Tammy Joe returns to her home.

Yeah.

That day,

that evening, Joseph tries to come in and retrieve his shit.

Now he wants to get his stuff.

I couldn't do it earlier.

I was busy.

She gave him a window.

Now the locks are changed.

So

she wouldn't let him in.

She's like, no, motherfucker, I'm not letting you in.

Locks are changed for a reason.

Told you what to do and you didn't do it.

I love that she's got such a...

Not happening, dude.

Not even going to do it.

Told you nobody, but nobody.

So apparently he left.

Okay.

And then at 3 o'clock in the morning, the cops get a call from Tammy Joe.

He's back.

saying he's back and he's trying to kick my door down.

Oh, Jesus.

Here we go.

So, yeah, this is 3 a.m.

on September the 11th.

She said her ex-boyfriend's trying to break into her home on Locust Street.

When the cops arrive here,

Officer Brandon McGee arrives.

They find him outside

and

turns and complains that she changed the fucking locks on me.

All my shit's in there, and I can't get in.

She changed the goddamn locks.

So the officers talk with him for a little bit.

He complains and

then his mom comes.

Mom shows up, talks to him for a little while, and basically tells the cops, Let me talk to him.

I'll get him to fucking calm down and leave.

She does.

He leaves.

Really?

Yeah.

Brenda calms the situation down.

She's got balls.

Last time she did this, she got shot.

Yeah.

But she showed up and she's diffusing things now.

Wow, this lady is too, too caring of a mother, I would say.

So anyway, he takes off and leaves.

Now, next morning, still that same day because that was 3 in the morning, but now the sun's up and everything, September 11th, 2014, Tammy Joe doesn't show up for work,

which it's been a long night.

She was calling the cops at 3 a.m.

Maybe she's sleeping.

She overslept her alarm.

Yeah.

But everyone at work knows her as excessively reliable, basically.

And she always shows up to work when she's supposed to, and she just didn't come to work.

No call, no show.

Weird.

So they're like, that's strange.

A co-worker named Tessa Shepard started calling her phone, trying to reach her, and no one ever answered.

No one ever answered.

Then finally, after countless phone calls, a man answers the phone.

Oh.

A man answers the phone, says, yeah, no, no, I'm Tammy Joe's brother.

How's it going?

I'm Tammy Joe's brother.

Tammy Joe went to care for our father.

Okay.

I'm I'm at her house with her phone for some reason, but she went to go care for our dad.

Sure.

And I guess she's doing that and I'm watching her house, I guess, is how it works.

I don't know.

So that's strange.

And Tammy Joe's co-workers are like, that doesn't sound right.

No.

Doesn't sound right.

And the

one lady here from the beginning who was calling all the time said it kind of sounded like her boyfriend's voice.

Kind of sounded like, yeah.

So I'm a little suspicious.

I don't know if that was her brother, basically.

It doesn't sound like Darren or Daryl.

So they're like, this is no, or the other brother, or the other Darrell either.

So they said that they're just increasingly worried.

Then they said, all right, we're going to call the cops, have them do a wealth.

What's the worst that could happen?

She's sitting in the living room and she tells them I'm fine and they go away.

That's great.

Or the brother's sitting there.

Or the brother's sitting there going, she's at my dad's house.

That's also fine.

I can't tell you.

I fucking told you.

What are you sending cops for?

So they contact Tammy's friend named Sabrina Hall, another Sabrina.

Sabrina calls the police to go do a welfare check.

Now, the police arrive and they look, before they do anything, they look around the house.

They do a little, you know, you go around back.

I go around

just to see who's around and see if, you know, there's somebody.

Somebody with a machete hiding behind a bush out back in a run out.

You guys would do.

So they do that.

They discover signs of what look like forced entry on the back door.

Okay.

They don't like that at all, but they don't know when that's from, so they go around front and knock on the front door.

Joseph answers the door.

Oh, hey.

Hey, how's it going?

Steps out onto the front porch.

Yeah.

Now, right immediately, the cops notice that he's bleeding and has a pretty good-sized cut on his hand.

Uh-oh.

They're like, hmm, we don't like that.

They go, well, you know, we got to make sure we're safe.

Mind if we search you real quick?

No problem.

So they pat down, search him real fast, and find a brass knuckle knife.

Oh, you don't know what that that is.

Brass knuckle's where a knife opens up out of the end of it.

They're pretty nasty.

Or a fixed blade, right?

Fixed blade, too.

That too.

But this, I think, it was the other kind that you could punch or stab with on

one of those.

It's in his pocket.

Now, I don't think he's allowed to have that particular weapon.

Certainly not.

No, no, no.

The brass knuckles bit alone.

Oh, no, yeah, not good.

But the worst part is this knife has hair and blood on it.

Oh, they don't like that at all.

No.

Here.

So

they also said he was talking a mile a minute, Joseph.

Just

like a meth guy.

Or like a guy who is in a severe state of mental illness one of the time.

Either or basically works for that show.

Both are pretty, yeah.

Yeah.

Or when you add them two together, oh boy, you're going to be talking.

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Now back to the show.

So Officer Connie Veers is the first to enter the home, and she found what she described as, quote, blood everywhere, everywhere.

Wow.

In the bathroom, especially, and a, quote, bloody mound in the bathtub.

What is that?

What's a bloody mound?

What could that consist of?

That sounds horrifying.

She also noted that the back door of the home had been forced, and then on closer inspection of the bloody mound, they discovered it was Tammy Joe's body.

It wasn't a bloody mound.

It was a fucking

person.

A person who'd been taken apart.

Oh.

As we'll find out.

She's kind of under the shower curtain, sort of, basically.

It's kind of draped over her.

There is a hole in her head with

brain tissue just everywhere around it coming out of it.

Like, not like a wound where the bullet took brain tissue with it.

Brain tissue.

Opened and hand-pulled out of here.

Part of her skull was down by her knees.

Oh, my.

Where, I don't know if you're familiar with anatomy, but it doesn't belong there.

It doesn't go there, no.

Blood was scattered all over the house.

on and near various tools and kitchen cooking implements.

Holy.

Dude, this is getting way weirder here.

This is real gross, everybody.

In and around the kitchen sink were knives, cooking and eating utensils, and dirty plates covered with blood.

Oh, my God.

You see where we're going with this?

Yeah.

Body tissue

was found in the trash can under the sink, just chunks of flesh and things.

Oh, God.

There were cooking tongs.

Tongs, Jimmy.

What is going on?

Like you're flipping a pork chop in the frying pan.

There were tongues covered in blood and a dinner plate with what appeared to be skull and bone fragments all over it.

What's the.

Okay.

What's the point?

I don't understand why to take her apart like that.

It wasn't just a taking apart, Jimmy.

That's that's why.

He was going to make her.

No, he

did make her.

He did make her.

Yeah, we'll talk about him.

Oh my God.

What he did is horrifying.

Let's talk about her injuries.

This poor woman, Jesus Christ, man, she tried to do a nice thing.

She tried to do that.

She tried to do a nice thing.

Give somebody a second chance when it didn't work.

She even did that right when it didn't work.

She even did that right.

She cut it off immediately, changed the locks, call the police, everything you're supposed to do.

She did.

Everything in the handbook of how not to get domestically murdered, and she did it, and it didn't work anyway.

She is found to have 25 sharp force injuries,

including eight stab wounds.

Oh, boy.

Blunt force, I'm sorry, stab wounds and blunt force injuries to her throat, neck, nose, mouth, lips, fingers, chest,

and a camping tent had been draped over her corpse.

It wasn't a shower curtain, they found out.

Several of these horrifying wounds were inflicted while she was alive, by the way.

Oh, dear lord.

Torture.

The medical examiner found that not all of her body was there.

They found that

most of her heart, lungs, and brain were missing from her body.

Just not there.

Not present in the fucking corpse.

In the bloody mound, not present.

They will find out later that her heart and brain and some of her lung had been eaten.

Is that right?

Had been fucking eaten, Jimmy.

And listening audience.

Why do you,

why?

Why does anybody, whenever there's an eating situation, you go, why?

What the fuck?

Like, Dahmer sort of had a reason, not an excuse, but he was like, I was trying to make them apart and whatever the fuck his weird reason was.

I don't see that reason here.

But

the things he ate are

so big, too.

Oh, yeah.

Well, he had to cook them.

He cooked them.

He cut them off.

He went in the kitchen and had a whole thing going on.

Yeah, that's why all the kitchen, all the utensils were all bloody.

He went in.

