Episode 273

Speaker 2 This fall, let your home smell as good as it looks.

Speaker 5 Pura's app-controlled diffusers bring you premium scents from brands like Nest New York, Capri Blue, and Anthropology.

Speaker 8 From Spice Pumpkin to Whitewoods, your fall favorites are just a tap away.

Speaker 1 It's home fragrance that feels as elevated as it smells, and right now, it's the perfect time to stock up.

Speaker 10 Visit Pura.com and bring home the best scents of the season.

Speaker 3 Cozy up with fragrance that feels like fall and smells unforgettable.

Speaker 6 Pura's smart, app-controlled diffusers pair with premium scents from brands like Nest New York, Capri Blue, Anthropology, and more.

Speaker 9 Whether you're craving spiced pumpkin, warm amber, or nostalgic woody notes, there's a scent to match every mood in every space.

Speaker 3 Discover why Pura is the go-to for premium home fragrance.

Speaker 5 Start your fall refresh now at Pura.com.

Speaker 12 Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

Speaker 13 This would have had to be in a pretty bloody scene. The body had like

Speaker 13 close to 40-some stab wounds, and so somebody to see all that would be probably a lot to take in.

Speaker 11 Oh boy, we got a doozy for you today.

Speaker 11 I think you're gonna like it. It's gonna feel like the old days.
This is episode 273 of Sword and Scale, a show that reveals that the worst monsters are real.

Speaker 11 I hate to be that guy, but we do have mouths to feed around here. We're not state-sponsored like that communist NPR.

Speaker 11 So check out our store: store at swordandscale.com.

Speaker 2 This fall, let your home smell as good as it looks.

Speaker 5 Pura's app-controlled diffusers bring you premium scents from brands like Nest New York, Capri Blue, and Anthropology.

Speaker 1 From Spice Pumpkin to Whitewoods, your fall favorites are just a tap away. It's home fragrance that feels as elevated as it smells, and right now it's the perfect time to stock up.

Speaker 10 Visit Pura.com and bring home the best scents of the season.

Speaker 11 About 30 miles south of downtown Chicago is the birthplace of Michael Jackson, Gary, Indiana.

Speaker 11 Nicknamed the Magic City for its technological advancements in the 1960s, Gary is mostly known for being the most significant contributor of steel manufacturing in the United States.

Speaker 11 The city's main steel mill, named Gary Works, is the largest steel manufacturing plant in the country. At its peak, the city had more than 200,000 people living there.

Speaker 11 Since the 1960s, though, Gary has seen a steep population decline.

Speaker 11 What was once a bustling city brimming with innovation has largely become a place of abandonment and rural decay, much like a lot of cities throughout the U.S. especially in the last four years.

Speaker 11 It has since been dubbed the most miserable city in America. But plenty of people still live in Gary, Indiana.
Many people call it home. The population currently sits at about 70,000.

Speaker 11 Back in the late spring of 2014, the year that Swordenscale started, I might add, there was a young woman living in Gary who was excited to share some big news. with her family.

Speaker 11 This young lady told her mother, father, and two older sisters that she was pregnant with twins. Well, our sisters, I'm the oldest.

Speaker 11 Next thing you know, you know, she tells me that she's had twins. In 2014, 36-year-old Geraldine Jones worked as a census surveyor in Gary, Indiana.

Speaker 11 She had grown up up in a tight-knit Christian family and seemed thrilled to tell her two older sisters, April and Tamiko, that she was pregnant with twins.

Speaker 11 Sadly, that exciting announcement was followed up with some tragic news. A few months later, Geraldine told her sisters that one of her babies had died.

Speaker 11 After Geraldine broke the news about the loss of one of her babies, she seemed to fall into a deep depression.

Speaker 11 Then came the day that Geraldine was supposed to give birth to her surviving baby.

Speaker 11 That morning I heard from her, and then I didn't, that Monday, I didn't hear from her no more. So

Speaker 11 I called my sister because I'm thinking, like, okay, well, you know, you know, I called April. April was like, well,

Speaker 11 she was leaving work trying to get to the hospital.

Speaker 11 But the thing is, she didn't tell us what hospital she was ever at. So by this time, I had left work, you know, my dad is here, his wife is here, my sister is there.

Speaker 11 So we're all trying to ride around trying to figure out what hospital we might find her at. We called up to North Lake, we went out to South Lake because we were already in that area.

Speaker 11 And we went over to Holberg the Hospital, and they had no whereabouts of her. Geraldine's family and friends frantically tried to find out what hospital Geraldine had gone to,

Speaker 11 but they never could.

Speaker 11 Geraldine was missing. Did she ever tell you who the baby daddy was?

Speaker 14 Yeah, we knew who we thought it was.

Speaker 14 Randy Garrett. Randy Garrett.

Speaker 11 For much of her life, Geraldine was unlucky in love. But in March of 2014, her luck seemed to change when she met a young man named Randy Garrett.

Speaker 14 My first time meeting Randy was last year, or my sister April was getting married, and that was my first time meeting him when

Speaker 14 he came to the wedding with my sister. But that was my first time.

Speaker 11 As far as Tamiko and April could tell, Randy seemed like a good, respectable guy. And Geraldine was clearly all in on her relationship with him.

Speaker 11 Unfortunately, after only a few months of dating, Randy broke things off with Geraldine.

Speaker 13 Started out, you told me you met her back around

Speaker 13 March of end of March last year. 2014.
2014. Okay.
We were dating, but I started finding out more things about um she was kind of being dishonest about some things which kind of turned turned me off.

Speaker 13 So things like that just kept adding up and not not jiving so kind of cut it off. Okay.

Speaker 11 Randy ended the relationship but he couldn't completely walk away from Geraldine.

Speaker 11 A few weeks after the breakup with her, Randy was told that Geraldine was pregnant with twins and that he

Speaker 11 was the father.

Speaker 13 How soon after that did she say she was pregnant?

Speaker 13 She called me like at the end of June of that year and told me she was

Speaker 13 pregnant. So that's about three months after you met her.

Speaker 11 After learning that he was going to be a dad, Randy naturally committed himself to the role.

Speaker 11 Even though he had no plans of continuing a romantic relationship with Geraldine,

Speaker 11 he decided that he was going to be a responsible dad.

Speaker 11 And good for him. We need a lot more of that.
A few months after she told everyone about the pregnancy, her sister and friends threw a baby shower for Geraldine, and Randy attended.

Speaker 13 So I actually went.

Speaker 13 It was actually a nice shower. It was a nice shower.
I think her friends put it on for her. They had it all decorated and she had signs, Garrett's girls.
I saw that, I'm like, wow.

Speaker 11 This extravagant baby shower was fun. It was a happy time for everyone involved.
Unfortunately, the good times didn't last.

Speaker 11 A few months later, Geraldine told her sisters and Randy that one of her babies had died.

