Episode 280

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So what do this animal

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

Listener discretion is advised.

He has no regard for human life and he wanted to watch it being taken from somebody.

He wanted to see what it was like to kill someone and see the life taken from their eyes.

Hello and welcome to season 12, episode 280 of Sword and Scale, a show that reveals that the worst monsters are real.

Well, I'm going to ask you once, did you see it?

Did you see the latest episode of Sword and Scale Television?

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I got a chill.

Did you get a chill?

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Not everybody gets to sit at the Cool Kids table, you know?

Some of you are just out of adorks that are not going to subscribe to Sword and Scale Television at swordandscale.com.

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You ever look at someone and think, damn,

they must have all the luck in the world?

Of course you do.

You have Insta.

In the age of social media, where celebrities and super successful people can share their daily lifestyles, it could seem like some people are just hogging up all the good luck that exists in the universe.

And maybe it's true.

Maybe some people do have all the luck.

Maybe we spend a little too much time and a little too much energy thinking about and worrying about those very fortunate and privileged people.

But how much mental energy, how much thought have you put into those people on the opposite side of that spectrum.

What about the very, very unlucky?

You could tell who they are because they're usually buying lottery tickets.

Anyway, we're about to delve into the unlucky side of the universe and tell you a story about a person who seemed to have some serious bad luck follow them everywhere.

Roughly 75 miles south of Cleveland and near the edge of the Ohio-Pennsylvania border, there's a large apartment complex named Compass West Apartments.

This Austin Town, Ohio complex offers low-income housing for those that may be struggling financially.

And unfortunately, just as many places like it, it's known for being a haven of illegal drug use.

At least that seemed to be the case in 2014.

That year, a middle-aged mother was living at Compass West Apartments with her two teenage daughters.

That mother was was 46-year-old Jackie Botcher.

I had made iced tea a couple days ago and they were sucking it down like crazy.

And she just really liked it the way I made it.

She said, I never had iced tea like this before.

There's a lot of things the child didn't have that I would make and she like really loved.

And I said, well, go ask Lady See if she's got a few tea bags.

I'll make another mixer.

On the evening of June 23rd, 2014, one of Jackie's daughters complimented Jackie's homemade iced tea.

Jackie offered to make more, but the family was out of tea bags.

So Jackie suggested that her daughter should go ask the neighbor if they had any tea bags that they might be willing to part with.

And then when she didn't come right back up, I really didn't think not about it.

She might always tell the fuck that, because that was not unusual.

But even

the longer and I started thinking about it,

she would have went for a walk.

She would have came back up and said, like, Mom Lacey said, no, Mom Lacey's not home.

I'm going to go for a walk.

I'm going to go to the park.

She would never have just,

she was a good kid like that.

She wasn't a disobedient child that wouldn't come tell you, so you didn't worry.

Jackie's daughter left the apartment in search of tea bags.

And Jackie expected that task would only take a few minutes.

But

an hour went by, and her daughter didn't return.

Then another hour went by, and Jackie's daughter still hadn't come home.

Jackie became concerned, and that concern only grew when she realized it was pouring rain outside, and her daughter had left the apartment with no shoes.

She bought me realized she didn't have shoes on.

Jackie's daughter was missing, and at around 10 p.m.

that night, she phoned 911 to report the missing teenager.

The prosecutor who was eventually assigned to the case is an Ohio attorney named Dawn Cantalemesa.

My name is Dawn Cantalamesa, and in 2018, I was chief trial counsel for the Mahoney County Prosecutor's Office in Ohio.

In prosecuting this case, Dawn came to learn about all the people involved.

Starting first with Jackie's missing teenager.

She was 16-year-old Gina Berger.

In 2014, Gina Berger was 16 years old and living with her biological mother after having lived in Texas with her adopted mother.

There was something going on in Texas which caused her to go back to living with her biological mother in Austin Town.

And there was

a civil protection order against the person who had committed some crime against Gina down in Texas.

So she

wanted to get away and live with her biological mother in Austin Town.

Gina Berger was born on June 10th, 1998, to Kevin and Jackie Botcher.

And by age 16, she had endured quite a few hardships.

As a child, Gina lived in Florida, and her parents had some really bad habits.

Kevin and Jackie Botcher were addicted to heroin, and that addiction resulted in Gina and her three other siblings not getting the care that they needed.

When we used to pick those kids up to take them to church and stuff, they were so filthy you couldn't get them clean.

Her feet were so black.

I mean, this is just probably stuff you don't need here.

Before long, people began to notice the constant lack of care that Gina and her siblings were getting.

And eventually, the...

government stepped in.

The kids are taken away by the courts.

Their kind of lives rights were terminated by people.

Do you know why?

They were living in an hotel, going out and scoring drugs and leaving the kids by themselves all the time.

And someone eventually turned them in.

