Episode 323

Transcript

Speaker 1 Independent election experts, community groups, and President Obama agree.

Speaker 4 Yes, on Prop 50.

Speaker 7 As Trump tries to rig the next election by stealing congressional seats, Prop 50 defends checks and balances and reaffirms California's commitment to independent, nonpartisan redistricting.

Speaker 7 This November, defend democracy.

Speaker 4 Yes, on 50.

Speaker 10 Add paid for by Yes on 50, the Election Rigging Response Act, Governor Newsom's Ballot Measure Committee, Ad Committee's top funders, Fund for Policy Reform, and HMP for Prop 50.

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Speaker 14 Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

Speaker 14 We lose a child that way,

Speaker 14 and

Speaker 17 that baby is an extension of her mother and the rest of her family, so they lost a child as well.

Speaker 15 Some asshole said at some point that brevity is the essence of wit, so we might as well get on with it. This is episode 323 of Sword and Scale, a show that reveals that the worst monsters are real.

Speaker 1 Independent election experts, community groups, and President Obama agree, yes, on Prop 50.

Speaker 7 This November, defend democracy.

Speaker 10 Add paid for by Yes on 50, the Election Rigging Response Act, Governor Newsom's Ballot Measure Committee, Ad Committee's Top Funders, Fund for Policy Reform, and HMP for Prop 50.

Speaker 15 She turns on to Bolivar Street, like the car is driving itself.

Speaker 15 She feels

Speaker 15 numb,

Speaker 15 Too numb to be its driver.

Speaker 15 She's been here before, too many times to count, but today is different.

Speaker 15 Her stomach is unsettled. Why hasn't her daughter Lisa responded to her in more than 15 hours? They have an understanding, she thinks.
If I don't hear from you, I'm coming to find you.

Speaker 15 It's the way moms and daughters operate. That bond is never truly broken.
The building comes into view at the far end of the block.

Speaker 15 It looks like a regular two-story house, maybe a little worn around the edges.

Speaker 15 There's a lawn, not big, but enough to push a mower across, and a long, narrow sidewalk that stretches up to the sagging front porch. It's the kind of porch you'd expect to creak under your feet, and

Speaker 15 it does. It does.

Speaker 15 From where she parks, the trees at the dead end street are in full bloom, tall and still.

Speaker 15 A thick line of woods makes the gray two-story house feel almost peaceful.

Speaker 15 If you didn't know any better, you'd think this was a residential house in a rural setting, not an apartment within the city limits. She walks the sidewalk, one foot in front of the other.

Speaker 15 Her hands are tight around her phone. There's no answer.
She's been calling and calling.

Speaker 15 And she's tired of hearing her daughter's voice on the voicemail greeting. She knows the entry code by heart, the four digits her daughter gave her months ago, just in case.

Speaker 15 She punches them into the keypad at the front of the apartment building and climbs to the second floor. It's too quiet, except for a fluorescent bulb buzzing in the hallway.

Speaker 15 Her stomach is already starting to twist. The apartment door is closed, but not locked.
She pushes it open.

Speaker 15 Something is off.

Speaker 15 Even the air smells wrong.

Speaker 15 She calls out Lisa's name, but there's no answer. Still, nothing screams danger.
It's just an eerie silence.

Speaker 15 Maybe Lisa is sleeping. Maybe her phone died.
Maybe.

Speaker 15 She moves through the kitchen and then the small hallway that leads to the bedroom.

Speaker 15 The light is on. This gives her one second of hope.
The light is on.

Speaker 15 She turns the corner to enter the bedroom, and her mother's intuition has already taken over.

Speaker 15 She steps closer. She calls her name again.

Speaker 18 Nothing.

Speaker 15 Just as she turns to leave the room, she catches something in her peripheral vision. Lisa is on the floor, on her back.

Speaker 15 Time is now in slow motion as she makes her way to her daughter. A towel is wrapped tightly around her head, almost like a turban.
Blood is soaked through it in dark patches.

