Behind The Murder Mask - Litchfield, Maine

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Speaker 2 Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder Express.

Speaker 2 Yay, and choo choo. Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy.
Yay, indeed. My name is James Petrogallo.
I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wistman.

Speaker 2 Thank you, folks, so much for joining us today on another insane edition of Small Town Murder Express.

Speaker 2 As you know, the regular episodes are crazy and long, and the expresses are just as crazy and short. 10 pounds of murder in a two-pound bag.

Speaker 2 And we have some really weird, twisted, creepy stuff this week. As usual, we will get to that.
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That's Patreon. We'll get to that.
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Speaker 2 This week, we're going to talk about for crime and sports Jeff Alm, a football player with a wild ending. We were supposed to do it last time, but Jimmy was too ill.
It would have killed him.

Speaker 2 So he would have been deader than Jeff Alm. So he's

Speaker 2 for small town murder by popular demand. We were going to do something else, but we have been overwhelmed by requests for the poop crews.

Speaker 2 So we're going to talk about the poop crews and we're going to mix a little Titan Submersible in there as well because it's all the ocean, whatever. Yeah.
It's all water. Let's get into that.

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And you also get a shout-out at the end of the show as well, where Jimmy will mess your name all up. You bet.

Speaker 2 So that said, I think it's time, everybody, to sit back. What do you say? Let's all clear the lungs and let's all shout.

Speaker 2 Shut up.

Speaker 2 Forgive me murder. Let's do this, everybody.
Okay. Let's go on a trip, shall we? We're going somewhere we enjoy a great deal.
We're going to Maine this week. Yeah, yeah.
Love Maine.

Speaker 2 This isn't South Central Maine, though. No,

Speaker 2 not touching the water. Portland? No, it's Sixth Center.
Oh, Inland. Inland.
Yeah, it's Litchfield, Maine, is where we're going here.

Speaker 2 Litchfield, South Central Maine, about 25 minutes outside of Augusta, Maine. That's where we're going.
I don't even know where the fuck that is. There you go.

Speaker 2 Inland. Two and a half hours to Boston, so a little too far to commute to.

Speaker 2 You live in rural Maine, is what this is. That's where you're going to be.
Yeah. It's about an hour and 40 to Lebanon, Maine, our last Maine episode.
567 was the number. Till murder, do us part.

Speaker 2 That was wild.

Speaker 2 The guy kidnapped his wife and was trying to convince her, and everybody was looking for her and thought she was dead, and she was in a hotel room being tortured. That was insane.

Speaker 2 This is in Kennebec County. Area code 207.
Population here, 3,587.

Speaker 2 So just a

Speaker 2 little rural

Speaker 2 central main town here. Median household income, slightly above the national average.
It is $71,691, about $2,000 over the average. Median home cost here, about $307,800.
So

Speaker 2 not higher than the national average, not too much lower. So, you know, kind of hanging in there.
Little bit of history here.

Speaker 2 It was first called Smithfield Plantation,

Speaker 2 the name of the town. And they were like, well, that doesn't sound great.
No.

Speaker 2 That sounds like we own people. So let's change it to Litchfield.
That seems a little nicer, right? So they did that.

Speaker 2 That sounds a little close to Litchfield, and that's gross. That's gross, too.
But yeah, so they're going to try, though. Litchfield here, they built churches.
They built everything like that.

Speaker 2 Basically, they had town meetings in a guy's house until 1813. So

Speaker 2 pretty small timey stuff here.

Speaker 2 Like a small HOA.

Speaker 2 Exactly. That's pretty much the whole town was an HOA.
In 1860, a town farm of 112 acres was bought on which to support the town poor.

Speaker 2 Oh. They had a farm that they grew stuff for poor people there.
Wow. Back in the day.
The original habitat for humanity. Pretty much 1860.
So, yeah, they did that. That was very nice.

Speaker 2 It's interesting here. The annual expense for the town poor is $250 more than the proceeds of the farm, they said.
So some guy made up the difference here and said, well, I'll pay for it.

Speaker 2 So that was nice of them back then. Reviews here.
Four stars. No complaints.

Speaker 2 Recreation is easy to access in this area. That's the whole review.
Four out of five? Four out of five.

Speaker 2 No complaints, though. But you can quite do it for me, apparently, all the way.
A lot of like hiking and outdoor stuff in this area. Love that.
That's fun.

Speaker 2 Four stars, I don't need any more public services. What is available is plenty for my needs.

Speaker 2 Someone trying to force more public services on you? I don't need it. I don't need your public service.
Keep your fire truck in the fucking garage. I don't need it.
I don't want to hear it. Wow.

Speaker 2 Three stars. There are very few violent crimes in this area.
I have no concerns for my safety at any time. Vacant homes slash camp thefts are one of the largest problems.
Camp thefts. Camp theft.

Speaker 2 Someone done

Speaker 2 came in and stole my Weber grill. I don't know what else.
Somebody stole my Yeti. Somebody stole my tackle box.
Now I'm in trouble. Not going to be able to catch my dinner.
$400

Speaker 2 and people will steal it. People are going to steal it.

Speaker 2 Three stars, very small rural town, limited shopping options, all mom and pop stores. That's nice.

Speaker 2 Residents must travel 20 minutes to find built-up shopping areas with with dining and box store choices.

Speaker 2 How far? 20 minutes. That's not very far.
That's not far at all. 20 minutes is nothing.
In Phoenix, everything is 20 minutes away.

Speaker 2 40. Fucking 40.
Well, 40, yeah, that's true.

Speaker 2 20 is close and 40 is normal. That's what it is.
Like, oh, that's right down the street. That's 20 minutes.
40 is like, ah, it's just, you know, 30 miles away, not a big deal. So things to do here.

Speaker 2 There is only one thing to do. Well, there's hiking.
You can do hiking and stuff like that. But there's also the blister event.
The blistered fingers family bluegrass festival.

Speaker 2 Oh, they are playing so hard. So much.
They're blistering the fingers on the fucking banjo. Exploding with blisters.
That's what's going on here. Gross.

Speaker 2 And they say that you can come check out some of the best bluegrass music around at one of New England's best family music events.

Speaker 2 The Blistered Fingers Bluegrass Festival got its start back in June of 91, and then they added a second festival in August for some reason.

Speaker 2 So now, twice a year, thousands of music lovers from all over the world come together to hear awesome banjos, fiddles, and those sweet high harmonies with a mix of national and local bands.

Speaker 2 Then, whether you're bringing a bus, an RV, a camper, a tent, or just coming for the day, we've got you covered. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Come early, jam with new friends, kick back, and make memories that will last a lifetime. Come listen to the two scariest instruments.
Yeah, just together.

Speaker 2 Come listen to the cousins from the Righteous Gemstones serenade you, basically. That's what it is.

Speaker 2 And the guys from the Lido deck of the Titanic.

Speaker 2 Sinner, you better get ready over and over.

Speaker 2 So who will be appearing? Rhonda Vincent and the Rage.

Speaker 2 Oh, national band, yeah. Rhonda Vincent looks like every other country star.
She's blonde hair, blue eyes. It just looks like every other one.
You could say interchangeable.

Speaker 2 Or a loose lace thing around her waist. Interchangeable.
Yeah, interchangeable. The Gibson brothers.
All right. I don't know.

Speaker 2 They look like bankers. They're wearing suits and ties, but one guy has a, and they have like short haircuts, but one guy has a banjo.
So I guess.

Speaker 2 It's not Kurt and his brother?

Speaker 2 It's not. It's not Kirk.
It's not Mel. It's nobody like that.

Speaker 2 Dan Paisley and the Southern Grass.

Speaker 2 Okay. And the lead singer.

Speaker 2 The lead singer looks like an older Brian Possane, which is not a compliment. Jesus God.
It's not a compliment for his looks.

Speaker 2 That's a shallow gene pool. That's rough.
Up after that, nothing fancy.

Speaker 2 Okay. Nothing fancy.
And they all look like the average age there is about 63. Terrific.

