Episode 300

Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences.

Listener discretion is advised.

Yes, yes, sir.

Did anybody record a house on fire on powers away?

They did, ma'am, and they're on their way, okay?

Do you know if anyone got out, everyone got out, or you don't know?

I don't know.

I don't think they're here.

It's episode 300.

300.

Are you picturing a battalion of 300 Greece-stuffed Roman warriors and loincloths violently charging the Persian army's front line?

Swords erect.

It's just me.

Sorry to disappoint.

That was gayer than True Crime Obsessed.

And no, Karen, that's not a slur, it's literal.

Jesus, this PC culture has to die already.

Anyway, welcome to the meaningless call-out of a number that doesn't really matter and affects nothing at all.

This is our 300th episode of Sword and Scale.

Still don't know why you people listen to tragedy for entertainment, but here we are.

Enjoy.

About 75 miles south of Cleveland, Ohio, one of my favorite places, near the eastern edge of a place called Youngstown, lies a quiet residential street called Powers Way.

On most days, this street is as ordinary as any suburban road.

Lawns are mowed.

Families are gathering for backyard barbecues, and kids are zipping up and down the street on their bikes.

It's a typical middle-class American neighborhood.

Picturesque.

Something out of the hallmark channel.

A peaceful place where crime rarely makes an appearance.

But in the early hours of March 30th, 2015, at around 3.30 a.m.

to be precise, something jolted the entire neighborhood awake.

It shattered the usual calm, and this something was far from typical.

This something was

criminal.

I don't know if anybody's outside.

I'm right by it right now.

I don't know if they're outside.

Okay, we'll send them out, okay?

But somebody does live there?

Yeah, somebody does live there.

Okay.

I got the people right next door out of the house.

All right, we'll send them out.

A massive explosion ripped through the night, shaking the entire neighborhood.

Residents of Powers Way sprang up from their beds, quickly realizing that a nearby two-story house was engulfed in flames.

There's a fire on Powers Way right past Point Pizza.

The house is going up real good.

Is it an occupied structure?

Yeah, there's a house is burning.

There's tens of people running out of the next room.

Ma'am, I'm across the street.

I see everybody running.

Okay,

it's right, it's right on Power's Way, right here by uh

okay, in the 3600 block.

Yep, all right, I'm gonna go check this little screen.

Okay,

the fire raged out of control, and onlookers quickly understood the grim reality.

If anyone was still inside, I mean, their chances of survival were next to none.

The Earth's down.

Yes, we have an explosion over here.

Yeah, we got fire trucks on the way.

Do you know if anybody's still in the house?

Oh my god.

Hello?

Pardon?

I don't know.

You don't know?

Okay, we have fire trucks on the way, okay?

Did you see anybody leaving there?

Please hurry.

This place is.

Oh, my God.

Okay,

the trucks are on the way.

Did you see anybody leaving the area?

No, I just got off work.

I didn't see anybody.

Phone calls flooded the 911 dispatch center.

And it wasn't long before dispatchers learned a troubling detail about the two homeowners.

They both had a disability.

911, what is your emergency?

My neighbor's house is on fire and they're deaf.

Pardon me?

The neighbor's house is on fire and what?

And they're death.

And they're deaf?

Yes.

Okay, they're on their way.

Are they home?

Do you know what's at home?

I don't know.

Nobody's outside, but it's a big fire and there's an explosion.

I mean, our windows are splitting on our house.

The homeowners were deaf.

And for the neighbors who knew them well, what they were witnessing was both unimaginable and heartbreaking.

Oh my god.

The fire trucks are on the way.

Do you know if the people got out of the house?

I don't know if they were home, but they are both deaf and they're all fully exhausted.

Okay, the trucks are on the way.

Did you see anybody leaving the area?

I didn't see them.

I didn't see them.

I'm over the car clutter better.

Okay, the fire trucks and the ambulances are on the way, okay?

Thank you.

Uh-huh.

When firefighters arrived on scene, they immediately began fighting the flames.

Soon after, several police officers arrived as well and began working to identify the homeowners.

They did this by running the license plates on the cars parked in the driveway.

All vehicles are coming back to William E.

Schmidt.

William E.

Schmidt, 3631 Powers Way.

The police confirmed that the home belonged to 63-year-old Bill Schmidt and his wife, 60-year-old Judy Schmidt.

The couple married in 1974, the year of my birth.

God, I'm old.

And by all accounts, it was a loving marriage.

Bill and Judy were the perfect match, and nobody ever doubted that they would be together forever.

Despite being deaf, both Bill and Judy led full and active lives.

Bill was an outdoorsman who spent time hunting and fishing.

He also enjoyed road trips on his Harley-Davidson and was known locally as the Grill Master.

That's a cool title.

When Bill fired up his barbecue pit, anyone lucky enough to be in the vicinity knew that they were about to enjoy one hell of a meal.

As for Judy, she was a typical quilt maker who loved board games.

She was especially social and had a wide circle of friends.

Known for her warmth, Judy had a maternal touch that led many friends, young and old, to think of her as a second mom.

With the homeowners identified, police ran a background check on an address, looking for any recent reports of incidents at the property.

And as it turned out, there had been a few.

See if we have any

call history there.

We do.

The last call was in February, and it was a 31-year-old daughter that was missing since September.

Okay.

And then before that, the next call was in September of 2014.

That's about the daughter menacing her parents.

About the daughter menacing the parents?