Oh my god, he did it.

Bobby flayed the whole thing.

Yeah, he did a whole fucking

shit.

Shit is crazy, man.

So the cops arrest him.

They're going to go ahead and arrest him.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's got a knife with blood and there's body parts everywhere.

So they're going to go ahead and take him in.

Oh my God.

They take him down to the station.

And here's where it gets real weird.

All right.

It's been weird so far.

Now it's getting real fucking weird.

The next 12 hours or so are going to be the craziest shit ever.

While being brought to the station, during the ride, he would only state over, and they memorandized him and everything, but over and over and over again, he kept saying, The wicked will flee, the wicked will flee, the wicked will flee, the wicked will flee.

Don't know, over and over and over and over again.

And they're like, Whoa, dude, this guy's now.

If you've walked in and you've seen all the brain parts and the kitchen and what's going on in there, and then you got the guy in the car, and all he's saying is the wicked will flee, the wicked will flee.

You're like, Who the fuck did we get here?

So the interrogation lasts for three and a half hours.

he spoke of of tingling

said he was being electrified

uh wanted to restore the balance and also talked about zeus falling okay

he said i'm tingling i'm like i'm electrified right now i shouldn't have opened that gate

what gate I just want to restore the balance.

That's what he's saying.

I have no idea.

He kept complaining that there were too many gates open he kept telling the cops there's too many gates open what is he talking the gates are open guys

it's like

zul is here not zeus you misunderstood me it's zul i was talking about yeah the gates are here he kept saying that then at one point he says i didn't kill her uh-huh they're like no and he goes no two black guys killed her

Okay,

yeah, so you're covered in blood.

And you're here.

And you were at the house of the two black guys ate her?

Okay.

Let's tell me about the two black guys.

He said, well, two black guys had been at her home when he arrived at like 4 a.m.

So 3 a.m.

was the cops there.

He left, came back an hour later.

Okay.

Okay.

He said that the two black guys got there.

They were already at her home.

And first of all, when he got there, when the cops got there, he first told them that he didn't even know she was in the home.

He was like, Tammy's not not here.

Okay.

Okay.

Then he claimed that these two men did it, but here's the thing.

They weren't there to kill her.

They were actually there to kill who?

Me.

Me.

Yeah.

Me, Joseph.

He said Tammy arranged to have the two black guys kill him.

They were hired help.

I turned the tables.

No, the men instead killed Tammy while holding him hostage.

He said they were holding me hostage and they just decided they were going to kill Tammy.

I don't know if she didn't.

Because he's such a good guy.

That was so bad of him, Tammy.

Fucking crazy.

Then he said, Zeus fell.

Zeus fell.

And they're like, huh?

None of this makes any sense.

What are you talking about?

So the detective stepped out of the room to gather themselves.

Because you got to get a strategy when someone's doing this.

Whatever your normal interrogation buildups are, let's build rapport and then we do this.

And then you come in with, that is out the window when someone's going, Zeus fell.

I feel electrified yeah well he did say he did put himself there too so that's good

yeah there is that but he's there with two black guys he said who are murderous and bloodthirsty so the detectives step out of the room he begins breathing heavily Joseph does and audibly buzzing he's going

he's doing that he's vibrating

but he's audibly doing it yeah

like he's some sort of piece of machinery or something right So the cops step back in.

Imagine looking at that through the fucking two-way and you're like, whoa, this is crazy.

You're all filming this, right?

I hope, because this is wild.

We're going to play this at the Christmas party.

This is crazy shit.

He's buzzing.

I'm going to go back in and find out what that's all about.

So they come back in and he said that, listen, okay, yeah.

They go, okay, so there's two black guys there to kill you, right?

That's your story?

And he goes, yes.

He said, the reason why she hired them to do this, that's the part that's the most fucked up, man.

That's the most nefarious part.

They were going to kill me

and steal my third eye in the middle of my forehead.

Oh.

Oh, right.

So that's what they were going to do.

They were going to steal my third eye.

He said that they wanted to eat his brain.

The brain, yeah.

Eat his brain and take the third eye from the center of his forehead, you know, in the brain there.

Oh, boy.

And

so, wow.

What do you?

I think.

What do you say to that?

You got to prove that this man's not insane.

That's

tough.

Either he's really going out here trying to win an Academy Award, or he's fucking nuts.

One of the two.

Something's wrong.

Yeah.

Something's real wrong.

So they leave the room again to discuss.

Yeah.

And he starts breathing heavily and buzzing buzzing again.

Yeah.

Right.

And they're like, I think

I kind of think he's nuts, man.

Like, yeah.

Like, that's what they're thinking.

Like,

does this seem like this is an act to you?

And they're like, no.

Plus, the fact that we think he ate a chick's brain and heart.

And we also probably already know that he tried, he's a failed suicide.

You know what I mean?

Not yet.

These cops don't know shit about that yet.

No, no, they just, they came to the house.

There's some guy with blood all over him.

They don't know anything about him at this point.

So when they return that's when he admits to prying tammy's head open with a knife her sky he pried her skull open with a knife

so he could eat her third eye from out of her brain

okay

okay

um

now this by the way In mythology, this third eye shit is believed to be a gate.

Gate?

Gates are open

to the inner realms of higher spiritual consciousness it's all of these third eyes like all of this kind of yeah

it's like mystical kind of like you know

like uh

i'm trying to put it like fernando valenzuela thought he had a third eye thing going on it's like a you know like a mayan there's a lot of different cultures that believe in that

sure it's a real mythological

conspiracy theories around it well yeah that too but um i think we can say probably nobody has three eyes.

I'm confident in saying that.

If you have a third, it's probably somewhere we can see it, put it that way.

Yeah.

And it's probably because you live near a nuclear reactor or something.

Some weird shit.

Power lines too close to the house.

You're not gifted.

Something.

You're not more important than anybody else.

So, yeah, I ate part of her brain to get her third eye.

Fucking pried it open, man.

Ate it.

So the cops go, all right, we're going to take another minute here.

Just hang loose, would you?

And they go back.

They come in and out of the room like eight times because they're just like,

what the fuck, man?

What do we do?

I heard what he said?

I heard what he said.

I heard it.

So I'm going to read from the transcript

of the whole thing while he's gone here.

In parentheses, so this is like what he's doing.

Growling, hissing, and heavy breathing.

He's

doing that shit and breathing heavy, saying the words, back down, back down.

Yeah.

Then more hissing and growling.

And then he says, no harm, no harm.

Okay.

Then you can hear his cuffs moving around a lot.

And then you hear,

he's doing that.

Starts buzzing again.

And then starts doing all sorts of cuff movements, just moving his hands all over and really being nuts.

Okay.

So the cops go back in there because they're like, we got to go back in there before this guy fucking loses his mind here.

Yeah.

They go back in.

They go, what's wrong?

And he said, I can feel a presence in this room.

You can

okay,

we're here.

Yeah, yeah, do they, how many eyes do they have?

Let's start with that.

Yeah,

so they say that he revealed to detectives at that point that, yes, I ate Tammy's brain, tried to pull the third eye out with the tongues.

That's what they were for.

That Tammy had taunted him in the bathroom by saying checkmate,

and that

the

thunderstorms that were happening outside were attempts on him

attempts to

kill him

strike him with lightning or something.

Yes.

And that she said checkmate after he killed her.

Perfect.

So that's why he had to do it.

So the cops go, and also, oh, that's the other thing.

He said that they go, well, how do you know what she was thinking and all that?

And he goes, I could hear Tammy's thoughts.

I knew it.

I could hear her thoughts.

And they went, we're going to step outside for another minute.

Okay.

You're going to be.

They do.

They go back outside, leave him alone.

And he starts banging, mumbling, growling, and buzzing.

All of the, from all the different times they've left the room, he's now brought his whole act together to do it all at once now.

None of this piecemeal shit.

One big performance now.

I want you to see it all.

So then they get back in and he says, I can smell them.

There's a presence.

I can smell them now.

He said, listen, I was lying in bed with Tammy

when I started tingling.

And he said, started getting my tingling.

That's how we put it.

Getting it, yeah.

Started getting my tingling, man.

The storm started coming, and I caught the vision.

Oh, boy.

Okay, so at one point now, he starts moving around the interview room, claiming that there was something going on around him that he didn't like.

Yeah, now he's like one of those guys in a movie that's like, the ghosts won't leave me alone, man.

They're just talking, come on, shut up, guys.

That's what he's doing, basically, all around the room.

And he kept saying, I can smell it.

