Episode 279

Snoring ruining your sleep or someone else's?

Mute by Rhinomed is the simple science-backed solution.

Just insert, adjust, and breathe.

Mute is a discrete nasal device proven to increase airflow and reduce snoring.

No batteries, no noise, just better sleep.

Find Mute at Amazon and Walgreens.

Try it risk-free and sleep soundly tonight.

Learn more at mutesnoring.com.

That's mutesnoring.com.

Snoring ruining your sleep or someone else's?

Mute by Rhinomed is the simple science-backed solution.

Just insert, adjust, and breathe.

Mute is a discrete nasal device proven to increase airflow and reduce snoring.

No batteries, no noise, just better sleep.

Find Mute at Amazon and Walgreens.

Try it risk-free and sleep soundly tonight.

Learn more at mutesnoring.com.

That's mutesnoring.com.

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

Listener discretion is advised.

There's something wrong.

I already knew the world was a mess.

If you don't understand that or realize that,

you're not paying attention.

They say you build it and they will come.

I don't know who said that.

It's probably in a movie or something.

Anyway,

we built it about nine months ago.

It's called Sword and Scale Television.

There's nine episodes available right now, and there's many, many more coming next year.

We made it for true crime fans like you, because we're true crime fans as well.

So we wanted to make a TV show for the fans, by the fans, in a way that leaves out all the cheesiness of Hollywood, all the

bad actors, put it that way, and gives you just a solid true crime story.

Right now it's once a month, and I know we said we were going to do two a month, but that's just on me.

That's my fault.

I've been crashing.

I've been

unable to keep pace.

And unfortunately, there's only one of me, and I can only do so many things.

Unfortunately, when you get to a certain size, you spend most of your time running a business, being a CEO rather than a podcaster.

It's just the way it is.

When you get to a certain size,

you just have to hire people and you have to manage people and you have to manage people that manage people and so on and so forth.

And then you become a CEO, and it sucks because I don't want to be a CEO.

But there we are.

We all do things we don't want to do in life.

Anyway, what...

I was really trying to say is just go watch it.

You know, you can try it and if you don't like it, you can unsubscribe at any time.

It's really easy, you don't need to contact support or anything, you can just do it on your phone.

So, if you liked your crime, the place to find it is swordandscale.com.

It's time to head back to school and forward to your future with Carrington College.

For over 55 years, we've helped train the next generation of healthcare professionals.

Apply now to get hands-on training from teachers with real-world experience.

And as few as nine months, you could start making a difference in healthcare.

Classes start soon in Pleasant Hill, San Leandro, and San Jose.

Visit Carrington.edu to see what's next for you.

Visit Carrington.edu/slash SCI for information on program outcomes.

It's usually a lesson you learn when you're young.

Anything worth having is worth the effort to get it.

You have to work hard to achieve the things you want in life.

It won't just be handed to you.

you.

And this lesson is mostly true.

Sure, there are people out there who never learn this lesson and everything is handed to them.

But if you see one of these people come face to face with opposition, watch out.

Anger and chaos will ensue.

You see, the lesson isn't really about working hard.

You can work hard and still fail.

The lesson is really about learning the fact that sometimes you just can't have what you want.

I know, I know, I know, it's hard, it's hard to come to terms with such a reality, but it's true.

So the quicker you accept it, the better off everyone will be.

Because what happens is that with this eventual realization, those certain entitled few revert to the mentality of children.

And children rarely act rationally or logically.

Instead, they act out without regard for the calamity that they will cause.

September 2nd, 2016, was a day like any other.

By 3 p.m., it was 84 degrees and cloudy in Wichita Falls, Texas.

On the south side of town, the school bell rings at McNeil Middle School, and a flood of children pour into the sidewalks, streets, and alleyways.

One such kid, 13-year-old eighth-grader Michaela Smith, looks for her friends before starting her walk home.

I met Car first.

It was in front of the school

and Renell

and Alani didn't walk home that day.

So we walked

across the big field that we had and we saw I saw Lauren over there there

and I called her name to see if it was her and like we met up with her we caught up with her while she was walking.

Many kids walked home in this city of around 100,000 people.

This was the first year sixth grade was offered at McNeil and the neighborhood streets were filled with children more than normal.

Michaela caught up with her friend, Lauren Londavazzo, to lament over the first few weeks of school.

We were talking about school and how like we don't have any classes today.

That made you sad that you didn't have class in the morning.

Yeah, but I would see her in the hallways and stuff when you would say hi to her passing.

The neighborhood surrounding McNeil Middle School was full of single-family homes, very close together.

There were sidewalks, but many kids chose to take the alley that separated backyards as their route home.

And we

stopped like near the dumpsters.

Okay.

And Lauren,

she started walking ahead of us so she could go meet up with her boyfriend, Calderon.

So she was right about ten o'clock in the center.

A mere block from school, the girls stopped to part ways.

We all told Lauren by,

whatever,

teasing her a little bit about her boyfriend.

He told her goodbye, and she waited for me.

She was not to remove it.

On the next street over, a boy named Garrett had just made it to the intersection when a car flew by.

It was a gray golden Tahoe.

He was on the sidewalk waiting to cross the street when he saw the Tahoe stop in front of the alley.

From his perspective, he only saw one person,

Lauren.

Well, I was on the corner, like where the concrete was, and then I could only saw I could

only go,

I saw a fright there.