Yep.

Bill and Judy had three adult children, two of whom were also deaf.

What are the chances?

Their third child, 31-year-old Lynn Schmidt, was not.

Police reports indicated that there had been ongoing issues with Lynn.

Allegedly, she had harassed her parents and then a few months later, she disappeared, prompting Bill and Judy to report her missing.

As police gathered all this info, Firefighters pressed on, working to fully extinguish the blaze.

As they made their way through the charred home, they uncovered something that brought an Ohio prosecutor into the investigation.

So my name is John Cantalemesa, and in 2015, I was chief trial counsel for the Mahoning County Prosecutor's Office.

On Monday, March 30th, 2015, at approximately 3.36 a.m., the Youngstown 911 Center received a call for a residential fire at 3631 Powers Way in the city of Youngstown

in Ohio, the Youngstown Fire Department, while attempting to extinguish the fire, discovered the bodies of two adults in the house.

Inside the home, firefighters discovered the bodies of Bill and Judy Schmidt.

The couple was found dead in their bedroom.

Right away, firefighters suspected foul play.

It was clear this fire was no accident.

Bill and Judy were victims of arson.

So it didn't take long for the Youngstown Fire Department to determine it was an arson fire.

They're pretty astute at determining whether something's accidental or arson and in this case all the firefighters described as smelling the

scent of gasoline upon entering the fire and they knew right away that this was an arson.

The firefighters smelled the unmistakable scent of gasoline.

Then they spotted the two gas cans tucked just out of sight near the back of the house.

One had a plastic glove jammed into its neck.

Whoever did this had soaked the inside of the house, drenching the walls and floors with gas, while Bill and Judy lay sleeping.

What a monster.

Then, after flicking a flame, the killer fled, leaving behind burning destruction.

and death.

Later that morning, the arson investigation led detectives to a nearby Walgreens.

Strangely, one of their leads involved the purchase of some makeup.

And where do you work at?

Walgreens.

And which store?

The Austin Town store.

And

at one time,

was that store a 24-hour store?

Yes.

I'm going to ask you about

a gentleman that came in to buy some makeup.

Can you tell me about this?

Well, it was early in the morning and it was just me and Michael because we were the overnight shift and he told me that a guy needed some help putting out some makeup over in Iowa.

I walked over there and he told me that he had a jury thing to go to this morning and that night he took out his trash and something exploded in his trash, which is why his face was all burned.

So he wanted some stuff to kind of cover it up because he didn't want to look like a freak to the other jurors jurors, is what he said.

After we picked out like the foundation, he wanted something for his eyebrows because they had burned off.

So he wanted to know if there was like an eyebrow pencil.

This Walgreens employee recalled a man who had come into her store that morning asking about makeup.

Something about him seemed

off.

He was dressed in a suit, but he wore a baseball cap pulled low over his face.

A strange combination.

Maybe something you would see on Sports Center.

But not a typical ensemble, you know?

Especially at Walgreens.

The man nervously explained that he had jury duty in a few hours.

He needed makeup to cover up the bright red flashburns on his face.

He also asked for eyebrow pencils, as his own eyebrows had been burned clean off.

Yes, I know this story sounds familiar, but believe it or not, it's not the same story we told a few weeks ago.

Apparently, there's a lot of idiots out there starting fires.

Anyway, this idiot's story was that he had some garbage that blew up in his face.

So his trash exploded.

That's what he said, yeah.

Did he say where this trash was?

He said at his house.

Okay.

So you see this guy.

What does he look like?

Well, he's not much taller than me.

He's probably about maybe four inches taller than I am.

So maybe like five eight five nine.

Okay.

He's pretty husky, bald.

Was he a white guy, black guy, Hispanic, male white?

Yeah.

How old would you say he was?

I'd probably say maybe

38 to 40.

Do you remember what makeup that he bought?

Yeah, he bought, I toxed him into a Maybelline BB cream, because that's what I use.

Okay.

And then he bought Maybelline brow pencils.

I know those two for sure.

Very early in the investigation, detectives found themselves with two solid leads: the strange man buying makeup at Walgreens,

and the mysterious absence of Bill and Judy's daughter, Lynn Schmidt.

But as the case unfolded, they would discover everything,

every motive, and every twisted, sordid, disgusting detail, centered around an unlikely person.

A 10-year-old named Corin

Gump.

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On the morning of March 30th, 2015, a Youngstown, Ohio home exploded into a raging inferno.

Firefighters successfully extinguished the flames and found that the homeowners, 63-year-old Bill Schmidt and his wife, 60-year-old Judy Schmidt, were dead.

The married couple had been murdered.

They were victims of arson.

This double homicide sent detectives on a long, winding road.

Eventually, that path led them to a 10-year-old girl.

Her name was Corinne Gump.

So can you give me your name?

Corinne.

Okay, what's your last name?

Gump.

When is your birthday?

January 31st.

January 31st.

Okay, and how old are you?

Nine years old.

Nine?

Okay, so what schools do you go to?

South Range.

You go to South Range?

What grade are you in?

Third.

Third grade.

Do you like third grade?

What's your favorite subject?

Um, reading.

Reading?

Do you read at home?

Sometimes.

See, what kind of books do you read?

Um, dad, kitty, princess books, um, animal books.

At the time of this interview, Corinne was living with her grandparents, but for much of her life, she had lived with her mom, her younger half-sister, and her mom's boyfriend.