Speaker 15 She sees that her shirt is lifted slightly over her swollen belly. She reaches out and touches her daughter's pregnant stomach and finds it

Speaker 15 cold.

Speaker 15 She thinks, maybe, just maybe,

Speaker 15 it's not too late. Maybe she can still do CPR, maybe the baby.

Speaker 15 But her hands are shaking.

Speaker 15 She feels the panic set in. So she dials 911.

Speaker 16 911 was the other separation.

Speaker 16 Yeah. Hi.

Speaker 16 Name? What do you think?

Speaker 16 Lisa, L-I-E-S-E.

Speaker 16 God, is she on boulevard right now? No.

Speaker 16 She's in her apartment. I remember check on him.

Speaker 15 At that moment, Heidi Noel crosses a threshold no parent is ever meant to cross.

Speaker 18 So I was a single mom with two children. I had Lisa when I was about 27 years old.

Speaker 18 She was my mini-me.

Speaker 18 We had a lot of the same characteristics and behaviors.

Speaker 18 My older daughter, Shelby, just doted on Lisa. It was kind of like her living baby doll.

Speaker 18 As they were growing up, as any siblings, they went through their close times and then their separate times where they couldn't stand each other, which is pretty normal.

Speaker 18 But as they became adults, they became the best of friends and they used to call themselves twins seven years apart.

Speaker 18 So

Speaker 18 they were quite the team.

Speaker 15 In the chaos of that moment, her calling for help, trying to make sense of what she's just seen. Heidi's recollection of the night before stuck with her.
The last text.

Speaker 15 I don't. I last

Speaker 15 got a message from her last night.

Speaker 16 How was the last time?

Speaker 16 What time did you last hear from her?

Speaker 16 It was like 9:05 or so. I had sent her a text.

Speaker 15 That last text read simply,

Speaker 15 You okay?

Speaker 15 A mother's intuition told her

Speaker 15 Lisa was not okay.

Speaker 16 They're on their way. Okay.

Speaker 16 No, that's her name. That's her vehicle.

Speaker 16 Doing it now.

Speaker 16 Do you see the officers, man?

Speaker 16 I hear this, Brian. I hear this.

Speaker 16 Tell me when you see the officer.

Speaker 16 Okay, stand with me.

Speaker 16 Okay, you see the officer now?

Speaker 16 Okay, I'm going to let you go, okay?

Speaker 16 Okay, you're welcome.

Speaker 15 What she holds on to now came long before that tragic night. The moments that still make her laugh, the moments that made Lisa Lisa.

Speaker 18 She was a good student. She was very thoughtful and courteous.

Speaker 18 She

Speaker 18 when she was

Speaker 18 we moved up to Jerseyville when Shelby was entering middle school and Lisa was still one year away from kindergarten. So Lisa did complete all of her schooling here in Jerseyville.
And at Shelby's

Speaker 18 middle school orientation, Lisa dressed with a tiara and princess outfit. So she was, like I said, said, around five, six years old.

Speaker 18 So she attended Shelby's, much to Shelby's dismay, middle school orientation in a tiara and princess gown and those little plastic princess shoes that they used to sell at the store. So

Speaker 18 she was a character.

Speaker 15 Lisa was just 22 years old, but was already living on her own in an apartment about half an hour away from her mom and stepdad.

Speaker 15 She was responsible. She had her own car and a job.
But her main goal was to become a nurse like her mother because she loved caring for people.

Speaker 15 That was obvious.

Speaker 15 She was pregnant, almost eight months pregnant. The nursery wasn't finished yet, but the baby shower invitations had already gone out.
The party was planned for the end of June.

Speaker 15 Pink and white decorations.

Speaker 15 Her mom had just picked up the balloons. The due date was late July, just weeks away.

Speaker 15 Just the night before, Heidi and Lisa had been talking about names for the baby. She wasn't ever nervous, just excited.