They had an opportunity to rehabilitate themselves through the court system.

They never showed up for hearings, things like that.

So their primary rights were forcibly terminated by the courts.

Gina's parents lost their parental rights.

And Gina was eventually adopted by a young married couple, the Burgers.

We were looking to have children at the time and didn't see that it was going to have to happen naturally.

So we got involved.

We began fostering them that was right before 9-11.

And then the adoption was probably final sometime in 2002.

Interestingly, Gina's adoptive mom knew Gina's biological mom before she fostered Gina.

In other words, this wasn't a closed adoption.

And the line of communication between Gina and her biological parents was open, should anyone choose to use it.

Gina Berger's adopted mother, she was actually Jackie Watcher's sister-in-law at some point, but I think that she had divorced the relation to Jackie at some point, but she still had adopted Gina.

A few years after Gina was adopted, the marriage between her adoptive parents began to fall apart, and they decided to divorce.

Gina's adoptive mom later moved to Texas and she took Gina with her.

She got her own place, moved the kids out, and

I'm trying to think when she moved.

Probably in 04.

She moved.

She told me she was moving to Carrollton, Texas.

I said, that was around 2004.

I heard the divorce was final.

By 2010, Gina was living in Texas with her adoptive mom and her adoptive mom's new husband.

Around this time, Gina, who was now a teenager, began acting up.

She was having difficulty with school and began skipping her classes.

This created some tension between her and her adoptive mom.

So, Gina began looking for an escape.

came up and wanted to stay with me.

She said that she wanted to stay astay

on her visit.

I had tried to do that.

It was in violation of a court order.

So

I

subsided that effort.

From that point, it kind of became a bit estranged because she was out of choice to stay and her mom turned her phone off on her and everything, so I got her a new phone.

And after

some threats from a lawyer down there that she hired, I think it was December same year, I just couldn't do it anymore.

Gina hoped to leave Texas and move in with her adoptive father, who was willing to take her in.

But her plan never came to fruition.

So Gina continued looking for other ways to leave Texas.

She was raped.

And I knew she was cutting herself, I guess, at that point.

She was raped, and I was very concerned about taking custody of her at that point.

And I'm actually never willing to offer it.

Gina claimed that her adoptive mom's mom's new husband sexually assaulted her, which has never been proven and remains a point of contention between Gina's adoptive parents.

And they took her to the ER and found that there's been some sort of annual intrusion and this further corroborates the story about Dennis and the rape.

And Dennis has been arrested and charged for that crime and bailed out.

But I've never heard from them again.

At this point, the communication between Gina and her adoptive dad began to die off, and Gina began reaching out to her biological mother, Jackie Botcher.

It was 2013, and Jackie was now a widow, as Gina's biological father had died from a drug overdose in 2007.

When Gina and Jackie spoke, the alleged sexual assault came up.

So Jackie told Gina to visit her in Austin,

Ohio.

And then because

of the assault, she wanted to come up here.

Now when did she come up here again?

Christmas Eve.

After years of being passed around from parent to parent, Gina ended up in Austin, Ohio with her biological mother, Jackie Botcher.

During the months that Gina stayed with Jackie, there was a lot of friction between the families and a lot of uncertainty as to where Gina would ultimately end up.

I've been trying to get a hold of her and they wouldn't let me talk to her.

They said due to the investigation, I was not allowed to talk to her.

And she actually let me talk to her like three weeks ago, four weeks ago.

And you could tell somebody standing right there beside her, she would not.

Conversation was really, really short.

And

I said, are you happy over there?

And she just said, real quietly, yeah.

It was yes and no answers.

I said to her,

I'm concerned for your well-being over there.

If you need to tell me anything, please do.

I'm concerned for your well-being.

When she first went out to Youngstown, there's a thing on Facebook I wrote, you are in danger.

You were taken away from your real mother for a reason.

Needless to say, the adoptive side of Gina's family was concerned.

And they doubted that living in a low-income, bad-reputation apartment complex with Jackie Botcher was Gina's best option.

But, you know, what are you going to do?

Gina claimed she was happy there, and that she didn't want to return to Texas.

Eventually, Gina also reconnected with her adoptive father, who was living only a few towns away from Austin Town.

So my feelings

to Talkess West.

Where they're living there.

there.

Yeah.

Okay.

Because I've seen with the same apartment.

They weren't lucky to take her.

That was the last time.

Yeah, the day we were there.

Okay.

But she was happy to see me.

She ran across the room.

Give me your arm.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Let me

get some tissues.

Gina's adoptive dad claimed that the last time time he saw Gina was when he visited her at Jackie's apartment.

And the reason that he was questioned by police was because Gina

was missing.

On the evening of June 23rd, 2014, Gina left her mom's apartment in hopes of getting some tea bags from a neighbor.

But Gina

never came back.