Okay, who did you used to live before?

Um,

my mom, Ava, me, and then my mom's boyfriend.

Okay, what's his name?

Junior.

Junior?

Is that his real name or does he have a a different name?

Well, his real name is Robert.

Robert, okay.

Do you know how old you were when you moved into his house?

Maybe four or five.

Okay, that's when you moved in?

Okay.

Corinne's mom's boyfriend was 46-year-old Robert Andrew Seaman Jr.

He was mostly known by the nickname Junior.

Robert or Bob or Jr.

Whatever you want to call this guy, earned a steady and more than decent income by working on an assembly line at General Motors.

Robert Seaman

was working at a factory, a local factory.

We believe it was GM at the time.

And he was living in Canfield with his girlfriend, his biological daughter, and then his girlfriend's daughter from a previous marriage.

Robert's girlfriend's daughter was Corin Gump.

the 10-year-old.

And according to Corin,

Robert didn't keep his hands or penis penis to himself.

Fair warning.

We're about to get into some pretty graphic stuff involving children and sexual assault, and I know that a lot of you subscribe to True Crime Podcasts and for some reason can't hear that kind of stuff.

Well, you might want to turn it off and go listen to some crime junkie instead.

If you can't stomach this sort of thing, then Swording Scale may not be for you.

Anyway, that's enough warning because we already have the trigger warning labels on every episode and all that.

So you need more than that.

I don't know what to tell you.

Here we go.

What is it that happened with Junior?

He raped me.

Alright, so when you said

that Junior touched, that Junior raped you, what do you mean by that?

What did he do?

Um,

well

he made me uh suck his private.

Okay.

And he did it to me.

Okay.

When he When he made you suck his private, where did this happen at?

Um

in the living room,

in the bedroom,

their bedroom, or upstairs, in my room.

Okay, and do you remember what age this started at?

Four or five.

Four or five?

Okay.

In March of 2014, when Corinne was just nine years old, she sat in a police interview room.

She used crayons to color on paper, and she described how her mom's boyfriend, Robert Seaman Jr., repeatedly sexually assaulted her for years.

Did he, so he did put his penis in your mouth?

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

And what would happen?

He would try to pee in my mouth.

Okay, did he pee in your mouth?

One time.

One time?

And what did he say?

Uh

to swallow it, but of course I did not.

What did you do?

Sweat to spit it out.

Did he know you spit it out?

Yeah.

Yeah, what did he say?

He said you were supposed to swallow it, not spit it out.

How many times would you say this happened between...

I don't know.

Would you say?

A lot of times.

So more than one time.

Okay.

Robert Seaman was a monster who forced his girlfriend's daughter to give him oral sex.

Yes, I know it's actually rape, but we have to describe things so the audience understands what we're saying.

According to Corinne, this happened countless times, and throughout the years, things only escalated.

To say the least, what Robert did to Corin was depraved, evil, and disgusting, but you shouldn't need a podcaster to tell you that.

Okay.

kiss me?

Okay, where would he kiss you at?

Lips.

Okay.

Would he ask you to pull your pants down?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then what would he say?

Or what would he do next?

Uh, try to

like my private.

Okay.

Would he say anything to you when he was doing that?

No.

No.

Do you ever touch you on your boobs?

Yes.

Yeah.

We're on top of your clothing, underneath your clothing, something different.

Okay.

Did he ever, um

did he ever put his penis on your Lulu?

Yes.

Yes.

Were your clothes on or off or something different?

Off.

Off.

And what did he do?

Just

like push me back and forth onto him.

Did he ever put his penis

in your butt?

One time.

Corin claimed that between the ages of four and nine, Robert Seaman had repeatedly sexually assaulted her.

Anyway, as it is often the case in these situations, there was no evidence to confirm or back up these accusations against Robert.

Even so, the detectives and prosecutors believed Corin.

They actually usually do.

And it's a rare instance where women aren't believed.

But, you know, tell yourselves whatever you want.

I tend to believe a rape victim.

Unless they've lied over and over and over again in the past, and so should you.

Anyway, I believe her.

Judge for yourself.

Obviously, she was nine at the time.

There was no other evidence other than her statement, but her description of

the

assaults and every time that something would happen was

very compelling.

You know, she had details that a nine-year-old shouldn't know.

After Corin disclosed and described the years of abuse that she endured, Robert Seaman was arrested and charged with multiple felonies, which included the sexual assault of a minor, one of the worst possible crimes you can commit.

Definitely in the top three.

At his arraignment, Robert pled not guilty.

He was given a very high bond in comparison to a lot of cases, $250,000 cash or surety, meaning he either has to post $250,000 in cash or get a surety like a bondsman to come in and vouch for him and saying they would post if he ran.

Within days of the arraignment, prosecutors were shocked to find out that Robert had managed to post bonds somehow.

What is it with these judges, anyway?

This predator was now free to harm other children.

But at least he was given strict conditions, you know, because I'm sure he'll pay attention to those since he follows the law and stuff.

As a condition of that bond, he was to be placed on an ankle monitor that was GPS enabled and that he was told he was on house arrest, he couldn't have any contact with the victim or her family.

Unsurprisingly, Robert violated his bond condition soon after his release by having contact with Corinne's mom.

What was unexpected was that Robert hadn't initiated this contact.

Corinne's mother had reached out to him.

And here is a critical detail.

Corinne's mom was Lynn Schmidt.