Speaker 15 She'd text her mom about baby stuff constantly.

Speaker 15 Crib styles, diaper bags, and ultrasounds.

Speaker 18 And she had, even in her younger years, had always kind of wanted to be a mom. She has some cousins.

Speaker 18 I think at the time she had about three cousins and she doted on them and would kind of babysit with them. And so she

Speaker 18 was very much into she was looking forward to being a mom. Like she never, she never shied away from being a mom or the responsibility of that.
And during the one of the first

Speaker 18 ultrasounds, you know when when a baby's really small it looks kind of like a bean a little jelly bean and so that's where she she then started referring to her baby as baby bean so that's where the the nickname came from and we all just embraced it and went with it so the restaurant that she worked at here in jerseyville was going to allow us to use their space to host her baby shower

Speaker 18 so we were talking about how we were going to decorate it and I had asked her if she'd decided on a name yet. And she's like, no, not really.

Speaker 18 Not for sure. I thought about Leilani.
And I'm like, why Leilani? You know, I'm like, we're not Hawaiian. And she goes, that's not a Hawaiian name.

Speaker 18 And I'm like, well, I said, it's still a beautiful name. But I said, I thought you were leaning toward Genevieve.
And she's like, no, I'm not sure. So

Speaker 15 she had no idea that she wouldn't get to see any of it.

Speaker 15 Now she sat rocking back and forth to soothe herself as she waited for police and emergency responders to make their way to Lisa's apartment.

Speaker 15 Car after car, sirens blazing and lights flashing, were descending onto the place.

Speaker 15 It seemed like the entire police department was crowding onto the front lawn, and Heidi was just.

Speaker 15 Well, she was just numb.

Speaker 15 You have it keyed again?

Speaker 16 Right here, right here. This one.
Do you have this key?

Speaker 15 Of course, Heidi wasn't thinking clearly. They would need the same code to enter the building.
As for the key, she left Lisa's apartment unlocked as she walked away in shock.

Speaker 15 Unsure of where the killer was, the police announced themselves as they stormed the building.

Speaker 15 Even they were stunned at what they saw in Lisa's bedroom.

Speaker 16 You want to go talk to her, dude? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll hold her.

Speaker 15 The The scene was a bloody mess, and the suspect was long gone by the time Lisa's mom and the police got there.

Speaker 15 Whoever killed her fled in her car, a black Kia Optima.

Speaker 15 They left behind a dead body and a grieving mother.

Speaker 16 Take some big deep breaths for me, okay?

Speaker 15 She moved the towel.

Speaker 16 It was partial.

Speaker 15 It was faint. The sound of Heidi's voice asking officers a question that an hour earlier would have seemed absurd.

Speaker 15 Did you find her head? She asked. When she turned into the doorway of her daughter's bedroom, she almost left without seeing her daughter in it at all.

Speaker 15 This was because Lisa lay on the floor. But then, Heidi caught sight of her daughter's pale skin smeared with blood.

Speaker 15 And then a towel wrapped around her head like a turban.

Speaker 15 Except, there was no head.

Speaker 15 It was hard for even seasoned police to come to grips with the site.

Speaker 16 I don't know the whole story, but it's only mom came here to take on her daughter. Found daughter just dead upstairs.
Okay. Obviously, okay.

Speaker 16 Can you wanna

Speaker 16 cut off? Oh. So, I mean, I don't think there's anything.
Yeah, I don't think there's anything.

Speaker 16 So, all right, so just some more rooms.

Speaker 16 That's what we're trying to do. Get in these other apartments just to make sure that

Speaker 16 everybody else is.

Speaker 16 I just got a proper game. I'll just check in to see.
Yeah.

Speaker 15 While a few few officers waited outside with Heidi, some went into the building to ask if anyone in the other units knew anything.

Speaker 15 This wasn't something they came across every day, and even they were shocked.

Speaker 15 Yeah, it's not good enough.

