Episode 268

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

What was the reason for that? Just to bring her to the bathrooms. Yeah, I don't know why we brought her back into the bathroom.
I guess we didn't want to bring her into the bedroom. Okay.

And then, yeah,

and then Johnny

slit her throat too.

Hello and welcome. This is season two, episode 268 of Sword and Scale, a show that reveals that the worst monsters are real.

Well, we have a new episode of Sword and Scale Television. In case you haven't seen it, it's episode 4, the story of Angela Bledsoe.

And it really does prove that if you are a woman,

my heart goes out to you because

men suck.

All right, let's take a break for a minute because you may not be hearing this story right. That is, unless you're wearing Raycon's essential open earbuds.

This message was sponsored by them, by the way.

If you're looking for a great holiday gift for all the podcast lovers in your life, including yourself, by the way, consider Raycon's essential open earbuds.

They're fantastic for listening to podcasts on the go. Regular earbuds block out everything.
You can't hear someone calling your name, a car honking, anything.

And as we know, that's quite dangerous. These Raycons sit outside your ear canal, so you get really clear sound, but you actually hear what's happening around you also.

They're really light, and the hook part rotates, so they actually stay in when you're doing a vigorous workout, for example. I've worn them in the gym, on walks, and just doing stuff around the house.

They don't fall out like the other ones, and they don't get uncomfortable if you wear them for a long time.

Raycon has over 3 million customers, and the sound quality is just as good as the way more expensive brands.

And they're half the price because they're not paying celebrities for endorsements and all that retail markup stuff. Plus, if you don't like them, you have a full 30-day guarantee.

I mean, check out these cool features, like the open-ear design for comfort, reliability, and safety, the multi-angular hook for vigorous activity, the fact that they're ultra-light and ultra-comfortable, and multipoint connection, which allows you to connect multiple devices and switch seamlessly without a hassle.

Plus, you get 36 hours of battery life. So, if you're looking for the best way to consume this podcast, Raycon's essential open earbuds are for you.

And right now, during the holiday season, they're selling really fast.

So, make sure you get them now before they go out of stock and get up to 20% off this holiday season by going to buyraycon.com/slash TrueCrime Network Open.

That's buyraycon.com slash true crime network open,

no spaces, to save on Raycon audio products site-wide. Order by December 15th for guaranteed delivery by Christmas.
Because great gifts shouldn't show up late.

Again, that's buyraycon.com/slash truecrime network open.

About nine miles north of the city I used to live in, Atlanta, Georgia, is the small county of Gwinnett.

Within that county, there is an even smaller city named Suwannee.

Suwannee is a progressive place with a rapidly increasing population, and it is currently ranked by CNN as number 10 on their list of 100 best places to live in America.

With a low cost of living, a low crime rate, and a fairly decent public education system, Suwannee is pretty much as ideal as it gets for the typical middle-class family.

In 2017, there was a small family living in Sewanee. They were the Spencers.

On April 8th, the mom of the household Linda Spencer was at home with her 14-year-old daughter.

That night, at around 9.30 p.m., Linda's daughter was in the kitchen kitchen baking a cake when she heard someone knocking at the front door.

It was like around, I'm going to say like 9.45, something like that last night because my son wasn't off of work yet between, I guess, 9.30 and 9.45.

And

he knocked at the door and my daughter answered it. She said, it had the top lock, so she thought it was her brother.
So she went over to unlock it and looked at the peephole and saw it was Johnny.

So she opened the door. And he walked in, and I don't think he had any shoes on, but he had like basketball shorts on and a towel around his neck.

The young man at the door was 19-year-old Johnny Ryder. Both Linda and her daughter knew Johnny.
He was friends with Linda's son.

When Johnny entered their apartment, it was obvious that he was having a very rough night. Johnny was shirtless.
His eyes were beet red, and his nose was caked with dry blood.

Also, Johnny wasn't alone. With him was a girl that looked to be about Johnny's age.

What do you know about her? What's her?

That's mom? Mom is the girl he's with.

I've never seen her before.

First time? I just assume it's his girlfriend.

Johnny and his presumed girlfriend were distraught and had obviously just been through some sort of tragic and possibly violent ordeal. So Linda asked Johnny what happened.

Was you know upset and I said asked him what's wrong. He said he got into a fight with his mom and she pepper sprayed him and kicked him out of the house.

I mean, I talked to him for a few minutes and I gave him a hug because he was crying.

He was really upset last night, so I didn't ask him too much about it. I figured he'd talk with my son about it when he got home.

Linda didn't get many answers out of Johnny, other than he'd gotten into a fight with his mom, who apparently pepper sprayed him and threw him out of the house.

Linda's teenage daughter, who was with Johnny, witnessed what had happened.

All they said was, um,

hey, you know, he was crying. He was like, my mom pepper sprayed me out of the house.
I, like, hit something, and I, they pushed us all the way out of the house.

And I guess I'm figuring Cassandra is there because she said that I got some of the pepper spray. Oh, okay.
I'm guessing she was there, too. Okay.

Linda's daughter also learned the name of the girl who was with Johnny. She was 17-year-old Cassandra Bjorg.

Now, how do you know Johnny and Cassandra? Well, he's my brother's friend. Okay.
So they've known each other since, I think, middle school, I think it was. Okay, so he's Jacob's friend.
Yeah. Okay.

He's his friend, and then we just met Cassandra last night. He asked if he could come in, so I don't know who she is.

Okay.

Cassandra or Cassandra Bjorg, or Casey, as she was known, met Johnny through a mutual friend. And the couple had only been dating for a short time.
So when did you and Johnny kind of start dating?