Remember her?

The non-deaf child of Bill and Judy Schmidt?

So like the last time I spoke with you, you hadn't had any contact with Robert, but we had some concerns from what we had heard that

he believed you were going to recant.

And that was why we came to talk to you, just to find out if there was any basis for that

and what your intentions were

in terms of the criminal case against Robert.

During the course of their investigation, the detectives working to put Robert behind bars came across something deeply unsettling.

They discovered that Lynn might actually testify on Robert's behalf.

It appeared she was prepared to take the stand and claim her daughter had lied about the sexual assault.

Did he contact you from there then?

No, he never contacted me.

I approached him because I knew that.

So how often did you see him there?

I saw him there.

I mean, I've been there,

I mean, I don't know how many times, but I've been there.

I just know, you know.

Why are you going?

Why are you going there?

Because I want him to think that, you know, nobody, like,

nobody else, I mean, I know other people know, you know what I mean?

But I just want...

You want him to trust you?

When detectives questioned Lynn about her ongoing contact with Robert, her answers were evasive.

She claimed she was scared of Robert, fearing he might retaliate against her, her parents, or even Corinne.

And that staying in touch with him was her way of keeping him in line.

Sure, Lynn.

Sure.

Sure.

Yeah, I know

I'm concerned about your parents' house too, because of their

hard of hearing, or their

lack of hearing.

I don't necessarily believe that he has the means and even the stomach or the will to

actually do that.

And I want to believe, obviously, that you're afraid of it.

I feel that he knows full well how to make you this afraid.

and

how to make you do his his wishes in order to get out of his current predicament.

As she's advising you, you need to remove yourself from being anywhere near him or having any contact with him.

Despite the warnings to keep away, Lynn ignored this advice.

Instead, she went further.

She moved back into Robert's house, bringing along, get this, her younger daughter.

Ava, who was only four at the time.

It appeared that Lynn had turned her back on her daughter, Corinne, in favor of the attention and affection that she was getting from Corinne's rapist.

We don't know why Corinne's mom went back to Robert Seaman after the rape allegations came out in March of 2014.

She was never able to give us a straight answer as why she went back

with Robert.

Her and she took her youngest, who was also the biological child of Robert Seaman, Ava, Ava, back to the house and lived with him.

It's weird.

All these smart people don't know why she went back.

But I do.

I do.

It's Dick.

Say it with me.

Dick.

Lynn was now living with Robert while her daughter Corinne had moved in with her grandparents because Robert kept raping her.

And her grandparents were the murder victims, Bill and Judy Schmidt.

For a while, everything seemed calm, but then, on the eve of Robert's trial for sexual assault, guess what happens?

You want to guess?

I'll give you a couple minutes.

Okay.

Okay.

Here we go.

Youngstown 911, what is your emergency?

Yes, is there a, did anybody report a house on fire on powers away?

They did, ma'am, and they're on their way, okay?

Okay, thank you.

Okay, did you know you know if anyone got out, everyone got out, or you don't don't know?

I don't know.

I don't think they're here.

Okay, all right, we're getting them down there.

Thank you very much.

Okay, bye.

3.41 a.m., Monday, March 30th.

An explosion and fire at 3631 Powers Way.

Fire broke out from the bottom of the basement and just sw-whoosh.

Just hours before Robert's trial was set to begin, Bill and Judy's house exploded, and the subsequent flames engulfed their home, killing them.

We asked all the firemen and the fire marshal's investigators why that would be.

Why would they hear an explosion?

And they said from our evidence, we know he went in with those gas cans and went to the landing of the basement stairs.

And we believe he poured the gas over the side of the stairs down into the landing.

He then must have taken those two gas cans back outside and set them alongside the door, figuring he'll grab them on the way to his car and he goes back in with the lighter and when he goes back in and even just flicks that lighter because that gas all those fumes have been building up now while he poured the gas the investigators and the forensic scientists that we talked to talk about just him flicking that lighter can ignite still those fumes in the air and that's why he gets that that flashburn on his face.

And they hear essentially an explosion from the fire.

Now, it also might have exploded like bigger ones.

It hits like the house's gas line.

The explosion and fire claimed the lives of Bill and Judy Schmidt.

But tragically, they weren't the only victims.

Within a few hours, we know the three people in the house, 10-year-old Corinne Gump and her grandparents, Bill and Judy Schmidt, had died in the fire.

I saw them carry baby out my sky.

Bill and Judy were not the intended targets of this arson attack.

Heartbreakingly, they were simply collateral damage.

Robert's true aim was to silence his young victim, and he succeeded.

When firefighters sifted through the ash and rubble, they found the bodies of Bill, Judy, and a small girl.

10-year-old Corinne Gump was dead.

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On March 30th, 2015, an arson fire claimed the lives of three people in Youngstown, Ohio.

10-year-old Corin Gump and her grandparents Bill and Judy Schmidt.

Before the flames even had time to fully die out, some of Corinne's family members had their suspicions about who was responsible for this horrific crime.

Corinne's grandma, on her dad's side, thinks this fire was no mistake.

He was wicked.

He was evil.

She thinks this man had something to do with it.

Robert Seaman, accused of sexually assaulting Corinne.

The trial was supposed to start today.

On literally the eve of trial, hours before this trial was supposed to begin, this victim dies in a fire.

That same morning, the sexual assault trial against Robert Seaman was scheduled to begin.