Okay, I think, and this is an alleyway, right?

There was like a fence covering every other girl except her.

Just as Lauren waved bye to her friends and turned to walk away, a vehicle pulled up abruptly.

Further down the alley were three other students:

Elijah, Hope, and Crystal.

One of them were walking, and Laura goes

We just stood there because we thought Laura never can ever get picked up.

It wasn't uncommon for kids to get picked up on their route home, but something about this vehicle seemed strange.

Garrett, on the next street over, noticed the window on the Tahoe was down.

Then he noticed something else.

And then, did you see anything unusual come out of that window that was down on the driver's side door?

It was a gun.

Okay.

Elijah, Hope, and Crystal saw the gun too, but didn't immediately recognize the danger.

At first, I thought it was a paintball gun or a BB gun because teenagers like to play pranks and all that.

Then they heard the sound.

It sounded like something popping on us.

When I think back to it, it's all silent.

I just thought there were firecrackers and you didn't really think anything of it at first.

Garrett, the little boy on the street corner, recognized the sound immediately.

His father was a cop.

I heard some about four, five, six, or seven gunshots.

Did you see what happened to Lauren?

She fell out on the ground.

Suddenly, Elijah, Hope, and Crystal knew this was no prank.

So we didn't think any of it until Lauren fell and Michaela ran.

Chaos erupted in the alley and the surrounding streets as the Tahoe sped away.

Some kids froze while others ran for their lives.

Elijah, Hope, and Crystal ducked into Hope's backyard, but the back door to her house was locked.

Garrett took off running and started banging on his neighbor's doors frantically to find help.

So, dude, were you knocking on the door trying to get help?

Yes, sir.

Were you scared?

Yes, I was.

Had you ever seen anything like that before?

Never.

After the sound of gunshots stopped, Elijah, Hope, and Crystal slowly ventured back into the alley.

Well, we went back outside into the alley to see what had happened.

And

we saw Lauren on the ground where she had fallen.

And we also saw Michaela.

She looked like she was out with her phone trying to dial in.

I asked her if she was okay, and she said no.

And like...

We saw her blood and so that was like commentable.

Like we were asking what was going on and we asked if it was like a real gun or what.

What she said.

She said yes, and she was on the trying to get she was having a holding her hand over where she'd been shot.

And so at that point then I like

I kind of got over the shock of it and was more frightened at that point.

And so I pulled out my phone and I called my dad.

What did you do next?

I looked back towards the other side of the alley towards the apartments and I thought I saw that car but I wasn't sure.

So I told Hope to get in her backyard And I ran past

everything to the front of Hope's house to go get her mom to unlock the back door.

In the aftermath, the kids were at a loss for what to do.

Most called their parents, but Crystal risked herself to keep her friends safe.

She had to run past her fallen classmate.

I just really didn't want to look at her because I was scared.

Once her mother answered the door, what did you do?

I hugged her and I cried a little bit, and then then I told her hope was in the backyard.

Nearby, Navy and Army veteran John Lewis heard the shots from his backyard and sprang into action.

I was actually in my backyard on my patio and I was prepping for my daughter's 13th birthday party.

His backyard was just on the other side of a privacy fence from the alley.

Luckily, his daughter hadn't taken the alley that day.

Normally, she walks down the alley, but she didn't on that day.

How she get on that day?

She actually went down Kingston.

She just bought her a bicycle, and she didn't want to pop the target, so she didn't drive down the alley because it was glass, so she took Kingston Street and rode her bike down that way.

He was about to head inside when he heard the shots.

As I went to open the door,

gunshots, low,

like I told the police, low caliber.

semi-automatic kind of a weapon was fired and

all military training I ever had kind of kicked in.

The first one was a popular shot, and then a second later, maybe, is when

they all just let loose.

They all, all of them

got fired off in rapid succession.

It was fast.

It was real fast.

Three to five seconds, maybe all of them,

maybe.

His military training kicked in.

He even recognized the sound of the gunshots and was able to identify the caliber as a 22.

A 22 has

kind of a short crack sound to it.

The 9mm has

it's a little heavier and a little more chunkier of a sound.

Knowing this was when kids started to get out of school, he was worried for the other children in the community.

I instantly dropped the cups and I knew the kids were getting out of school.

I knew the direction which the shots were coming from was the alley.

I dropped the cups and I instantly ran to out of a six-foot privacy fence.

And I jumped over my six-foot fence.

I climbed up and jumped over my six-foot privacy fence.

Up over the fence, I hit the ground so hard that my flip-flops came off my feet.

And I didn't realize that until after the police had arrived.

This man, in the face of danger, sprang into action, jumping his fence and landing in the alley so hard it blew his flip-flops.

With this experience in battle, both in the Navy and the Army, it didn't matter that he was barefoot.

In the alley, he looked for anyone that was hurt.

I saw Lauren, but I didn't know her name at the time.

I thought I just saw a young girl laying there, and I ran to her.

As I ran to her after jumping the fence, I ran to her, coming out like a tunnel vision.

When I did when I ran, I didn't know, I didn't look in the cars, everything was just kind of not not there.

And

I ran there, I didn't know if there was another shooter, I didn't know, I just knew there was kids.

I saw a little girl laying there.

And when I approached Lauren,

when I got to Lauren, the military train kicked in, or I was supposed to, you know, you assess the situation,

see what's going on.

Is there another active shooter?

Are there other people wounded?