It was around the time where,

remember the last time I saw you?

That was about

a month ago, so. Come on.

Yeah, it was around then. Was it?

When questioned by police, Casey explained what she witnessed happened between Johnny and his mother.

And like his mom, like, started tripping out on this, thought like we were intruders or whatever or something. And like, he started, she started, like, yelling at Johnny and, like,

going crazy and then all of a sudden like there was like pepper spray everywhere like like she started like pepper spraying us really his mom yeah

okay yeah like you know she was just like pepper spraying us and you know like our eyes were burning and like we were trying just like to get away

after the fighting and pepper spraying ended Johnny and Cassie went to the only place that Johnny could think of to go. They went to Linda Spencer's apartment.

Johnny was friends with Linda's son Jacob and he was hoping to find Jacob there. Jacob was at work at the time, and the only people home were Linda and her young daughter.

Still, Linda took Johnny and Cassie in and allowed them to spend the night. Then the next morning, something unexpected happened.

When they started making that announcement, I was in my room laying on my bed trying to wake up my daughter.

And I heard the announcement, I thought it was a joke because I knew that they were having coffee before I went into my bedroom.

So I thought, oh, okay, they know somebody with like a megaphone or something. So I called my son.
I'm thinking, you know, what the hell are you doing?

And then I look outside the blinds and I'm like, what the hell is going on? Because I saw the van with somebody up on top. I mean, when I saw a SWAT team with a van and somebody,

I was like, fuck, this just...

A police SWAT team stationed themselves outside Linda's apartment. And through a megaphone, a SWAT officer ordered everyone in Linda's apartment to come outside.

When this happened, Linda's daughter went into her brother's bedroom where she found Johnny and Cassie. First of all, just kind of tell me what

happened this morning. I know you said you were asleep and everything, but

I can't remember what was going on. I just woke up.
Okay. And then all we heard was the sirens.
Okay. We were freaking out.
And then we were like, what's going on? And then I'm like,

it's got to go outside. And so they said, oh, yeah, my brother and my mom just go outside.
Yeah. Then I went to my brother's room where they both were.
Who was there? Johnny and Cassandra. Okay.

They're there and I was saying, I'm scared. And he was hugging and said, it's okay.

Linda, her daughter, and her son promptly followed the instructions of the SWAT team. They went outside where they were detained and questioned.

Meanwhile, Johnny and Cassie remained in the apartment and refused to go outside. It turned out that most of what they told the Spencer family were lies.

Johnny's mom did not pepper spray him the night before, and she did not throw him out of the house. So you guys come home, you notice Johnny was smoking weed in the living room with his girlfriend?

Yeah.

It was smell. So Mindy was like,

first we, as Mindy first entered the house, she was like, did you smoke inside the house? Mom's coming in 10 minutes.

And then we walked into Mindy's room. And as soon as we entered the room, everything was just flipped.
Everything.

like even her friend's watch was gone half of her clothes were gone and all her stuff were just flipped like all the boxes privates personal stuff were flipped so we were really mad man we knew johnny did it so we were asking him did she do it and he was keep lying so i was like oh it's okay sure room you know we can call police police about it

On the evening of April 8th, 2017, 20-year-old Mindy Ryder and her boyfriend went out to dinner together and later arrived at Mindy's house.

When they walked outside, they saw Mindy's younger brother Johnny and his girlfriend Cassie on the living room couch.

The house reeked of marijuana. This was concerning because Mindy's mom was expected home at any minute.
Eventually, Mindy made her way to her bedroom.

Once there, she found out that she'd been ransacked. and she suspected that her brother was the culprit behind said ransacking.

When Mindy and her boyfriend confronted Johnny, they threatened to call the police. At that point, all hell broke loose.
And I told my brother, I know you did this.

You guys, you and your girlfriend are the only ones that have been home. Like, just own up to it, like, just own up to it and tell me, I won't call the cops or anything.

And at the time, he was on the phone with my mom, and he was like, so if you don't, if I own up to it, you won't call the cops. And I said, yes.
So that's when he hung up and I hung up on the police.

Like, I already dialed 911.

And then all of a sudden he goes out and comes back in and just sprays us straight in our faces and starts hitting us and tells his girlfriend to go grab the bat. As soon as like

few seconds later, I start getting bear sprayed. It was a bear spray.

It wasn't even pepper spray.

So I start getting for a good 10 seconds. I was in the room, that gas tub room for a whole time.
I had to fight for my life and mind it.

They also tried to kill us. Johnny was holding my head.
He was telling her to smack my like, go bait, go bring a baseball and she brought the baseball. She hit the Mindy's head and

her head was open.

And I see her come in with the bat and the first thing she does is hit me across my back. And I try to grab it from her and she hits me on the head.
And Kevin and Johnny are fighting in my room.

So I chase her out to the living room. Well, who had the bat?

Both of them, Johnny and

the case, look there. So both of them took turns with the bat? Yes, sir.
Well, they each had a bat. They each had a bat.

We were all bloody. I eventually run to the bathroom and I washed my face and I try to get blood and a pepper spray.

Johnny and Cassie attacked Mindy and her boyfriend. They sprayed them.
with bear repellent and attempted to beat them unconscious with baseball bats.

Eventually, Mindy retreated to a bathroom where she could still hear the fight and mayhem through the bathroom door. I hear Kevin begging my brother, like, Johnny, please don't do this.

You don't have to do this. And I went in the room and Johnny had Kevin in a chokehold.
And my brother's girlfriend was in there with a bat.

And so I was able to grab her by her hair and take the bat away from her. And I started hitting my brother, telling him to let go.
And then I handed the bat to Kevin.