I know there's something right there.

It's all here.

I can smell it.

And they're just like, dude, it's just us, bro.

What do you, you know, what the fuck?

Can we get you some McDonald's?

Like, I don't know what to do for this guy to chill him out.

He's full.

He's full.

Then he began knocking on something, banging and buzzing and growling.

And he yelled, hey, man, I'll fuck your world up.

Oh.

To nobody in particular, not to the cops.

Just to rant, okay.

Just to whoever was there and around him he didn't want.

He said, hey, man, I'll fuck your world up.

Brah.

So then he started growling more and yelled, down, down.

Get out.

Okay.

He explained to the detectives sit there the whole time watching this and they're like, this is

wild.

And they believe him, by the way.

They're like, Yeah, I'm sitting right next to him.

He's crazy.

This is not an act.

Like, if he, he would be the greatest actor in Hollywood if this is real because I'm believing this shit.

So at that point, he tells the detectives, they're like, hey, you know, we're here for you.

He said, you don't understand, man.

They tap in and control my mind.

Yeah.

He said, they'll come in anywhere.

It's a spirit.

It's a sense.

It's like Wi-Fi, man.

It's coming.

It's 5G, man.

5G.

It's coming.

Watch out.

So, yeah, he's doing that shit.

So the interrogation continues.

He starts growling and buzzing, you know, from time to time.

Now and again, he growls and buzzes.

Then he asks one of the officers whether he was going to receive his gift of immortality or not.

Am I immortal or not, dude?

Are we going to receive it?

Am I getting it?

And the cop's like, huh?

We don't know what you're talking about.

I made 43 grand last year.

I don't know anything about this.

Like,

immortality.

Jesus Christ.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

Then they take him, appropriately, I would say, to a padded cell.

Oh.

They take, yeah, they transport him to the jail and place him in the fucking having a bad day unit there.

Don't open your own head on us.

Exactly.

When they remove the restraints from him in the room, he began panting and beating his chest like a gorilla.

Okay.

While panting.

Later on, they said, let's put him in there, let him chill out for a little bit.

He's a little

jacked up.

So then they go back and meet with him and ask him a few more questions.

Like, maybe we could have a little chat with you again.

Are you okay now?

You okay?

The main question is: they'd like to know what happened to Tammy's heart.

Where's that at?

Where's the heart?

Could we find that somewhere?

And he said, I ate it.

The whole thing?

Yeah.

I mean, the parts that you could eat.

The rest of it I threw out.

That's the flesh chunks.

You know, that's the.

You know, there's going to be gristle, obviously.

I mean,

nothing's perfect.

Valves are going to be crunchy.

Your ventricles don't really

want the soft fleshy part.

You could do like if you if you cook them slow and then do like a reverse sear on them I hear that's the only way to make them edible otherwise

otherwise yeah you got nothing going on there they're not gonna work way too crunchy he ate the whole thing Ate the whole heart.

And he said, I did eat it.

And he said that

I have demons coming out.

Coming out of where?

Him, his pores.

He's allergic to hearts.

Not sure.

And that he knew, quote, the power that I owe.

I don't know what he means.

I don't know.

He's got a gambling debt to some power.

He's got to get it taken care of pretty soon.

He also admits not only to eating the heart and the brain and demons coming out and all sorts of that shit.

He said he cut her apart,

cooked parts of her body.

He tried things both raw and cooked.

Yeah.

Yeah.

See how that is?

Now let's cook it up.

I love fish raw.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I love

an aji tuna, but then you sear it.

That's also good.

I think that's what he's like.

You know, let me do some left ventricle sear.

See how that works.

Yeah.

Aorta searing.

See how that goes.

So that's horrifying,

he he said.

And

he told police that the way he got in,

my God, he said he kicked the door open

and he said this, quote, truth be told, she really wasn't all that scared, surprisingly.

Like, she knew she was going to die.

You know what I mean?

Yes, she knew, man.

She's totally cool with it.

No, no, she's cool with it, he said.

She just was totally fine.

Okay.

She was trying to be calm so maybe you would be calm because she's been around you and probably knows that's how you calm you down.

To leave her alone.

Exactly.

He said that he could,

the reason he ate her brain, not only for the third eye, obviously, but I mean, duh, you know, anybody can see that.

But he could literally absorb her consciousness and gain supernatural powers by eating her brain.

Yeah, but

this isn't getting you into the psychiatric unit.

This is really bad stuff.

I mean,

he's pretty delusional.

This is pretty fucking delusional, I would say.

Yeah, but I don't know, man.

He still knows right from wrong.

Does he?

I think he does.

I think he knows it's wrong, but he's doing it still because

the fact that he told the cops that she wasn't there when they came, that says that he

knows that.

Well, that says he's trying to cover it.

If when they got there, he said, hey, guys, come in.

I got to show you something.

Look what I did.

Isn't it great?

Look at my art project.

Then I would have been like, well, he goes, dude,

I got a third eye and I got her consciousness.

And why you cuff?

Oh, cuffed?

Okay, yeah, sure.

I mean, we'll go down to the station.

I'll talk to you guys, whatever you want to do, but you should see it was totally cool, guys.

You should have been here.

Then you'd be like, well,

I already got the eye.

Yeah.

But just knowing, to me, the standard of just knowing right from wrong is not crazy or not crazy.

It's not.

Yeah.

This is crazy.

I don't think.

This is certainly crazy behavior.

Yeah.

This is crazy.

He's crazy.

I think we could all agree.

Yeah.

Wherever he goes is another story, but we could all agree he's fucking crazy.

Let's start out with that.

That's indisputable.

Indisputable.

That he's crazy.

I just don't know if he believes this, if this is for real.

But he does hear voices and shit.

And he has for years.

Years.

Yeah.

And he has a brain injury.

And he shot himself in the fucking brain.

This all makes sense.

And he keeps it up this whole.

There is no breakdown.

He never like takes a breath and he goes, hey, you guys believe in this shit?

This is just his constant state.

I think I'm still unconvinced.

I still think he's obviously what he's saying is out of control.

It's absurd.

I assure you, he's not faking.

He believes it.

He believes it.

He absolutely believes it.

Now,

that what we're saying is, we don't know.

I don't know if he's legally crazy or not, but just general, if you saw that person on the street corner acting like this, you'd go, look at that crazy guy.

Across the road.

Yeah.

That's, yeah, you'd say that's a

general speaking crazy, but legally, it's a whole other thing.

Yeah.

So he then went into detail of exactly what happened.

He said that he stabbed her in the head, neck, and body.

Then he got an electric saw.

Now he's going to do crazy things.

Now it's going to do things.

And she's alive still.

I think she's dead at this point.

Okay.

Finally.

He gets an electric saw, and that is when he sawed her skull open.

And he

removed part of her brain and ate it raw.

Oh, boy.

Then he cooked some and ate some of that too.

Oh boy.

So he tried it both ways.

Then he sawed open her chest,

cut out her heart and ate that too, and part of her lung as well, just for good measure.

So he goes, that's what he did here.

Yeah.

He said it all had a cosmic significance and all this shit's crazy, dude.

He's out of his mind.

Yeah.

He's out of his fucking mind.

He knew what he did was wrong.

That's the thing.

Sure.

Yeah.

Number one, he knew what he did.

Yeah.

He knows what he did and he tried to cover it up.

So it's not like

he was so delusional, I don't remember doing it or something like that.

I didn't, you know, and he tried to cover it up.

So that is nuts.

The fact that he could describe his actions

is a big deal.

Yeah.

It's like even if he was delusional while doing it, he knew what he was doing enough to do it and know about it, which means he's not.

He's aware and alert while he's doing it.

Which makes him kind of sort of not legally crazy, I guess, in a way.

Or at least arguably at that point.

Much more dangerous.

Yeah.

So at this point, the Utah police chief that did the whole first murder that he was involved in,

they asked that person about it.

And the police chief says it's very upsetting because we think of our families and to think that somebody else was victimized, it's very disheartening to us in law enforcement.

And it's not their fault.

They didn't let him go and let him go to Indiana and not watch him.

Joseph's mom said this, quote, this is Brenda.

He has a bullet in his own head.

Wouldn't you have some mental health issues?

I suppose.

She's making good points.

A psychiatrist here, a Dr.

Williams, said, eating the body can represent someone who wants power over their victim to keep them with you always.

It's not an accident

what he chose to consume.

Her thoughts and her heart, her brain and her passion.

That's what he said.

So he's making it even more of a thing.