Speaker 2 The Cody Norris show.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 2 I see a show. I see the lead singer is dressed in like a crazy yellow cowboy outfit, like

Speaker 2 a Howdy Duty or some shit.

Speaker 2 But they have a stand-up bass. There's a dude with a stand-up bass.
And anybody with a stand-up bass, I will listen. I'll give it a shot because I love the stand-up bass.

Speaker 2 That's my favorite fucking sound Dave Atkins and Mountain Soul okay okay the Hemingway brothers right they certainly look like brothers

Speaker 2 kids they got the same terrible genetics those two yeah um

Speaker 2 the rock hearts uh-huh there's always a heart something yeah a bunch of old guys by the way I have to show you the Hemingway brothers so you'll know what I mean look at these two

Speaker 2 them

Speaker 2 hot they're fighting the women off with those guitars they have to carry them to just to fight the women off off. Let's see how they keep their marriage together.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, I forgot he plays guitar.

Speaker 2 Catadin Valley Boys. Yeah.
They're all 75 years old. Don't call yourself boys.

Speaker 2 Jesus Christ. The Seth Sawyer band.
Seth? Seth. Another stand-up bass, though, so I'm interested.

Speaker 2 They got an old lady and a stand-up bass. How fucking long is this? It's a festival.
Backwoods Road

Speaker 2 looks looks like a family gathering. It's like a terrible Phoenix Open, Mike.
There's so many people. So many.
It's going till one in the morning, folks.

Speaker 2 Bear Tracks, which looks like a couple that just got their country club membership. That's a weird one.
It looks like the photo of two real estate. Hey, husband and wife.
Husband and wife team.

Speaker 2 Bear Treks Cedar Ridge, another stand-up base. Interested in that.
And the Hosmer Mountain Boys. Again, a stand-up base.
So, okay, I'll check it out. That said, let's talk about some murder, shall we?

Speaker 2 Here we go. Okay, we got some bad stuff happening this week.
All right, let's talk about Kimberly Joe Hutchins first. Kimberly Joe, J-O, middle name.
She's born June 11th, 1970. I'm June 12th.

Speaker 2 Look at this. We're almost buddies there.
Close, not in years, but in the date. She's born in Rumford, Maine,

Speaker 2 and she is the daughter of Arthur and Jeanette Hutchins. And she's got a brother and two sisters, from what I could gather here.
that's what I gathered.

Speaker 2 She graduated from Telstar High School

Speaker 2 and then went on to Becker College in Worcester, Mass. And

Speaker 2 graduated in 1990 with a degree in interior design.

Speaker 2 You can get a degree in that, huh? Fuck yeah. Yeah, you can, actually.
Yeah,

Speaker 2 does that colour match that? Okay. Yeah, absolutely.
You can get discounts and stuff. It's nice.
Fascinating. We get discounts from her.
It's good stuff. Really? Yeah, fuck yeah.
You all have a code.

Speaker 2 She's real into design, and uh,

Speaker 2 she wanted to

Speaker 2 just loved it, she likes art stuff, so she's she taught herself how to play the piano. Wow, she likes to paint, you know what I mean, stuff like that.

Speaker 2 Not a lot of money in anything she's doing, but that's great. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 Well, designing can be a lot of money, you can make a real good living in interior design, but she seems more into like the aesthetics and the art of the whole thing.

Speaker 2 In 2003, she got married to Alex Miranovis is his name. Yeah, M-I-R-O-N-O-V-A-S.

Speaker 2 And probably Greece, it sounds like.

Speaker 2 Crete, maybe. I'm not sure.

Speaker 2 Yeah, in Massachusetts, though, because that's where they're going to live. So she changes her name, too, and becomes Kimberly Minarovis.

Speaker 2 And in 2004, the next year, they welcome a son into the world here. Hey, here we go.
Lucas with a K, they call him. Lucas here.

Speaker 2 So, yeah, he's born in 2004, and Lucas is

Speaker 2 the best way to

Speaker 2 late 2003, the best way to describe him is troubled from

Speaker 2 jump. Troubled from jump.

Speaker 2 Well, he's first diagnosed with mental health disorders when he's five years old. What is that? Like, what kind of thing is that? So we don't know exactly what

Speaker 2 some kind of mental health disorders at five, which is

Speaker 2 definitely tough.

Speaker 2 That's fascinating. Yeah.
Later on, too, they'll say that he's on the autism spectrum as well.

Speaker 2 In addition to having mental health disorders, that's not like they weren't confused for that.

Speaker 2 It wasn't one or the other. He's got both.

Speaker 2 So he's just, he's got a little bit of a difficulty connecting with others. And that is not just the autism.
That is because he's also got some mental issues as well.

Speaker 2 Now, he spends a lot of his weekends with his grandmother, Jeanette. That's Kimberly's mom.
And she said that he desperately wanted friends, but struggled to make them. Didn't have an easy time.

Speaker 2 She said later, he wasn't a leader. He was a follower.
I think that he wanted friends so bad, he felt like he was labeled because he went to special schools.

Speaker 2 And he just wanted friends so bad that he would do anything to get friends.

Speaker 2 That's what happens. There's a lot of kids like that, even if they don't go to a special school or they have no issues at all.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Tons of kids struggle to make friends and they don't know what to do. No, it's like one of the main things in life is to figure out how to connect with people.
It's hard.

Speaker 2 Right. Those social cues are.
That's what teaches you how to function later. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 So in 2008, his parents get divorced here. Kimberly and Alex get a divorce.

Speaker 2 So he ends up spending his weekends with his dad. And his dad's a decent guy.

Speaker 2 They didn't get divorced because he was like beating the shit out of everybody in the house or anything like that. Just didn't work out.

Speaker 2 He kept up his financial duties and his parental duties and everything like that. Paid his child support, saw his kid every weekend and everything.

Speaker 2 In court records, he was described as a dedicated and concerned parent who paid $900 a month in child support and had weekend visitations with his son. And what year was that? 2008.
Oh, okay. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So that's fine. That's a good number.
That's not bad. And

Speaker 2 they said that, you know, he would go over his dad's house every weekend.

Speaker 2 Neighbors here in Ashland, Massachusetts said they would see him playing basketball at his dad's house in the driveway all the time on the weekends.

Speaker 2 So, you know, they'd hear the basketball and knew that he was over there, basically. Now, he also, so that sounds like everything's going fine, but he has some problems too.

Speaker 2 In Massachusetts, the neighbors start to see some weird shit going on with Lucas here.

Speaker 2 As he becomes a teenager, he starts to really kind of act out.

Speaker 2 Once he's like 11, 12, he would damage properties in the neighborhood. This happened several different properties.
He would shoplift from local stores. Sure.

Speaker 2 He sounds like a kid trying to get either attention or something. something.
Or he's just a little vandal. We know though.
You remember those kids? Yeah. Their home life wasn't good.

Speaker 2 You know what I mean? That's what I mean. That's not great.
And he also made

Speaker 2 physical threats against the other kids and even adults. Oh, I didn't do that.
No, I wasn't threatening adults at that age.

Speaker 2 Not even close to that.

Speaker 2 That's wild.

Speaker 2 One former neighbor. where the family lived said that he would occasionally see Kimberly outside walking her dog, but see Lucas around all the time.

Speaker 2 And this neighbor said, quote, he was a little different. I know the family.

Speaker 2 I know the family. I don't want to say anything, but let's just say he was a little different.

Speaker 2 Now, she said he was never aggressive or anything like that toward him personally, this neighbor, but he said there was something unsettling about the boy.

Speaker 2 Something brewing under there,

Speaker 2 under the surface here.

Speaker 2 Now, in school, didn't do a good job in school at all and has a hard time behaviorally in school mainly.

Speaker 2 And I don't know if his behavioral shit is acting out because he's not doing well academically, like some kids will do if they can't do it. It is frustrating.

Speaker 2 They're frustrating, can't do well, then they act out. So that happens.

Speaker 2 But he was apparently, according to later on, some people who knew them, they said that he was kicked out of every school system in Massachusetts. Oh.

Speaker 2 He would be repeatedly suspended and then finally expelled. They'd enroll him somewhere else.
Same thing would happen. Wow.
Just the way it was.