Speaker 11 Geraldine slipped into a deep depression, and when the day came for Geraldine to give birth to the surviving baby, nobody could find her.

Speaker 11 All you have to do is, I even went to the hotel. Someone's like, I don't know what's going on.
Is she okay? You know, she goes, I don't know. I don't know.

Speaker 14 I left work early, so it was a big mess the day that we thought that she was going into half or had lost the baby. We never did find her.

Speaker 11 36-year-old Geraldine Jones was missing, and her two sisters, Tamiko and April, were very concerned.

Speaker 11 Meanwhile, about 200 miles south of Geraldine's home, there was another woman who was having problems of her own.

Speaker 16 911, where's your emergency?

Speaker 15 10 West Clare Street, Anderson, Indiana.

Speaker 16 What's going on there? I got some random text message from my girlfriend. It kind of came off as suicidal.
I was just wondering if he'd send someone out there to check on it. Are you not in town?

Speaker 16 No, I'm not. I'm in Nobleville.

Speaker 13 All right, what's your name?

Speaker 16 Sylva. Her name's Samantha Fleming.

Speaker 13 Samantha Fleming.

Speaker 13 Yes.

Speaker 16 And what's she say in the text? Something about she was tired of all this shit. She just didn't want to deal with it anymore.
She was talking about her mother. Her mother just came over.

Speaker 16 It was just kind of totally random. Never been suicidal before, but I prefer to be safe.

Speaker 11 In 2015, 23-year-old Samantha Fleming was living in an apartment with her boyfriend in Anderson, Indiana. In March of that year, Samantha gave birth to a baby girl that she named Serenity.

Speaker 11 About a month later, April 6th, 2015, Samantha's boyfriend went to the Anderson Police Department and reported that Samantha and Serenity were missing.

Speaker 15 It's my understanding that you reported to the police that your girlfriend was missing. Your current girlfriend was missing.
Yes. Okay.
And her name is Samantha? Samantha Farm, yes.

Speaker 15 Describe her to me.

Speaker 15 How old is she? She's 23. 23?

Speaker 15 July 18th,

Speaker 15 1993, I believe.

Speaker 11 Samantha and her boyfriend, Rainey Stanley, had only dated for less than a year, and Rainey wasn't the father of Samantha's newborn baby girl.

Speaker 11 The couple met online just a few weeks after Samantha learned that she was pregnant. They quickly became close, though, and moved into an apartment together.

Speaker 11 After the birth of Serenity, Rainey planned to formally adopt the child.

Speaker 15 How old have you and Samantha been living together?

Speaker 15 Probably about eight months now.

Speaker 15 Okay, how long have you known her?

Speaker 15 I knew her probably for about

Speaker 15 well, we talked for about a month prior.

Speaker 15 So, what do you mean you talked? We talked on an online chat app.

Speaker 15 Okay, so is that how you met her? Yeah, that's how I met her. Okay, and then did you and her have a child? No, we do not.
Okay, did she just have a child? She did. Okay.

Speaker 15 And

Speaker 15 when does she have a child?

Speaker 15 The 24th of March.

Speaker 15 And

Speaker 15 what's this child's name?

Speaker 15 Serenity. Serenity Flani.

Speaker 11 Samantha and her baby girl were reported missing. Unfortunately, since Samantha was an adult and presumably with her child, an Amber alert could not be sent out.
Just didn't fit.

Speaker 11 Samantha's mom began handing out flyers asking everyone and anyone to help her find Samantha. On those flyers, she wrote the following.

Speaker 11 According to her boyfriend, Samantha and Serenity disappeared from their home in Anderson, Indiana on Monday 6th, around 12.50 p.m.

Speaker 11 Samantha left with only a few diapers, one sleeper, and some formula. Nobody has had any contact with Samantha.
Her wallet was found near Fifth Street in Gary, Indiana. We suspect foul play.

Speaker 11 Eventually, the local media picked up on this story and began reporting about the disappearance of Samantha and her baby.

Speaker 17 Tonight on the night meet, Anderson's police are searching for a missing mother and her infant. Samantha and Serenity Fleming were last seen Monday morning.

Speaker 17 23-year-old Samantha Fleming and her newborn Serenity were reported missing by her boyfriend earlier this month.

Speaker 11 Two Indiana women, Geraldine Jones and Samantha Fleming, went missing. They live nearly 200 miles apart and seemed to have no connection to each other at all.

Speaker 11 The only similarity they shared was that Geraldine was expecting a baby and Samantha just had a baby. Weird.

Speaker 11 For Indiana investigators, this was a baffling case that only became more bizarre and troubling as the events unfolded. As the police worked to make sense of things, so too did Geraldine's sisters.

Speaker 11 Ultimately, their paths converged. On the same day, and at about the same time, Geraldine's sisters and police investigators came upon a horrific scene.
Together,

Speaker 11 they came upon the aftermath of a brutal and senseless

Speaker 11 murder.

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Speaker 2 This fall, let your home smell as good as it looks.

Speaker 5 Pura's app-controlled diffusers bring you premium scents from brands like Nest New York, Capri Blue, and Anthropology.

Speaker 1 From Spice Pumpkin to Whitewoods, your fall favorites are just a tap away. It's home fragrance that feels as elevated as it smells, and right now, it's the perfect time to stock up.

Speaker 10 Visit Pura.com and bring home the best scents of the season.

Speaker 11 In April of 2015, 23-year-old Samantha Fleming and her three-week-old daughter Serenity were reported missing. by Samantha's boyfriend, Rainey Stanley.

Speaker 11 Samantha and Rainey lived together in an apartment in Anderson, Indiana.

Speaker 11 According to Rainey, on the last day that Samantha went missing, a mysterious woman came to his apartment, claiming to be a case manager for Child Protective Services, which is also known as CPS.

Speaker 11 If you've paid attention to any episode in the last 10 years.

Speaker 15 So when did she disappear Monday? About 12.50. So this past Monday? Yep.
What did she do? I mean, how did she leave? Whatever A caseworker came to my house. I opened the door.

Speaker 15 She identified herself as a case manager. She was here to do a surprise visit.
She looks, she's dressed business-like.

Speaker 15 And

Speaker 15 she

Speaker 15 let herself in. I didn't give her consent to walk into my house.

Speaker 15 She takes it upon herself to sit down at my table. What's her name?

Speaker 18 Didn't get her name.

Speaker 15 She just said she was a case manager with DCS. I told her Samantha was sleeping.
She told me I needed to wake her up. Well, I ended up going to wake up Samantha.

Speaker 15 Samantha gets up, and then she went on to mention that the same man at the court gave me. Samantha didn't hear the baby.

Speaker 11 Rainey explained to investigators that Serenity wasn't Samantha's only child. Samantha also had a son named Stephen.

Speaker 11 Before meeting and ultimately living with Rainey, Samantha had dated a different man.

Speaker 11 Allegedly, that relationship was abusive.