Now, Utah and Indiana, obviously, neither one of these states want the blame for this.

No.

So they blame each other, is how it works.

That's hell.

Let's get some interstate squabbling going on because that'll help.

It's only the Spider-Man meme, but all right.

For sure.

They said that had the parole board received the information in Utah, it would have likely prompted a review and

potentially extradited him back to Utah.

Right.

Now, the parole supervisor for Indiana, though,

said that Utah was sent all information regarding each of his interactions with police, not just his arrests even.

They said everything was sent to them.

I've read it myself.

He said it's not uncommon for states to fail to follow up with issuing warrants for out-of-state offenders with parole violations because

we're going to get this guy back here.

Now he's our problem even more.

It's easier to just concentrate on the criminals we have within our borders and fuck it.

So they said a warrant from Utah would have been been the only law enforcement order that could have kept him in custody following the March strangulation arrest.

Okay.

Because it wasn't enough in Indiana.

He didn't do enough to be held.

It had to be Utah telling them to hold him and they didn't.

The Indiana parole officer said it's a horrific situation, but at the same time, I don't believe parole officers in either state could have prevented this.

I don't know about that.

I feel like

the thing is, that strangulation one, though, he shouldn't have been violated for that because he's the victim now.

He was self-defense.

Right.

Yeah.

You know, and they also said the problem is his parole expired in July

before all this happened.

So they said even if it would have been revoked from the strangulation thing, Utah would have had to, at the very latest, free him by July 23rd of this year, no matter what, because his sentence was up.

So they said he'd still have been out now.

He wouldn't have ever been in jail jail and stayed in there.

So the prosecutor, the process, here's some shit about the prosecutor who did the bail with him.

And by the way, his mom won't talk.

Okay.

Now, the prosecutor who agreed to the bail reduction originally, remember that bail reduction so he could get out on the last charge?

He resigned.

Oh.

Yeah.

He's like, I did bad there.

I don't want to talk about it.

I'm going to have to resign.

A lot of people asking a lot of questions, and I'm going to.

Too many.

Too many questions.

Yeah, a little too many many for me.

So, Brenda, mom, would not say who supplied the $500 that fulfilled the $5,000 court cash bond at the time.

She just said, it's between me, her, and him.

Referencing a dead woman.

What the fuck?

It's not between.

Now it's just between you and him because one of you three is dead.

She said that local police could have prevented the death of Tammy Joe Blanton.

She noted that local police responded to a call for service at the home that that morning, just hours before the body was found.

And she said, this is the mob.

She said, quote, they could have took him in.

I'm kind of disgusted in them.

In them, not my son who ate a woman.

I'm mad at the, I'm disgusted in them.

They really didn't do anything.

It's their fault.

Wow.

She said that the recent arrest of her son and the death of Tammy Joe is a huge loss for the two close families that had regular outings together.

And she said, nobody won out of this deal.

No, no one, who the fuck said anybody won?

What are you talking about?

Wow.

This Brenda's whacked, man.

She's out of her mind.

I don't know if she's whacked, but she says some whacked out shit.

She doesn't seem to get the gravity of other people have kids too.

Yeah, she doesn't want to.

It hurts to admit that maybe you failed as a parent.

You know, I think at this point, it's time to put your cards on the table and go, I have nothing.

Yeah.

I know.

I've been, I can't.

I've got to get a three, a king, and and a two, and a ten.

I win.

I keep betting, and I should have folded fucking five bets ago.

I get that, but I got nothing.

I kept calling, expecting everybody to fold.

You guys didn't fold, and now I got

and I can't beat a pair of fours, so I got nothing.

That guy won with a pair of fours.

They're all different colors.

Shit.

Shit, that's not good, is it?

And there's only four colors, and I got five cards.

How does that work?

I don't know, but it happened.

I got a blue one somehow.

Somehow that came out.

So she then said, I wish to God I could take everything back.

Meaning, she wished she had never introduced Tammy to her son.

Yes, you were the one who introduced these people and then

all this shit.

She's not responsible for their being around each other at all.

Yeah, and apparently she was at the scene that night when he got kicked out of the yard.

So it seems like she could have, I don't know.

Anyway,

she said that she knew that her son had many run-ins with the law, and so did Tammy Joe.

She said Tammy Joe knew about that and, in fact, had just picked him up from jail a couple months ago.

So she definitely knew he got in trouble sometimes.

She characterized them as a, quote, real good relationship.

Wow.

Leading up to the night she died.

Obviously, then she said something just went haywire.

There's that one moment.

Yeah.

Understatement of the year, something went haywire.

Haywire is like something silly happened.

That's really trivializing what he did.

You cut cut half of somebody's organs out and cooked and ate them.

That's a completely different kind of haywire, man.

That was a bunch of hullabaloo.

Yeah, it's just a bunch of malarkey, this crap.

The charges are murder,

obviously, level four felony burglary, and level three felony rape as well.

Oh.

Even though he said he didn't have sex with her, that's what they're going to, they're saying that he raped her.

So

during the arraignment,

this is the arraignment, okay?

This is just the beginning of it.

They announce him,

Joseph Albert Oberhansley, and he says, that's not my name.

Obviously, you've got the wrong guy.

Okay.

Not my name.

What's your name?

Well, his real name that you don't know, obviously, is Zeus Brown.

Okay.

Zeus Brown.

He gave Zeus a last name, and he gave him Brown.

So I'm real simple.

Zeus Smith.

That's what Zeus Zeus.

He married Judge Joe's sister.

Zeus Brown.

And he said, yes, I'm Zeus Brown.

I'm the Zeus Brown who played for the Ravens and the Cleveland Browns.

Don't you know me?

Oh, is that what he said?

Now he says he's a professional football player named Zeus Brown.

He's in the NFL.

For years.

Do you remember me?

Okay.

And they go,

you know, they go through all the things that he, and he said, I don't know if I'm a U.S.

citizen or not.

Oh, boy.

He's born there, lived there his whole life, never left the country.

Not sure if he's a citizen or not.

Okay.

Okay.

Tammy's family is.

Imagine these poor fucking people.

Oh, boy.

You know what I mean?

Jesus Christ, man.

This is horrible.

Tammy Joe's mother, Linda, spoke to the media for the first time a few months, about six months after the death here.

And

she said this is the first time she's been able to do it.

And she said she was a daughter.

She was a sister.

She was an aunt.

She was a friend.

She was loved by many.

What a contagious laugh she had.

She was a happy person, and she tried to help this fool.

And this is what happened.

Yep.

She said that she actually, she had met Joseph while he was dating Tammy Joe.

She said she knew something was wrong with him, but couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was.

Yeah, I'm having a hard time myself.

Yes, we're, and we have hindsight.

Imagine just at the time,

holy shit, we have so much hindsight, court documents, and everything else, and I'm still real confused.

So there's he

was manipulative enough to be able to present himself as not insane at the time.

So when you meet him casually, he didn't come across as obviously dangerous.

She said, this is mom.

We were just getting close again, meaning Tammy Joe and mom, and I didn't want to say nothing.

I mean, I didn't want to tell her,

don't date this guy, and then she doesn't talk to me again for five years.

She said, she was 47 years old.

She'll always be my little girl, but she was grown.

I mean, what could you say?

That's That's the truth.

You can't tell her what to do.

She's 46 years old, man.

And it's wild.

By the way, in court, he also said they said something about the facts of the case, and Joseph yelled out, yeah, right, and pigs fly too.

I'm sorry, Zeus Brown yelled out, yeah, right.

Pigs fly too.

And Linda said she has no patience for what prosecutors

thought might be strategic behavior, meaning what he's doing.

Right.

Because they're telling her, we don't know if this is real or not.

And she says, well, I have no patience for this behavior because he's lying.

She said, there's nothing insane about him.

He's just evil.

She called him an evil monster who doesn't deserve to be breathing air right now.

Tammy Joe's father said, I wish they'd kill him tomorrow.

I want him gone.

I want him dead.

We want it to stop.

We have enough problems listening to the news.

We just want it to stop.

I think anybody would feel like that, right?

I think that's pretty normal.

State decides they will go for the death penalty on this one.

Really?

Based on mainly the heinousness of everything.

I mean, they said that it's intentionally committed during a burglary, number one.

So that's an aggravator.

The murder was intentionally committed during a rape, they're saying also.

Okay.

And the dismemberment and the general heinous nature of the crime.

There's a lot.

Yeah.

Three factors there.

Now, of all people, of all organizations you wouldn't think you'd be hearing from right now,

PETA has something to say about this whole thing.