And Mahoning County Prosecutor Don Canta LaMesa was prepared to go forward.

Strangely enough, it seemed that Robert was ready to proceed as well.

It was probably 8.30, 9 o'clock in the morning that morning.

And he was all dressed, ready for his trial.

And then the judge ordered the records from his GPS bracelet to be faxed to the court so that she could review where that GPS bracelet study went.

We were able to then see from those records that they immediately faxed that before coming to court that morning, he had stopped at the Breaking Point Recovery Center who maintains his bracelet and at Walgreens.

The judge presiding over the sexual assault trial was informed about the fire and Corinne's death.

When they reviewed the GPS records from Robert's ankle monitor, they found no indication that he had visited Bill and Judy's home, though his tracker did reveal a trip to the headquarters of a company responsible for monitoring the device.

That company was called Breaking Point.

When Robert arrived at Breaking Point early that morning, he requested that his ankle monitor be tightened.

Imagine that.

Imagine going to the place that makes your ankle monitor and requesting that it be tightened.

That doesn't raise any red flags, does it?

Anyway, the staff there complied.

For the judge and prosecutors, Robert's scheme was pretty clear.

He had slipped off the monitor, driven to Bill and Judy's house, set the fire, and returned home.

Once there, he reattached the ankle monitor and went to breaking point to have it adjusted so that any evidence of tampering would be removed.

Robert was supposed to be on strict house arrest, permitted only to leave for court or to meet with his lawyer.

This unauthorized trip to Breaking Point alone was a violation, which led the judge, thankfully, to revoke his bond, a bond he should have never had to begin with.

Robert was taken into custody, and soon after, he was questioned by detectives about the house fire.

Now, you know, are you guys charging me?

Or is that what this is about?

Because, I mean, if it is, then I shouldn't say anything.

You know what I'm saying?

Well, I'm here to talk to you to hear your side of the story.

You seem frustrated.

You told me that down there.

Yeah, I am.

And I said, let's get your side of the story.

Let's try to put this to bed quicker.

I didn't burn that house down.

No matter what, no matter shape, no matter how, there's no way in hell in a million years I touched that house or near that house.

As expected, Robert denied any involvement in setting the fire.

but the detectives didn't believe him.

They humored him, asking for details, though, about where he was and what he did that morning.

They already knew.

I don't know.

I was nervous with the whole thing.

So I tried to sleep.

I slept, I don't know, I might have slept till probably two-ish or so and I got antsy.

And then I got up, tried to watch some TV and cleaned up.

And, you know, just basically I was nervous about, you know, the whole thing.

So before I left, though, I showered.

I got a shower.

I just tried to do like chores around the house, little things to keep me going, you know.

And then...

Can you explain this?

Detectives also inquired about the large burns on Robert's face and his missing eyebrows.

Curiously, Robert claimed that the burns weren't from the fire at all.

He insisted he'd only received them after being taken back into custody, saying they were chemical burns he'd sustained in his jail cell.

Because, you know, jail cells have lots of chemicals in them.

I go in the room,

I don't know, I make my bed, I turn around,

and I didn't get to know the guy's name.

He has a little goatee on him.

And

there's a bottle inside of my room that says like corrosion or whatever.

It's a spray bottle, bleach, I guess.

They have like bleach, I guess, for the tubs or whatever.

And they put it in the bottle and you could clean with it.

Well, it was already in the room.

I went in, you know, the kid came in the room.

He has a goatee.

I don't know his name because he kept taking his armband off.

I went in the room.

I probably wasn't even in there 10 minutes or so, you know, roughly right about then.

You know, I made my bed.

I turned around.

There he was.

He threw it at me.

I turned my head this way.

I pushed.

And I got to the water as quick as I could.

In the meantime, he grabbed the thing.

You know, I don't know.

I guess he he dumped it in a toilet, and then he walked out.

The detectives knew Robert was lying, but they continued playing along.

They even offered to help Robert confirm his claim with a free visit to the Burns specialist.

Unsurprisingly, Robert wasn't too keen on taking them up on that offer.

I get what you're saying, and I do.

And I know this, I'm sure that looks to you guys like I'm guilty of saying.

How about this?

Will you go to Akron Burn to get treatment so we know exactly what this is?

I already talked to my lawyer today and he got the like they have a paper upstairs and the paper says on there it's chemical and so I'm gonna be what I'm trying to say so for me to keep doing this it's like here's what just hear me out go ahead I want to send you to a professional burn doctor not an emergency room at Saint E's doctor Because this could put a lot of stuff to bed.

Yeah, and like I says it's just just like with how many times you guys have sent someone to the house right now, you understand like every day out of the paper, and that tortures my family because I understand you got to keep doing your job.

I get it.

But the point is there has to be some point where it's redundant.

It's not successful.

That's why I'm saying

the burn to the burn to a professional.

Yeah.

You know, that's why I'm saying that it doesn't, I don't understand where you're coming from.

Because this could help end this.

To put it the best.

I get what you're saying, but you have to understand my point of view.

I mean, I'm trying to be as cooperative as I can, but this is like a witch hunt to me at this point.

As far as evidence went, the burns on Robert's face were bad enough.

But detectives had a little bit more.

Well,

a lot more.

I don't want to do that.

I mean, I understand you guys.

There's probably...

Well, let me ask you this.

Why would you go into Walgreens?

Why would I go into Walgreens?

Yes.

Did you buy anything at Walgreens?