Speaker 15 Supposedly, he held her, her friend, and the baby Seaman hostage in his house and wouldn't let him go. Supposedly, he beat her.

Speaker 11 I guess

Speaker 13 he'd done it a couple of times, and the cops had been called out.

Speaker 15 That time, he was what it called criminal confinement, was charged with criminal confinement for holding her hostage, wouldn't let her leave.

Speaker 11 After several domestic incidents, a court ruled that Samantha and her ex were unfit parents.

Speaker 11 So, Samantha's son was placed into foster care. That ruling left Samantha completely devastated.
She knew that she was and could continue to be a good mother, in her mind.

Speaker 11 So, she broke up with her boyfriend, moved out of their apartment, and began doing everything she could to regain custody of her son.

Speaker 15 And she has one child in foster care.

Speaker 15 Yes, because she has to meet certain

Speaker 11 Given Samantha's child custody situation, it wasn't unusual for case managers from Child Protective Services to just randomly show up at Samantha's home.

Speaker 11 So, Rainey claimed that he didn't find it strange or suspicious that this woman showed up at his door asking to see Samantha.

Speaker 11 Supposedly, this woman told Samantha that there was a scheduling mix-up and that Samantha was due in court later that day. She explained that a hearing was going to be held about her son.

Speaker 11 In fact, a judge could rule that Samantha's son should be released from foster care and could go home with Samantha on that very day.

Speaker 11 Big news.

Speaker 15 She starts getting everything ready. I help her clean out a bottle.
So she has a couple of bottles to take with her. She gets the word back.

Speaker 15 She was getting ready to go with her because this lady told her she has a court at 3 o'clock in Gary, Indiana.

Speaker 15 She get brought.

Speaker 15 Didn't ask what her name was? She was taking your girlfriend? I didn't think to ask her. DCS comes around all the time.
It's kind of normal. They're allowed to take her places.

Speaker 15 I don't think much of it until I got outside. And what's funny is this lady came in, too, holding a folder of paperwork.
So she was acting like,

Speaker 15 you know, she had these papers for a reason. It's something to do with some methods.
So she was trying to look professional and she did a decent job of it.

Speaker 15 She She knew more than most people think someone else would know.

Speaker 15 But she's talking. Do you think she's been legitimate? She sounds like it.
She knows a lot about the case. I mean, my understanding is that they won't release that information to just anybody.

Speaker 15 She knew about Steven.

Speaker 11 According to Rainey, this CPS worker knew a lot about Samantha and her case.

Speaker 11 She seemed completely legitimate and suggested that Samantha should bring her baby daughter to the court hearing.

Speaker 15 And then she said something about, did you have to take the child with you?

Speaker 15 Yeah, she told her she had to take the child. It looked good for the judge.

Speaker 11 Rainy explained that Samantha was excited about the prospect of getting her son back, so he helped to pack a baby bag.

Speaker 11 A few moments later, Samantha, Serenity, and this mysterious CPS worker, whoever she was, walked out the door.

Speaker 11 Rainy followed them outside, and it was only after he saw the caseworker's car that he started to think something about this situation just didn't feel right.

Speaker 11 The car was a white Ford sedan, which wasn't unusual for a caseworker to drive, but Rainey noticed that the tag on her license plate was expired.

Speaker 11 Now that's odd. Rainey claimed that he didn't say anything about the tag, but he took a mental note of it and later wrote down the license plate number.

Speaker 15 but we got the information but we've already been to the person's house and everything this plate the plate number you gave us for Indiana

Speaker 15 in 2000 because you said it was expired right

Speaker 15 was expired and that car has been there it's white people

Speaker 15 they said they didn't even renew the plate the plates that's still on the car well they still have the plate They just didn't renew it.

Speaker 15 They liked it because it's white centers, so they kept the plate.

Speaker 11 And the lady talked to both parties and said, I i wonder if i didn't get the plate number wrong you could have when the police followed up on that license plate number the one that rainy gave them it led them to a middle-aged couple who clearly had no involvement with samantha fleming at all essentially rainy sent the cops on a wild goose chase which called his story into question

Speaker 11 still

Speaker 11 The police knew that Rainey was telling the truth about the CPS worker because Samantha and Rainey's neighbor also saw the woman. In fact, this neighbor led her into the apartment building.

Speaker 19 She said she was from CPS and I showed her upstairs. She had a paperwork, like, you know, a folder, a briefcase, stuff like that.
She was dressed professionally.

Speaker 19 She looked, you know, like somebody who worked for CPS or something.

Speaker 11 The police also determined that whoever this woman was, She did not work for Child Protective Services.

Speaker 11 The CPS office in Anderson confirmed that there were no court hearings or home visitations scheduled for Samantha Fleming.

Speaker 11 One theory that investigators entertained was that this whole thing might have been orchestrated by Samantha.

Speaker 11 Maybe she arranged to have this fake government worker show up at the apartment so she and her baby could leave and escape another abusive relationship.

Speaker 11 But Rainey didn't come off as the abusive type, and he seemed to genuinely care about Samantha.

Speaker 15 The only thing that's off was the suicidal thing.

Speaker 15 And like she said, she just needed to vent.

Speaker 15 I called 901 about it,

Speaker 15 and then I canceled the call.

Speaker 11 Samantha Fleming went missing on April 6th, 2015.

Speaker 11 And by April 16th, there was still no sign of her and no news about who the fake CPS worker was.

Speaker 11 Meanwhile, back in Gary, Indiana, the family of Geraldine Jones was finally able to find and make contact with Geraldine.

Speaker 11 Both of her sisters had frantically tried to find Geraldine on the day she was supposed to give birth, but they could never find out which hospital she went to.

Speaker 11 After that point,

Speaker 11 two weeks later,

Speaker 11 at this point, she wasn't talking to us anymore.

Speaker 11 She had gotten, I guess, pissed off, which I didn't understand. You know, you know, I think it was weird that we were concerned about somebody having a baby.

Speaker 11 When Geraldine first announced that she was pregnant, she told her family that she was going to be having twins. Later, she told her family that one of her babies had died somehow in her womb.

Speaker 11 The other one's fine, but this one's dead. How does that work? And that nobody seemed to care that she lost one of her children.
Woe is me.

Speaker 11 Oh my God, you'll never believe how hard it is to be a mother, especially if they're currently.

Speaker 13 She wasn't talking to us. So all of a sudden, then, you know, she sent out a bad text message to me.
It was a group text that involves my sister, my dad, mom, me. And she said she didn't mean it.

Speaker 13 But I called her and told her, I said, well, you know, I said, you sent out that message. I said, but, you know, everybody was acting out of being concerned.

Speaker 13 You know, I told her, I said, you know, that's not a message you send to people that's concerned about you.

Speaker 13 I said, you know, people only act out of being concerned, especially if it's a family member and you're having a baby. Right.