And then Kevin was going to hit my brother, but my brother caught the bat.

and then we all fought over the bat and it was me and my brother on my sofa and then Kevin grabbed a beer bottle and told Johnny to stop to just let us go and like we won't do anything but my brother said he will never do that and so Kevin hit him on the top of the head with the beer bottle and it shattered

we were kept fighting for the baseball bat and then he told his girlfriend to go get a hammer like a big steel hammer like this big

we after Johnny had a bat we hold it and then Johnny was was like, Bring a hammer.

He told her to bring a hammer and smack it on our

heads.

Essentially, Johnny and Cassie tried to murder Mindy and her boyfriend. Thankfully, their attempt to commit double homicide was unsuccessful.
But how did you guys break away from it? They just left?

No, I fought for it.

If I didn't know how to defend or defend Mindy, we would have been possibly dead. Okay, so you fought them off and then they just left? And her mom came.
I thought

a car they leave in a car or what happened?

I mean, this car is missing. Okay.

Eventually, Mindy's mom showed up, and when she did, Johnny and Cassie fled. On their way out, they snatched Mindy's car keys and stole her car.

According to Mindy, this wasn't the first time that her brother Johnny stole something. Johnny had a criminal history, and at the time of the attack, he was on probation.

What a great system.

I'm not sure if you know already, but he has previous criminal charges. And my mom's still paying his bail right now.
What were they for?

Going into vehicles and taking people's things,

cars.

After fleeing the scene and stealing Mindy's car, Johnny and Cassie drove to Linda Spencer's apartment. Again, Johnny was friends with Linda's son, and he was hoping to find her son there.

Linda's son was at work at the time, but he did eventually come home and speak to Johnny. I was at work, so I didn't get here to attend, so I didn't see.

What'd your ma say?

Who do you show up with?

Cassandra or Cassie, whatever her name is. Have you met her before? You know her? No,

I only saw her at high school. I never talked to her or anything.

So he showed up with Cassie.

What did he say? Why was he just show up?

He said that, well, he got pepper sprayed by his mom, and he told me that he was just talking to her, and that she got she pepper sprayed him in the face and that

she kicked him out and that he came over the newer to go waiting to be on

do you really think his mom pepper sprayed him

johnny and cassie lied to the spencer family about what happened and linda spencer agreed to let them spend the night at her home the next morning a swat team came looking for them both.

Watch out who you let stay in your home, people.

Especially if they show up shirtless and bloody in the middle of the night. When the cop showed up, what did Johnny?

How did Johnny act?

Well, we didn't know who they were calling for because we couldn't hear.

And then I said, Johnny, they're for you. He's like,

he's like, okay. And

he just kind of sat there and he was talking to Cassandra. He was saying, I'm not going back to jail.
And I was like, Johnny, you have to go out there.

I told him that you can't do that to us.

The Spencer family left their home home and were promptly questioned by police. Meanwhile, Johnny and Cassie remained inside the Spencer apartment.

I'd like to know what makes this guy click because something obviously snapped. And I don't know.
I want to say he also

beat

the shit out of his sister and his sister's boyfriend with a baseball bat.

She had to get seven staples in the head.

There's a welt on her back. The boyfriend got his tooth chipped out.
Mindy? Yep.

So

something triggered him. So

he's a very angry person.

The attack on Mindy and her boyfriend was brutal.

And as the police continued investigating, they came to find that this attack didn't just happen out of the blue because of an argument about a messy bedroom. This attack was planned.

Johnny fully intended to murder his sister and her boyfriend. I really think they planned this before I got home.

And then

they seemed really calm. And then they sprayed us and tried to knock us out.

Thankfully, Johnny was unsuccessful in his attempt to kill Mindy and her boyfriend. The young couple was able to defend themselves.

Unfortunately, this wasn't Johnny's first attempt at double homicide, and his earlier victims weren't as lucky.

A few days before Johnny attempted to kill his own sister, he violently attacked an unsuspecting married couple as they slept and brutally murdered them with a tire iron

and

a butcher knife.

All right, let's take a break for a minute because you may not be hearing this story right. That is, unless you're wearing Raycon's essential open earbuds.

This message was sponsored by them, by the way.

If you're looking for a great holiday gift for all the podcast lovers in your life, including yourself, by the way, consider Raycon's essential open earbuds.

They're fantastic for listening to podcasts on the go. Regular earbuds block out everything.
You can't hear someone calling your name, a car honking, anything. And as we know, that's quite dangerous.

These Raycons sit outside your ear canal. So you get really clear sound, but you actually hear what's happening around you also.

They're really light, and the hook part rotates, so they actually stay in when you're doing a vigorous workout, for example. I've worn them in the gym, on walks, and just doing stuff around the house.

They don't fall out like the other ones, and they don't get uncomfortable if you wear them for a long time.

Raycon has over 3 million customers, and the sound quality is just as good as the way more expensive brands.

And they're half the price because they're not paying celebrities for endorsements and all that retail markup stuff. Plus, if you don't like them, you have a full 30-day guarantee.

I mean, check out these cool features like the open-ear design for comfort, reliability, and safety, the multi-angular hook for vigorous activity, the fact that they're ultra-light and ultra-comfortable, and multi-point connection, which allows you to connect multiple devices and switch seamlessly without a hassle.

Plus, you get 36 hours of battery life. So, if you're looking for the best way to consume this podcast, Raycon's essential open earbuds are for you.

And right now, during the holiday season, they're selling really fast.

So, make sure you get them now before they go out of stock and get up to 20% off this holiday season by going to buyraycon.com/slash truecrime network open.