People for the ethical treatment of animals has something to say about this whole thing.

I guess people are animals too, yeah?

Oh, no, no, that's not their angle at all.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, this is fucking wild.

Okay, a letter.

This is they wrote a letter to Brian Meyer, who's the acting sheriff of Clark County, requesting that Joseph be restricted to an all-vegan diet.

Why?

Oh, because

he ate people?

They say that, this is crazy.

They wrote, only vegan food could diminish that bloodlust and might even help protect staff and neighboring inmates.

No, that's not how...

That's going to make this person really nuts.

That's not how food works.

It's not how it doesn't give or take away bloodlust.

What the fuck are you talking about?

So the sheriff is pissed.

The sheriff said, it's bad enough when you lose someone to natural causes, let alone dealing with a loss this violence.

That Peter would do this is unfathomable to me.

It's an insult to injury.

It's unforgivable, and they've lost all credibility with me.

Described the letter as a cruel joke, but I thought it was a cruel joke at first, he said.

He thought it was somebody sending it on there like as a joke.

It wasn't real.

But then he said, when I realized it was real, my first thought was to not even respond because it's ridiculous, the whole thing.

This isn't the first time Pete has done this, by the way.

They made a similar request in a murder case in Tennessee.

And they say that doing so here would be acceptable because of the cannibalistic nature of the crime.

He doesn't need meat.

Pete, a spokesman, said, we really want to take a situation that's a tragedy and make it into something positive to reduce the total violence in the world.

Dude, you are so far down.

This is not even...

Wow.

They said it is his contention that everyone is rightfully

horrified by this act, and switching to a vegan diet would reduce violence and jail costs.

Stay out of it.

No, that wouldn't.

A vegan diet, too, would be way more expensive than the shit they feed them in there.

Back to throwing ink on

rich women in fur.

There you go.

That's your lane.

That's perfect.

That's your lane.

Stay over there.

Yep.

Don't worry about what prisoners eat.

But the sheriff said the sensitive nature of the case made the letter inappropriate.

He said, I can't believe they would be so insensitive to the victim and her family.

So is he competent to stand trial?

Court doesn't.

It's so hard to call.

They find him incompetent to stand trial for real.

Yeah, that doesn't mean forever.

Yeah, that means we could maybe drug him and make him competent.

Exactly.

That means they put you in an institution, drug you for a few months, and then bring you back in court looking all fucking spiffed up.

Shine you up and put you back out there.

I see him like licking their hand and like, you know, rubbing it, getting his hair, patting the cow licks down.

There you go.

Yeah, ready to see here.

So it's nine months in a hospital.

He is, quote, restored to competency.

Wow, they're so good.

Psychology is amazing.

Amazing.

So

he is then ruled incompetent again

due to signs of schizophrenia and delusions.

That's in 2017.

So the nine months didn't take.

Didn't take.

He's out.

He was good for a minute, but then he's still crazy.

Back to reset.

He's nuts again.

Yep, that's it.

Oh, shit.

I unplugged it and everything.

I unplugged it, plugged it back in, and did a whole thing.

And now it's worse.

It's worse.

Now I lost all my apps too.

Fuck.

He's committed to a psychiatric facility for treatment again.

October 2018, like another year goes by.

He's found competent again.

Great.

By a state psychiatrist here.

They say that, but his competency can still be contested by his defense attorneys here, they said, which would then make another hearing where a judge would make a final decision.

So they said this matter has been going on for four years now, and it's high time that the victim's family saw some justice done.

That's what the prosecutor said.

In their motion, attorneys noted a complete breakdown in this is his attorneys.

Now, defense attorneys in a motion note their complete breakdown in communication with Joseph, who appeared suspicious, paranoid, uncommunicative, and agitated during all of their interactions.

Because that's part of being sane and competent, I should say.

Not sane, because it's not crazy or sane.

It's competent and incompetent.

Part of being competent is being able to help in your defense.

Sure, yeah.

If defense wants you to help and you don't have it, then they can't, there's nothing they can do for you at that point.

So he finally, Joseph finally files, apparently they initially filed a notice that he would plead the insanity defense.

However, there is an agreement between the two parties that they're going to go to trial.

He is not allowed to use the

insanity defense, but the state cannot seek the death penalty.

That's the thing.

They seek life without parole.

He doesn't use the insanity defense, which is a great deal for the state because they're really 50-50 on if he pleads the insanity defense, judging by all of this

in front of them, he might get it.

You know what I mean?

So

they'd rather have it this way.

So they agree on this.

Clark County Prosecutor Jeremy Mull said in a statement that while he supports the death penalty in the case, he decided to withdraw it because of Joseph's mental health, which could create the chance for reversal also.

He could very easily have an appeals court say, this guy's crazy as shit.

What are you people doing?

They said, because of the psychiatric evidence that's been produced and put on the record in this case, I believe that it would be virtually impossible to see any death penalty in this case upheld in the federal courts.

He's too crazy.

That's the thing.

They wouldn't uphold it.

They said, further, pursuing the death penalty in this case in light of the psychiatric evidence would present a substantial risk that any guilty verdict itself, in addition to the death penalty, could be reversed.

So we could lose everything on this.

They could say you shouldn't.

He could walk free?

Oh, you could go to an institution until he's sane enough to walk free.

Yes.

That's what could happen if they don't do this.

If they just do life without parole and he can't plead insanity, then it's all, you know what you're getting.

Then it's all based on, here's the evidence.

He said he ate this lady's heart.

Your heart's missing.

Here he is.

That's what all the case is about at that point.

He also said that removing the death penalty would save an estimated $1 million for the state

and add considerably to the

several hundred thousands of dollars spent thus far and significantly reduce the number of prospective jurors.

As in a death penalty case, you have to have so many jurors because a lot of them are immediately disqualified for being two for or two against the death penalty.

So they said now it'll be 200 instead of 2,000, which will save the court shitloads of time and money.

Tammy Joe Blanton's family agrees with

the decision and prefers proceeding with life without parole as opposed to the uncertainty of the death penalty.

They're sane, rational people.

Even though they would like to kill him with their bare hands,

they understand how the world works and they're mature enough to accept that this is better for everyone, rather than there are some people who don't have that.

So September 2019, here's the trial.

Moved to northern Indiana because of all the publicity.

The court ordered that because he withdrew his insanity defense, he could not present any mental health defense evidence in the guilt phase of the trial.

If you're convicted, you could bring it up in the penalty phase as mitigators, but you can't bring it up as a, you know, I'm not guilty.

Problem is, the circuit judge here has to declare a mistrial on the first day of testimony.

Oh,

yes.

A prosecution witness immediately brings up both Joseph's past drug use and time in prison, which are not allowed.

No.

This is, and they said this is shit the prosecutor said they specifically told them not to fucking talk about.

And it's the first fucking thing that came up.

And it's an immediate mistrial.

Damn it.

They said that could very easily prejudice the jury.

They said the witness was a close friend of Tammy Joe that said Tammy Joe had told her in a previous conversation that drugs motivated him to commit his heinous acts before the first murder.

Now, the judge said a simple admonishment to disregard the comments would be insufficient and certainly would not clear the prejudices created by the witnesses' testimony.

The jury had been selected from Hamilton County, which is 120 miles north, and it was a real pain in the ass, and now it's all over with.

Whoops.

The prosecutor said he insisted he instructed all witnesses on what they could and could not include in testimony and said, as unfortunate as this event was today, I don't think it's going to get us very far off track.

I do expect to have this trial going in September and by September sometime to have a verdict in this case.

He also said there was concerns that if the trial had continued, the verdict would have been overturned by the appellate court.

So he was happy about the mistrial.

He said, the last thing in the world I can do is put this family through another four or five years of delays trying to get another trial date.

So if I've got to wait a week or two weeks behind schedule, that's fine.

The defense attorney said that while the judge made the correct decision in

declaring a mistrial, it was still disappointing.

He's just because you're ready for the game.

You got your uniform on and the power goes out and there's no game tonight.

You're like, oh, fuck, man.

I was all warmed up from three.

This is crazy.

Yeah.

He said, you feel like you were ready to go and suddenly you can't go anymore.

And so it's very much a letdown.

Totally.

So August 20th, August of 2020, this family has had to wait a long fucking time.

Way too long.

This is six years they've been waiting.

Years.

Six years already.

That's crazy.

A second attempt to impanel a jury failed when insufficient jurors were available.

Okay.

That's not the only crazy thing.