Speaker 2 He didn't even have like a grace period where he would be cool for a couple of months. He'd get there, get in trouble.
Start it up. Start the cycle over again.

Speaker 2 He hadn't been a school and hadn't been enrolled as a student in Ashland, Massachusetts, where they were living until 2017, since the 2009, 2010 school year, which is when he would have been six or seven years old.

Speaker 2 So he was, for the next few years, he's either in special, like a special private schools schools

Speaker 2 or not in school at all for certain periods as well. Can't do that, right? Well, they're trying to find him a school.

Speaker 2 He'll get kicked out of a school, and then they have to try to find a school that'll take him. So they, right? And they can't take him to public school because he's already been kicked out of there.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 what do you do with a kid like that? You know what I mean? What is the problem, Luke? That's tough. So he's having a hard time.
And November or summary, September of 2017,

Speaker 2 his mom, Kimberly, here decides that it's time to sell her condo and move to Litchfield, Maine. Got to get out.
Got to get out of the city. It's about 180 miles away,

Speaker 2 and it's more remote than where they're from. It's way more rural.
And she's... But it's going to pigeonhole yourself into having much fewer schools, too, to get out of the way.
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 But she thinks, this is the weird part. She thinks it's somehow an environmental thing.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 If the kid was like, you know, smoking crack when he was 12 or something, then you go, okay, yeah, maybe if you move him to the middle of Maine, he won't be able to get crack and you know, maybe he'll clean up or whatever the fuck.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 having like deeper-seated issues that turn into behavioral problems isn't gonna,

Speaker 2 geography is not gonna change that at all. That's not a geographic, most things can't be made better by geography.
They can't, most, yeah.

Speaker 2 Unless your problem is I live in Florida and I'm really hot, or I live in Alaska and I'm really cold. Those can be solved by a change, but otherwise it's difficult.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I live next to a steel factory,

Speaker 2 yeah, it's just spraying

Speaker 2 ash.

Speaker 2 DuPont is hosing down my house every day. They do.
They do. That's nice of them, though, to do that.
They don't have to do that. They come by and they just dump water.

Speaker 2 They have a lot of suits, just washing the house. That's good.
Yeah, I've never seen their faces. You know, they're covered by those respirators and all, but they're all the same.

Speaker 2 I think it's pretty safe, though. I think it should be good.
They say they're spraying it down with a chemical. I don't know what it is.
It looks like water.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's clear. It's clear.
So, I mean, it must be safe, right?

Speaker 2 So she hoped fresh environment, new new start.

Speaker 2 Maybe we can just kind of transplant this kid and he'll grow better from this soil, possibly. So

Speaker 2 she obviously has the sole custody or primary custody of Lucas here.

Speaker 2 By the way, in her move to Maine, she's doing it for another reason, too. She wants to switch careers.
Oh. Yes.
She's 46. She's kind of like, she's not moving for some dude at this age.

Speaker 2 You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 You're a little smarter than that by 46 where you're like, yeah, I'm not going anywhere, motherfucker. Yeah, fuck that.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 There's 10 of you here. Yep.
No, she wants to switch careers. She doesn't want to do interior design anymore.
She wants to do hair now. Okay.
So she's going to cosmetology school. Wow.

Speaker 2 That's a big switch. And usually.

Speaker 2 Usually, because I only know this because my family has a lot of hair. You know what I mean? My grandfather owned a shop.

Speaker 2 His uncle, I had aunts and uncles all owned hair shops and everything like that. So you usually, you age out of cutting hair because you have to stand all day and it sucks.

Speaker 2 So by 46, you're like, I don't want to fucking stand up all day rather than the other way around. You'd move into interior design, it seems like.
For sure. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Real weird, but that's what she wants to do.

Speaker 2 A classmate at cosmetology school remembered Kimberly talking some about Lucas.

Speaker 2 She said that she did talk to me about her son, like how he's threatened people before, stole money, had anger issues, broke his laptop, etc.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 you you sit down next to Kimberly and she's a real party at lunch. She asks you, no, I have two kids, a little boy, little girl.
Yeah, no, the girl's fine. She goes, how about you? Well,

Speaker 2 you know, threatens people, steals money, broke his laptop. Broke his laptop.
Just because he's angry.

Speaker 2 So she's enrolled at the Avida Maine Institute in Augusta to study cosmetology. By the way, the owner of the school, his name is Anthony Coco.

Speaker 2 I love this. Anthony Coco, COCO.
Hey, Tony Coco.

Speaker 2 He described Kimberly as, quote, someone who always had a smile on her face, loved working on clients, loved making people feel good about themselves.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 2 And she's older than most of the students because most of these kids are 22. They're young.

Speaker 2 So she's like the school mother figure, basically. Sure.

Speaker 2 As well. The same person, Sage Lockhart, who said about, who said about the, you know, she talked to Lucas and about Lucas breaking shit and all that kind of thing.
She said that

Speaker 2 she said she was a very sweet, caring, understanding woman. She was like the mom of the group and always had a smile on her face.

Speaker 2 She was outgoing, smart, and did amazing things at what did amazing at what she did at school.

Speaker 2 So and it's weird because she'll like stay because people they have like walk-in clients at the school because it's like a discount.

Speaker 2 So she'll like stay late to work on the walk-in clients. I don't know if she's trying to avoid Lucas or what, but

Speaker 2 we're just making stacking as much money as possible. Or yeah, trying to do that.
You make some tips doing that.

Speaker 2 So now Lucas, after a few months of being here, still hadn't been enrolled in the local school district, which few months? A few months, which see, you got a 15-year-old.

Speaker 2 You move. Yeah, you need to enroll him in something, I would think, right? 15 is not young enough to not be going, not old enough to not be going to school.
So

Speaker 2 he's just got lots of time. Mom's at school.
Yeah. And so he's just this 15-year-old, unsupervised kid in a new place.
Floating around in Maine? No structured activities.

Speaker 2 He doesn't know any other kids because he doesn't go to school. Right, right, right.
So he's just sitting at home, watching TV,

Speaker 2 fucking around on the internet. I mean, what else do you do? I'm sure.

Speaker 2 Masturbate several thousand times a week. I mean, otherwise, you're 15.
Just soak in that house. If you have that kind of privacy and internet access at that age, can you imagine?

Speaker 2 Imagine when you were 15, if you had high-speed internet and no one was ever home, the amount of whacking that would have gotten done. Good God.
My God.

Speaker 2 Absolutely. I wouldn't have had enough jizz to accidentally get anybody pregnant.
No, no, no.

Speaker 2 By 17, when you're jerking, it's just a ghost would come out. Just woo and just fly away.

Speaker 2 It would be a fun party trick to show people like come dust. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Poof. Just looks like powder, like one of those old candy cigarettes.

Speaker 2 Like a cloud comes out. Like LeBron James in game seven.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 now his aunt said that both Kimberly and Alex both tried to get treatment for these mental problems he has. So it's not like they just ignored him and put him in a closet.

Speaker 2 They took him places constantly. But the aunt said, quote, but that failed despite his parents having done everything they could to help him.

Speaker 2 She said Lucas was in need of professional and medical attention. She said the steps my sister had taken revealed that she did everything she could as a mother to help her son get well.
Right.

Speaker 2 It's just not working. Nothing is sticking with this kid.
Not taking.

Speaker 2 So April of 2018,

Speaker 2 here, Kimberly is about halfway through her cosmetology course. I don't know how long this course is, but it seems like it goes on.

Speaker 2 That's busy.

Speaker 2 At the school, she participated in the Trash and Show,

Speaker 2 which is mix trash and fashion together. and you get trash and show.
I was there, yeah.

Speaker 2 Just weeks. This is, you know, she's been in there for a few weeks, and students model outfits made from recycled materials.
Got it. So you make it's garbage modeling, essentially.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 But I guess water bottle bras and

Speaker 2 shows creativity, I guess. You can turn it.
Flatback skirt. I get it.
Bullshit into clothes. Lucas is still an issue, though.