Check the person that you come up on.

And I noticed that

I'm not a doctor, I'm not a nurse, I'm not an RN or anything, but my training, I know when Son is gone, there are signs that you look for.

One is their blood, like a massive amount of blood.

So the heart stops, it's not going to push blood around.

I didn't see much of any on her.

The way she was laying, if I remember correctly, it was her wrist, was in a pinched position where anybody was conscious or was alive, they wouldn't want her to be in that kind of position.

He wasn't a doctor or a nurse, but he could tell Lauren wasn't with us any longer.

When he looked into her eyes, he was sure.

When I approached Lauren,

I noticed

it was hard.

I don't have to take your time.

I noticed that

in what we referred to in the Army, when I was with the Army Tree as the death flights or the death stare,

the feeling of the entry, like when i got there it just kind of felt like going into a bubble a bubble and it felt just

just like that just

i didn't hear nothing really i didn't

it's just it was a flat feeling where it's you know something just died or something just happened

it was too late for lauren but john could still help michaela and then i heard a child off and i left someone come down from the alley saying another child was shot

and i looked up and that's when I saw Michaela

she was standing there and I ran to her and I put laid her down

by this time John's daughter had arrived to witness the chaos when I laid her down my daughter was there

and I yelled at her give me something to pull your holes with

and so my daughter ran to the house and it felt so fast And I looked at Lauren, or at Michaela, and I said, you're a champ.

You're going to be fine.

We're

And by that time, I looked up, and here came my daughter with the rag to you know, stop the bleeding.

Michaela was bleeding, but she seemed to be okay.

She was conscious and coherent despite the shocking events.

That's when the enormity of the situation dawned on John.

That's when I kind of came to a little bit more and realized that all hell is breaking loose.

There's just people everywhere, kids crying,

you know,

women crying, men crying, there's everybody's crying, they're all over the place.

And I tried to stop everybody, tried to get him away.

Lauren, people were trying to come down the alley, I tried to stop them.

I just have to say, this guy is a hero.

He was on scene long before the first responders or the police.

And thank God he was, but there was nothing that could be done for Lauren.

As the chaos of the scene peaked, classmates and citizens alike looked on in horror as the once vibrant Lauren, the girl they all knew, lie lifeless at the end of an alley.

It's time to head back to school and forward to your future with Carrington College.

For over 55 years, we've helped train the next generation of healthcare professionals.

Apply now to get hands-on training from teachers with real-world experience.

And as few as nine months, you could start making a difference in healthcare.

Classes start soon in Pleasant Hill, San Leandro, and San Jose.

Visit Carrington.edu to see what's next for you.

Visit Carrington.edu/slash SCI for information on program outcomes.

Snoring ruining your sleep or someone else's?

Mute by Rhinomed is the simple science-backed solution.

Just insert, adjust, and breathe.

Mute is a discrete nasal device proven to increase airflow and reduce snoring.

No batteries, no noise, just better sleep.

Find Mute at Amazon and Walgreens.

Try it risk-free and sleep soundly tonight.

Learn more at mutesnoring.com.

That's mutesnoring.com.

It's time to head back to school and forward to your future with Carrington College.

For over 55 years, we've helped train the next generation of healthcare professionals.

Apply now to get hands-on training from teachers with real-world experience.

And as few as nine months, you could start making a difference in healthcare.

Classes start soon in Pleasant Hill, San Leandro, and San Jose.

Visit Carrington.edu to see what's next for you.

Visit Carrington.edu/slash SCI for information on program outcomes.

A regular warm afternoon in Wichita Falls, Texas became a nightmare.

McNeil middle school students would never forget.

13-year-old eighth-grader Lauren Londavazzo had been gunned down just a block away from school.

Her close friend Michaela Smith was also shot but would recover.

The havoc on that street corner though was still unfolding.

On the next street, Sarah Cervantes saw Garrett running for his life and immediately knew something was wrong.

As I was driving downtown, there was a young male running downtown towards my vehicle.

And once I pulled up to the stops, I mentioned to my son, there's something wrong.

There's no reason why he's running.

This is it's strange.

And I look both ways.

I think

Lauren.

When she first saw Garrett running, her mind went to the more likely scenario that he was running from school bullies.

But when she got to the stop sign and saw someone lying in the alley, she knew that was more serious.

And what did you think had happened to Lauren?

Initially, I thought maybe she was hit by a vehicle.

That was my first thought.

And then I kind of went through other scenarios that Maybe someone attacked her because there are a lot of kids screaming.

I just kind of ran through a lot of things I

may have happened.

Regardless of the reason she knew, she had to try and help.

She pulled up to the alley, told her children to stay in the car, and approached Lauren to see if she was okay.

I asked her if she was okay.

Did you think she was going to respond?

Why is that to me?

I believe her already have passed at a point.

Her eyes burst took open.

And there was a large wound to her head.

Is she uh she's doing better for binding for bread to her arms?

Everything happened so fast.

In a matter of a few seconds, the shots were fired, and Garrett ran.

John jumped the fence, and Sarah saw Garrett fleeing as she approached the intersection.

At the same time, Elijah and Hope were ducking into her backyard while Crystal ran around to the front.

By the time Sarah Cervantes approached Lauren, it had been barely more than a minute since the shots were fired.

Right behind her was Jamie Lopez.

When I turned on to Trinidad,

I saw,

first noticed a lady standing at the corner, kind of hysterical, waving her hands.