Jackie realized her daughter was missing pretty soon on.

When she was late to come home that night by two hours she started calling the police I need the oxytown police department what is the problem

my 16 year old daughter she went down to my neighbor's to ask for feebs I went down there the neighbor wasn't home they didn't answer the doors there was nobody there so I'm assuming when she went there was nobody there And she's been gone for several hours.

We're riding around looking for her, and I can't find her.

She's gone.

What is your daughter's name gina berger you said how old is she

16.

she's not like her she would have come back up and told me she went for one i don't know what's going on she just i can't find her when jackie made this 911 call gina had only been missing for two hours tragically two whole days would go by before gina would be located

and When she was found, it was not in a good place.

16-year-old Gina Berger was found 50 miles away from her mother's apartment in another state.

Her lifeless body was discovered among trash

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On the evening of June 23rd, 2014, 16-year-old Gina Berger went missing after leaving her mom's apartment in Austin, Ohio.

Two days later, Gina's dead body was found 50 miles away from home at a waste management dump in Pine Township, Pennsylvania.

The mother of a young woman whose body was found in a western Pennsylvania landfill is speaking out tonight, desperate for answers about her daughter's death.

How many days did she lay in a landfill with garbage?

She says Gina left their apartment to borrow tea bags from a neighbor and never came home.

Berger's body was found at Tri-County Industries Wednesday.

Investigators used markings on the body to identify her Friday.

She wasn't a piece of trash just to disregard.

Jacqueline says she just wants Gina's killer found.

There are consequences for this.

You know, just disregard somebody's life and throw them in a trash bin, and that's it.

After Gina's body was found, one of the first things that investigators set out to do was to figure out how Gina ended up at a garbage dump site.

That was considerably far from her home.

A couple days later, Gina's body was found at a dump site across the state line in Pennsylvania, not too far from Austin Town.

But we learned when they found the body, a driver's route had included that

complex, that apartment complex from Austin Town.

Investigators concluded that Gina was likely murdered at the Compass West apartment complex.

where she lived, and that her body must have been placed into a dumpster at that location before a garbage truck unknowingly carried her to a landfill in Pennsylvania.

Investigators eventually spoke with Gina's mother, Jackie Botcher, and explained all of this to her.

Why am I here?

You're here because we want to talk to you about everything that's going on and just get up to

speech, anything, new information, maybe new questions we want to ask.

When about how she died?

What then?

I don't want to know how she died.

Okay.

One new station said it was a stab wound, one new station said it was multiple.

When she was interviewed, Jackie asked how her daughter was killed.

A coroner later determined the answer to this question.

So the autopsy was done on Gina's body a few days later in the Erie County Coroner's Office,

and

she died from a stab wound to her chest cavity.

So they had some superficial marks on her face where maybe some of the trash had you know kind of injured her face and other parts of her body, but they could tell that was post-mortem or after death, that her official cause of death was from a stab wound to the chest.

Investigators determined that Gina Berger had been stabbed to death, and her killer or someone else threw her body in a dumpster at the Compass West apartment complex.

The next obvious question was

who did this?

We canvassed the apartment complex.

No one really saw anything happened over there.

I can tell you that that's in the paper.

And we canvassed the apartment complex.

So right now we're just trying to get

background

where she's been who she's with

and we're trying to find any friends if we can of hers.

But since she recently moved in the area, she doesn't seem to have too many friends, especially not going to school.

Gina moved into her mom's apartment about six months before she was killed, and she had not yet been enrolled in school.

Gina didn't have many local friends or really any friends at all.

Everyone in the area who knew her was only an acquaintance.

Also, Gina didn't have any money or valuables on her when she was killed, and the autopsy came back negative for signs of sexual assault.

In other words, it was a struggle for investigators to determine a motive in this case.

Why would someone stab a 16-year-old girl to death for no reason?

big apartment complex she had did she associate with anyone

even even casually that you knew of?

No.

Yesterday or the day before, I was talking to one neighbor, I was making for a ride, and she said Gina would sit on the step.

And every time she would see her, even with her headphones in, she always would say hi, or on the phone, she said she was such a polite girl.

Unfortunately, Gina's mom couldn't provide much in the way of information.

So

investigators turned their attention to other tenants at Compass West apartments.

And they started with the neighbor that Gina was supposedly going to go pay a visit to to ask for tea bags.

That neighbor was a young mother named Rhonisha Johnson.

Ronisha Johnson was a neighbor of Gina and her family, and she knew her from

being around the apartment complex.

She would go over to her house.

Rhonisha Johnson had a young child.

And so Gina would go over and visit Ronisha and play with the baby.

When they first attempted to go to Rhonisha's apartment to find out what happened at her apartment or if Gina ever showed up to her apartment when Jackie reported her, they didn't find her there.

When the police attempted to interview Ronisha, they ran into a little problem.