Speaker 2 Tony Coco said,

Speaker 2 he said, quote, I know she was afraid of him. She wouldn't talk about him that much, but when he did come up, she sounded scared.
Oh.

Speaker 2 And another classmate said that she was, Kimberly was scared of her 15-year-old son, Lucas. So

Speaker 2 that's not great. No.
Now, yeah. Now, Lucas basically, at some point in here, he enrolls, he's enrolled in a school and is kicked out very quickly.
So that does not last long.

Speaker 2 So he's again kind of out on the street here. Now,

Speaker 2 Kimberly wants to do something for him, something for this kid to try to help him because he has no friends and everything like that. But back home in Ashland, Massachusetts, he had two close friends.

Speaker 2 Oh. And she wants to try to maybe bring them in for a week or something to hang out, you know, and just maybe that'll lift his spirits and make him not so shitty, basically.
So she,

Speaker 2 it's these two friends are William Smith, old Will Smith here,

Speaker 2 who's 15, same age as Lucas. Williams not had a good background either.
No. Shockingly enough.
Yeah. Slapping folks.
Well, the thing is, troubled kids hang out with troubled kids. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 He's slapping folks in public is the problem. Yeah, constantly.
Yeah. Yeah.
That's a, yeah. Have you seen him try to rap lately? Oh, my God.
It's so embarrassing.

Speaker 2 No, but I saw it in 1989 and it was embarrassing. So I can't imagine he's gotten any better at it.

Speaker 2 He came back 10 years later, still bad.

Speaker 2 Can't imagine 25 years

Speaker 2 would make it any better, right? He literally rhymes.

Speaker 2 He rhymes stage with stage and then with stage. Oh, wow.

Speaker 2 You know what? He's ballsy. You got to give him that.
He's trying to do triple rhymes, and they're all the same word.

Speaker 2 Well, no.

Speaker 2 That's not how rhymes work. That's not how rhymes work, exactly.
You're 55. Stop.
That's how chants work, not rhymes, stupid.

Speaker 2 Yeah, just stop rapping.

Speaker 2 Knock it off you don't need to rap no the the moment fucking season two of fresh prince got picked up you should have never picked up a fucking microphone again never again because you're like i'm way better at this than that so i should never do that again shocking i get the money grabs for men in black and all that shit they just said make a soundtrack so wild wild west bullshit all that crap dumb shit But I mean, those are soundtrack songs, so nobody gives a fuck anyway.

Speaker 2 So anyway. So bad.

Speaker 2 He's got nothing left.

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Now back to the show.

Speaker 2 William Smith here to avoid any more Will Smith jokes, because

Speaker 2 it's pretty standard.

Speaker 2 Yeah, he's got a problem. His mom's a heroin addict.
Oh, no. Yeah, that's not good.
So

Speaker 2 that's bad.

Speaker 2 He grew up with his mom being a complete addict, and that really fucked him up good here. Sure.
He's got all sorts of psychological development problems. He can be a nice kid.

Speaker 2 His grandfather said that

Speaker 2 William spent about a year living with him and his grandmother. Okay.
And he said that year went well.

Speaker 2 And William was enrolled in a Christian school near their home where he took a full course load and passed. Wow.
His grandparents helped him with his homework.

Speaker 2 Like he had a whole idyllic little family life. Yeah.
She's the grandfather said it went fine. Will is a loving, caring person, easy to get along with.
We did outdoor stuff, a lot of hiking.

Speaker 2 Things went fine. We didn't have any problems at all.
Okay.

Speaker 2 And this is,

Speaker 2 but think about his background. He can do this while he's in this environment, but

Speaker 2 he

Speaker 2 put it this way. In 2005, his father had to seek emergency custody of him after they said that the mother was injecting heroin in front of him and overdosed.
And when they came to get him,

Speaker 2 there's a three-year-old sitting there or two and a half-year-old sitting there with an overdosed mother with a needle hanging out of her arm. So that's not good.
Not good.

Speaker 2 So dad tried tried to take the child and then they had a custody fight over that well we'll talk about it um it didn't really have a custody fight as we'll find out so now

Speaker 2 pretty easily pretty handily

Speaker 2 he didn't wasn't really wanted it didn't seem like by a lot a lot of people here no so gail donnell who is a woman who lives near william in his ashland condominium development which i think was the same one that lucas lived in i think that's how they knew each other described him as a helpful polite kid yeah she said she remembered that he would take her trash out, carry her groceries inside for her if he saw her coming home, and even come out and help her put up Christmas lights for decorations.

Speaker 2 That's a nice kid.

Speaker 2 Now, Thomas Severance is the other friend.

Speaker 2 He's 13 years old, so

Speaker 2 younger kid.

Speaker 2 He's two 15-year-olds? Yeah, goes by TJ. So we got TJ, Will, and Lucas here.

Speaker 2 He attended the same school as Lucas and William before William, Lucas was kicked out and then moved away.

Speaker 2 He also came from a real fucked-up background here. His father

Speaker 2 said later on that he never met his son.

Speaker 2 Ever.

Speaker 2 Never saw him. Never laid eyes on him, even as a baby.

Speaker 2 And the mother reportedly wrote in court papers that she had no contact with the father since very early in her pregnancy. They had a short relationship.
She got knocked up. He ran away.

Speaker 2 That was that, pretty much, apparently, going by what she said. Poor TJ.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 He said, I haven't seen my son, period. I pay child support, and I don't even know what my son looks like.

Speaker 2 He can walk past him on the fucking street.

Speaker 2 Not even know that

Speaker 2 the food in his belly, he was paid for by him. He was paid for by him, yeah.
Yep.

Speaker 2 So according to the superintendent of Ashland Public Schools, both William and Thomas were current students, so at least they can stay in a public school.

Speaker 2 So get getting kicked out of all the public schools is hard. I remember kids that were a menace and they didn't get kicked out of school.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.
You had to like set a fire to get kicked out of school, literally. At the school.
It has to be

Speaker 2 in the class,

Speaker 2 damaging the classroom and almost killing 32 kids. That's the same way you're getting kicked out.
The kid who stabbed the other kid like 45 times and

Speaker 2 almost died. Yeah.
With a number two. No, he had two steak knives.
He brought steak knives to school. He brought two steak knives to school.
And

Speaker 2 this was on the first day of school, my senior year, right outside the guidance counselor's office. He carved this fucking kid up.

Speaker 2 The kid almost died that got stabbed, and the stabber ended up being killed in prison. So there you go.
Jesus, this kid fist-fought the principal.

Speaker 2 See,

Speaker 2 in my school, I don't know if that would have got you thrown out. I really don't.

Speaker 2 It only got him. I think he just got suspended.
That's right. I don't think it would have got you thrown out.
I feel like the school would be half empty if that'll get you thrown out.

Speaker 2 You know what I mean? He ended up murdering, I think, six people. There you go.
That's what happens.

Speaker 2 I think we should have known.

Speaker 2 It seems like that's a good sign. Fighting the principal.

Speaker 2 It feels like the writing was on the wall. It seems like it's not too far off of his baseline, right?

Speaker 2 So they are both in school. Now, mid-April 2018, she's just had her trash and show.
Kimberly did.

Speaker 2 She files a request for an adjustment in child support since she had full custody and was attending school full-time. So she wants more money from dad.

Speaker 2 April 15th, 2018, Lucas visits home here, goes to Massachusetts.

Speaker 2 And Gail Donnell, that neighbor of William that would get help with her Christmas lights and groceries, she drove William and another friend to the commuter rail station in downtown Framingham to pick up Lucas and traveled to, who had come from to Massachusetts on the train for a visit with the friends.

Speaker 2 Sure. She had never met Lucas before, and she said they were talking about video games and stuff like that.
Nothing particular stuck out in mind. He just looked like a normal 15-year-old.

Speaker 2 They discussed also William going back to Maine with Lucas for a visit and, you know, things like that.

Speaker 2 And Lucas was just asking him, what's been happening around town? How's this person? That chick's tits get bigger still, you know, all that kind of stuff you ask when you're 15. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 All that crap. So the plan was, though, for these two friends, TJ and Will, to come back to Maine with Lucas after a couple of days in Massachusetts and stay with him for a while.