And

I saw a girl laying in the alley, in the opening of the alley.

So,

you know, I immediately pulled over to see, you know, what had happened and if I could help and do anything.

Jamie was a home health nurse and had medical training.

I

knelt down to try to help her to see if she was okay.

She wasn't moving

and started trying to look over.

I got her turned over.

She was laying on her stomach.

So I turned her over to start looking.

And I was

fixing to start

CPR.

I remember

seeing there was a blow

right about

where her heart would have been and thinking,

I don't know if I'm going to do more damage or not if I start this on this girl, but I don't know where it went.

And

about that time

is when Michaela started running from the coming down from the alley, yelling that she could also have shot, that she needed help.

Realizing Lauren's condition, she decided to focus on Michaela.

There really wasn't much to do with Lauren because

I could tell when I first looked up that.

Do you remember if her eyes were open or closed?

They were open.

Pretty blue eyes.

She's gone.

There were

so many people, and everyone was staring.

And I just felt bad that everyone was staring through land here.

I want that for her, so I got a blanket and tried to cover it up a little bit as best I could.

Jamie had some first aid supplies in her car and began helping Michaela.

Sarah Cervantes was unable to help and placed the first 911 call.

I need an ambulance on 5173 Keyston.

There are a young lady who's laying in the grass bleeding.

We don't know what happened to her.

Sarah was barely holding it together, but she knew how important it was to relay as much information as possible to first responders.

I think I really found her the street letting her captain.

Is she breathing right now?

No, no, no, no.

Okay, do you know how long she's been lying there around?

No.

Can you touch her?

I mean, she's pulled it at that or is she formed?

Can't you pull her?

In this tight-knit community, it wasn't long before the news spread through the neighborhood.

Michaela, wounded and dazed, dazed, called her mother.

I hear her phone tussling.

So I'm thinking that maybe she had

butted out me.

And

so I'm yelling her name to pick up until then she finally

managed to yelling my name.

From that first woman, I thought maybe she was getting into an altercation.

with another student and I know that's not her.

And so I kept telling her to calm down and I can't understand what you're saying.

And I asked her to do that several times.

And I was like, what's going on?

And that's when she got out.

Someone shot Martin.

And I asked her what.

And she said, someone shot me.

And I was like, what?

It just won't register.

And again, asking her, you know, where

she said, mommy, I was shot in the chest.

And she said, Lauren is not moving.

Mommy, I got shot in the chest.

Imagine hearing that from your child.

Michaela's mother dropped everything and left her job as an elementary school teacher to rush to her daughter.

Michaela's mother had already made it to the scene when the Landavazos got word that something had happened.

And I heard a promotion outside.

I heard that

I'm not sure.

I heard neighbors and something about kids being down.

And then as I was sitting there trying to process that,

I heard Bianca

and just the way she said it, something about kids.

And there was just something in her voice saying something, something was wrong, something was horribly wrong.

And as I was coming out of the room to try to find out what was going on, I heard the front door close.

And by the time I got to it, Bianca wasn't there.

So when I went outside, she was already running down the street.

And I I was kind of calling after her, where are you going?

Where are you going?

Vern, Londavazzo, didn't know what was going on or where his wife was running.

The only clue he had was something about kids being down and the sound of fear in his wife's voice before she bolted out the front door.

He hopped into his truck and started driving.

As I was driving down there, it's right around the corner.

I remember

at one point stopping the the truck and pulling over thinking

there's a pilot and things at that school.

It's not her, it can't be her.

So I stopped

and I called her cell phone

and

if it rang, it maybe rang only one time, but

somebody answered the phone

and instantly what I heard was screaming.

I didn't know at the time that it was Bianca screaming, but I heard somebody screaming her name and the way she was screaming it.

I knew, I knew, I instantly went cold.

And I just knew I got out of the truck

and I walked down to the corner and as soon as I got to the corner I could see the crime scene tape

and as I turned the corner that

what I almost said I tumbled in everything seems kind of like there was a white fog around everything except for

Lauren.

I saw Lauren lying there.

And she wasn't covered and there was no one around her.

And I just remember standing at the crime scene tape.

They wouldn't let him go to her.

And I could hear Neanda screaming in the background, but that was about all I could hear.

And just looking at her and wondering,

how come I'm not doing anything?

How come she was just laying there?

Powerless, Vern watched from a distance as first responders finally started to treat Lauren.

Quickly, the two girls were put into an ambulance, headed for the hospital.

So they let me into the ambulance, and as we were

sitting there, and they were working on her, and I was looking back at them, and that was the first time I had noticed a blood.

I didn't notice blood while she was lying there, but when I looked back, I could see her hair, and it was blood in her hair.

As we were thinking, oh my god,

that's not the blood in her hair.

But also, what I heard was

I don't be in my heartbeat.

Lauren's parents, Vern and Bianca, held on to a thread of hope as they rode with their daughter to the hospital.

But when they got there, they were led into a family waiting room.

Bianca feared it was because their daughter was gone.

Bianca spoke to her knees and started screaming.

I was trying to tell her grandmother's not that.

They're just here to tell us

what they're going to do

to help her.

And

when they told us that she was gone,

most people who knew Lauren knew how special she was.

There's always something about Lauren, and I know all parents

have that tone about their children.

There's something special about that child, that even in comparison to my sons, that there was just something about Lauren.

It's hard to explain, just that she seemed

so much wiser than her years.