I don't think I did.

I was just killing time.

That's why I said my car's over there on the corner.

What Robert didn't know was that police had obtained surveillance footage from Walgreens.

In case you're a criminal out there and you're looking to do some criminal activity, it's 2025, you moron.

There's cameras everywhere.

This footage clearly showed Robert entering the store and purchasing the makeup.

It was evident that the makeup was used to cover his flashburns.

Let me ask you this: Do you wear makeup?

Do I wear makeup?

Yes, sir.

No, I mean, I don't, I mean, I don't normally wear makeup as far as you're talking about the cover-up for a zip that I had when I was going to, you know, trial, so I put it over a zip I had on my nose.

That's the only thing I did with the makeup.

What about, um, have you ever used eyebrow pencils?

Eyebrow pencils.

New school, I

Robert's lies were unraveling fast, and detectives knew precisely what he had done that morning.

It was written all over his face.

They knew he'd set the fire and ended three lives.

They knew that his crime had literally blown up in his face.

They knew he'd gone to Walgreens to buy makeup to cover the evidence that was written all over his dumb, stupid, child-raping mug.

Because once he went to the jail and all that makeup came off his face, you could see that he had like flashburns on his face that had singed his eyebrows.

As detectives continued to press him, Robert tried to shift the blame.

It's always someone else's fault.

In a desperate attempt to divert attention, he hinted that detectives should look a little closer instead at corinne's mom lynn schmidt but lynn and the baby have lived with me for over seven months now you know um non-stop she hasn't even seen her daughter you know corinne one time

and

you know that was a fight thing with her mom and dad you know they had it out and you know she needed a place to stay and I wasn't gonna you know have my daughter in the street so to say you know

so they were more than welcome to be there

It was true that Lynn had returned to living with Robert after the sex abuse allegations had surfaced.

In fact, she was at Robert's house on the morning that her daughter Corinne and her parents were killed in the fire.

You know,

Lynn, unfortunately, isn't stable.

Like I said, with her, you know,

she's getting over a half a million dollars with her parents gone.

I mean, literally.

I mean, they have over a half a million dollars in cash in the bank.

Everything's entitled in her name.

So in no way shape or form.

I mean I'm not saying that she would do, I wouldn't think she would do something like this.

But my point is she has so much money when they die.

It's like it might even be close to a million dollars.

I'm not trying to be rude, but essentially you're going to come into some money too.

No, I ain't coming into the money.

It's not.

She's living with you.

Yeah, she was living with me for the years before too, but she never worked.

She never brought in any income.

Yeah, but if she's going to send nine and a half million dollars, then you're going to get some of that, aren't you?

Or do you think she's going to have to leave you?

We're not on that good of terms, so to say.

Lynn certainly appeared to have a motive for wanting her parents dead.

And Robert had no problem throwing her under the bus because, you know, he's a hell of a guy.

Do you think she could have had the opportunity to get out of the house?

During the night, I was probably sleeping at that time, but one thing that was strange was the door was open.

Every night the door was open.

We always close the door.

Like if she gets up in the middle of the night, we still close the door.

We have a double wood door that closes.

You know, my in the master bedroom where we sleep at night.

Do you think she had an opportunity when you were sleeping to get out of the house and get back in

without you knowing the body?

She could have, yes.

Because the door was open.

That was the weird thing that I thought was weird.

Detectives were certain that Robert had started the fire.

His burns and his visit to Walgreens were proof enough.

But that didn't mean that Lynn was innocent.

Far from it.

She could very well have known about Robert's plan or even helped.

She might have provided details about how to get into the house, where to pour the gasoline, and the best time to strike.

Considering that she continued to live with her daughter's abuser, her capabilities seemed disturbing.

But without hard evidence, this all remained speculation.

Kind of.

So we've always from the very beginning suspected that Lynn knew that Robert was going to do something that morning.

When the detectives first responded to the house, they went the early morning of March 30th, 2015, to do a well check on her.

Because obviously,

if someone's going to kill the grandparents and the victim of a crime or of the rape trial that was supposed to happen that morning, we wanted to know if anything happened to Lynn as well.

And so when the cops went there, when the cops went to Robert Seaman's house, they pounded on the door and no one immediately came to the house.

They went to around the back, pounded on the back door.

They came back to the front.

They made entry to the house because no one was answering.

And they found Lynn just watching television in the family room and they asked her what she was doing there and why she wasn't at court and she said she was told not to come to court to the next day.

However, both the state and the defense had subpoenaed Lynn for the trial and

us being the state had subpoenaed her for that day.

So she should have actually been at court that morning.

As for motive, prosecutors did confirm that if her parents died, Lynn would stand to inherit a significant amount of

When Bill and Judy Schmidt had died, they apparently had had a life insurance policy with which listed all three of their children as beneficiaries, one being Lynn,

Corinne's mom.

And so they called us to determine whether we had any information or any evidence that would link Lynn to the fire, whether we thought she had been involved or we thought she had anything to do with the arson and the the murder of them.

And we told them we didn't have anything that said she was involved, but we didn't have anything specific that said she had nothing to do with it.

In the end, if Lynn was involved in the murders of her daughter and parents, detectives couldn't prove it.

As of today,

Lynn Schmidt remains a free woman.

Robert Seaman was the only person ever charged for these murders.

I have nothing, nowhere near that house.

I will not, I don't even, I've never even drove by the street of that house.