Speaker 2 And that's what Kimberly wanted. Kimberly thought that it might alleviate the isolation he was experiencing, she told somebody.
So April 20th, 2018, Kimberly is at school.

Speaker 2 She's cutting hair for walk-in customers when she gets an urgent call. Urgent.
Stop. I mean, leave this person's head half cut and get your fuck over here.
That's urgent. You know?

Speaker 2 You're You're going to look ridiculous for a while, but it's okay.

Speaker 2 So the call was about Lucas had built an illegal bonfire at their home.

Speaker 2 What's an illegal bonfire? A giant bonfire in a neighborhood, in a residential neighborhood, for apparently. How big would that have to be?

Speaker 2 That's what I mean, because people have bonfires outside all the fucking time. It's not a big deal.

Speaker 2 This was at 1482 Hallowell Road is the address that they live at.

Speaker 2 Thomas and William are both here as well visiting. Sure.
So she had to rush home, leave her work behind, leave somebody with a half cut at a hair, half fucked up, and deal with this shit.

Speaker 2 But she's used to doing this because this is kind of, she's gotten quite a few urgent calls about Lucas, I have a feeling. You got to come pick Lucas up.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 So then she goes home, and that's that. Now, April 22nd, 2018, so two days later, at 2 o'clock in the morning,

Speaker 2 the Maine State Police receive multiple calls reporting a potential homicide at 1482 Hallowell Road in Litchfield.

Speaker 2 Multipled calls from different people. Oh.
So we don't know if the neighbors, we're not sure who called, and they don't say who called. So the police arrive, a detective comes in here,

Speaker 2 basically like

Speaker 2 they send a regular unit and then they bring in a detective. And

Speaker 2 he said that they went into Kimberly's bedroom, and they said her bedroom had red and brown stains on the sheet, comforter, and frame of the bed, as well as on the rug and a light switch.

Speaker 2 Glass cleaner on the nightstand was sitting there. Oh boy,

Speaker 2 and a kitchen knife, also with red and brown stains on it, which appeared to have been smeared or wiped off onto the bed. Oh, boy.

Speaker 2 Kimberly is on the bed as well, covered in the same blood and very dead.

Speaker 2 So that's that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So, yes. That's a terrible scene.
That's not a good scene to walk in on, especially unexpected. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So the medical examiner said she suffered multiple injuries, indicating she had fought for her life as well. She had defensive wounds.

Speaker 2 They said she had stab wounds to her neck, wounds to her hand and wrist, contusions to her face, abrasions and scrapes on her neck, and had bleeding underneath her scalp from blunt force injuries.

Speaker 2 Wow. This is killed multiple times over.
Beaten, beaten, choked, stabbed, slashed, you name it. Emptied of blood.
It's fucking crazy.

Speaker 2 So they said that either strangulation or stabbing would have been the cause of death, either or, basically, at that point. You didn't even know.

Speaker 2 And also, they found that the glass cleaner nearby looks like somebody tried to clean up some of the scene as well.

Speaker 2 Somebody made it that bottle of Windex ain't going to do it. Isn't going to do it.
A bumbling attempt at a cleanup here. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I mean, when there's a corpse, the rest of it really doesn't matter at that point.

Speaker 2 They're going to to find out. Yeah.

Speaker 2 They're going to know. Now, a nosy neighbor saunters over to the scene to talk to the cops to offer up something.
Oh.

Speaker 2 The neighbor said that his wife had seen three teenagers walking away from the house that morning earlier. Yeah.
And he didn't know shit from whatever.

Speaker 2 He didn't know whatever was going on, but he said, I saw three teenagers walking out of that house. So they're going to go look for Lucas because nobody else is there.
Lucas isn't there.

Speaker 2 Will, TJ, nobody's there. It's an empty house.

Speaker 2 So that they go out looking around and they end up finding the three of them driving Kimberly's car. Uh-oh.
The oldest kid here is 15. No one has a driver's license, first of all.
Can't do that.

Speaker 2 And they're driving in the middle of the night. And Will Smith is at the wheel here.
Nice. He's at the wheel.
You know,

Speaker 2 I got Willie style. Yeah, we'll do a little handle list.
Don't you worry about it.

Speaker 2 So at the station, they're taken to the station where detectives interview them. And they said,

Speaker 2 Yeah, we actually know what happened to Kimberly or mom, either. Or they said an intruder had entered the house and killed her.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. Sure of that? Yeah, that's what they said.
Intruder came in. They must have been there to see it, but they didn't get harmed.
None of the all three boys are unharmed. And

Speaker 2 then they decided to just go for a joyride afterwards. You clear your head, you know what I mean? Yeah.

Speaker 2 You know, things can get cobwebby. You see that kind of thing.
You gotta forget what you saw. Yeah.
Gotta forget that.

Speaker 2 So they're claiming that an unknown person broke in, killed Kimberly, and left without harming them at all. Okay.

Speaker 2 And that would have to be like,

Speaker 2 you know, an ex-boyfriend or something like that would be the only one that would do that. But the thing is, teenagers, teenagers are pretty easily manipulated by adults

Speaker 2 who know what they're doing. Yeah, their brains are not developed yet.
No, no, no. At all.
They're dumb as shit. Especially a 13-year-old's brain is really not developed yet.
Man, Man, are they dumb?

Speaker 2 So you sit them down with a homicide detective.

Speaker 2 They're going to get some shit out of them, and they do.

Speaker 2 They get TJ to crack. Okay.
They get young Thomas to crack. And he said,

Speaker 2 he said, okay, fine. He said, quote, Will was like, I have an idea.
Maybe we should kill your mom.

Speaker 2 Will, stop thinking.

Speaker 2 What the hell kind of idea is that? Right. I have an idea.
Okay, what? You want to go like shoot hoops?

Speaker 2 I got an idea. We're going to go shoot a BB gun.
What are we doing? I got an idea. Let's kill your mom.
Big Max.

Speaker 2 No, kill your mom. And Lucas said, I'm down with that.
What? Luke? He's like, yeah, I'm down with that. That's cool.
I don't know if Lucas was trying to seem cool at the time or what, but wow.

Speaker 2 That's ridiculous. So Lucas also cracks.
William cracks as well. All three of them.
They're in separate rooms singing like canaries here.

Speaker 2 Lucas admitted that he had, quote, done most of it.

Speaker 2 And William also participates to his

Speaker 2 inclusion in this as well.

Speaker 2 Then they end up finding, because they made it sound like it was just on a whim, and they just went in and did it, but then they found illustrated panels, like comics, basically, like a graphic novel, drawn by the boys depicting violent scenes

Speaker 2 of killing the mother. Basically, they drew up, they made a comic of let's kill your mom, and then they did it.

Speaker 2 So they said that it showed sequences involving violence, some resembling the step-by-step instructions or reenactments of the murder. Basically, it's just that they made a comic of the murder.

Speaker 2 And we don't know if they did that before or after they killed her, but either way, they seem they did it. Yeah.
Yeah, they made a goddamn comic book out of it. That's insane.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 So what the fuck happened? Let's find out here from these kids here. Back to April 20th, 2018.
Kim comes home from school because of the fire.

Speaker 2 Now, she came home from school and discovered, this is what pissed her off. It wasn't the fire.
No. She came home and found that the boys had stolen some of her weed.

Speaker 2 Oh, Kim's cool. She has, yeah, she's an artist.
She likes to paint and fucking play piano and shit and wants to do hair. Boys had stolen some of her weed.
Not cool. No.

Speaker 2 So she said this was like a, you know, violation of her trust. And this is,

Speaker 2 you bring your friends in here and you guys are stealing. I'm nice enough to bring these fucking delinquents down here.
Right. And you guys are stealing from me.

Speaker 2 And she made, she got very angry and said that she's not giving William and Thomas a ride back to Massachusetts now.

Speaker 2 You're going to have to figure it out on your own? Which seems like the opposite of what you should. You should be, I'm driving them home right now.
Right now.