She never seemed to be home, and nobody knew where to find her.

Ronisha and her baby seemed to be missing.

After several attempts to make contact, the police eventually decided to force their way into Rhonisha's apartment.

I believe it's a couple days later, they get into Ronisha Johnson's apartment and they start looking around and they

use one of those lights that you can see blood, and they find an area on the carpet and on the floor that looks like it's been cleaned that has evidence of blood on it.

Investigators found that a large amount of blood may have recently been cleaned up from Rhonisha's living room.

And they quickly determined that Gina's murder likely occurred inside of Ronisha's apartment.

Of course, an important question remained.

You may be asking yourself that question

right now:

where the hell is Ronisha and her baby?

Eventually, and pretty much out of the blue, Rhonisha made contact with the police.

There's a point in the investigation where the Austin Town Township Police Department finally talks to Rhonisha Johnson, who lived in the apartment where Gina was last suspected to go.

And after speaking with her, the suspect became a Ricky Williams IV.

When Ronisha finally spoke with investigators, she told them a harrowing story, and she named Gina Berger's killer.

Renisha claimed that she witnessed Gina being stabbed to death by a 19-year-old man named Ricky Williams.

Ricky Williams has been in and out of the justice system.

He has a long juvenile record.

Some of his siblings, which are all named Ricky Williams as well, also have records, both adult and juvenile records.

I'm not sure about

what his family life was, but the police were very familiar with Ricky Williams at the time for having so many different police contacts with him.

There doesn't seem to be much information available about the upbringing that Ricky Williams had.

But given the fact that his siblings were also named Ricky Williams as if their mother couldn't be bothered to come up with a different name, all of these Rickies had criminal records.

It's probably safe to assume that this particular Ricky Williams didn't get the very best guidance when he was growing up.

Nonetheless, the local police knew who Ricky was, and so did the tenants and management staff at Compass West Apartments.

You see,

Ricky didn't live at the complex, but

He was there quite often and known for causing a lot of trouble.

In fact, Ricky was eventually barred from being on the property.

But it is known that he had been dating another person,

another woman inside Compass West apartments, but they had been on the outs and she had actually got evicted because of what happened between her and Ricky Williams at the time.

So

he was trespassed from the

apartment complex and he wasn't supposed to be on the ground.

As for Gina Berger Berger and her mom, they also knew Ricky Williams.

They frequently saw him around their apartment complex and assumed he lived there.

They thought of him as a neighbor, although he technically wasn't.

Ricky had even been invited inside Jackie and Gina's apartment on at least one occasion.

How do you know

or how does she know Ricky?

She met him from May and out on the back steps.

He was locked out of his apartment.

What a fern seen.

The one he was downstairs, the vacant one out.

He said he lived there with his sister and that she was at work and he walked out

and locked himself out.

And

she asked if he could sit in the apartment until she got home.

And they sat at the table and played cards.

And we were all sitting in the living room.

I mean, there was no harm, I thought.

Her sitting there playing cards, laughing, joking, played cards, and then his sister came home and he left.

When was that?

Probably six, seven months now.

After Ronisha named Ricky as Gina's killer, Ricky was quickly picked up by police.

When questioned, Ricky freely admitted that he was currently dealing with several other criminal charges.

What a surprise.

Must be that systemic racism or something.

I don't know what they have.

Did you shoot somebody?

When police began questioning Ricky, the pending criminal charges he was facing were pretty much the only admission they could get out of him.

When the topic of Gina Berger came up, Ricky claimed that he had nothing to do with her murder.

I was just wondering how the hell my name gets run into shit like this.

So, what happened on June 23rd at Compass West in the parking lot of 1987?

I went to Compass West to get my clothes.

If I'm not allowed out there, I'm not going to leave all my clothes out there.

I'm going to try to get my shit and go.

I'm trying to get my shit and go.

Because I know I'm not allowed out there.

After we said I was kicked out, I've been here at one time to get all my stuff.

That was it.

Again, Ricky had been trespassing at Compass West Apartments.

But as coincidence would have it, Ricky was on the property on the day that Gina was reported missing.

Ricky claimed that the only reason he was there was to pick up the remainder of the belongings that he left behind.

Ricky admitted that he knew Gina and her mom, and perhaps in an attempt to direct the police elsewhere, Ricky claimed that he had introduced Gina to some random guy that Gina began dating.

That's the last time I saw the new boy.

That's the only thing I know about every time I met home.

No,

I don't know him personally, but I introduced him to her.

Ricky couldn't recall the name of Gina's supposed boyfriend, you know, the one he just made up, which seemed a bit odd given the fact that Ricky supposedly introduced Gina to him.

I mean, he's supposed to know him, right?

Right?

Nonetheless, the main takeaway was that Ricky denied any involvement with Gina's murder.