He also made Joseph made really crazy outbursts and tried to fire his attorney during the proceedings.

Nice.

A defense attorney handed the judge a written letter, handwritten letter by Joseph, which was filed under seal.

Then Joseph spoke up and said, quote, they're trying to control my thoughts.

They're trying to control my mind

about his lawyers.

The judge told him he needed to work with his attorneys.

So he also,

during this also, he contended again, two black guys killed her, not me, and then asked the judge

to read his letter.

Please read my letter.

And he said, I'm just so tired of dealing with all this stuff and being locked in this cage.

I just want to be executed.

I just want to do it, man.

Just get it over with.

So, wow, that is crazy.

He also,

when the court read the allegations of rape, he said that they were, quote, bullcrap lies.

Bullcrap.

Bullcrap lies.

See, he did not mature past 17.

No, he didn't.

Bullcrap lies.

During his 10-minute tirade, he claimed that Tammy Joe was, quote, getting high and drunk and texting a bunch of bull crap.

What in the fuck does that mean?

I don't know.

The defense argued that the text messages from Tammy Joe claiming Joseph had raped her and that she was afraid of him should be suppressed.

Oh.

Yes, that was the assault on her.

So Joseph told the judge that he had uncovered new evidence from his cell.

I got a miracle.

There's a lot of ins and outs, a lot of what have-us.

I'm telling you, this.

You're not privy to the new information, man.

It points to my innocence and suggests that detectives had missed the

murder weapon, insisting it could not have been the little cheap knife investigators found.

But all the wounds line up with it.

Perfect.

It's mainly the saw that he started cutting her up with was the problem here.

Defense attorneys couldn't, they had to withdraw the insanity defense, obviously.

The defendant told the judge also that he felt using the defense would admit guilt and is unlikely to work.

He's like, I'm not going to say I'm crazy because that means I'm saying I did it.

It's not going to work anyway.

He says, what is the mental illness disorder that I'm supposed to have?

I don't like being portrayed in that light.

I don't suffer from any mental illness.

Okay.

He's fucking crazy.

Yeah, he's out of it.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

To stand, it's one thing to be like, I'm crazy.

Look how crazy I am.

I'm Zeus.

You don't know me.

I play for the Browns.

But to be like, I play for the Browns.

I'm Zeus.

I ate a third eye.

Stop calling me crazy.

I'm not fucking crazy.

This is real.

The difference between crazy and not crazy is understanding what you're doing.

Knowing what the fuck's happening.

As he left court, he tried to speak with news reporters as the deputies dragged him away.

He was wanting to have a full interview.

Welcome to my press conference.

Thank you for showing up today.

Imagine how excited they were.

They're like, oh, shit, he's going to say crazy shit.

Please.

Camera, camera.

So the judge declares a mistrial after the jury pool contamination here from the courtroom behavior and from the media exposure, and he is declared incompetent once again.

Yes.

So he's ruled incompetent.

His defense attorney said this is absolutely the right thing.

From the nature of the case itself, the accusations, and just Joseph's behavior both in and out of court, there's really no question that he's incompetent.

Yes.

He's put in an institution.

Competency restored.

Miracle.

We got him.

So here's a second attempt at a second trial.

Okay.

Okay.

So really the third attempt at having a trial here.

All right.

Jury selection started.

They did all of that.

Because of this attention, they had to get jury from Louisville, Kentucky.

They're not even from Indiana.

They had to get people.

Oh, no, I'm sorry.

They got people from Indianapolis to come here,

which is 120 miles away.

After the jury selection was finished, they brought him in.

The news reported this quote as he's brought in to enter the trial here, Joseph.

He said, quote, I did not kill Tammy Blanton.

Two black guys did.

That's what he's heard saying out of the courtroom or on the way into the courtroom.

The prosecutor told the juries that during opening statements that Joseph butchered Tammy like you wouldn't kill a livestock animal.

Right.

Which is fair.

He said the final moments of Tammy's life, she locked herself in the bathroom in an attempt to save her life.

However, there's evidence that he had forced the door open.

During the videotaped interview, he told the cops that he kicked the door open and said,

Truth be told, she really wasn't all that scared, surprisingly, like she knew she was going to die.

You know what I mean?

And the prosecutor said, in her last moments, she wasn't going to give him the pleasure of seeing her scared, which very well might be.

And she might also thought, if I stay calm, I can

finesse my way out of this.

The defense here, they're not allowed to mention sanity or state of mind, but they asked the jury, rather than mention sanity or state of mind legal questions, he said, is a person who does this, quote, thinking right?

Their brain working on all cylinders there?

Is it clicking?

We don't know.

He said, when he eats the brain and the heart of his girlfriend, all they want you to do is keep an open mind.

He said, said,

Dude, you can't say that.

That's why I laughed.

An open mind.

That's open.

God.

Every time.

Why do they do it?

Why do they do it every time?

Open, you son of a bitch.

There's a million other ways to say that.

I just like you to be, you know, to listen to all sides, open to consider any kind of both sides of the case.

Open mind.

Why would every juror should have gone, ooh, ouch.

Fuck, man.

He said the prosecutor told you about a few statements, select evidence, but there's going to be a whole not lot more.

Her chest had been cut open.

The heart was removed.

The heart was eaten.

I'm sorry that I have to go over this, but that's what the evidence is.

Think about the process and say to yourself, is this someone who's thinking right?

He thought that someone was after him.

Okay.

Someone's after me.

I'm going to stop and dismember this woman.

And here's the fucked up part is they said this made a real weird situation with the jury hearing left and right from witnesses and witnessing it themselves, incredibly bizarre behavior that he's done without any context about talk.

There's no shrinks, testify, no psychological context, just hear wacky shit going on, which is real weird.

Here's a guy that does bizarre shit.

Okay, well, nobody's explaining why he's doing that bizarre shit.

That's a guilty man.

But they definitely know there's something up because they hear not about the murder.

They hear about other weird shit he did and Zeus and all this stuff because they play his interrogations and stuff and they're like, well, that's not right.

That doesn't seem right, right?

Normal guy.

That's not normal.

The physical evidence, the crime scene and the interrogation, the presence at Tammy Joe's home.

I mean, it looks like he's guilty here, obviously.

But

now, this is his first time appearing in court, like, you know, in normal clothes.

He's wearing a suit and everything.

So he looks semi-sane.

You know what I mean?

But they showed the jury a videotaped interview in which he told the police that she wasn't all that scared and all that kind of shit.

So

two of Tammy's friends testified that she was so terrified of Joseph that she moved out of her home and stayed with a friend for several days.

After her father changed the lock, she returned home, but assured the witnesses that she, quote, had the police on speed dial.

So she was terrified of him.

The detective,

one of the detectives here, testifies.

And

during this, Joseph just starts talking to the judge.

I don't know.

He spoke out twice, saying the testimony was speculation of this detective.

This is

pure speculation.

Pure speculation, full of shit.

Sorry.

The judge cleared the courtroom for about 15 minutes before the trial resumed and

had to, you know, come back to it.

Now, a friend of hers also testified that Tammy Joe told her that Joseph had raped her several days before the murder, which is why she kicked him out and ended the whole fucking thing and was done with him.

So the detective was asked, this is real weird, the detective was asked if a rape victim, if rape victims typically shower or wash themselves after being raped.

And that's when Joseph shouted out that the detective was speculating.

You ever been raped, detective?

If not, speculation.

Not that he hasn't talked to 100 rape victims, probably, and, you know, he probably would know that.

So, Jesus Christ.

Joseph also said that he was confused when he confessed that morning.

He didn't know what was going on.

And that he was hit in the head at Tammy's home hours earlier.

by said two black guys.

Sure, yeah.

So he had all sorts of shit going on.

Yeah.

In closing, the prosecutor said she suffered so many indignities that night.

She was terrified.

She was stabbed.

She was dismembered.

She was eaten and she was raped.

And the justice for each of those acts of indignities is important if it's proven.

It's what justice demands.

So the verdict comes in here.

It's a lot of...

Yeah.

They can't find him insane, by the way.

That's not even on the table.

So it's just guilty or not guilty.

Not a lot of suspense here, except for one thing.

He is found guilty of murder.

Yes.

He is found guilty of burglary.

Yes.

Not guilty of rape.

Okay.

Because they don't know whether he raped her that night as part of the act.

Okay.

I guess.

Or they're trying to use the rape and murder together.

Yeah, a different occasion.

And they haven't proved it.

All they have is hearsay from a friend, which is not proof of it.