Speaker 2 I'm not driving them home because then they're, okay, so they live with us now? What are we doing? I'm going to make your life real inconvenient.

Speaker 2 You're going to have to sit around here and watch me smoke my own weed. All three of you.

Speaker 2 Instead of, see, that's the thing. Like, old, back in the day, a kid would be caught smoking, so they make him smoke two packs in the closet.
This is you sit down, you smoke that entire half ounce.

Speaker 2 You do it. Right.
That's right. Roll it up.
Yep, that's right. The concentrates too.
Put it on there. That's right.
Come on. Got to eat those edibles.

Speaker 2 So that's what she said. Now, Lucas got all pissed off.

Speaker 2 And that's when William said, why don't we just kill her and take her car?

Speaker 2 That'll get us a ride.

Speaker 2 Idiots. Huh?

Speaker 2 What? What are you talking about? How do you get there? That's what I'm. That's the first.

Speaker 2 That was like the first suggestion, too. There was no, like, you know, I'll call my mom, try to get a train ticket.
He goes, well, we can just kill her and take the car.

Speaker 2 And Lucas said, yeah, I'm down with that. That's cool.
Wow. So they spent the next few hours planning and premeditating this whole thing.
And I'm talking doing experiments and everything.

Speaker 2 This is crazy. What?

Speaker 2 They originally wanted to poison her. Oh, Jesus.
They were going to poison her, and when she died, they were going to slit her wrists and say she killed herself. That was how they were going to do it.

Speaker 2 They're so young. They've never heard of an autopsy.
Never heard of an autopsy. They never heard of if she's already dead.

Speaker 2 None of that shit. So anyway, so they said they're going to crush up prescription pills, Lucas's medication that he has.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And they are going to crush it all up and put enough of it in Kimberly's wine to kill her. Okay.
This poor lady's got wine and weed, and she's just trying to have a nice night.

Speaker 2 She's just trying to relax. So they tested out the method first.
They go, let's see how this works.

Speaker 2 So they crushed up all the pills and they realized that if you put enough crushed pills to kill somebody, they don't dissolve in the wine. No.

Speaker 2 No, you just have a big thing of white powder sitting on the bottom of your wine.

Speaker 2 Yeah, or the very top. Or either way.
So they said the powder was very visible, making it obvious that this is not something you want to drink right now. So they're like, shit.

Speaker 2 So after the crushed medication failure here, that's when they sat around going, well, how should we kill her?

Speaker 2 And somebody said, I mean, we could strangle her and we could stab her like you hold her and strangle her and I'll stab her and we could do it that way.

Speaker 2 They were like, okay, cool, let's do that. So then they got all dressed up in their little costumes.
Yeah. Lucas wears a theatrical mask during the murder.
Wow. Like this is a mask.

Speaker 2 Like something like that. Yeah.
He puts a silly mask on. They all put on gloves also to avoid leaving fingerprints, even though they've all been in the house for days.

Speaker 2 Your fingerprints are all over this place.

Speaker 2 So they also, though, they wanted to, they thought this was cool. This is what you do when you murder.
You put gloves on, you put a mask on, you make it all cool.

Speaker 2 They assign specific roles, too. Okay.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Lucas is going to have the knife, and he's going to wear a mask and gloves to avoid leaving the evidence. And William will also wear gloves and he'll assist with the strangulation.

Speaker 2 and TJ is going to be the lookout. He's going to stay downstairs with the family dog, pet the dog, make sure nobody comes.
You're too little. Yeah.
That's it. Yeah, you're 13.
So

Speaker 2 they said they're going to wait until Kimberly went to bed as well. So she was sleeping.
They talked about weapons. They decided on a knife that would be best

Speaker 2 from the kitchen.

Speaker 2 So apparently

Speaker 2 Sometime before bed, though, his mother said, okay, fine, I'll take the kids back to Massachusetts. Oh, she acquiesced.

Speaker 2 She acquiesced to the whole thing. So at that point,

Speaker 2 Lucas considered, Oh, we don't have to do it now. She's going to give you a ride home.
No, everything's fine. But Will said, Fuck no, we've planned this.
We're killing her.

Speaker 2 I got too much time involved.

Speaker 2 We spent like the last three hours doing, you have a mask and gloves. I had a whole plan.
We drew a comic book. What are we doing here? Experiments, guys.
This is wild. Yeah,

Speaker 2 we did feasibility fucking

Speaker 2 thing.

Speaker 2 So he was the one. Will said that he wanted to go through with it no matter what.
We planned it. We made a good plan.

Speaker 2 We're killing this bitch tonight. That's what it was.
Wow. So on the night of April 21st, going into the early morning hours of the 22nd, she went to bed early.

Speaker 2 About 15 minutes after she went to bed, Lucas got the kitchen knife, put his mask and gloves on. William put his gloves on, and they went up there.

Speaker 2 TJ, by the way, they said, had some reservations about this, this, the 13-year-old, as I

Speaker 2 fucking hope he would.

Speaker 2 The 13-year-old wasn't so much of a murderer today. Strange.
A premeditated murderer, too, really planning it out. So he stayed with the dog.
So the two boys crept upstairs where Kim was in her bed.

Speaker 2 They both began strangling her. They both tried to strangle her.

Speaker 2 Now, apparently, William had said that he stepped in to help strangle Kimberly after Lucas had called for his help because Lucas had stopped after a few seconds because he was having a hard time going through it.

Speaker 2 It was hard. Yeah.
And the reason is, is because she was calling out for Lucas for help

Speaker 2 while Lucas was strangling her. Oh, she didn't know.

Speaker 2 He had a fucking mask on. She didn't know who it was.
So she thought somebody bum-rushed her. She woke up and had somebody strangle her.
So she's fighting and screaming, Lucas, Lucas, help me. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And it's him strangling her, which is horrifying.

Speaker 2 And the medical examiner said that during the duration of the strangulation, she said she doubted someone would die as a result of a strangulation causing an obstruction in the trachea after only 5, 10, or 15 seconds.

Speaker 2 And that if a second person were involved in a more extended period of strangulation following the first shorter period, it would seem more likely that that more extended period of strangulation caused her death.

Speaker 2 Wow. So they're saying they don't know whether she got stabbed to death or strangled to death, but if it's stabbed to death, it's probably Lucas.
And if it's strangled to death, it's probably William.

Speaker 2 So back to the killing anyway. Sure.
Lucas then stabbed his mother repeatedly in the neck. Oh, God.
And they were beating her as well, punching her horrifying.

Speaker 2 Lucas stabbed his mother repeatedly in the neck, and the medical examiner said that the concurrent cause of death was both of those things.

Speaker 2 They said Lucas stabbed her in the throat and held his hand over her mouth, causing her to lose consciousness. As she laid unconscious, he stabbed her multiple more times.
Fucking hell.

Speaker 2 That's why this room is such a fucking mess.

Speaker 2 And then the cops arrive. They pull them over.
They say, oh, some guy broke in. Yeah.
Okay. So the charges against them, obviously,

Speaker 2 Lucas and William are charged with intentional or knowing murder and criminal conspiracy to commit murder. Myrtle.
Commit Myrdle. Myrtle.
You're going to commit Myrdle, everybody, to commit murder.

Speaker 2 And TJ, because he had less of a participation, according to everybody, at least this is one thing. All three boys were very honest and had the same story.

Speaker 2 Nobody tried to blame somebody else, which is shocking, honestly. Yeah.
Nobody tried to say, that was all Lucas.

Speaker 2 Yeah, they're too young for self-preservation.

Speaker 2 But for like kids who have been in trouble a lot, you'd think they would learn how to lie their way out of it. You know what I mean? By now.

Speaker 2 It's odd, but they weren't that sophisticated yet. They just, which is lucky for us.
They take punishment very often. Yeah.
It's just lucky for us as a society.

Speaker 2 Also, kids are under the impression that if you tell the truth, then good things will happen and just admit it.

Speaker 2 They don't realize that this is going to be decades of a truth that they're talking about right now. This is going to ruin the world tour.
Yeah. Exactly.
This is going to ruin the whole tour.