He played stupid, which is, you know, not hard of an acting feat.

But, slowly and surely, detectives did what detectives do.

They began poking holes in the claims that Ricky was making.

And boy, were they big ones.

He's asking me these questions, so I'm like, I don't know like that.

I know her mom.

I can tell you everything about her mom.

But I don't know her specifically.

You feel me?

Fairly, he keeps asking me about these girls.

But I told him when I looked alive, I told him everything I know, and I can say the same thing.

I told him, oh, go ahead, tell me.

He asked me when the last time I saw her.

What was the answer?

Oh, well, my answer, I said the 26th, 27th, 28th, somewhere around that time.

So you couldn't have seen her on the 25th, 26th, or 27.

Because she was dead.

Like I said, I don't know this girl, bitch.

And I can tell y'all what I know.

Here's a small tip for anyone who might be interested.

If you ever find yourself being questioned by a homicide detective about a murder that they clearly suspect you committed, probably not a great look, you know, to call the murder victim a, quote,

little bitch.

It's just, you know, it's tact, you know?

Ricky Williams was questioned by police for several hours.

And throughout that time, he made a lot of really, really dumb statements.

For detectives, though, perhaps the most important thing Ricky gave them was a confession.

After hours of breaking down his denials, his lies, his bullshit, detectives finally got Ricky to admit that he had plunged a knife into Gina's chest and killed her.

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In June of 2014, the dead body of 16-year-old Gina Berger was found amongst the trash at a waste management station.

in Pine Township, Pennsylvania.

An exhaustive investigation led police to conclude that Gina had been murdered inside her neighbor's apartment in Austin, Ohio.

Gina's killer had thrown Gina's body into a dumpster and garbage men unknowingly transported Gina 50 miles away from home to the dump site.

As for suspects, the police narrowed their list of potential killers to just one person, 19-year-old Ricky Williams.

According to Gina's neighbor Ronisha Johnson, she had witnessed Ricky stab Gina in the chest inside her apartment.

Yet when Ricky was questioned, he denied this accusation.

In fact, Ricky denied that he was ever inside Ronisha's apartment at all.

Let's get past that.

What happened when you were in the apartment with her?

Oh, I never had an apartment with her.

I wasn't listening.

Listen, this way,

you don't know what I'm talking about, okay?

I wasn't in the apartment with her.

Everything you say to me is going to come out later.

It's going to come out that, you know, this is what he told me.

It's already been proven what happened.

You understand what kind of evidence we have against you.

Do you understand what kind of evidence?

We got a shit mode.

Do you understand?

Okay, the best thing you can do right now, Richard, is help yourself.

I didn't do that, Sir.

I promise you on my daughter's soul.

I fucking promise you.

Why are you going to lie to me?

I'm trying to make a five-minute answer to the truth.

And I told the detective exactly on the phone everything I told.

Everything.

See,

we had a report going here, and so he's continued to lie.

I bet you lied for a little bit.

Okay?

You want to be truthful and talk?

We'll talk about what happened.

The truth.

Not some bullshit made up stuff.

I want to know the truth.

After several hours of interrogation, Ricky finally admitted that he was inside Rhonisha Johnson's apartment on the day of the murder.

And that he spent the night there.

This is detective.

I didn't go to the inside, but I made

But here I speak the night sit up.

Ronisha told police that Ricky Williams had brought Gina into Rhonisha's apartment and held both her and Gina hostage.

Ricky threatened them with a knife and Gina pleaded with Ricky, begging him to let her go home.

Tragically, Ricky did not let that happen.

Instead, he stabbed Gina in the chest and she died in Ronisha's apartment.

Then Ricky forced Ronisha to help him clean up the murder scene.

It took days for police to get this information because after the murder, Ronisha fled and feared that Ricky Williams was going to murder her and her child if she said anything.

And Ronisha even told the police that she took her son when she got away from Ricky and went to either her mom's house or some relative's house to kind of hide out because she was afraid that Ricky Williams was going to come back to her apartment.

During his interrogation, Ricky eventually corroborated portions of the story that Ronisha told the police.

He admitted that he was inside the apartment with Ronisha and that he had forced Gina into the apartment with him.

Yeah, we had to walk in and have the same fucking time.

So you met her on the first floor and he led her up to the park.

As for what happened when they were in the apartment, Ricky put his own spin on things.

He claimed that Rhonisha committed the crime and that he was just an unwilling participant in Rhonisha's insane plot to murder Gina for absolutely no reason.

She my disciple, like some fucking re-roll with her, like that night.

I looked her.

I looked her till, listen, man, I listened, she's pretty rubber.

She's fucking pretty good.

She's pretty rubber.

That's the way she had my head.

That's the way she really fucking got out of my head.

So I helped her.

I helped her do this shit.

And Ricky Williams told the police that it was actually Ronisha Johnson who killed Gina.