I avoid it completely circle around.

I know Corinne's there.

I ain't going near that house.

You know, why would I, if I had any intention of doing this, why would this be done right before?

It makes no sense.

It makes zero sense for me.

I look guilty.

I'm the one.

You know what I'm trying to to say?

So, if somebody did this, it surely wasn't me.

When people are backed in the corner, they will do anything to survive.

I wasn't backed in the corner.

I understand that, but.

If you can review the case, the only witness they had was Corinne.

I had her mother.

I had the guardian of Lydum.

I had the juvenile record.

I had, I mean, I had so much stuff that it wasn't even, it wasn't even close.

I had her mother, you know.

Robert maintained a facade of confidence, claiming that he had a strong chance of beating the sexual assault charges.

But this was nothing more than phony bravado.

Corinne's statements were powerful and she had no reason to lie.

A 10-year-old wouldn't lie about something like this voluntarily.

Not unless they were extraordinarily troubled, and then you gotta ask why are they that troubled at 10?

Robert knew the consequences consequences he faced.

If convicted, he would likely spend his life in a federal prison where, as a sex offender, he'd be in constant danger.

As we all know, a lot of inmates don't take too kindly to child rapists.

Nobody should.

That's what woodchippers are for.

Backed into a corner, Robert was far more desperate than he let on.

His reasoning was clear.

If he was headed to prison for life, why not eliminate the one witness against him?

At best, he'd get away with it, and the charges would be dropped.

At worst, he'd end up in prison all the same.

Robert had everything to gain and nothing to lose.

Among the many frustrations in this case, one glaring issue is that Robert should have never been released on bail.

What the fuck are we doing in this country with cashless bail?

How stupid are we to come up with that shit?

This monster should have remained in custody until his trial.

But even if bail was granted, it should have been revoked long before he had a chance to murder Corinne and her grandparents.

Why don't judges like Maureen Sweeney understand

incentives?

I thought people with law degrees were supposed to be smart.

You advised that you had information about Robert Seaman violating his house arrest or possibly violating his house arrest.

Can you tell me

what you saw or how you noticed that?

Just that he was leaving a lot, you know.

And then I called and talked to the first prosecutor.

I forget her name right now, but she's like, yeah, you know, when you see him leaving, call and let me know every time, whatever.

So I called her a couple times.

While Robert was out on bail, his neighbor reported seeing Robert leave the house multiple times a day at all hours, despite being under house arrest.

When these reports were made, the court should have been alerted immediately and Robert's bond should have been revoked.

But it wasn't.

When the judge got those records from the GPS company who was monitoring him, when she got, she was so pissed because we also saw that he had been leaving his house all the time.

Apparently, that breaking point

never called the court to tell them, to tell the court that he was leaving, like going to Taco Bell and then going to the mall and then going to get a new suit for trial.

And they should have been reporting that to the court, but

they never told the court that he was leaving all this time.

And I don't know who the neighbor was reporting it to, but my guess is if they if he was reporting to someone and they had reported it to the police, maybe the court or whoever would have heard, would have thought,

well, if he was was really leaving we get a report from breaking point that said he was going outside um

and you know going other places than the courthouse or his attorney as for the company responsible for tracking robert breaking point

their failure to do its job eventually didn't surprise anyone you see it turns out that a lot of these companies are bullshit This one in particular, their owner had racked up nearly as many felonies and fraud convictions as P.

Diddy has, apparently.

Ryan Sheridan's trouble started almost 18 months ago when state and federal agents raided his Breaking Point recovery centers in Austin and another location in Columbus.

They also raided homes owned by Sheridan.

A few days later, directors with the Ohio Department of Medicaid announced they had suspended Breaking Points contracts.

Then in March, federal investigators seized more than $2 million from him.

In May, the U.S.

Attorney's Office filed paperwork trying to seize Sheridan's million-dollar home in Latonia, claiming he used Medicaid money to buy it.

Fast forward to October, when a Columbiana County grand jury indicted him on several drug charges, and just last month, another indictment, this time federal prosecutors were involved.

Sheridan and five others were named as investigators accused them of running a $48 million health care fraud conspiracy.

Don't you just love how the government spends your money?

This story is, without question, both infuriating and deeply tragic.

Every safeguard that should have protected Corinne Gump

failed her.

The courts, the lawyers, with their fancy law degrees and their Ivy League educations, the GPS monitoring system and company that made it, and even Corinne's own mother.

All of them fell short.

All of them were huge disappointments.

And in the end, what chance did this little 10-year-old girl really have?

None.

None at all.

She was a sacrificial lamb to this corrupt, fucked up system.

Eventually, and as the routine goes, Robert Seaman was arraigned on murder charges for killing Corinne and her grandparents.

As expected, he pled not guilty in.

This circus continued.

Authorities admit they don't know how Seaman managed to get out of his electronic monitoring ankle bracelet that morning, or how he got back and forth from the Schmidt's home to set the fire they believe caused his burns.

But they do believe they had more than enough evidence to convince a Portage County jury Seaman was so desperate to get out of his rape case that he'd kill his young victim.

By now, you're probably expecting the typical outcome for a case like this.

Something along the lines of Robert was sentenced to life in prison, or Robert was sentenced to death.

But

think again.

This story has one final twist.

You won't like it.

Just days before his murder trial was set to begin, the judge called prosecutors, defense, and Robert himself into court for a final status hearing.

So we've been in the status conference.