Speaker 2 So they intentionally, that's what they get charged with, and he's charged with criminal conspiracy to commit murder. They're detained in the Long Creek Youth Development Center.

Speaker 2 More on that because you think they're going to stay quiet in there and be cool? No. Fuck no, they're not.
Hell no.

Speaker 2 So, yeah,

Speaker 2 they're trying to decide whether they will be tried as juveniles or adults at this point, too. Oh, boy.

Speaker 2 I mean, you can make the argument with the two 15-year-olds, but it's real hard to say a 13-year-old's an adult.

Speaker 2 There's 13-year-olds. They're just killing a dog to shut up.
Well, there's 13-year-olds that believe in Santa Claus. They're not an adult.

Speaker 2 There's no 13-year-old on earth that is sophisticated enough to understand what 40 years is. They just have the nuance of the criminal court system.

Speaker 2 It's impossible. It's just fucking impossible.
So that's just silly. So I would say the 13-year-old, in my view, that's how that goes.
But the two 15-year-olds, they did pretty bad shit. That's rock.

Speaker 2 But they're still 15. That's the thing.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but we have ages and laws that go into effect for like 18 as an adult. Like if you're 16, you can drive.
But you can't go, I'm 12, but I'm really mature. Give me a license.

Speaker 2 And they'll give them. They don't give it to you still.
You have to be 16. But if you do bad, they can make you older somehow.
And you can't be 16 and just go to the army and say,

Speaker 2 I'm going. Exactly.
So that's the thing is like you can, you can downage somebody if it, or you can make them older if it helps you, but you can't make them older if it helps them.

Speaker 2 So that's kind of weird.

Speaker 2 Anyway, so Gail Donnell, remember the neighbor who drove them to the train station and back there? and said that they talked about video games? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Gail Donnell? She said, the last thing Lucas said to me, meaning from that day with the ride, thank you so much for the ride. I mean, what kind of a kid who has manners like that does such a thing?

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 2 He has manners. How could he kill his mother? He said,

Speaker 2 thank you. Come on.
I don't get it. And that's how easy it is for kids to fool adults.
Like, you can Eddie Haskell the fuck out of anybody. You just say thank you.
And they're like, what a sweet boy.

Speaker 2 What a good boy. Another neighbor said he was a little different.
I know the family is going through a tragedy, so I don't want to say anything. a little different.
Same thing as the other guy said.

Speaker 2 Now, here is where they really, really go off the fucking deep end. Yeah.

Speaker 2 While in jail here, in Juvie jail here at the Long Creek facility, staff members all testify later that all three boys, together while detained, chanted murder gang.

Speaker 2 Whoa. Murder gang, murder gang.
They would chant.

Speaker 2 They also chanted MG when they were feeling lazy, which is murder gang there on multiple occasions. And while they would chant murder gang, murder gang, they would make stabbing motions.
What?

Speaker 2 Like psycho style. Oh.
While chanting murder gang, murder gang. What the fuck are you talking about? Oh, boy.
This is how unsophisticated these kids are. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 No adult murderers would do this. No, no, no, no.
I mean,

Speaker 2 there's been a few that, like, in court, they try to make a show of them. Yeah, yeah, you just.
You intimidate people. But this is like, this is what is that? Is that to keep people away from them?

Speaker 2 They're in Juvie, though. It's like a bunch of other kids.
I don't know. And you're in like rural Maine.
I can't imagine it's that fucking hard. You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's not like they put that many West Baltimore or something. Like it's probably they're probably, and I would assume you'd all be, there's probably not that many child murderers in there.

Speaker 2 You'd be terrified of the three kids who just carved a lady up, I would think. Yeah.
So, wow. So they'd make the stabbing motions.
A guy named Matt Finley, who worked there at the place.

Speaker 2 He was a worker in the unit where they were held at Long Creek.

Speaker 2 He said that every time they'd do it, I'd tell them to stop, but they'd continue their behavior repeatedly.

Speaker 2 They wouldn't fucking listen to anything.

Speaker 2 They wouldn't listen there either.

Speaker 2 So the Attorney General said that they documented these incidents, noting that the trio of boys were reported by Long Creek staff to have chanted the murder gang term and also chanted MG, the initials of that same term, on multiple occasions, at least one of which was documented in a staff report.

Speaker 2 And they said that the fucked up thing is the Matt Finley guy said, rather than everybody looking at them and kind of ostracizing them, the other kids picked up on it and got into it.

Speaker 2 And they thought it was cool. So after hearing them chant it, they started chanting it as well.
Wow. So you'd have a whole cell block of people yelling murder gang while making stabbing motions.

Speaker 2 Children. I'm sorry.
Children, not people. Yeah.
And now you have adults that are in charge to watch them going, do they have things that are there? Are they all going to murder us?

Speaker 2 I think they're planning something, I would say. So they said it was

Speaker 2 the behavior was spreading and influencing these other fucked up kids that are in here, too.

Speaker 2 Now, in the juvenile system, by the way, adults are juveniles here, the boys would be released at age 21 regardless of anything. You're out of the system.

Speaker 2 If tried as adults, they could get life sentences.

Speaker 2 Big difference between 21 and forever. So

Speaker 2 the prosecutor said the brutality of the crime, the level of premeditation, and their behavior after the murder, not even remorseful, they're chanting murder gang for fuck's sake, all pointed toward adult prosecution.

Speaker 2 Sure.

Speaker 2 Now, the defense attorney said that their youth, their troubled backgrounds, this kid's mother's a junkie, this one's they've had problems, and their potential for rehabilitation because of their age made them juvenile system be more appropriate, probably.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. So it's decided Lucas and William will be tried as adults.
Okay. And Thomas will be tried as a juvenile.
Uh-huh. So that's how they're going to do it.
Now, they all decide to plead guilty.

Speaker 2 Sure.

Speaker 2 What are you going to do? Yeah, we all admitted it. And for Thomas, what's the difference? 21? Who cares? That's nothing.
So they all agree to plead guilty.

Speaker 2 Lucas's defense attorney said, because because they have to admit everything,

Speaker 2 first they were going to steal the car and drive themselves to Massachusetts, but they disregarded that because she would be able to find her car and they would get caught.

Speaker 2 So originally they were just going to steal the car.

Speaker 2 And then Will said, well, why don't we just stab her? Well, we'll get caught.

Speaker 2 Well, not if we kill her. Then we won't get caught.

Speaker 2 People always get away with murder.

Speaker 2 But never auto theft.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, there's cops. Fuck.
Yo, shit. Damn it.
Forgot about them.

Speaker 2 So the lawyer says then they come up with this plan that they will strangle and stab her and stage it to look like a suicide or a home invasion, and she got killed in that. It was Mr.

Speaker 2 Smith who was the ringleader. He was the one who wanted to go through with it no matter what.
Wow.

Speaker 2 Lucas, by the way, right before he went to Massachusetts on the 15th of April, he had been kicked out of school in Maine. And

Speaker 2 she said that this lawyer said, Kimberly did everything she could do. If she hadn't gone down to get Smith and Severance, I don't think this would have ever happened.
You can't blame her.

Speaker 2 She was trying to do something nice. Lucas was isolated.
He had nothing going on in his life.

Speaker 2 That's what it is. She tried to do something sweet.

Speaker 2 Maybe this will cheer him up and make him more receptive and whatever.

Speaker 2 Imagine being TJ's dad and being like,

Speaker 2 opening up the newspaper and then going, oh, that's what he looks like. Yeah.
It's true.

Speaker 2 The interview with him saying, I've never seen my son and I pay child support, that was from after they were arrested. And he goes, God.

Speaker 2 He didn't even know he was arrested until the press called him oh and told him he goes i didn't even know he was what are you fucking talking my kid killed somebody well jesus know what he looks like do i still have to pay child support wow i mean that would be i feel like the state's got it now right probably we got you guys so uh thomas the youngest here tj he is going to be uh sentenced first yeah

Speaker 2 and his attorney said that he's in seventh grade and he's completely distraught over what happened he said at this point he needs needs to work through it.