She always said, I remember even being two or three years old.

looking over and seeing her look at me and the way she was looking at me that there was

something going on behind her and it just seemed she was just

so much more advanced than you would think a child would be as far as her compassion for people, her kindness, just how tender she was with other people.

Very kind and

open-minded.

She was very positive about everything.

You couldn't help but love her, and not just us, not just the family, but she made friends so easily.

We heard the kids at school would just

almost idolize her because she was so popular.

I think probably what made me the proudest, it was just how she interacted with people, especially other children, how kind she was to them.

I never saw her once be mean to somebody, say anything.

Quite the opposite.

She went out of her way.

If she knew that somebody was troubled, she went out of her way to reach out to that person.

Definitely a happy, beautiful girl.

She had a big heart.

She's always helping her friends.

If you're having a bad day, she was the uplifter.

She was very well loved.

Lauren made a positive impact on anyone who knew her.

She always wore a smile.

when she looked at you with her beautiful blue eyes and you just knew she genuinely cared.

With the loss of a community sweetheart, the police were pressed to solve this attack.

They needed to speak with Michaela and hear her recollection of events.

I remember he stopped and I was,

we all kind of just like stopped walking

and

I was paying attention to him and I was looking at him and like he looked up at me and we made eye contact for a few seconds and then he turned and like he got his weapon and he pointed it at me

and as i was moving i got hit and like i thought i got hit in the middle of my chest and i couldn't breathe

and Kyra was asking if I was okay and like I couldn't speak and I was waving at her to go

and kind of like motioning for everybody else to move.

Michaela heard the deluge of shots after she was hit.

After she motioned for the other children in the alley to run, she wondered why no one else was being hit.

Little did she know that Lauren took the brunt of those shots.

She relayed to the police what she remembered about the man or boy who did it.

I'd say he was between my kids,

20s or like 17, 18.

He had brown hair and it was like shaggy, kind of, a shaggy thing.

And he had acne and he had a big nose.

She said she locked eyes with the killer.

And he was a white male between the ages of 17 and 20, with unkempt long brown hair, acne, and a big nose.

But where her memory failed her was the vehicle he was driving.

And can you describe the vehicle that you remember?

It was a black truck

and it had

silver, those silver bars that you would step on to get in.

As the police addressed the public about the shooting, they initially released the description that Michaela gave them.

Just right before 3.30 p.m., we received a 911 call in reference to check welfare, in reference to shots fired call in the 5100 block to Kingston, actually in the alleyway.

When we arrived on scene, we located one subject

that had suffered

what we believe right now.

Keep in mind, this is all still new.

It's still just occurring.

We saw, we have two individuals that

suffered from a parents' parent's gunshot wounds.

From what I was told, right now, both victims are female.

Suspect information, the only thing that we have at this point is a possible suspect driving a black

SUV,

black truck type vehicle, a white male,

shaggy brown hair.

Michaela recalled the killer was driving a black truck, but her memory was flawed.

Everyone else saw a gold SUV except for John, the guy who jumped the fence.

He saw both the gold SUV and the black truck.

Not knowing which description was accurate, or if maybe there were two shooters, they released both vehicle descriptions to the public.

The shooter was a young white male with shaggy brown hair, acne, and a big nose driving a gold-colored SUV.

Most likely a Chevrolet Tahoe or a black Dodge truck.

In the couple of days that followed the shooting, there wasn't a person in Wichita Falls who didn't know of the tragedy and the description of the killer.

The community banded together to memorialize Lauren at the site of her death with her favorite color, purple.

Happens to be my favorite color, too.

People who didn't even know her came to pay their respects, like Joanne and Faustino Ramirez.

Yes, we heard it on the radio and the news who they were looking for.

It was pretty widely spread throughout news media and social media, was it not?

Yes, ma'am.

Faustino wanted to go look at a memorial where they had started putting memorials up for Lauren.

I did not.

It was a sad situation, and we didn't really know her, or we didn't know her at all.

But he wanted to go just take a drive by there.

It was hard for any citizen of Wichita Falls to not be moved by the tragedy, even if they had no connection to Lauren at all.

We drove through the neighborhood trying to find where the memorial was.

We kind of got lost in some streets we didn't know, and we ended up on Trinidad where the memorial site is.

When they found the memorial, there were crying people everywhere.

Not wanting to get in the way of those who likely had a personal connection with Lauren, they waited in the truck.

And we just didn't want to get out of the truck and, you know, be in the way.

So we just kind of pulled over to the side to, you know, just wait, maybe it would clear and then we could see, but we never got that chance.

Okay.

And why did you not get that chance?

Because while we were waiting, Faustino, you know, we just said, well, look out for a vehicle, you know, just make sure we don't see a vehicle going by.

And we saw a vehicle drive by us that was the description of the SUV.

It was a gold SUV.

We saw that it was a young white male that they were possibly looking for.

We kind of just followed them.

He turned into, on patron daddy turned into right into the apartment complex, and of course we followed.

They didn't even know Lauren, but when they saw a vehicle and driver matching the description of the news, they decided to follow him.

He drove past the memorial and stopped at an apartment complex mere feet away from the alley.

He went to the back passenger door.

He opened the door and he proceeded to get what looked like a rifle or something.

He tucked it up under his arm like he put the butt of the gun underneath with the blanket,

then to wrap it up and he like took it towards the apartment complex.