That's buyraycon.com/slash true crime network open,

no spaces, to save on Raycon audio products site-wide. Order by December 15th for guaranteed delivery by Christmas, because great gifts shouldn't show up late.

Again, that's buyraycon.com/slash truecrime network open.

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In April of 2017, 20-year-old Mindy Ryder and her boyfriend were brutally attacked inside their home. They were sprayed with bear repellent and beaten with baseball bats.

Thankfully, the attack ended before either of them lost their lives. The culprits behind the violence were Mindy's younger brother, 19-year-old Johnny Ryder, and his girlfriend, Cassie Bjorg.

17-year-old Cassie lived in Gwinnett County, Georgia. When Cassie was about 15 or 16, she moved out of her mom's house to live with her grandparents, Wendy and Randall Bjorg.

According to their neighbors, this move that Cassie made was done out of necessity. And I never really asked Wendy any questions about it.
Like, I just let her tell me what she wanted to talk about.

Yeah. I guess Wendy and Randall found out that Cassie was being sexually abused by her her father, or her stepdad.

So, you know, they filed for emergency custody because Amanda, Wendy and Randall's daughter, wasn't doing anything.

Allegedly, Cassie had been sexually assaulted by her stepfather, and Cassie's mom hadn't done anything to stop the abuse.

So Cassie's grandparents took Cassie in, and despite their best efforts to help, things

didn't go well.

Cassie was unruly in the very definition of a troubled teenager. Who could blame her? You say again, it sounds like there was a history of something like that going on.

She was in and out all the time, running away. Last time she ran away, she was gone for months.

And she had been in and out since then.

The problems that Cassie was having went beyond instances of her running away from home. Cassie was also extremely violent towards her grandparents.

I mean they also called out to her house a bunch of times

and like she was on probation during this time for hitting her grandma.

It was the one incidence where she fought her grandmother.

What did Cassie say happened?

She said that they got into an argument. Wendy bit her and then she hit her back to defend herself.

Where she, I mean, she whipped Wendy's ass. I mean it was pretty bad.

Wendy had showed me all the bruises and she did bite Cassie, but she bought her because cassie was choking her out cassie literally had her arm around her neck like this and wendy squeezed her chin down a bit like you

cassie dropped out of school and was put on probation in february they say long-term behavioral issues led to her grandparents taking custody the family tried to remove her from a bad crowd in dulut to stability with her grandparents in lawrenceville but there were at least 13 calls to police and assault charges for striking a grandparent when questioned cassie freely admitted that her relationship with her grandparents wasn't good and that she did assault them on multiple occasions.

Though from her teenage perspective, she felt justified in doing so. I wasn't having a good relationship with my grandparents.

Like it just, it started getting really bad, you know, like that I got a charge from them because, you know, like I fought them, you know, I might have broken like my grandpa's ribs when, you know,

for that charge for simple assault and simple battery, you know.

they didn't really know what to do. They didn't really know, like, how to

be around me, I guess. They didn't really know how to talk to me.

As a result of Cassie's violence towards her grandparents, she was placed on probation and several attempts were made to make Cassie understand that her grandparents were just trying to help her.

Wendy and Randall only wanted the best for Cassie.

And then my grandma just got really angry with me and she told me that she was going to kick me out and over she was going to find somewhere else for me to stay. So

in like a couple of days I was like, okay, so I just left anyway.

And because I was just like, you know, if you don't want me there, like, I might as well just leave now.

I knew that because

she called us. and said that you'd you'd run away again and that she was concerned and worried about you.
Your grandmother loves you, right?

You know how much your grandmother loves you. In April of 2017, Cassie violated her probation by running away from home again after yet another argument with her grandparents.

So I didn't know what to do.

Well, tell me about this. This, I don't know, what is this? What happened here? I tried to kill myself.

When Cassie was questioned, she had large bandages on both of her arms because she had recently attempted suicide by slitting both of her wrists. I just wanted to end it.

It felt like

so much. And so I tried to overdose and I tried to slip my wrists.
And you said Johnny was present when you did this? Did he try to stop you?

What did he say? I did the same thing. Why did he do the same thing? Because he felt the same way.

And they brought you here. Who found you?

It was like the SWAT team was looking for me.

About a week after Cassie ran away from home, she and her new boyfriend, Johnny Ryder, attacked Johnny's older sister and her boyfriend.

They sprayed the couple with bear repellent and beat them with baseball bats, essentially trying to kill them. Like all that really happened was me and Johnny were just chilling on his couch.

We were watching TV and then, you know, his sister, you know, comes in the house, and then I go to the bathroom, and then, you know, like, I start hearing, you know, fighting and stuff, and so, you know, I separate myself, you know, from that situation, and then his mom comes home, and then they just started yelling like crazy.

And then his mom got the pepper spray, and she started pepper spraying us, and then we were just like, okay, like, let's leave. Like,

how did the baseball bat get introduced into that? Baseball bat. She has an injury

that we're trying to understand. Yeah, she had an injury to her head.
That's what I was told.

I don't know anything about that.

I didn't even know there was a baseball bet. She got injured

pretty badly. Really? Is she okay?

She's gonna be fine, but she got injuries that night from the altercation that you and Johnny had with her and her boyfriend. Who knocked the her boyfriend's teeth out?

That must have been Johnny.

When questioned about the attack on Johnny's sister, sister, Cassie lied her ass off. And she was quickly called out for doing so.
Cassie, listen, I've never lied to you, have I?

I've never misled you, and I've had to tell you some pretty bad news in the past, right?