And he simply held Ronisha's hands around the knife while

Ronisha stabbed Gina.

Do you really want to do this shit?

She had, yeah, this and that, this and that.

So I'm grabbing, I'm having a grabbing her.

I'm grabbing her head.

So she pushing forward.

I didn't have a knife, man.

I didn't have no punch in that motherfucking knife.

But

yeah, I participated.

Yeah, I held her head.

She was pushing forward.

I was helping her in a little bit.

Yeah, I did that shit.

Ricky also claimed that the murder of Gina Berger was something that Rhonisha had been planning to do for some time.

Though Ricky couldn't specify why Ronisha wanted to commit this crime, beyond the suggestion that Rhonisha simply didn't like Gina.

He made a statement that says Ronisha essentially had it out for Gina and that he was simply helping Ronisha complete the job.

He wouldn't really take any of the blame himself.

He wanted it to seem like Ronisha

had planned this and laid out this plan and

roped in him into helping her.

She won't stop.

She not fucking stopped.

She don't have none of him.

Naturally, the police didn't believe Ricky's version of events because it didn't make any sense whatsoever.

But for the remainder of his interrogation, Ricky maintained that Rhonisha was the killer.

She already knew it was the plan.

It was part of the plan.

It was part of the plan.

She wanted to do that for a long time, but I just, you know,

I wouldn't know I would have done it.

Fuck, I know she told you I forced her.

I didn't force her to do this shit.

You need to do this shit.

She think on her own motherfucking mind.

She came on her own mind.

So I fucking helped her.

I fucking helped her, man.

Much like the police, the prosecutor who oversaw this case didn't believe Ricky's story.

And they had plenty of reasons to doubt what he claimed happened.

We talked to Ronisha.

And Ronisha's version of the events and Ricky's history led us to believe Ronisha and that he was very violent and manipulative and that she was afraid not only for herself but for her child who was in the apartment.

And the way the physical evidence was laid out, where they had been sitting prior to this happening,

the

photos Ricky was taking, I believe they were on Ronisha's phone, of her and Gina sitting there against the wall of the couch crying.

It looked and followed Ronisha's version of the events that they were both

being held against their will by Ricky in that apartment and that they were both afraid during this time.

So all of the physical evidence and that those photographs corroborated Ronisha's version.

Based on Ronisha's statements and the physical evidence, which included photographs that Ricky himself had taken while the crime was being committed, the police and prosecutors had a pretty good understanding of exactly what happened to Gina Berger and who was responsible for her death.

Ricky Williams followed Gina into Ronisha Johnson's apartment,

and

it started this long drawn-out process of Ricky kind of tormenting both Ronisha and Gina and eventually leading to the stabbing death of Gina Berger that day.

He was saying things to them and talking about hurting them and threatening to hurt Ronisha, threatening to kill Gina Berger's mother

if they didn't do what he wanted.

He used a knife and stabbed Gina Berger,

then

engaged Ronisha Johnson to help him wrap up the body, put it in in this pack and play,

and had Romisha Johnson help him carry it out to the dumpster and put it in the dumpster.

After Gina was dead, her body was placed into a large baby crate and carried outside to a nearby dumpster.

At this point, Gina's mom, Jackie Botcher, had already called 911 and was sitting in a car outside her apartment in hopes of finding Gina.

Instead, she found Ricky Williams.

On Monday night, when you were waiting for the police to come to file that initial report, and you saw Ricky, you said you were sitting in your aunt's car?

Yeah.

And did she see Ricky?

Yes.

So he walked up to her car?

Yes.

He was coming out of the building.

Out of that back old door, so we see him coming out, and you could tell somebody was struggling with outman, and that thing was kind of big.

So he camped or whatever it was, I don't even know what you would call it.

And then he'd come over to the car, the partway over like the car.

He's holding him, or he put it down, and he had to put it down on the sidewalk.

And what did it look like Ricky had?

I didn't pay attention to what he actually had.

He said it was a baby, a baby fading, that's what he called it.

But then the next morning I seen a baby thing upside down in the dumpster.

But I never really thought anything about that.

The dumpster was totally full.

Jackie Balcher actually described to the police that she had seen Ricky Williams when

she

had made the missing person report.

She had seen Ricky Williams putting something in the dumpster during that timeframe.

And he actually came up to her car with her sister in it and said, Do you want to buy a play,

a pack and play or a play pen for any of your kids?

Because I have one we're trying to get rid of.

And Jackie said she had told him no.

After Ricky brazenly and heartlessly offered to sell Jackie the baby crate that contained Jackie's missing and murdered daughter, he threw the baby crate and Gina into a dumpster.

Then he headed back to Rhonisha's apartment.

He then made Rhonisha

go back into the apartment and clean the blood up while he watched.

and essentially cleaned up every portion of the apartment that he could think of that they either touched or had Gina touch or got rid of any evidence that Gina was there at all.