And some texts.

And some texts.

Again, not proof of anything.

He never said, sorry, I raped you, which that might have been some proof.

It's a he said he said, she said thing at that point.

Yeah, and he then cut her fucking brain out so she can't say much, which sucks.

So he's going to, yeah.

The acquittal on the rape charge eliminated one of the aggravating factors that they hoped to use in seeking life without parole, but they still had murder during a burglary and the heinous nature of the crime with the dismemberment and all that.

In Indiana, dismemberment is obviously considered a heinous act.

So during the sentencing phase, the state points out the evidence presented in the guilt phase, and they argue all the aggravating circumstances, which seem pretty clear.

He told jurors, quote, because of what happened on September 11th, don't say it like that.

No, that makes it sound totally weird.

You're like, is Bin Laden responsible for this?

What's going on?

Because of what happened on September 11th, because of his actions, he should never ever walk free again.

These aggravators outweigh the mitigating factors of his mental illness, they say.

Now, his defense is they present two mental health experts and claiming and claimed as mitigating circumstances that he had acted under extreme mental disturbance and that mental illness impaired his capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform to the conduct of the law.

Okay.

Defense team presented, their goal is to convince the jury that his mental illness should be considered mitigating evidence that would argue against a life without parole.

which is very interesting.

The problem is they have to acknowledge that what he did is fucking crazy, crazy, but also,

you know, you could also just they could take that and go, oh, so he admits it and he's just evil.

Okay.

Yes.

Either way, you're fucked.

He's just a bad guy.

They argued he acted under extreme mental disturbance.

They presented evidence that his mental illness had impaired his capacity to appreciate everything.

It wasn't an insanity defense, but it's a punishment defense here.

The mental health experts also testified about his traumatic brain injury from a suicide attempt, ongoing psychiatric symptoms, including auditory hallucinations, grandiose delusions, and the impact of his untreated mental illness on his behavior.

Basically, they paint a picture of a guy who's fucking a mess.

His brain is fucked.

He doesn't know what he's doing.

He's got brain trauma.

He's crazy anyway.

Joseph

gets up and talks and says, he didn't kill Tammy.

Well, who did?

Well, we know.

Two black guys.

He said, he didn't kill Tammy.

He loved her.

And what happened to her was, quote, a shame.

Real shame, that was.

It's a damn shame.

The jury takes about 45 minutes to come back here.

And they say, you, sir, may fuck off life without parole.

Terrific.

Eat all the dicks is what they tell him.

Now, he's going to appeal this based on...

a jury verdict form.

Oh.

Okay.

The court instructed the jury that before it could recommend a life without parole sentence, it had to find one or both aggravating circumstances proven behind a reasonable doubt, and that any aggravating circumstances outweighed by

any mitigating circumstances.

The jury was instructed the court would provide verdict forms.

The purpose of the forms was threefold.

First, to show whether the jury found each alleged aggravating circumstance proven.

Second, to show whether any aggravating circumstances it found outweighed the mitigating circumstances.

And third, to show whether it recommended life without parole or a term of years sentence.

Despite the instructions, the jury did not receive a verdict form for weighing the aggravating and mitigating circumstances.

They didn't give them the right paperwork.

The jury

returned forms indicating it found both aggravating circumstances proven.

and recommended the life without parole, but not the middle part of they outweigh the mitigators, which is very important.

So the trial court noted verbally that the jury had found the aggravating circumstances proven.

At the hearing of sentencing, the trial court found sufficient evidence to support the jury's decision and impose the sentence.

He argues, though, that the jury, by lacking the jury form for weighing the aggravating and mitigating circumstances, failed to make a determination on the issue, and thus the court lacked the authority to impose that sentence.

Right.

Because that's part of it.

He further claims that the imposition of life without parole sentence without these necessary jurors, jury findings, violated his right right to due process under the Constitution.

He seeks a revision of his sentence, asserting that it was inappropriate because he committed the crimes due to severe mental illness.

The court says

that

Joseph himself characterized the crimes as gruesome, horrific, and brutal.

They say his brief points to no aspects of his crimes which might alleviate their severity.

Indeed, quote, no positive light can be cast on them.

The crimes involving dismembering and eating parts of the victim's body were extreme.

They were inflicted on a frightened former partner who had locked him out of her home.

Like the murder, sexual assault, and dismemberment we reviewed in another case, the offenses in this case were, quote, beyond horrendous.

Yet the case does not present the exceptional and extraordinary circumstances in which such consideration is warranted.

They say although Joseph acted under delusions created by his mental illness, he did not show a restraint or lack of brutality nor any regard for human life.

They said he also acted deviously.

He tried to visit her at work, dressed like an employee.

What?

He tried to sneak in dressed like one of them.

Whoa.

Not in his usual clothes and thus gained access to her workplace.

During the crimes, he left his cell phone at his mother's house, so couldn't be tracked there.

He lied in an attempt to mislead friends who were worried about Sammy Joe's safety when they called.

After being moved along by police from Blanton's home, he parked his car nearby and returned, then lied to the police and told them two black guys killed Blanton.

He maintained that at trial too.

His deceptive behavior, his efforts to shift the blame, aggravate the nature of the offense.

Also, they say he offers no record of positive

character traits.

They say, we find a lack of redeeming character traits of a positive nature.

They said he suffered the loss of close members of his family during his youth, but usually evidence of a difficult childhood is entitled to little, if any, mitigating weight.

The suicides of his father and half-brother have marked a significant turning point in his life, but that doesn't mitigate the subsequent record of violence against his own mother and intimate partners.

He lives with several mental disorders that affect him at the time of his crimes, yet his juvenile record of delinquent acts goes back to the time before his mental illness even happened.

So he's always been a dick.

Now he's just a crazy dick.

Right.

Now he's even worse.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They said likewise likewise, his attack on his girlfriend and mother predated the first recorded signs of psychosis.

That's when he shot himself and caused them.

They said we cannot ignore the fact that his second partner, whom he killed, is the third person he's attacked with deadly force, meaning his mother, in there too.

He also had a strangulation charge and other charges pending.

I'll let him slide on that one.

And

his history of criminal conduct weighs against relief.

Denied, sir.

Keep on keeping on.

That's good.

Last we saw him here.

He is, his number is 249876,

and he was at the Newcastle Correctional Facility at 1000 Van Nuys Road, P.O.

Box E in Newcastle, Indiana, 47362.

Just in case you want to write him a letter and tell him you can hear his thoughts.

Something weird like that.

Something to really freak him out.

Hey, Zeus.

Either that or just start asking him about the 2012 Brown season and how it it went and like, you know, was he disappointed in the losing record and was he for or against the drafting of Johnny Manzel?

Things like that.

He might want to send him a message and tell him you got his message that he wanted you to write.

What's up?

I got it through the toaster.

Are we cool?

So there you go, everybody.

There is Jeffersonville, Indiana.

Oh, God.

And that's one of the craziest fucking things we've ever talked about all across the board there.

So it is insane.

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This week, we're going to talk about Amy Bradley for small town murder, which will be a lot of fun.

The young lady who disappeared on the cruise ship, and they think she might be alive.

And I have some theories on that.

I'm sure you have have theories.

I'm sure everyone has theories.

And we're going to talk about all those theories and it'll add on to the poop cruise because it's like

what could happen worse?

Well, this could happen worse.

It could get worse.

Basically, it's our month of don't go on cruise ships, public service announcements.

Cruise ships are the worst.

So do that.

And you're going to get, in addition to all of those bonus episodes all the time, you're going to get all of our shows, Crime and Sports, Your Stupid Opinions, and Small Town Murder and Small Town Murder Express, all ad-free as well.

All through your Patreon donations.

What a deal.

It's the best deal we could possibly give you.

We have nothing else to give.

Really?

I mean, blood, I'll give you, I mean, I have, you know, only like a pint a day or whatever, but I'll give blood up.

It's useless, but I'll give you semen.

You can have it.

I mean, do stuff with it.

Just don't put it at a crime scene, please.

So do that and come back and keep hanging out with us all the time.

But definitely Patreon.

Get yourself some Patreon.

Do yourself a favor.

patreon.com slash crime in sports.

And now I would like to hear the names of the people who are so sane, who never would come to our house and eat our brains and hearts and lungs.

Jimmy, hit me with the names of the best fucking people that we have here.

This week's executive producer, Jamie Kadrovich, Catherine Giles, Giles, Alana Zamel, thank you again.

Zamel, Zamel, and Gary Kreeders, happy birthday.