Okay, sweetie? Okay, and I know you pretty good. And I don't think you're being completely honest with me.

Eventually, Cassie did admit to her part in the attack, though she claimed that it was all self-defense. Did you hit her with the bat? Did she come at you or something?

You were defending yourself or something? I wasn't defending myself.

She was trying to come at me. Okay, so she came in.
Is that when you hit her? With the bat?

I didn't. I didn't mean to.
You know, she was coming at me. I didn't know what to do.

I didn't think I did that much injury. I didn't think, you know,

her boyfriend broke his teeth, you know.

Police investigators slowly got Cassie to admit to partial truths about the attack, but that wasn't the only thing that she was questioned about.

The investigators had questions about an even more serious crime.

I wasn't the one who intentionally thought about it.

Thought about doing that.

Say it. Once you say it, it's a help.

Killing my grandparents.

Before attacking Johnny's sister and her boyfriend, Cassie and Johnny had attacked Cassie's grandparents, who were not able to escape the attack.

Wendy and Randall Bjorg were dead, and they hadn't just been murdered. Their deaths were

unspeakably brutal.

Wendy and Randall had been horrifically beaten and butchered

to death.

Alright, let's take a break for a minute because you may not be hearing this story right. That is, unless you're wearing Raycon's essential open earbuds.

This message was sponsored by them, by the way.

If you're looking for a great holiday gift for all the podcast lovers in your life, including yourself, by the way, consider Raycon's essential open earbuds.

They're fantastic for listening to podcasts on the go. Regular earbuds block out everything.
You can't hear someone calling your name, a car honking, anything. And as we know, that's quite dangerous.

These Raycons sit outside your ear canal. So you get really clear sound, but you actually hear what's happening around you also.

They're really light, and the hook part rotates, so they actually stay in when you're doing a vigorous workout, for example. I've worn them in the gym, on walks, and just doing stuff around the house.

They don't fall out like the other ones, and they don't get uncomfortable if you wear them for a long time.

Raycon has over 3 million customers, and the sound quality is just as good as the way more expensive brands.

And they're half the price because they're not paying celebrities for endorsements and all that retail markup stuff. Plus, if you don't like them, you have a full 30-day guarantee.

I mean, check out these cool features, like the open ear design for comfort, reliability, and safety, the multi-angular hook for vigorous activity, the fact that they're ultra-light and ultra-comfortable, and multi-point connection, which allows you to connect multiple devices and switch seamlessly without a hassle.

Plus, you get 36 hours of battery life. So if you're looking for the best way to consume this podcast, Raycon's essential open earbuds are for you.

And right now, during the holiday season, they're selling really fast.

So, make sure you get them now before they go out of stock and get up to 20% off this holiday season by going to buyraycon.com slash truecrime network open.

That's buyraycon.com/slash truecrime network open,

no spaces, to save on Raycon audio products site-wide. Order by December 15th for guaranteed delivery by Christmas, because great gifts shouldn't show up late.

Again, that's byraycon.com/slash TrueCrime Network Open. So when I started this podcast, I didn't realize I was actually starting a small business.
Yikes. There's nothing small about a small business.

You're working all of the time.

Thankfully, though, I have a partner with all the tools that I need to be successful. You may have heard of them.
Their name is Shopify.

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On April 9th, 2017, 17-year-old Cassie Bjorg was arrested with her boyfriend, 19-year-old Johnny Ryder, for brutally attacking Johnny's older sister and her boyfriend.

Though Georgia investigators suspected that Cassie and Johnny had more than just two victims, on the day before they were arrested, Gwinnett County police conducted a welfare check on the home of Cassie's grandparents, Wendy and Randall Bjorg.

When police got no response, they forced their way inside and discovered the bloody aftermath of a very violent and brutal double murder. Wendy and Randall were dead.

When Cassie was questioned about her grandparents' deaths, she explained how her plot to kill them developed.

And before you did that, did you and Johnny meet up somewhere at a park or something to talk about?

We went to Peach Ridge Park. He first asked me, are you afraid to die? And I said, no.

He was just talking about how we could like run away together, you know, a kind of like dream. And he asked me, he was like, Would you kill your grandparents?

And I kind of like hesitated for a minute. And I was like, why?

And he was just like, I don't know. I mean, because

he knows probably everything that I've been through with all of my family. When you guys met at the park, did he ever go over the actual plan on how you guys would do it or anything like that? Or

what was that? How?

Well, I mean, we were just trying to figure out how to get money.

Cassie and Johnny decided that they were going to rob and murder Cassie's grandparents. On a night in early April, they arrived at their home to do exactly that.

So we decided to go around like midnight or 1, 1.30 because my grandma normally went to sleep around like 11.30, 12.

We decided like, you know, we would park down the road.

Cassie and Johnny snuck through Wendy and Randall's backyard and entered the home through a back door since Cassie lived there she had a key so getting inside was not a problem

start moving upstairs we we went upstairs we needed little we didn't immediately go upstairs like we went to the stairs and then we were like just listening just hearing what was going on We thought everything was good and then we went upstairs and

did you guys have anything in your hands or you just I had um

car tools that to do a tire or something? It was a tire iron. It was a tire iron.
He brought a black book bag

that duct tape in it.

With a tire iron and duct tape at the ready, Cassie and Johnny reached the grandparents bedrooms.

At this stage in their life and marriage, the couple did not sleep in the same room, so Cassie and Johnny split up. He goes into my grandpa's room and then I go into my grandma's room.

Do you hear kind of what's going on over there and does that kind of cue you off to

with your grandmother there?