Speaker 11 Geraldine made amends with her two older sisters, both of whom were eager to meet their new niece. They wanted to see Geraldine's new baby girl.

Speaker 13 A couple days later, I decided, I said, you know what? You know, I called and told her, I said, well, before I go for work, I said, I want to come see the baby.

Speaker 13 So, you know, I went by there, me and my daughters, we go by there. And

Speaker 13 so, do you know about when the first time you saw the baby was? That Monday.

Speaker 11 Tamiko visited Geraldine's home and met with the baby. A few days later, Geraldine's older sister, April, did the same.

Speaker 20 She finally decided you want to talk, so she came to my job with Bella.

Speaker 14 I'm with baby, and I wasn't there, not at all.

Speaker 14 So I told Toya to tell her, I was just at her house.

Speaker 13 I told Toya to tell her, I'll be home in about an hour. So come out of the house.
So she came out of my house. My apartment, where I live at.
She came out of my apartment and brought Bella.

Speaker 14 We talked and she apologized for acted crazy.

Speaker 16 She came by, you saw the baby, you played with the baby, whatever. So after that,

Speaker 16 we talked every day after that.

Speaker 11 Geraldine reconnected with her family. Her sisters, April and Tamiko, were thrilled to meet their new niece.

Speaker 11 In a perfect world, this would have been a happy occasion, but this certainly wasn't a perfect world.

Speaker 11 April and Tamiko noticed that Geraldine wasn't acting like herself.

Speaker 11 She was distant and strange.

Speaker 11 Something was clearly bothering her.

Speaker 11 There was also another and much bigger problem.

Speaker 11 The baby that Geraldine introduced to her family didn't belong to her.

Speaker 11 In case you haven't figured it out, that baby belonged to Samantha Fleming.

Speaker 3 Cozy up with fragrance that feels like fall and smells unforgettable.

Speaker 6 Pura's smart, app-controlled diffusers pair with premium scents from brands like Nest New York, Capri Blue, Anthropology, and more.

Speaker 7 Whether you're craving spiced pumpkin, warm amber, or nostalgic woody notes, there's a scent to match every mood in every space.

Speaker 3 Discover why Pura is the go-to for premium home fragrance.

Speaker 5 Start your fall refresh now at Pura.com.

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Speaker 11 In the late spring of 2015, 36-year-old Geraldine Jones told her family that she had given birth to a new baby girl.

Speaker 11 Geraldine named the baby Bella and introduced Bella to her older sisters, April and Tamiko. After they met the baby, Geraldine did something strange.

Speaker 11 She left Bella with her sister April and flew to Texas

Speaker 11 okay how long ago did she leave in Texas she left in Texas that's right what kind of was she leave back in Texas she was just telling me that she's like maybe depressed

Speaker 11 and

Speaker 11 I'm trying to find consultants and well you know what I said people go through stuff like this all the time I said so and I said first

Speaker 11 I think like you know when you lose a baby maybe you go through some postpartum or something or you know Geraldine told her family that she was severely depressed and she wanted to be with her mom who was living in Texas.

Speaker 11 So she left her home of Gary, Indiana, without her baby and flew to her mom's house. Once there,

Speaker 11 Geraldine tried to kill herself by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. Thankfully, her mom was home at the time.
She found Geraldine and was able to call for help before the worst happened.

Speaker 13 Anything else y'all need to add? She ever said anything about wanting to hurt herself or kill herself or anything like that? The thing I had been sick and I just wasn't able to get there.

Speaker 13 So I really don't know everything. And when she lost the baby, she didn't, she wouldn't contact anybody.
Yeah. Not even no family member there.
So I can understand that too.

Speaker 11 After this failed suicide attempt, Geraldine was committed to a mental hospital in Texas.

Speaker 11 Her mom assumed that the loss of one of her babies and perhaps the postpartum depression that came with the living baby had caused Geraldine to do what she did.

Speaker 11 Meanwhile, back in Indiana, Geraldine's two sisters were starting to realize that this whole situation was a little weird, right?

Speaker 13 When she left, did you guys feel like something was

Speaker 13 I mean, not that, but did you guys, was you guys still like thinking, man, something's just wrong here? Like, this ain't all.

Speaker 13 I didn't think nothing was wrong, but I just, I was kind of upset because I was thinking that, you know, my thing was she had just had a baby and then she didn't tip off to Texas.

Speaker 13 And I said, well, who leaves a new baby? That's my, that wasn't meant. My main thing was, I was upset that she had left the baby.
Right.

Speaker 13 I just thought maybe, you know, like people, some women go to postpartum, I thought maybe that was it.

Speaker 11 Geraldine's oldest sister, Tamiko, was mostly able to chalk things up to postpartum depression. But Geraldine's other sister, April, wasn't satisfied with that.
Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.

Speaker 11 In an effort to hopefully make sense of things, April decided to go to Geraldine's house in Indiana.

Speaker 13 And so then you went to Geraldine's house? Yeah.

Speaker 13 Okay.

Speaker 13 What were you going there for exactly?

Speaker 22 Just get some asses, talk to them what's going on.

Speaker 13 Okay. And then Tamiko showed up.

Speaker 13 She kind of said this, and she wasn't saying nothing about it, but she said, April's the one that'll dig for information. I'm the one that just kind of stands by and leave it alone.

Speaker 13 This was after you guys had received a call that Geraldine tried to commit suicide.

Speaker 13 That's what I was saying. That's what prompted all that.
That's what prompted it because I felt like something must have happened. And something had to happen where she felt like no point of return.

Speaker 13 So I need to figure out what I'm getting myself into when I go to text.

Speaker 13 I don't know what's going on. That was my thing.

Speaker 11 April arrived at Geraldine's house and she brought along the new baby. A short while later, Tamiko showed up there as well.
As soon as they walked in the house, they knew something was wrong.

Speaker 11 They found empty bleach bottles scattered on the floor and there was an unexplainable eeriness about the place.

Speaker 11 Everything just felt off.

Speaker 14 But she was just saying it was just things that were there that just didn't really

Speaker 14 on the table, you know, on the couch, I was looking. So she, you know, she shows me the bucket.
And yeah, it was bleach and money and stuff in there.

Speaker 14 And as far as the kitchen, anything, I don't, you know, I just went in and washed a bottle and I set that bottle on the counter. But

Speaker 14 and I

Speaker 14 know it didn't smell right.

Speaker 14 Had I known that it might have been something in there, I got my ass out of it.

Speaker 11 For April and Tomiko, perhaps the most unsettling thing about Geraldine's house was the smell.

Speaker 11 A rank scent of rotting flesh mixed with pungent chemicals and bleach filled the house.

Speaker 11 And then like when I came in there and I was sitting there, I mean, you know, like, you know, when the garbage used to be taken out, and it didn't, it didn't really smell like garbage.

Speaker 11 It smelled like something else. I said, it's like I had to smell like something dead there.