They had the SUV, the driver, and now the rifle.

Joanne called 911 immediately.

I grabbed a pen that was in Faustino's check and just scribbled it on the palm of my hand so that I could, while we were calling, let the police know the license plate number.

What color ink was that?

It was a purple ink.

She wrote down the license plate number in purple ink.

Lauren's favorite color.

What a coincidence.

Perhaps her spirit lives on.

Now, what was your emergency?

Um, We were driving by the accident that happened at Trinidad and Kingston, and we pulled into a certain road and it goes to the South and Gay's apartment.

And there's a kid that just drove up in a Tahoe with shaggy hair and hat, and he got,

it looked like a rifle.

He had it wrapped in clothes and blankets, and he was trying to get it off in a hurry.

He just went into the apartment.

They were parked a little ways away and watched.

While they waited for police to arrive, the suspect exited the apartment.

Now, without the rifle, he got back in his SUV.

They expected him to exit the complex the way he entered, but they lost him when he used an exit on the other side.

Almost like an episode of Keystone Cops.

or perhaps a more modern version would be Reno 911.

Still, police knew his approximate location, and they had his license plate number, so why put in the work when you have surveillance?

After all, it was only a matter of time before he would be caught.

And if you're on the government payroll, then what's the rush?

Moments later, the police made a traffic stop of the gold SUV, with the shaggy driver.

He pulled over and cooperated with the officers.

They asked him to step out of the vehicle and they patted him down.

Then they searched his SUV, but there was no gun.

But they did find a belt buckle in the shape of brass knuckles, and there was enough to arrest him on misdemeanor charges of weapon possession and bring him in for questioning.

Twenty-year-old Cody Lott didn't work and wasn't in school.

He lived in Seymour, Texas, about a fifty to sixty minute drive southwest of Wichita Falls.

He did have shaggy hair, acne, and a big nose.

He was thin and kind of looked like an evil Timothy Chalamay, if that helps.

Actually, I'm not sure if the real Timothy Chalamay is good or evil, so

Timminy Timothy Chalamets walk around these days, if you ask me.

I don't even know what that means.

Anyway, don't take my word for it.

Just Google the two people.

Cody Lott is his name with two T's at the end.

He claimed the only reason he was in town was to feed his mother's dog while she was on vacation.

That and pick up some money she'd left for him.

After all, you know, like I said, he didn't work

at all.

He denied that anything related to guns would be in his vehicle and explained that since an incident last year, his family kept guns away from him.

But I mean, like I said, like I used to be able to kind of get away with guns, but like there was an incident that happened last summer where I had to go to a cycle for two months.

So ever since then, my grandma has kept the guns have been served away from me.

Like nobody lets have access to my punch or nothing like that.

The incident he so casually refers to was an armed standoff with deputies in Seymour, Texas.

His parents reported that he was at his grandmother's threatening to shoot folks.

That's a quote.

The event warranted the Texas Rangers and three officers from the Department of Public Safety Criminal Investigation Division.

One of the CID officers was a hostage negotiator and quickly talked Cody out of the house.

He was later ordered to get treatment and diagnosed as bipolar and paranoid schizophrenic.

But yeah, yeah, yeah, there's no connection between crazy people and murder.

Yeah, just keep telling yourself that.

Ooh, let's not stigmatize.

He knew about murder.

He fit the description of the suspect and he was driving an SUV that also matched the description.

But he was adamant that it wasn't him.

The police, though, knew something Cody didn't, and it had to do with what else they found in his Tahoe.

Hmm.

It only took a moment for Cody to explain away the shell casing.

He had been shooting a year ago.

He was being cooperative, just not very helpful.

Two little girls were hurt by somebody.

And then

whoever did this,

probably,

I mean, from my experience, whoever did this probably

needs some help.

Now,

what happened to the girls is terrible.

Whoever did this definitely needs some help, man.

And I'm talking about some serious psychological help.

And how how are they going to get that unless we can find out if you get that and help them?

Does anyone else get the feeling that they are talking about him?

He claimed to be a loner, and only his mother cared about him.

He claimed his father molested him and beat his mother.

He had a long list of run-ins with the law and seemed to be spiraling.

into a life of drugs and crime.

To the police, in addition to everything else, he seemed to fit the profile of someone who would randomly shoot two little girls.

Of course, he continued to deny having anything to do with Lauren's death.

The only thing I would say is that my stepbrother, he's got long brown hair, and like,

they did say something about he might come by and get a gun.

I mean, you can't step brother, yeah, you can confirm that with my mom.

My mom is over, yeah, she told me over text message, she said, Georgia might come by and get Ryan's gun.

And I was like, I'm not trying to throw my stepbrother under the bus.

And I'm like, no, he goes, I'm not that type of person that you are.

But he's just like, I've tried to seek out windows he comes in, and I kind of got screwed over.

I'm not trying to throw my stepbrother under the bus or anything, but you should definitely look at him.

Wow.

The police didn't believe it for a second.

Remember, they had a witness who saw Cody with the rifle.

They started to press harder.

So if you were driving down Trinidad

and at the same time all this happened,

then

right now we can tell you that.

Seriously.

Because

yeah.

He finally admitted he was on Trinidad Drive the day of the shooting, but he was still claiming innocence.

Cody wanted to talk first, but he needed to be assured that he would be in solitary confinement.

He didn't think he could handle being in prison with real men.