Yeah, he started going at it and then you know I could hear my grandpa just yelling and you know them fighting and then I started eating the rush and then you know that's when I started hitting my grandma in the head.

After hearing their grandfather's screams, Cassie approached her sleeping grandmother and began beating her over the head with a tire iron.

I like hit her really hard on the back of the head and then she started like screaming and stuff and was that the first hit? Yeah. In the back of the head? Yeah.

That's where I mainly hit her in the head.

So I started hitting my grandma and I already had duct tape and then you know Johnny's doing his thing and you know I stopped hearing Johnny doing whatever and so he comes in the room with me and my grandma and

you know, he helps me like tie up my grandma with the duct tape. And

how did you do that? Is it just her hands?

I got her hands, I got her whole head, and then I got her ankles.

And then I dragged her into my grandpa's room, and Johnny asked me to go get some knives. So I got some knives from downstairs in the kitchen, and I got three big butcher knives.

And then that's when he started like stabbing my grandpa. And then

when Johnny's

stabbing your grandfather, is it mainly in the torso or out there?

Yeah, he just, I don't know why he did that, but he just kept going. How many times? More than two, more five? More than five.

More than five.

While wrapped in duct tape after being viciously beaten, Wendy Bjorg watched in horror as the man who had just been her husband for over 40 years was brutally stabbed and sliced to death.

Yeah, I mean, like, she kept saying, like, I'll give you money, I'll give you my keys, you know, I'll give you anything you want.

You know, I went in the closet because that's where they kept the safe.

So, you know, I go in there, you know, I'm checking in all the stuff, and I grab the book bag and I just start stuffing the book bag with everything, you know.

Like, there was envelopes just filled with money. There was probably about like a thousand dollars that we found in that safe.

So, after that, he slits my grandpa's throat, and then we drag my grandma into the bathroom.

After the safe was looted, Wendy was brought into her bathroom where her life also came to a horrific and brutal end. I actually hit her in the back of the head with the tire.

Well, not the back of the head, but like right where your spine is.

Because he was telling me, he was like, if you hit right there, like just one like good hit, you can just knock the person out and then they'll be dead.

And she was like pretending to be dead for a while. Like, I would, you know, check up on her, and I would see that she was still breathing.
And I'll be like, Johnny, she's still alive. What the heck?

And then, like, Johnny finally, like,

like, made the like last blow,

and then, yeah.

And then, Johnny

slit her throat, too.

And she, it was, it was kind of creepy because she was, like, scared to die. She she shitted herself and he herself how did she it was kind of gross

all the looting and murder that johnny and cassie had done left them kind of hungry so when they were done they decided to grab a bite to eat when you guys left where'd you guys go to

we went over to like kroger or publix to go get something to eat And then we went back to the house. So it just kind of like chilled there.
Did you guys kind of just stay in the house then?

Yeah, it was kind of both. We were kind of like in and out of the house for a couple days.
It was just me and him. Did you guys ever chill with anyone during that week at all? Yeah.
Oh, you did?

Yeah, I chilled. We chilled with some of his friends, some of my friends, and you know, we would just go meet up with them.
We would never have anyone come over to the house.

We were just like, that's a no. That's a big no-no.

Johnny and Cassie stayed in Wendy's and Randall's home for days after the murders. They slept downstairs while the corpses of their victims remained upstairs.

They didn't even have the common decency to clean up after themselves. Cassie claimed that she and Johnny were the only two people in the house during that time, but that was a lie.

Yes, I was inside the house while they were dead, but I didn't know that they were dead.

Because that's the main thing, obviously, I'm curious about I don't know when exactly it was, but they had been inside the dead the house for a while because you could smell it once you walked inside the house, both walking and it smells like shit

now you're saying it smells smells like shit what is it

i didn't think anything of it because did you ever ask him like why does this i did and johnny said that um it was just because he hadn't flushed the toilet didn't really think much of it because the entire house was trash like they had so much chinese food on the floor that the black cat was eating and all this stuff

The cops knew Cassie lied to them because one of Cassie's friends recorded a short video with their cell phone while they were inside the house.

After the video was revealed to Cassie, she had no choice but to admit to inviting friends over.

Now I have trouble inviting friends over, even really close friends if the guest room hasn't been cleaned up in a while.

So to have corpses upstairs and invite people over, that goes beyond my level of understanding. I'm not asking for a day.

I'm just asking for in seven days after you guys killed your grandparents, Sunshine and Alex were at your house. Yes.
What did you guys do? I just loved Celine.

You may have noticed that throughout her confession, Cassie showed no emotion. She was cold and didn't shed one tear for her grandparents, not one.

Yet, when she was called out for her lying, something bizarre happened. Cassie weirdly showed emotion.
You literally have shown no emotion towards your grandparents, and I don't have a problem.

Like, I don't know the life that you were having, but why are you showing emotion with when I brought up Sunshine?

What the hell is this chick? You know what I'm saying?

She's just a close friend.

It only

seems that you're sorry you got caught that you had people over after.

You don't seem to be sorry that you killed your grandparents. I am.

I'm just letting you know.

I'm just letting you know.

A few days after Wendy and Randall were dead, Johnny and Cassie decided that they were going to commit more murder. They hadn't had enough.
They wanted some more.

So this time, they set their sights on members of Johnny's family. Because how close you commit murder to your own home is a direct correlation of your level of stupidity.

In fact, any kind of crime, looting, for example. If you loot in your own neighborhood, you're a fucking idiot.
The plan was that we were both gonna get both of our families.

But first we got my grandparents. Then that's why we went over to Johnny's house and we attacked his sister and her boyfriend because he wanted to kill his family.
Okay.