Speaker 11 And she said, she said, that's what it smells like. She just smelled like something.
And it did.

Speaker 11 Yeah. Okay, other than the weird smell, was there anything out in the house that you observed?

Speaker 11 Well, my sister's, no, and once you pointed out, when I looked down at the table, it was about a bleach

Speaker 11 bottle and the big cup and all the other stuff in there. It's kind of like the first reaction when you walk in.

Speaker 11 Why did you think that? What made you think that? It's just about just little things.

Speaker 11 Like what? I mean, you tell it.

Speaker 11 Whatever you notice. Like, your sister noticed stuff.

Speaker 11 It's just the smell. First of all, it didn't smell right, Janine.
Like, oh, I don't know what bodies smell like, but it smells human.

Speaker 11 April and Tomiko spent some time looking around the house, but they never could locate the source of the awful smell.

Speaker 11 A short while later, April left while Tomiko remained at Geraldine's house with the baby.

Speaker 13 Where did she say she was going?

Speaker 13 April went to go wire my nephew some money because he was coming this way.

Speaker 13 He lives in Chicago, so he was just coming home.

Speaker 11 As Tamika waited in Geraldine's house, she looked out a window and noticed that a black car was slowly and repeatedly driving by the home.

Speaker 11 It seemed like the driver was lost in trying to find Geraldine's address. She was sitting there with the baby? Yeah, she sat on the cash with the baby.

Speaker 11 And first time when I was sitting there, I saw the black car drive past, and I just thought, maybe it's looking for somebody else, you know.

Speaker 11 But then when I saw him come back again, and he had the police officers, then I saw him walking, I said, I said, yeah, it looks like maybe they come here.

Speaker 11 It turned out that the black car belonged to the lead investigator who was trying to find Samantha Fleming. Through sheer coincidence, his path had converged with Tamiko.

Speaker 11 And they both arrived at Geraldine's house on the same day.

Speaker 13 At the time, this lady is basically a missing person until we can, you know, prove otherwise.

Speaker 13 And, you know, we don't automatically assume something bad, so we're starting on the bottom. And

Speaker 13 we had this blocked number. Well, that blocked number come back to Geraldine, and I just unblocked it the night before.

Speaker 13 So I called her phone and just said, hey, it's, I told her who I was and what police department I was with. She never answered.
I left it on the voice round.

Speaker 13 I was just going to ask her, you know, I know you're the one that came that called and you're the one that came to Anderson to get her. You know, where is she at?

Speaker 13 Were you just trying to help her get away from this guy? Did you know her from Gary and this was kind of like a setup?

Speaker 13 I was thinking maybe she just tried to lure him away from this guy and that Samantha knew about it. Samantha's still on the run somewhere.

Speaker 11 A few days before Samantha went missing, Samantha's mom received a phone call from a block number.

Speaker 11 When she answered, Samantha's mom spoke to a woman claiming to be a child protective services case manager.

Speaker 11 And this woman was fishing for information about Samantha when the police unblocked the phone number that led them to Geraldine Jones.

Speaker 11 She

Speaker 11 was the fake CPS worker. What's so strange?

Speaker 13 Like I said, I was sitting on the couch with the baby, and I'm talking to her like she's going to talk back. I said, hmm, I said they must be looking for somebody.
Right.

Speaker 13 But like, as I had no clue that you were looking for her address. Yeah.

Speaker 13 So had you been by there before? No, just that day. I actually came to Gary that day

Speaker 13 to try to find Geraldine.

Speaker 11 When the investigator arrived at Geraldine's house, he met with Tamiko in the driveway, who then led him into the home.

Speaker 13 I could smell the smell.

Speaker 13 You know, you know, I stopped it was, and this is my aunt, because I'd never smelled a body before. So I'm thinking, like, okay, maybe it's a dead mouse or something here.
Right.

Speaker 13 Yeah, I mean, I smell dead, you know, mice, but that smell itself would have been, uh, yeah, it was a lot. And it it it was kind of like

Speaker 13 it was kinda like a like I couldn't really tell a hundred percent. It was because there were some chemicals.

Speaker 13 And that's one, and it threw me off. And see, my April, April was like, well, me, she said, do you smell that?

Speaker 13 I said, and that's what I told her, I said, well, it can't, maybe it's a dead mouse or smell here. Maybe that's it.
Right.

Speaker 11 Once inside the house, the investigator performed a search, and he was able to find what Tamiko and April couldn't. In the back bedroom closet, there was a dead body, wrapped in plastic and duct tape.

Speaker 11 The body had been folded in half, stuffed into a plastic tote, and was soaking in a shallow pool of bleach.

Speaker 11 Unsurprisingly, the body was later identified as 23-year-old mother of two, Samantha Fleming.

Speaker 11 And her death was determined to have been caused by multiple stab wounds.

Speaker 13 This would have had to have been a pretty bloody scene. The body had like

Speaker 13 close to 40-some stab wounds. Right.
And so somebody to see all that would be probably a lot to take in, you know,

Speaker 13 just never dealing with that before. So, you know, that's a lot of stab wounds.

Speaker 11 At this point, the truth of the situation started to become apparent to

Speaker 11 everyone.

Speaker 11 The baby that Tamiko and April had been caring for didn't belong to Geraldine.

Speaker 11 The baby was Samantha Fleming's missing daughter, Serenity.

Speaker 11 While disguised as a CPS worker, Geraldine lured Samantha and her baby away from her apartment. Then, Geraldine stabbed Samantha to death and claimed the baby as her own.

Speaker 11 The investigators who were working on this case had a basic understanding of what had happened, but there are still so many questions.

Speaker 11 Questions that only Geraldine can answer. Like, why or how did Geraldine choose Samantha as her victim? How did that happen?

Speaker 11 What was the connection between these two women? And obviously, why did Geraldine do all this?

Speaker 11 After Samantha's body was discovered, Geraldine was promptly found in Texas and arrested. A few days later, she was transported back to Indiana where investigators attempted to question her.

Speaker 22 All this says right here is this that you understand what your rights are.

Speaker 18 What is that part saying that I'm waiving my rights, though?

Speaker 22 It's not saying you're waving your rights. It just says you've read the statement and you understand what they are.
And it says that we haven't made any threats, coercion, or anything.

Speaker 22 All this says is that you just understand what they are.

Speaker 18 Okay?

Speaker 18 Okay, I don't think I'm saying anything. Okay, that's fine.
Here's what we come down here for. Okay.
We come down here to talk to you, to try to get your side.

Speaker 22 There's two sides to every story.

Speaker 18 Okay.

Speaker 22 There's a lot of unanswered questions.

Speaker 18 I don't want to answer any questions, but I'm going to attorney.

Speaker 22 Okay, you don't want answering anything right now at all?

Speaker 18 Okay.

Speaker 11 Unfortunately, Geraldine refused to talk to investigators and give her side of the story. Smart for her, bad for society.