The judge was asking us, everybody ready?

If so, we were done with that.

We left out

the back chambers of the court.

We walked, Judge Sweeney, on the fourth floor of the Mahana County Courthouse.

So we walked around the corner, got in the elevator, and we usually go down to the basement and go through our tunnel to our

office.

As soon as we got back, I got a call from one of the deputies that he had jumped.

And I said, no, no, he didn't.

Why are you playing with me?

And they said, no, we're not kidding.

He jumped.

And my first reaction was, is he dead?

After the status hearing, Robert was escorted by two deputies down the courtroom halls, back towards his cell.

During this walk out of nowhere, Robert flung himself over a fourth floor railing.

At approximately 9:40 this morning, Robert Seaman was having having a final pre-trial hearing on the fourth floor in Judge Sweeney's courtroom.

The court adjourned while the deputies were escorting Mr.

Seaman down the hallway to go back to our holding cell.

He

basically took a leap off of the fourth floor.

So we got a real quick look at what took place here.

The deputies actually did a great job.

They did what they were supposed to do when they were escorting it out.

And, you know, I can't speak for Mr.

Seaman.

He must have had his mind made up.

Murder and arson suspect Robert Seaman is dead after jumping from the balcony of the Mahoney County Courthouse.

Seaman is the man accused of killing a little girl and her grandparents in an arson just over two years ago.

In the end, Robert performed one final act that could be seen only as a favor to society.

He took his own life.

The coward didn't want to face what was waiting for him in prison.

As for the deputies escorting him, no one seemed to care.

And really, why should they?

Who could blame them?

Are we going to change anything?

Well, we're going to look at that, obviously.

But,

you know, I don't see any issues with this, and I'm certainly not going to lose sleep over this one.

Since lawyers can't put a dead man on trial, the prosecutors had no choice but to dismiss the charges against Robert Seaman.

In the eyes of the court, he was never found guilty of anything.

Dying an innocent man on paper.

Hopefully, this one episode of a podcast a few people might hear one day will at least get Curran's story out to the world.

Righting this horrible wrong that our system of laws have created.

We never got to present our evidence to a jury, but we were so convinced of his guilt in this case.

I mean, not only did we have the pending rape charge where she's listed as a victim and he knows where she is, we had the two gas cans at the back door with his DNA and the gloves.

We had the makeup that he's found within the courtroom that morning of trial and him buying the makeup at Walgreens that morning, along with the eyebrow pencils.

Then we had the pictures of his burnt face from once the makeup wore off that morning.

Just everything pointed to him as the one who committed it and no one else.

There was never, once we had all that evidence lined up, there was never any doubt in our minds that Robert Seaman

did it.

The evidence against Robert was overwhelming, leaving almost no chance he'd escape justice.

Perhaps the final nail in his coffin was the DNA found on the plastic glove stuffed into the neck of one of the gasoline cans that was found outside Bill and Judy's home, the home that was set on fire with them in it.

That DNA was a perfect match for Robert Seaman.

And unlike people, DNA don't lie.

Robert knew that his life, as he knew it, was over.

And the fact that he chose to end his life only underscores his guilt.

I think it's very telling.

I think it's very telling.

He knew the evidence against him.

Every witness we had talked to in preparation for the case thought

they didn't know why he was not pleading guilty or not asking for some kind of plea.

So this is very telling to anyone out there.

We knew he did it.

He knew we had the evidence.

And there was no way he was going to get away with it.

There are so many lessons to take away from this case.

But perhaps the most significant is the role single parents must play in protecting their own children.

Above all, a parent must place their child's welfare first.

They must be the strongest line of defense for their own blood.

There are predators in the hen house.

There have always been,

and there will always be.

You better be a good fucking mother hen if you're going to even lay an egg.

Know who your children are hanging out with.

You know what I mean?

Like their daughter was hanging out with this Robert Seaman.

I always think it's weird when you let another man into your house with your biological children who isn't their dad.

All parents have a responsibility to protect their children.

But for single parents, that responsibility comes with quite a bit of nuance.

They must safeguard their kids, and not just from obvious dangers, but from those that might come disguised as affection.

They can't let their own needs surpass the safety of their children.

And if they do choose to allow someone into their lives and homes, they have to stay vigilant.

The caution is essential.

If that caution isn't there, someone like Robert Seaman can worm their way in and they will manipulate anyone and everyone to get what they want.

You can't be a mom and a dumb bitch at the same time.

It just doesn't work.

If you are a single parent that is also seeking romance, the hard truth is that you need to stay on guard.

It's sad, I know.

It sucks.

But that's the world we live in.

Because in the end, nobody, not the government, not the courts, not the cops, will protect your kids.

Only you can do that.

The innocent child named Corinne Gump

died in 2015.

She was only 10 years old.

If she were alive today, she'd be about 20, a young woman just starting out her life.

Who knows what dreams lay ahead, what possibilities lay open before her.

Tragically, the legal system

and her own mother,

and actually the whole fucking world, to be honest with you, failed her.

We all

failed her.

Society needs to get their head out of their ass.

It ain't a Disney movie.

The real world is harsh, ugly, and disgusting.

And people can be

also.

Hey, go sign up for Plus.

Tired of begging.

At least buy something in the store.

Store.sorinscale.com.

You guys are cheap as fuck.

Did you know that?

Anyway, I'll be here next week regardless.

Until then, stay safe, I guess.

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