Speaker 2 He's 13 years old and someone died in the home where he was. Oh, boy.
Yeah. Yeah.
He also participated in drawing murder comics about it and fucking, you know, helping cover it up.

Speaker 2 So I don't know about that. He was putting thought bubbles on it.
No shit. So the judge says, you, young man, you, child, may fuck off.
Long Creek Youth Development Center until the age of 21. Oh, my.

Speaker 2 He's sent away. Now, William here, he gets sentenced.
And William is, by all accounts, the ringleader. And the judge called him the prime mover.
Here we go. That's not good.
So there's a shrink here.

Speaker 2 There's a psychiatrist or psychologist that's talking about this, saying that

Speaker 2 they said the trio could have been joking and they didn't think it was significant at the time. And maybe that's what happened.

Speaker 2 It went from a joke and, you know, it's not as cold-blooded as you're making it out to be. It's the least funny joke ever.
And then they said, well, what about the murder gang thing? Yeah. Oh, right.

Speaker 2 What about that? And they said, well, they were probably fucking around, basically. They're just being kids.
They just leaned into the joke. They're being kids at that point, joking around.

Speaker 2 And the prosecutor said, quote, well, they were actually, weren't they actually a murder gang? Yeah, yeah, they did. Yeah, they were that.
And they went, well, I mean, they did murder in a group.

Speaker 2 So I guess technically, yeah, blah, blah, blah. The prosecution said, we're gratified Mr.
Smith finally agreed to take responsibility for his role in the murder of Kimberly

Speaker 2 Moronivus.

Speaker 2 We wish for the sake of the family he had done it before our attempt to have him held responsible as an adult, but even now, we're glad the family won't have to endure a trial for Mr.

Speaker 2 Smith's role in the murder of Kimberly. So they said basically if he would have done this earlier, showed some remorse, they might have tried him as a fucking child.
Wow.

Speaker 2 Now, the judge writes that William was the prime mover in the murder plot and the ringleader in the murder of Kimberly.

Speaker 2 The judge found he made the initial initial suggestion and then led the attempted cover-up afterwards as well.

Speaker 2 They also acknowledged that psychologists had testified that William posed less of a risk to the public than many juvenile offenders and that there was some realistic possibility of rehabilitation here.

Speaker 2 So he

Speaker 2 sentences him to, you little shitbag. Yeah.
They fuck off 28 years in prison for William.

Speaker 2 That's good, but that's a lot. That's crazy.
That's almost twice as many years as he's been alive, though. Yeah, yeah.
For a 15-year-old, that's a lot. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 But, you know, if the guy was 36, you'd go, all right, yeah, fuck you. You got off easy.
But for a 15-year-old, that's got to seem daunting, which, I mean, it should.

Speaker 2 You stab the lady and choke her out. What are you going to do? So then December of 2019, Lucas is sentenced.

Speaker 2 And for victim impact statements, his aunt Beth, which is his mom's sister,

Speaker 2 wrote a victim statement. She said, one thing is clear.

Speaker 2 We love both Kimberly and Lucas with all our heart, saying the family's been torn apart by this, and she's trying to maintain love for both of them.

Speaker 2 And it was such a tragedy, and it's been so hard on the family. Holy.
But she wasn't like, fuck that kid. We don't want him around.
We still love him. We still love him.
It's horrible.

Speaker 2 He's had problems and everything like that. So the judge

Speaker 2 wrote that the boys were methodical during the planning and researched how to best accomplish their goal in killing Kim.

Speaker 2 He said Kimberly suffered because she was conscious and aware of what was happening to her in the brutal murder. You

Speaker 2 dickhead may fuck off 33 years in prison for him.

Speaker 2 So it seems odd that the ringleader

Speaker 2 got less than this kid. Yeah, it seems odd, but I guess it's because it's his mom.

Speaker 2 I guess, yeah, it would have to be.

Speaker 2 So William Smith is currently incarcerated in the Maine state prison system, and he served his time in the Long Creek until he turned 18, and then he was transferred to the prison system.

Speaker 2 He's going to serve that sentence. If he serves the full term without parole, he'll be released when he's 43 in 2047.

Speaker 2 However, Maine has a decent parole system, so he may be eligible for an earlier release.

Speaker 2 They get good time for behavior and rehabilitation stuff that they do and stuff like that. So he can knock some ears off of that.
possibly. Very likely.
Now, Lucas did the same thing.

Speaker 2 He turned 18, and then they transferred him to the Mainten State Prison. And if he serves a full term, he'll be released when he's 48 in 2052.

Speaker 2 God damn.

Speaker 2 He's still... When you say the year, it sounds way worse.
It sounds insane, right? Yeah. It's fucking crazy.
And this is like, Christ, the kid is still only like 21, 22 years old, man. Yeah.

Speaker 2 That's crazy.

Speaker 2 Now, the additional five years compared to Smith's sentence reflects his role as the one who actually stabbed his mother and the fact that he was her son, so he should have had some little more, you know, a little more affection for her than that.

Speaker 2 So they said the court, the judge said he found that betrayal, quote, particularly heinous, which is bad.

Speaker 2 Judge is sentencing you.

Speaker 2 His family still supports him.

Speaker 2 His grandmother, Jeanette, said, quote, we've lost two

Speaker 2 really because he's in prison for 33 years at 15 years old. You don't ever picture that life for a grandchild of yours.
It's hard both ways. It's hard to deal with.
You just take it one day at a time.

Speaker 2 Sure.

Speaker 2 That's Kim's mom saying that. Like, you know,

Speaker 2 she said she faces the impossible task of grieving for her daughter while supporting her grandson who killed her daughter, who she's grieving for. So that's a bad circle.
Super fucked.

Speaker 2 In interviews, she expressed heartbreak over Kimberly's death and sorrow for Lucas's loss.

Speaker 2 She said, he's been a part of our lives. You don't just shut something like that off.

Speaker 2 Now, also, they said it's really hard because they've got it to talk to him and stuff. It's very expensive.
Yeah. Yeah, the main prison system requires,

Speaker 2 I mean, if you want to talk to a prisoner, it's a lot of time and money.

Speaker 2 Maine charges $1.35 for a 15-minute call.

Speaker 2 That's not bad.

Speaker 2 It adds up, though. That adds up.

Speaker 2 I mean, that's a lot for some people. And

Speaker 2 it's really difficult. Plus, they're like sending him money for commissary and all that kind of thing to visit him.
They have to travel.

Speaker 2 Okay. Yeah, that's

Speaker 2 it. Yeah.
Now, TJ

Speaker 2 is 20 years old. He's out.

Speaker 2 And, yeah, no, he was released. He's released.

Speaker 2 He's already out. Oh, my God.
He served the sentence. He served three years in detention for his role in planning the murder, they said, and then they released him.
So they released him at 16.

Speaker 2 Oh, boy.

Speaker 2 So he must have done, he must have been doing well. Yeah, must have been just like a very, very good follower in jail.
I think, yeah, they probably realized, oh, this kid's not a criminal, really.

Speaker 2 He just was hanging out with these two dildos who were two years older than him and probably influenced him a little bit here. Wow.

Speaker 2 We don't know where Thomas is living. It's not public, and I guarantee you he changed his fucking name.

Speaker 2 I would, yeah.

Speaker 2 Every time we see these youthful killers that get out, they always change their fucking name. Why would you start your life

Speaker 2 that deep in a hole where everyone thinks you're a piece of shit? That would be a dumb thing to do. Especially up there where there's only 3,000 people in the town.

Speaker 2 True.

Speaker 2 Can't keep that name. No.
His juvenile records are sealed, though. So the scary part is you could be dealing with

Speaker 2 the guy. Oh, yeah, you could be dealing with this guy.
You have no fucking idea that you're dealing with this guy. He could have changed his name to John Smith, and now he's fucking

Speaker 2 dating your daughter, renting your fucking apartment, you know,

Speaker 2 living next door,

Speaker 2 buying a sandwich from you, whatever it is. It's, you know, horrible.
It's great. Making a sandwich for you.
Who knows? So either way, there you go. That is Litchfield, Maine, everybody.

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