Speaker 11 So, in order to make sense of this homicide, the investigators spoke extensively with Geraldine's neighbors, friends, and her two older sisters.

Speaker 13 I mean, I know you guys, for the most part, believed that she was pregnant.

Speaker 13 I did for all the part. Okay.

Speaker 13 Torico said she knew she had gained weight, but she wasn't like 100%, you know, never really thought about it, just took her word for it.

Speaker 13 I'm the most, out of everybody in the family, I would say that I would be the most with the rosy color glasses on.

Speaker 13 Something really happens, and then I find out everything. Like, I've been finding out since she's, you know, been in jail.

Speaker 13 I've never had a doubt that she was not pregnant, ever.

Speaker 11 Eventually, investigators learned that Geraldine was never pregnant. It was all a lie.
She was a liar.

Speaker 11 And you should never trust liars. The lengths she went to keep that lie going were baffling.

Speaker 11 For nine months, Geraldine repeatedly posted updates on her social media about her fake pregnancy, which included sharing sonogram photos and updates about her frequent doctor visits.

Speaker 11 She was basically mommy blogging without being a mommy. Geraldine purposely gained weight and accepted maternity gifts from her friends and family.

Speaker 11 She even let them throw her a fucking lavish baby shower. What a cunt.
Her and the baby father just was not on the right terms.

Speaker 14 I was buying her certain maternity clothes, maternity things,

Speaker 14 wherever she, I was doing all those things. And, you know, and yeah, I mean, she appears to be friendly to me, and I never questioned it.

Speaker 11 April and Tamiko fully believed that Geraldine was pregnant. But there was someone who had some doubts.
Geraldine told her ex-boyfriend Randy Garrett that he was the father.

Speaker 13 She kept insisting that she was pregnant. So I'm like, okay, I don't, you know, I want to be responsible.
If she is, I want to know. So

Speaker 13 I would say, okay, I'll go to the doctor's appointment with you.

Speaker 13 But every time I would like try to go with her, something would come up. She'd be like, oh, I went yesterday.
Oh, I didn't tell you I went yesterday.

Speaker 15 Or.

Speaker 13 She might have the appointment. She's like, okay, meet me out there.
Then when I meet her out there, she might be already out there, and she's coming out. Say, oh, he had to reschedule,

Speaker 13 he had to deliver a baby or something. It would always be something.
Did she even look pregnant pregnant? I mean,

Speaker 13 she looked

Speaker 13 pregnant in the stomach. In the stomach, it seemed like her face was getting more fuller.

Speaker 13 Did you ever touch her stomach at all? No, I never really touched her stomach. I never really touched her stomach.

Speaker 13 It looked like she was pregnant.

Speaker 13 It really did.

Speaker 11 Geraldine lied and successfully convinced everyone around her that she was pregnant. That much the investigators knew.
But the big unanswered question was, why?

Speaker 11 Why do you do these things?

Speaker 11 What's the fucking point?

Speaker 11 How dumb are you that you don't realize you're gonna get caught eventually? Why had Geraldine done any of this?

Speaker 13 You know, there's gotta be some underlying things going on.

Speaker 13 And basically everybody I talk to, and it's mainly her family and friends, all say the same thing.

Speaker 13 It's to me she's carried this lie on so far with so many people that it left her no alternative but to finish it and do something.

Speaker 11 In June of 2014, Geraldine told her family and ex-boyfriend that she was pregnant. Nine months later, in April of 2015, Geraldine needed to produce a baby if she was going to keep this lie going.

Speaker 11 Because that's the thing about lies. You got to keep lying to protect the lie.
But liars are usually pretty short-sighted type people and don't really plan ahead much.

Speaker 11 They just plan for you to believe they're bullshit. That's it.
That's the extent of their plans.

Speaker 11 So Geraldine began hunting when she found a woman on Facebook who had just given birth to a biracial baby. This one checked the box.

Speaker 11 There weren't a whole whole lot of requirements, put it that way. That woman was motive and opportunity, motive and opportunity.

Speaker 11 That woman, by the way, was 23-year-old Samantha Fleming, but you already knew that.

Speaker 13 You know, trying to figure out the connection. I don't think she knew the victim, and I don't think her and the victim have met.

Speaker 13 I think Joe being smart enough, she was able to find out about this person either, you know, online, Facebook,

Speaker 13 whatever, and had a lot of time to to kind of and I'm just thinking myself the whole time. I keep thinking, somehow I think Geraldine

Speaker 13 ran across her herself because she spent, she put a lot of time and effort into

Speaker 13 this pregnancy thing. I think she's pretty smart.
I think she's very I.T. smart.
She's able to get in there.

Speaker 13 and Facebook and all this stuff and somehow found this girl, but she had to know a little bit about her DCS history. And that's where I don't know.

Speaker 11 Samantha Fleming was very active on Facebook, and investigators would eventually come to find that pretty much everything Samantha was dealing with in regards to regaining custody of her son was spelled out on social media.

Speaker 11 Again, more mommy blogging. Mommy blogging can kill folks.

Speaker 11 Her Facebook posts and subsequent conversations in the comment sections went into great detail about her situation and the struggles she was having. Woe is me.
Got to tell everyone about it.

Speaker 11 So, listen up, ladies. If there was ever a cautionary tale to warn people not to share their personal problems online, this is it.

Speaker 11 Pay attention.

Speaker 11 Geraldine

Speaker 11 used this information that Samantha posted that Samantha had shared online to pose as a CPS worker who was overseeing Samantha's case and take advantage of her. You see how the internet works?

Speaker 11 Are you starting to figure it out?

Speaker 13 She called the victim's mother two days before this incident happened, anonymously.

Speaker 13 And then the mother gave her, because she was claiming to be a DCS worker and knew enough information to make it sound good, the mother actually gave her the girl's number. So she was seeking her out.

Speaker 13 And then she called the victim and only said, I'm your new caseworker.

Speaker 13 I'm actually the supervisor. The other girl's not, wasn't, you know, going to be on vacation, so I'm taking over.

Speaker 11 When Geraldine showed up at Samantha's apartment, the details that she knew about Samantha's case made Geraldine's disguise that much more convincing.

Speaker 11 Her act was so persuasive, in fact, that she was able to lure Samantha and her baby from her home into her car. Think about that.

Speaker 11 Geraldine told Samantha that she needed to appear at a courthouse in Gary, Indiana later that day because a judge was going to rule if Samantha could get her son back.

Speaker 11 Once Samantha was in the car, Geraldine drove three hours from Anderson to Gary, Indiana. Investigators believe that after they arrived in Gary,

Speaker 11 Geraldine was able to lure Samantha into her home. She may have claimed that she needed to make a quick stop before going to the courthouse.
Who knows what kind of lies she sold.

Speaker 11 Apparently, she was very good at it. Many criminals are.