So, when officers guaranteed they would make that happen, he began a new story.

I've had a problem, you know, with females for a while now.

I mean,

you already, even if anybody I know, they'll tell you absolutely that's something Cody would do.

They will say, absolutely, he is, he has hate in his heart.

They tell you that I talk about you and she like that all the time.

And, like, I've seen that girl I've been multiple times with her boyfriend, and her boyfriend was just okay with chomp with your kids that wasn't no man.

So it kind of just sparked a jealousy in me, man.

And I felt that was the way I was going to hand it with her.

He had seen Lauren walking with her boyfriend.

He described the boy as a little punk-looking kid that wasn't no man.

Those are his words.

Remember that we're talking about two 13-year-olds.

Their relationship sparked off a fit of jealousy in them, and he decided to shoot her.

What a romantic.

If you think this doesn't make any sense yet, just wait.

It's only gonna gonna get worse.

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20-year-old Cody Lott only tried to lie for a little while before the excitement of sharing his story got the better of him, and he confessed.

That's what simple people do.

They just offer up everything, all at once.

They can't keep their stupid little mouths shut.

So they blab and blab and blab.

Cody Lott admitted he was the only one who shot Lauren and Michaela.

But his reasoning for why he did it was even more baffling than the act itself.

Tell me more specifically, what did you do and what happened?

Well, on the day before, I got an all-dressed setup and I was going to just go approach the girl and I thought, man, you're walking from the base for now.

man, I go stuck in girls with y'all.

So I mean that end cased me off, you know, I was like, that was nice to him wins and nothing.

You know, what girl I try to be respectful to be nice to you, men, they said, Razan says crazy, the definition of crazy is just repeating the same thing.

So it's like, it's an obvious thing that I guess just, you know, me being

looking how I do or whatever, me being nice is something that hazard being digging away.

You know, I had to try something else too, you know,

He tried to explain that he first thought about introducing himself to her, but then remembered how young she was.

This too pissed him off.

This is where his rationale begins to get a little twisted.

It's important to remind everyone that a sign of schizophrenia is disorganized thinking.

Somehow, he went from the thought of her being too young to the idea that trying to be nice to her or any girl wasn't going to get him anywhere, either.

So, he had to change tactics.

Sure, if being nice to a girl doesn't get her attention, the next logical step is to um

kill her.

This was something that I thought about doing.

This ain't something that just popped in my head and I said, you know what?

I'm going to go and just fucking do this.

You see, get something out of my chest.

But I saw her.

I had to go fire in my car like a couple of days before.

And I made eye contact with her eyes with gins or something to me.

Like, I was like, oh, I was like, how could someone have such beautiful eyes?

So you pretty much knew it.

Oh, man.

I watched her for about a year.

And then

for a year, I had seen a woman with a boyfriend.

I hadn't had access to a gun.

He watched her for a year from his mother's apartment, every day building on his infatuation with her.

She was too young, I know, but she was a truck.

She was young.

I've never had the opportunity to even be in the presence of a girl that's that beautiful.

Like, I've seen girls on me, like, I hate to talk.

I don't mean to cross his no way that I ever have lustrobons about this girl.

The only kind of girl I've ever seen has that virtuous or in porn videos.

He pined for a woman, and when the women his age wouldn't have anything to do with him, Lauren got caught in the crosshairs.

He found the barely pubescent girl beautiful, but he equated Lauren's beauty to the women in porn videos.

If you're thinking this guy couldn't get any more out of touch, think again.

This was spiritual.

This was all I wanted God to know, hey, man, I've had enough.

You fucked me.

This is all something I was wanting to be patient about.

I've been patient, you know.

Like, it's nothing but hell here.

And I don't care what people say.

She, you know, people said, oh, man, like,

she never even got a chance at life, is what I've read.

Like, trust me, I'm sure she saw that her innocence was going to slowly start being punished.

You know, that would say no good deed goes unpunished.

It's like she would have ended up going to like a clarity and being raped, or she, there would have been something a lot worse than what I did would have happened to her.

So I thought I was just going to go ahead and save her from the eagles of the world.

If he couldn't have her, the only thing he could do to save her from the evils that he knew would eventually befall her, he had to, you know, sacrifice her to the devil.

Because all of that shit makes sense.

He was glad he did it so people could feel his pain.

What a little bitch.

Boy, would I love a couple minutes with this kid in a locked room with no cameras.

Yeah,

that's a fantasy.

Eventually, he would express some regret.

Regret that he didn't kill her instantly, so he didn't have to hear her scream.

But her scream was equally stinned.

And

I'll think about that till the day I die.

He said he never intended for her to suffer.

He only wanted for her to die.

He didn't regret what he did, only that he should have done it differently.

Think about that.

Hey, Cody, I'm sure that there's plenty of people in Wichita Falls that feel the same way.

It's not surprising that after Cody admitted to finding the 13-year-old Lauren attractive, they found several images of child pornography on his phone.

One of the images was confirmed by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children as being that of an eight-year-old engaged in a sexually explicit act.

Cody was arrested and charged with murder, aggravated assault, possession of a prohibited weapon, and three counts of possession of child pornography.

This guy is going to have a lot of fun in prison when the inmates find out not only that he killed a kid, but that he's also, you know, interested in them sexually.

You hear that, inmates at the Skyview Unit in Rusk, a correctional institution that's part of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

You hear that, guys?

His name is Cody Lott with two Ts.