By now, you're probably thinking that Ricky Williams is a complete psychopath.

And if you do think that, you're right.

The murder of Gina Berger wasn't a crime of passion.

There was no passion whatsoever.

There was no anger.

There was no greed.

There was no emotion associated with her death whatsoever.

This was a completely senseless thrill killing.

I think Ricky committed this crime just because he wanted to.

He wanted to see

what it was like to kill someone and see the life taken from their, you know, just taken from their eyes.

I think he was, he's just kind of,

I don't want to say mental, but I think he just, he has no regard for human life and he wanted to watch it being taken from somebody.

Ricky Williams is a heartless monster, a true sociopath.

He just wanted to kill someone.

In fact, one day before he stabbed Gina, Ricky assaulted two other women and likely would have killed them as well.

Had they not been able to escape his attack.

When I opened the door, when I went over there, there was like chairs and stuff on the floor.

And Ricky was walking.

Like there was a tussle

or something?

Okay.

And at that point, it was

on the ground.

I guess he had gotten done beating her, beating on her.

And

he comes out of nowhere and then starts choking me.

So from there on, he punches me in my face about five times.

Because at that point, I couldn't even, you know what I'm saying?

I was just pretty much like shot because I couldn't believe that he was hitting me.

That's the first physical fight I ever been in.

So he choked you slammed you

and started punching you about the head and body about five six times okay then he pulled a knife out on you and you ended up getting out of here yeah i ended up getting out to go get help

how did you get away from him were you able to like break free and run out to go get help pretty much run out because it seemed like he was like trying to chase after me after that This assault victim was able to flee, and after she did, Ricky turned his attention and his violent intentions towards another woman.

And I grabbed my phone because I was ready to call my daughter's dad and the cops.

Like my first mind, I'm trying to call somebody.

So he was like, he was like, oh, you're calling the cops, bitch, I'll kill you.

So then I'm like, no, and I just jumped down a whole bunch of steps.

I just missed all the steps because at that point, he coming at me with a knife.

So I just jumped down all the steps.

And then we ended up going to,

I go to my apartment because my daughter's dad, he was there with my daughter.

And I tell him, like, this boy just tried to stab me.

He like, who?

Like, what's going on?

I'm like, listen, I didn't even know what's going over there this boy he just tried to stab us he's like who is he i'm like ricky williams notably when ricky attacked these women it wasn't out of anger ricky was calm and calculating again he just wanted to kill someone for the hell of it that's the kind of criminal we're dealing with in 2024.

And when he started coming at us with the knife, he started laughing.

Like, he wasn't even like, it wasn't even like he was mad.

He was laughing.

But I hit a bitch, you want something too?

And I'm like, crazy.

Wait, wait, come here.

So then that's what I'm like, but I wasn't smiling.

I'm talking against her because at that point, I'm thinking, no, he really don't try to stab.

But either we got a chance at jumping him if he come at us with a knife or run.

My first time was to run.

Thankfully, these women were able to flee and they survived their encounter with Ricky.

Unfortunately, though, they didn't go to police and tell their story until after Gina Berger was dead.

I kept saying it.

I kept telling everybody

to call the cop.

Because if

he's not allowed out here, he'll get charged with trespassing.

And he'll get charged with assaulting her, trying to stab us.

He'll get into trouble.

I kept telling everybody.

I kept saying it.

Sheree went in.

She was like, oh, well, I don't want to call the cops.

I'm like, okay, well, just tell her to call the cops.

Wow, because he has her car.

So she's at work, so he's not going to, he's not there to tell her no, you know, to stop her from calling the cop.

Out of fear that Ricky would seek violent revenge on them, these women decided not to report Ricky to the police.

Less than 24 hours later, Gina Berger was dead.

Ricky stabbed Gina to death and threw her body.

into a dumpster.

After the police pieced this all together, Ricky was charged with murder and arrested.

But this case was not scheduled for trial for nearly four years.

It takes four years for this to get to the trial stage because it's a capital case or a death penalty case because he's then appointed two lawyers who then file all these motions to essentially start doing their investigation of Ricky Williams.

So a lot of time is spent on death penalty cases doing what's called mitigation because they're trying to come up with reasons to tell the jury why the death penalty should not be imposed.

So they do psychological tests on the defendant.

They look into any prior

psychological tests that he's already had, maybe in juvenile court, any counseling he's ever done.

They look into his schooling records or prison.

They want to see what he's done in those places.

So they want to see those records.

And they're trying to present or put together their best case to present to a jury why the death penalty should not be imposed.

The state sought the death penalty, and throughout the many court hearings that were held for this case, Ricky Williams maintained a heartless and just all around disgusting demeanor.