Speaker 11 When Samantha stepped inside Geraldine's home, she had no clue as to the horror that awaited her. Geraldine attacked Samantha, stabbing her over 40 times and killing her.

Speaker 11 Then she wrapped the body in plastic, folded Samantha into a plastic tub, and filled that tub

Speaker 11 with bleach.

Speaker 11 After the murder, Geraldine claimed Samantha's baby as her own.

Speaker 11 This story is

Speaker 11 insane.

Speaker 11 If you saw these events play out in a movie, you'd probably laugh your ass off for it being too unrealistic. It's like something you'd see on the Lifetime Network.

Speaker 11 In between reruns of Christmas in July. Maybe not Lifetime these days, maybe more like Oxygen, you know?

Speaker 11 The formerly gay network that now just plays true crime all day. Huh.
My nanny is a serial killer. Or

Speaker 11 lethal soccer mom. Those kind of titles.
Yeah, that sounds kind of like this story. The major difference is that Geraldine's story is actually true.
These are facts. I'm not making them up.

Speaker 11 And it's more outlandish than anything that could come out of a Hollywood producer's unoriginal brain. Given how horrifically absurd this whole situation was, it begged the question,

Speaker 11 what in the world could possibly drive someone to act this way?

Speaker 13 I don't know if it's because of the boyfriend. Maybe she couldn't let it go and she was trying to hold on to him, so she kept this baby thing going.
So then she has to find a baby.

Speaker 13 because the the boy the the randy guy he said

Speaker 13 we started dating he goes i really liked her but then it just seemed like every time i turned around she was lying about something and it was like one lie after well you know what it that's her though so she has a habit kind of lying then

Speaker 13 yeah it's a habit so i don't know if that's a part of

Speaker 13 you know what other issues she may have you know whatever but yeah

Speaker 11 the prominent theory about geraldine's motives is that she was desperate to hold on to her ex-boyfriend. So, she lied about being pregnant to keep him in her life.

Speaker 11 Geraldine wouldn't be the first woman to do that, but when you add the fact that she was also a pathological liar, it made for a very bad situation.

Speaker 11 Geraldine's lies painted her into a corner, and For her, kidnapping and murder seemed like a better option than just coming clean and admitting the truth.

Speaker 11 She had to keep the lies going to protect the other lies.

Speaker 11 Also, according to her sisters, Geraldine was uncompromisingly desperate for attention.

Speaker 11 A lot of that going around.

Speaker 11 And something else that may have motivated her actions was jealousy.

Speaker 13 So when April got married and all of a sudden I just remember coming down and Geraldine saying she was pregnant.

Speaker 13 And my first mind was, okay, she got pregnant on purpose because April was getting all the attention with her

Speaker 13 getting married so at first when she told me she was pregnant I did believe her that she was pregnant I don't know about April's part of it about being that you know her getting married and the attention that's probably some of it but I think she sees this Randy guy and this Randy says the same thing to Miko April and you say she couldn't tell the truth for nothing I think she started feeling like she was starting to lose Randy and so she had to come up with it because he says, next thing you know, now she's pregnant.

Speaker 13 She was pregnant. And that's oxygen.
And she had to keep it going. I wonder if she

Speaker 13 maybe,

Speaker 13 you know, was so used to not telling the truth, but getting away with a lot of it, that Randy wasn't putting up with it.

Speaker 13 And so it tested her and pushed her to the point where she's like, I'm going to show him. I'm going to really come up with a baby.
It's like everything she did was a lie.

Speaker 11 Despite Geraldine's refusal to speak with investigators, they were able to obtain a pretty full grasp of this homicide by this sick, sick, sick woman. They had the how

Speaker 11 and the why.

Speaker 11 The only thing left to do was to deal with Geraldine.

Speaker 23 This truly is a tragic story. Police believe that Serenity, the newborn girl involved in this case, was less than a month old when this all happened.

Speaker 23 Now that little girl left to grow up without her birth mother, 23-year-old Samantha Fleming, after officers found her body full of stab wounds and stuffed inside of a closet in Jones's Gary home.

Speaker 23 That being said, just yesterday morning, Jones was extradited back here to Indiana from Fort Worth, Texas. I'm told she's currently being held at Madison County Jail.

Speaker 23 Investigators believe the motive behind the murder and kidnapping was all part of an elaborate plot for Jones to raise Serenity as her own daughter. And when I say elaborate, I mean it.

Speaker 23 According to police, Jones posed as a child services worker, faked her own pregnancy, and even threw herself a baby shower. Now she sits in a cell awaiting her day in court.

Speaker 11 In 2015, Geraldine Jones was charged with kidnapping and murder. As she awaited her court proceedings, Geraldine made many jailhouse phone calls to her sister, April.

Speaker 14 I'm sorry, April. I really am.
You're not sorry. Yes, I am.
You're sorry you didn't get hold of yourself. You're sorry you got caught.
No, I'm not. I'm sorry.

Speaker 14 Well, okay, then I guess you just deal with it then. I guess you deal with you being sorry.
I don't have anything to say. I don't have anything to say.
I don't have no compassion.

Speaker 14 My mind is all S' up. My mind is so messed up from this stuff.
I don't have any, and I'm a compassionate person. But since here,

Speaker 14 I don't have any words. Everybody talking about you.
Everybody talking about you. Face on fucking everywhere.
And you just would not stop.

Speaker 14 You just wouldn't stop. But you know what? That's something you have to deal with.
That's something you have to deal with God with.

Speaker 14 I can't do anything. I can't do anything.
I can't fix it. I can't cover it up.
I can't do anything.

Speaker 14 But what I'm going to do is, I ain't gonna go into no debt, I ain't gonna owe nobody no money, and I'm not gonna stretch myself out with your ass, all this and that.

Speaker 14 Because I do it all the damn time, I'm always stressing and frustrating myself about some stuff.

Speaker 14 I know I'm doing it, but somebody that don't even appreciate nothing and just lie and then get somebody and treat me just like you treat me and everybody, everybody, Jordan, everybody.

Speaker 14 And you expect us to go to the same people that you fucking lied to, and that's it for you.

Speaker 14 Fake ass, trying to kill yourself, get up there to see you. You know,

Speaker 14 Jordan, you are so fucked up.

Speaker 14 I knew you were lying about a lot of shit, but I would never think this. In a million years, I wouldn't think you would do no shit like this, Geraldine.

Speaker 14 I wouldn't think you'd be a part of no shit like this. Not in a million years.
Even

Speaker 14 with any scam or anything you have ever done in life, I would never think this about you.

Speaker 14 I don't even know who you are.

Speaker 14 I don't know nothing about you.

Speaker 11 As you just heard, much of Geraldine's conversations with her sister involved April expressing her very justified. frustrations with Geraldine.

Speaker 11 This went on for some time.