Anyway, Cody wasn't charged with capital murder, which meant the death penalty was off the table.

At the time, the law in Texas only allowed capital murder charges to be applied under a few circumstances, including causing the death of a child under the age of 10.

But Lauren was 13.

I hope that Cody Lott gets the fullest sentence he can and it's a shame that the death penalty

can't be instated.

I don't want him to get insanity because he clearly thought it out probably for a long time.

Two years after the murder, the trial finally began.

Cody's hair was longer and somehow he was even thinner.

He looked kind of like White Jesus on meth

or Jared Leto.

Of course, his defense tried to play the insanity card, but Cody wasn't as crazy as he sounded.

While he did suffer from a mental illness, and maybe it played a part in his plan, he thought about committing this crime for a year.

Surely, there were moments of lucidity within that year.

A year of opportunities to decide, nah, I'm not going going to kill her.

Maybe I'll just play some Xbox instead.

And after he fired his gun into an alley full of middle schoolers, he tried to get away with it.

He ditched the gun and then went back to retrieve it when he thought he was home free.

The bottom line, he knew at the time of the murder that it was morally and legally wrong.

In court, he sat still, seemingly detached, as the terrified children recalled the events of that day.

I just hope he has a long, miserable life

in prison.

I hope he never sees a free moment.

And I hope he lives a long time.

And

maybe someday when he's old and gray, and maybe then he'll show some remorse.

We've just not seen any

signs of that so far.

You know, watching him in court, he's not

emotionless.

and I think that's

indicative of how he committed such a heinous crime

and shows no remorse for it.

After five days of trial and less than an hour of deliberation, the verdict was guilty, and he was sentenced to 20 years for the aggravated assault on Michaela.

10 years for each count of child pornography, and a life in prison for the murder of Lauren.

He is, though, eligible for parole on September 3rd, 2046.

A day that's quite fitting because

it's one day after the 30th anniversary of Lauren's death.

He robbed so many people, so many kids out there that day of their innocence.

It feels two years.

Sometimes it feels like it was just yesterday.

Sometimes it feels like it was a million years ago.

But

we've had this

day in our sight since that happened.

Hoping that the person responsible for so much suffering would finally face justice for that and have to do some suffering of his own.

The result of today, it doesn't bring Lauren back.

It doesn't make us miss her any less.

It doesn't make her death any less tragic.

There is a kind of a closure that you get when you know that the the person responsible is

going to suffer.

But that wasn't good enough for the Land of Azos.

They sought to change the law that governed capital murder charges.

They wanted to raise the age requirement from 10 to 15 so that killers like Cody, Lott, in the future would be able to be sentenced to death.

It's something that keeps coming up over and over again, but I don't think anyone can truly understand

the importance of the death penalty unless you've had someone taken from you like this.

The need for revenge,

the need for justice, for accountability, is overwhelming.

Even though you may not agree with the government killing citizens, this is a case where the citizens themselves demand it.

And they did it, too.

The following year, on the day before the third anniversary of her death, Governor Abbott signed Lauren's Law into effect, raising the age limit to 15 years of age.

I'm going to be signing Senate Bill 719, which is known as Lauren's Law.

We all agree that there are nothing more vulnerable, nothing more precious than our children, and we have to be able to change the law to reflect that.

There are going to be future victims that are children.

This is for me.

This is for them, and I know our daughter would approve.

Hopefully, Cody Lott will never get out of prison.

Why should he?

The effects of what he did linger in the minds of her family and friends.

It will,

until their dying day.

So why shouldn't he have to suffer until his?

Crystal suffered panic attacks after the event.

Many kids were no longer allowed to walk home from school.

Michaela will always be reminded of the violent end of her beloved friend every time she feels the bullet fragment still inside her chest.

The devil didn't make Cody Lott kill Lauren.

That's silly.

Stop believing in fairy tales.

You're an adult.

That was just how his drug-riddled brain, which wasn't too great to begin with, rationalized the guilt he felt for doing such a thing.

He didn't hear voices shouting commands.

He didn't talk to the devil.

He certainly didn't talk to God.

That's for sure.

He was just a leech to his mother, a parasite to his community.

He was an uneducated, unemployed, lazy piece of shit who thought the world owed him something.

Does this sound familiar yet?

Because it describes everyone we've ever talked about over the last 11 years now.

And when the world didn't hand him a girlfriend, he didn't wonder what he was doing wrong.

Of course not.

No, why would you why would you do that?

Why not just blame everyone else instead?

Blame the world around.

It's not me.

It's everybody.

It's everything.

Right?

Right?

You know how this pattern of thinking perpetuates and wiggles its way into our brains.

Every one of us, not just idiots like Cody.

This entitlement, this sense that somebody owes you something,

it's cancer.

This is the result of cancer.

Cody Lott never learned the lesson that sometimes you just can't have

what you want.

You just can't.

It doesn't work that way.

But then again, it's not like he even tried to work hard and make a life for himself.

Now,

that'd be too hard.

Instead, why not take it out on poor Lauren?

To which a good life just seemed to come naturally.

A senseless act committed randomly that only made sense in one man's mind but affected those kids and their families for the rest of their lives.

Why

blame yourself when you can blame the world

instead?

Speaking of being disappointed, this is our last regular episode before I take a much needed break, which I promise you is very necessary.

We'll have one more plus episode before we go.

We'll see you right back here next year for season 12.

Stay safe.