So that's like we stayed in town for a couple days because you know we wanted to get some money we wanted to get ready to leave and then that plan just going over to his house kind of just like it didn't work out at all it just went it went downhill from there

johnny and cassie went to johnny's mom's house once there they trashed the place looking for money then when his sister and her boyfriend arrived at the house cassie and johnny attacked them with bear spray and baseball bats We had a bear pellet that we bought from Bass Pro Shop.

What was that for?

For the, just to like, get them away or to, like, kind of, like, knock them out. Oh, god.
This stuff is strong. Like, yeah.
This stuff, oh my gosh, it was so crazy. Like, it was just all rushed.

Like, it was just, the spray was going everywhere, and it was, like, like, your eyes were burning, like, your whole body was burning. It was so painful.
And who did you guys spray?

Who got sprayed with that?

One of Johnny's sisters and her boyfriend.

Johnny and Cassie didn't anticipate that when you use bear repellent in a confined space, like a house, everyone in the space is going to feel the effects.

You want to know why they didn't assume that? That's because they were fucking stupid. Criminals are usually fucking stupid.

In short, Their plan to commit another double murder didn't really go as planned.

Johnny's sister and her boyfriend were able to fight off the attack, and when Johnny's mom came home, Cassie and Johnny fled.

They stole his sister's car and drove away in a panic. The next day, the SWAT team arrested them, but not before both Johnny and Cassie tried and failed to commit suicide by slitting their wrists.

Of course, this is something they would also fail at.

And as for the incident that happened with at Johnny's place, you're charged with

two accounts of egg assault, and obviously with your grandparents now, you're being charged with malice murder for your grandmother and then malice murder for your grandfather.

After Cassie confessed, there wasn't much left to do but charge her and Johnny with a slew of crimes. Of course, there were some non-legal and important questions worth asking.
Like, I don't know,

why?

Why? Why?

Why? Why would you do this?

Why?

How could these teenage morons be so vicious and cold-blooded towards their own families, their own flesh and blood, the people that gave them life?

What could have possibly happened in their lives to lead them down to this very, very low point?

As far as Johnny is concerned, we really don't have a lot of answers. He may just be a moron, and that's it.
There's lots of those in this country, unfortunately.

It seems that nobody who knew Johnny even saw this coming, but people close to a killer rarely admit that they do. Because then a bunch of other questions need to be asked.

And they, you know, who wants that kind of responsibility? Well, I don't know what was going through Johnny's mind because I met him a couple times and a lot of people do know him.

And he didn't seem like the type to kill anyone or anything. He just wanted to get buying off.
He was pretty nice.

The investigators trying to make sense of things did sit down and speak with Johnny, though their conversation was brief and didn't dive too deeply into his thought process about killing people.

Where'd you go to high school at? Peace.

Peace for Peace.

Did you graduate from there? Yes, sir. Did you do any college or anything?

I did do actual college with a mentate for business management.

I took math and English. Oh, God.

How'd you meet Cassie?

Like how did she come into this?

Did you go to school with her or did you?

Just out of all looking at her?

What do you mean trippy? Just spirit or yeah, spirits kid.

You know that

first love and first side.

Johnny seemed like a normal teenager. He had some misdemeanor charges for theft, but otherwise, he came off like a typical kid.

After a few minutes of being questioned by detectives, Johnny asked for a lawyer, which shut down his interview.

From Cassie's perspective, it seemed like Johnny was in a similar boat as her. According to Cassie, Johnny felt that he was being disrespected by his mom.

The way I saw their relationship was

his mom, you know, would get on him a lot saying, you know, like, you're not doing anything with your life and blah, blah, blah.

When he had like, he just got out of jail, he had two jobs, he was back in school, he, you know, he was, you know, getting his shit together. Right.

And then, you know, his mom kept saying, you know, like, you're just worthless. You know, you're not doing anything.

On top of the issues that Johnny was having with his mother, he may have also been dealing with some serious mental issues. Though the things that indicated mental illness might have been an act.

At one point, Johnny left his mom a very haunting voicemail, and it's hard to tell if this message is genuine or if it's just theatrics.

I'm sorry.

Tell Wendy, I'm sorry.

I'm not well.

I'm incoming crazy. I'm dying since we speak.

I'll see you later, okay?

As far as Cassie is concerned, she too had issues with the adults in her life, specifically her grandparents. Though it seems like she had no legitimate reason to dislike them.

After Wendy and Randall Bjorg gained custody of Cassie, all they did was show her the kind of love and care that any teenager would be lucky to have.

They got custody of her, and then right after that happened, they surprised her with a trip to Disney World. And then

last summer, they went to China. Yeah, they went to China for

judo stuff.

Wendy and Randall took Cassie on special vacations. They enrolled her in school and encouraged her interests.
Cassie liked martial arts, so her grandparents paid for her to have martial arts classes.

Cassie even attended a final judo class a day or so after she killed her grandparents. By all accounts, as Cassie's caretakers, Wendy and Randall went above and beyond.

Just looking and talking to the grandparents' friends and all that, it seemed like they really cared about her.

They took such good care of her. Like, she had it, like, she's honestly, like, I don't know why she was using that.

I mean, like, I did love Cassie this person, but like, she, like, honestly, was like a really selfish person. Like, she only cared about herself.

Did all of a sudden just snap, or like, that's what I'm kind of looking for: is where what was the snapping point?

Because I've actually talked to some people back in the day who said she was a sweet girl and there was no problems.

She had a really fun side, but when she didn't get her way, the anger issues were that.