Speaker 14 Please don't starve this fake fucking corner because I don't fucking feel like hearing that shit. And I don't fucking feel like hearing a whole bunch of shit.

Speaker 14 I don't fucking feel like hearing a whole bunch of lies. I don't fucking hear none of that.
Because that's all you have done the whole entire time. It's fucking lie.

Speaker 14 The whole entire time, that's all you've done. Manipulate, lie, and do everybody all fucked up.
You just left everybody out here to deal with this fucking bullshit.

Speaker 14 Everything that you fucking said out of your mouth is a lie. Everything.
The shit you've done is so fucked up, drilling.

Speaker 14 It is fucked up, and it is so fucked up because you expect me to be out here trying to get you money to get a fucking lawyer to help you get out. Because you fucked up.

Speaker 14 I'm sick of your shit, Jerolene. I'm so sick of your shit.
I'm sick of the way you fucking treat me. I'm so tired of the way you fucking treat me, the shit that you do to people.

Speaker 14 You have no fucking regards, know nothing about nobody but your fucking self. The shit is so fucked up.
Even when you say you fucking sorry, you fucking lied. You sorry, you fucking got caught.

Speaker 14 You're not sorry, you fucking sorry, you fucking got caught.

Speaker 14 You have fucked the whole family, the family, your friends, your church, your loved ones, and the people that care about us, that care about your motherfucking ass because they care about us.

Speaker 14 You fuck them too.

Speaker 14 And you want somebody to get you sent to you want somebody to run around begging to get fucking some fucking debt for a fucking damn $25,000 fucking dollar lawyer to get your ass out.

Speaker 14 And you just keep fucking people. And you're still fucking lying.
You're still fucking lying. I hope you tell one soul the fucking truth.
Because you ain't told nobody. Because the shit is fucked up.

Speaker 14 Every fucking day. Keep nobody eat.
He nobody fucking sleeps. And then the story just keeps fucking unraveling.
Who does this kind of shit to people?

Speaker 14 Who the fuck does this kind of shit to people, Geraldine? For fucking a damn year.

Speaker 14 A fucking year, Geraldine, you fucking lied. A whole damn year, you fucking lied about this shit.
And I feel sorry for your ass from the very fucking beginning.

Speaker 14 The very fucking beginning, I feel sorry for your ass.

Speaker 11 If this isn't obvious, April was fed up with her sister. And she eventually told Geraldine that she was on her own.

Speaker 14 April, I have, I know I messed up. I did a lot of shit.

Speaker 14 But you know from the bottom of my heart that I love you. You know what, Geraldine?

Speaker 14 I can't tell you that I know that. I think you know that.
I honestly cannot tell you that I know that. It is so messed up.
My head has been spinning and going in all kinds of ways. But you know what?

Speaker 14 You got a fucking way of showing it. The love that you have, I don't need it, Jordan.
The love that you have, you are evil and conniving, and you do anything.

Speaker 14 And it's like you're happy, or shit is all fucked up for other people, and they lies and all kinds of shit is crazy. That's the love that you have.

Speaker 14 I don't want that kind of. I'll do better than life without it.
How can you think that? I would have done life without that.

Speaker 14 That's not true. I don't think about that.
That's not true. I don't think about it.
That's not true at all. I've never acted like that about you.

Speaker 14 I've never acted like that. Jordan, yes, you have.
You have acted like that.

Speaker 14 I messed up. When I sit back and reflect on stuff, when you love somebody, you don't treat them the way that you treat people.
That I know is true. You don't glitch people.

Speaker 11 In the end, though, April somehow found a way to forgive her sister and agreed to help her through her upcoming murder trial. I guess blood is thicker than water.

Speaker 20 And I love you, Jeraldine.

Speaker 20 And you know, no matter what, you steal my sister. I don't care what those are.
I still love you. And I'm going to, like I said, I'm going to do whatever it is I have to do, no matter what.

Speaker 20 You just have to be strong and know that God is doing something.

Speaker 11 Unfortunately for Geraldine, there wasn't much that April or God Himself could do for her.

Speaker 11 Geraldine killed a 23-year-old mother of two kids, and

Speaker 11 the police found the body in her house in a closet. The police also unraveled all of her lies and could easily prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Geraldine committed this murder.

Speaker 11 A potential death sentence loomed over Geraldine, and the best she could hope for was a deal from prosecutors, which she eventually got.

Speaker 11 In May of 2018, Geraldine pled guilty to voluntary manslaughter and criminal confinement. She was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Speaker 11 Throughout the court proceedings, Geraldine made no statements.

Speaker 11 And after the plea, her attorney gave a brief statement to the press saying,

Speaker 11 The state made the offer, and Geraldine was satisfied with it. She's ready to put this behind her.
She's at peace, end quote. Geraldine was at peace.
Well, isn't that nice? Isn't that nice for her?

Speaker 14 Do you know how long it took for me to get here? How long? Four days. I traveled on a bus for two days, went through Louisiana, I mean, it went through so many different states.

Speaker 14 And then they took us to a holding place in Kentucky, and they were so mean to you. Like, they would make you sleep on the floor.
They

Speaker 14 didn't give you one small bottle of soap. I mean, it's ridiculous.
Even now, I'm in lockdown. So it's why?

Speaker 14 And

Speaker 14 she said, because of my classification, because I guess what I did. But my donkey was telling me that because of what I did, I mean because of the charges, that you want to be by yourself.

Speaker 14 But I'm thinking like that from here, I don't see no TV. I only get out for an hour.
And I was instantly in isolation. Like I'm in one cell by myself.

Speaker 11 During her calls from jail, Geraldine spent a lot of time complaining about the lousy conditions of the facilities she was transferred to and the poor treatment she received.

Speaker 11 It wasn't, you know, yelpable.

Speaker 11 She probably wanted to speak with the manager or something. Never once in any of those calls does Geraldine mention Samantha Fleming.

Speaker 11 Never once does she talk about Samantha's two kids who are now forced to grow up without a mother. Because of her.

Speaker 11 She doesn't talk about Samantha's mom or her boyfriend, both of whom were emotionally crushed by the murder that Geraldine committed.

Speaker 11 After everything she did, after destroying countless lives for no reason at all, Geraldine's world still

Speaker 11 only revolved around one person:

Speaker 11 Geraldine.

Speaker 11 You can call this woman a lot of things.

Speaker 11 She's a narcissist, she's a pathological liar, she's a killer.

Speaker 11 But if you want to encompass everything,

Speaker 11 you only need one word: Geraldine Jones is

Speaker 11 a monster.

Speaker 11 All right, that's going to do it for another one. Thanks again for joining us.
If you enjoy the show and want to support us, there's an easy way to do it at swordandscale.com.

Speaker 11 And while you're there, check out the latest episode of Sword and Scale Television if you like True Crime. It's a pretty good docuseries.

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Speaker 21 Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com/slash try. Go to shopify.com/slash try.
Shopify.com/slash try.