During the pretrial hearings, whenever we would have a hearing like a motion to suppress, where we would have witnesses, or we would present evidence, Ricky would be smiling and staring at the victim's family, kind of smirking during the evidence, like he enjoyed listening to all the evidence.

Eventually in 2018, Ricky and his defense team accepted a plea from prosecutors.

Ricky pled guilty to killing Gina Berger.

And in exchange, the death penalty was taken off the table.

Yeah, despite all of that behavior by the defendant, the family was still okay with accepting a plea.

I think everyone got the feeling that because he seemed to be enjoying listening to all the evidence, that if we didn't let him listen again during the trial, it was going to be more punishment for him.

So if we got him to admit and take a life without parole and not be able to have to sit through him smirking during all the trial, that

that would benefit the victims more than having to watch him.

In 2018, Ricky Williams was scheduled to be sentenced for the killing of Gina Berger.

Tragically, Gina's mom, Jackie Botcher, was not able to attend the sentencing.

Just four months after Gina was killed, Jackie also died.

While the cause of death was never officially confirmed, Jackie likely began using heroin again after Gina died and overdosed.

Still, many of Gina's other family members did attend the sentencing for Ricky Williams, including Gina's adoptive mom.

You did not win.

We accepted your pathetic plea because we wanted you to live in hell for the rest of your life.

We love the fact that you'll never see the outside world again.

You will never be able to hurt another person again, ever.

I don't want to hear your lawyer stand up and speak to this jury or the judge about how hard you had it as a child.

You look at these people sitting on Jan Marie's side of the courtroom and you'll find people who were in much dire situations than you.

Cancer, teenage pregnancy, death of a father, divorce, single parents, foster homes, drug addiction, suicide.

You name it, these people have sacrificed.

So don't give us your sad, pathetic story, because we've seen and done it all more than you could ever imagine.

We don't care.

What you did is inexcusable no matter what type of life you've lived.

No one else in this room has ever committed murder except for you.

I'm a f ⁇ ed off mother of a murdered child whom you had no right to take away from me, her father, and our family.

You are evil masqueraded as a human being.

Words cannot express the pain and anguish our family and friends have endured since her murder.

Your decision to take the life of my daughter with no regard for the effect it may have on others is unimaginable.

I think of my daughter, Gina, every single day.

I wonder how many people actually think of you every day.

And as the years go by, I hope they forget about your pathetic life.

After Gina's surviving family members gave their impact statements, it was time for Ricky to make a statement as well, and for a judge to impose a sentence.

When it was his turn to speak, Williams told the judge he only agreed to the plea bargain to avoid risking a possible death sentence if he'd gone to trial.

I didn't kill that girl, you know, Darkness.

I just wanted to put that on the record.

I didn't do it.

No, I'm sticking with it.

But the judge said the evidence proves Williams committed the crimes, sentencing him to 62 years to life in prison.

Thankfully, and to the benefit of society, Ricky Williams will never see the outside of a prison facility.

Admittedly, there really isn't much to learn from this case.

I know we do this little thing where we sum it up with a little bow and send you on your way with a little bit of a positive spin in terms of at least we can learn something from this story, but we can't really learn anything from this story.

A story with a murder which has a motive that is so absurd, so

unnecessary.

I'm left with no words after 11 years of doing this.

Gina Berger was just a young girl who wanted some iced tea.

She went looking for tea bags.

She went to go ask a neighbor, someone she knew, someone she saw every day.

And she had the horrible misfortune of crossing paths with a monster.

A monster that killed her.

Just for the sake of doing it.

Gina's short life was riddled with misfortune.

Gina's biological parents were heroin addicts, and as a result, she was placed into foster care.

After being adopted, her new parents got divorced, and then Gina was allegedly raped by her adoptive mom's new husband.

At least that's what she claimed.

If that allegation is true, obviously, it's horrible.

But if it isn't, For Gina to make such a serious accusation, she must have been dealing with some overwhelming issues for a teenager.

Then, on a rainy night in June of 2014, Gina was abducted from her apartment complex.

She was terrorized, threatened at knife point, and stabbed to death.

Then, Gina

was just thrown away, like garbage.

But Gina wasn't garbage.

She was a young girl who wanted to overcome and rise above all of the bullshit, all the past hardships, all the disappointments in life.

So many.

In just 16 years on this planet.

Sadly, she never got the chance.

Maybe it is true.

Maybe some people have all the luck.

So as you look around the room, see the faces of your family, your kids, your parents, as you look at their faces and their smiles and feel their love coming back to you, take a moment to realize that you are

one of those lucky ones.

Although it's true that sometimes it feels like some people have all the luck,

it certainly seems like some people

have none of it.

If you enjoyed the show, please consider joining Plus.

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I know y'all poors hate capitalism and all that, but

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Also, check out our store: store.sword and scale.com.

And until next time, try not to get killed.

Stay safe.

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