Cassie had anger issues. That much is clear.
She violently attacked her grandparents on multiple occasions. But Cassie was also self-centered and narcissistic.

She wanted things to be her way and didn't care who she had to hurt to get what she wanted. But I think that it was building up.

I don't think it was anything where she snapped because when I talked to her on the walk that her and I were on, I'm like, so what's your deal?

I mean, you know that your grandparents love you, like, they're doing everything they can to get custody of you. What's the real problem?

She just said that she was tired of them being her parents instead of her grandparents. She said, I'm tired of them always telling me what to do.
She said, before,

you know, it was always fun. And she's like, now they're always at my ass.
And I'm like, well, you realize, like, if you just do what they're asking me to do,

she just looked at me and she said, hey, well, I don't give a fuck.

I said, you don't give a fuck, meaning, like,

what you and I are talking about or what? Like, narrow that down for me. She's like, I don't give a fuck about anything.

She's like, I just want to smoke, do what I want to do, and I don't want anybody up my ass about it. I'm like, so do the job and move out.

Allegedly, Cassie was sexually abused by her stepfather, which is why she was living with her grandparents in the first place.

If these sexual abuse allegations are true, that's certainly a terrible trauma that Cassie had to endure. It shouldn't be ignored, and it may have been what tipped the scale in her life.

However, many teenagers have unfortunately been victimized in this sort of way.

And that experience does not drive them to commit murder. It does not excuse any further bad actions by that person.

You don't get a free pass just because you were abused.

It seems that fundamentally, Cassie was just a selfish and heartless brat who couldn't see or didn't care to see that her grandparents only wanted to help her.

I mean, do you feel bad about what happened? Do you think she deserves what happened? Or what, you know, how are you feeling right now? I'm not in your shoes.

My grandparents? Yeah.

I mean, I was pretty pissed at her for, you know, the couple times that, you know, like, she would call the cops on me for, you know, no reason sometimes.

They're like, it kind of just, like, really messed up everything, you know. Like, I had to be home at a certain time and I couldn't do as much stuff as I, you know, used to do.

You know, that really made me angry because, you know, I used to just be able to do whatever.

Just like a lot of the stuff that she would say would be really offensive.

I just wanted to get away from all of that, you know, like I was so tired of dealing with my family. I don't know.
I just started feeling. Was your mom ever part of the plan?

I'm killing them. I wanted to.

17-year-old Cassie did not like having a curfew. She didn't like to be told what to do.

Nobody does, after all.

She was offended by the guidelines of her probation and the rules her grandparents set in place, the rules that were there for her own well-being.

So Cassie brutally murdered her grandparents. That was her solution.
She and her boyfriend used a tire iron and kitchen knives to beat and butcher Wendy and Randall Bjorg to death.

Well, I mean, unfortunately, there's, we, I believe you're kind of born with it. I think she's a stray social pet.
So

there's nowhere when you don't have any remorse in that. And I mean, it's, I think you're kind of born with that gene.
Something makes it come out in you and snap.

And, you know, know, unfortunately, I think there's like

4% of people in that country are social past.

After Cassie and Johnny were arrested, the court proceedings played out as expected. Cassie and Johnny had no legitimate defense for their actions.

So the best they could hope for was a deal from prosecutors, which they eventually got.

Tonight, a lot of you reacting pretty strongly on our Facebook page after two teenagers were sentenced to life in prison with the chance of parole after pleading guilty to murdering two grandparents.

Cassandra Biorga and Johnny Ryder won't be eligible for parole for at least 60 years. The two of them will be almost 80 years old by then.

Johnny and Cassie will likely never see the outside of a prison facility again.

I guess you can call that justice, but it's certainly a small consolation for the people who knew and loved Wendy and Randall.

This couple was 63 years old when they were killed. 63.

Imagine living on Earth for 63 years, only to be killed by your own granddaughter. And at that time, they were more than just Cassie's caretakers.

They were genuinely good people who had a lot of close friends.

A quick read of the countless heartfelt comments left on their online obituaries makes it pretty clear that Wendy and Randall were kind, giving, and willing to help just about anyone in need.

At the same time,

anybody could ring her doorbell. She'd open her door for anybody.
Like, she was just

the sweetest lady.

After Cassie moved in with her grandparents and began assaulting them, Wendy Bjorg quickly recognized the risk she was taking, but that didn't stop her.

Wendy's heart was too big.

Her hitting you, and now she's hitting Randall. Like, it's just getting more and more aggressive.
You're not concerned. She's like, Yeah.
She said, One day she's going to end up killing me.

As a friend, what do you what the hell do you say?

So she knew.

I think she just loved her.

She loved her unconditionally. She didn't want to make her feel like she turned her back on her, like everybody else said.

Yeah, I believe you can love someone too much, too.

Cassie's grandparents loved her, and that love was was unconditional.

In fact, if we were somehow able to communicate with the dead, despite what Cassie did to them, Wendy and Randall would probably tell us that they still only want the best for their granddaughter.

Sadly, Cassie's sociopathic nature will never allow her to care or even

understand

what any of that means.

Her little brain is just incapable.

Like the detective said, this is a case where two very kind people loved someone too much.

Wendy and Randall loved a monster.

Tragically, that monster

killed them.

Well, that's going to do it for another one. Why don't you go ahead and upgrade today to watch an episode of Sword Scale TV? It's a good day for it.
Beautiful day. Go check it out.
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Oh, and don't forget to stay safe.

We have some pretty clear instructions when you call our call-in line of what not to do.

Now, we can't prevent you from doing it, but if you do decide to ignore our instructions and do whatever you want, Well, then, expect to hear yourself on the show.

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