And Brian, thank you so much.

Brian with no last name.

You guys are the best.

Thank you all so much for what you're doing.

Appreciate you.

Other producers this week: Peyton Meadows, Duncan Z.

Peters, probably not.

Liz Vasquez, Janice Hill, Georgia Liptack.

Hey, I know her.

Ashley Eichler, Eichler, maybe?

Rob Nash.

Rob Nash.

No, oh, no, never mind.

Allison with no last name.

Joe Sallow, Wendy Gorski, Jeff Orbeck, Rebecca Zavala, Jessica Williams, Melissa Cabin, Caban, Lisa Early, Earl.

It's Earl, like Steve.

Melissa, Melissa B.

Ethan Banke, Daniel with no last name.

Krista Gregg, Ryan Pizzuto, Brandy Cameron, Jeremy Rice, Amanda with no last name.

Tim with no last name.

Roger with no last name.

Anina Daudiston.

Kelly Jo May.

Jake with no last name.

Evangeline Maynard.

Ian Ray.

Lauren with no last name.

Rebecca Ridenauer.

Leo, my murderer.

I don't know what that means.

K and R, the letters K and R.

Hayden Morris.

Danny Danny Stewart, Tamal, Tamal Tamalee, Tamal 99, Mary Price,

Susan Sobosinski, Jess King, Wanda Schatzberg Gray, Felicia Roach, Brian Moore, Tiffany Wright, Benjamin Jones, Christian Delgado, John Grant, Ash with no last name, Sophie Cooney, Max Hubley is an idiot, Hubley, perhaps.

I don't think

let's be specific about who's an idiot here, yeah.

It's probably Hubley, Tanya Hamilton, it might be.

Steve Barron, Holly L.A.

Zaborowski, Anonymous.

Just a random person that wants to remain anonymous.

Peter with no last name.

Aaron Flight, David Varner, Colin Wyron, Vinnie the Cocaine King, Vishno.

Oh, well then.

Well, thank you for your

cocaine money.

Don't arrest that man.

Yeah,

if you're selling cocaine, you should donate more, probably.

You have plenty of money.

Leah with no last name.

Elisa with no last name.

Danal Owen, Vale with no last name.

Melbourne.

We're not too good for drug money, people.

We're not too good for drug money.

We will take any illegal proceeds.

We don't care.

We'll use this.

We'll send Coke.

I don't know.

Sorry.

We don't want Coke, but we'll sell it.

Give me the money.

Dana Wilcher, Courtney Franklin, Amelia

Bant Bont, Stacey Meacham, Tim S., Mark Donaldson, Catherine

Bolneave,

Belnive, Christina Cawthron Michelle Richards Doc Bob Lisa W Jennifer Pernia Preston Richards Caleb Eversole Megatron

Jen and Hattie Emily Merton Jordan with no last name Matt Rogers Zach Nikolai Katie Hayes Blake Harrell Hurrell Justin Wilson Kathy Frazier Chris Mosley Amanda Stout Whitney Bellich Balick Amanda White Weisbroad Rice Brode Cole Lee Jeremy with no last name Megan Davis, Josh Benji, Bengay,

Nancy Beckman,

Brianna Burnett, Carly Edwards, Ashley Hicks, Naomi Belt, Jordan Gerlach, Gerlach, Brian Bouch, Sarah Wilhelm, Beth with no last name, Sabrina with no last name, Yellow Jaybird, Plebe, Pleb, Pleb Bob, Violet Halloran, Susan with no last name, Cameron Holland, Denae Smith, Espy Debandit, Spy, Kendra, Stolen Espy Award, Stolen Espy, Debandit.

Kendra Sigersma.

Sigersma.

Mike Shearer.

Mitchell Holmes.

Donna Sauls.

Lack with no Lake with no last name.

Dave Butts, Rudy with no last name.

Tammy Kinnison.

Oh, Sam's kid.

Joanna Dresser.

Mario Zara Zaragoza.

Jessica Hatter.

Brian Hopkins.

Sasha Plus5.

Abby Smith.

Hildu Run.

Oh, boy.

Sigurdota.

Kvar Ran.

Scrotum Face Sam.

I know that one.

Adam Graham.

Heather DeAnda.

Nora Moen.

Moen?

Moen, like fawcets.

Sandra McGammon, Josh Picot, belligerent behaviorist.

Cody with no last name.

Chantelle Hamill, Chantel Hamal, Carrie with no last name.

Mickey Hardy, Brandon Dura,

Kathleen Smith, Angela Bartlett, Shelly Nance, Deaclin Delaney, JT Met Matei, Discarard, Driskard, Jorgensen, Shea Hansen Leaf Bleasard

Carrie Spike Sypic

Summer Walker Drizzy Dordon

Casey Nope that's Stacey Mitchell Carly Vieira

Nicole Ferris Mr.

Saturday Brett Caldwell Tina

Schlingman Kate with no last name Jeremy Brenton Parker Jones Daniel Vinson Becca with no last name Virginia Bacon Suzanne with no last name Sonia Walker Crystal K Jeff with no last name Ryan T Tamara Crane, Ralph Castaneda, Bobby Potoff, Christina Olson, John Gorman, Carolyn Hyde, Justin Black, Sierra

Savatas, Viceroy Burrito, Cindy Licklock, Whitlock, Jesus, Barbie Pickens,

Shannon Roseanne, change your name, sweetheart, Sherry DC,

Michael Bjorklund, Diane Slaughter, Linda Sandifer, Carrie Flanagan, Katie Munier, Andrea Oliver, Kiana Smith, Luzanne, Suzanne Libel, Sigmund Sigmund, Matt Roselle, Brando, Barn Branflake, Tricia Topping, Tyler Eller, Angela B., Monty Prins, Eliza, nope, Elaine, Barnes, Chad McClure, Renee Burdett, Jacob with no last name, Them Home, T News, Hannah Montague, Robert Fleming, Scott Silberman, Monica Quinn, Jessica Berkeley, Spencer Majeski, Luke McDonald, Sylvia Hernandez, Tyler Rako, Corey McGoodall, Sam with no last name, Sammy FedEx, Lori Bullock, Justin Meyer, Tom with no last name, Suzanne Harris, Susan Harris, Jane Shea, Megan Haggerty, Jen Strauss, W.M.

Rice, Marilyn Kano, John Jason Boyd, Kayla with no last name, Susan Wolfenberger, Mark Nixon, Kasuka with no last name, Jessica Walters, Marco, oh, Marcos Kinkoza, Kinkoza, Queen Coza, Scotty

Midget, no, it's Maget, right?

That's Maget.

That's not Midget.

Slade Garrett, T with no last name.

Hale Nimrod, Tani, Tony, Mago, Magoff, Therena Lee, Lexi with no last name.

Nicole with no last name.

John Schultz, Dominic Draper, Richard...

Profrock, Nathan Pitts, Finnis with no last name.

Deanna Dina.

Dina Dyer.

Casey Randall.

Megan Ross.

Kevin Nolan.

Terry Ann Chin.

Danielle Caitlin.

Oh, Care Bear.

Cordy.

Cordy Crawford.

Wyatt with no last name, Lolo Hill, Elisa Appling, Sarah Dawson, Adair, Dan Rogers, Christine Fry, Beverly C., Stephen Hobbs, Ricky Kerner, Mary with no last name, Kathy J.C., Ann Fruchet,

Eric Diebler, Pamela Parsons, Emily Dylan, Prue with no last name, Tessa Marshall,

Amy Kellogg,

Tim Wheeler, Charissa, Carissa Kirsch, Laura Galloway, Rusty Shackleford, and the Pocket Sand,

Ashley with no last name, Melanie Hines, Tyler Campbell, Leanne J, Beth Bernetsky, Amy Oldfield, Ama Amma, Ama Williams,

Ama, AMA, Ask Me Anything, Williams, Amanda

Ingalls, like Laura's kid.

And all of our patrons, you guys are the best.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, you fantastic, wonderful sons of bitches.

We can't tell you how much you just

keep the show going.

You keep everything going the right way.

Thank you.

And we're so happy we did it this way, where we can have it ourselves and you guys can have it without having to get some, you know, other company's app and all that shit.

You're getting all our stuff.

That's what we want to give you.

Not selling other people's shit.

So awesome.

Thank you so much for hanging out with us.

Keep coming back and seeing us week after week.

Head over to shut up and give me murder.com.

Drop-down menus take you everywhere you want to go.

That said, until next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure.

Bye.

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