Speaker 15 We didn't see it.

Speaker 16 I'm assuming maybe wrapped up in that towel, but

Speaker 16 I think some cut.

Speaker 16 It looks fairly clean, too. Yeah,

Speaker 15 The police had looked everywhere for Lisa's head, even the refrigerator and freezer.

Speaker 15 But it was nowhere. According to the police report, first responders found blood throughout the floor of the apartment.
Most police were instructed to wait outside while the scene was processed.

Speaker 15 Once in the bedroom, they saw Lisa's decapitated body lying on the bedroom floor next to the bed. They noticed bloodstains on her torso, and most of the stains seemed to be blood spatter or smearing.

Speaker 15 But then they saw something odd. A symmetrical stain on her left side.
It was rectangular with small circles inside the rectangle.

Speaker 15 It's unclear, but likely, that Lisa was already dead when her head was severed.

Speaker 15 There was no mention of arterial spurting in the police report.

Speaker 15 This was her mother's perspective and her words.

Speaker 18 I had turned to just get ready to leave, and

Speaker 18 out of the corner of my eye, I saw skin, the color of skin. Again, I'm a nurse, so

Speaker 18 and I think I was like, I think that was skin. So when I turned and looked in the bedroom, I saw her laying on the ground.
And so so I ran over to her,

Speaker 18 saying, you know, Lisa, Lisa.

Speaker 15 What a painful realization that the child you brought into this world was whole when she got here and in pieces when she left.

Speaker 15 The towel bundled up at the top of Lisa's body did not contain the rest of her. And her hand was lying on top of a book about pregnancy, of all things.

Speaker 15 This was the same hand that used to tuck back long strands of strawberry blonde hair from her bright face and smile.

Speaker 15 But where was that smile now?

Speaker 15 Where was her face, for that matter?

Speaker 15 Heidi was already begging the police to find it

Speaker 15 and find the monster who did this.

Speaker 4 Yes on Prop 50.

Speaker 7 This November, defend democracy, yes on 50.

Speaker 11 Add paid for by Yes on 50 the Election-Rigging Response Act, Governor Newsom's Ballot Measure Committee.

Speaker 10 Add Committee's top funders.

Speaker 12 Fund for policy reform and HMP for Prop 50.

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Speaker 4 Yes, on Prop 50.

Speaker 7 This November, Defend Democracy.

Speaker 10 Add paid for by Yes on 50, the Election Rigging Response Act, Governor Newsom's Ballot Measure Committee, Ad Committee's top funders, Fund for Policy Reform, and HMP for Prop 50.

Speaker 15 On January 9th, 2022, in Alton, Illinois, Police responded to a call from a mother who had discovered her daughter's body. 22-year-old Lisa Dodd was seven months pregnant.

Speaker 15 She was found dead inside her apartment, her head missing.

Speaker 15 As officers started processing the scene, a larger story was already unfolding, one that hadn't started that day.

Speaker 15 Lisa had been living with a boyfriend for months. It was a young man her age, and she'd been seeing him for almost two years.

Speaker 15 According to Heidi, she was an exceptional student student who wanted to follow in her mom's footsteps and study to be a nurse.

Speaker 18 So Liusa had

Speaker 18 started at Lucin Clark, which is the local community college here.

Speaker 18 And she was looking at also becoming a nurse. She was just starting the prerequisites and stuff, but then COVID hit.
So that had given her some extra time, but they actually

Speaker 18 met through a social media. I'm not sure which, whether it was Facebook or one of those social medias.

Speaker 18 she said he was an acquaintance of one of the people that she was friends with, and then they saw each other in DMs or something, and that's how they started communicating.

Speaker 15 That's how everybody looks for a romantic connection in 2025. Dating apps.

Speaker 15 But Facebook? That's more like 2010.

Speaker 15 Nowadays, it's Hinge. Tinder, or, I don't know, Grinder, I guess.
FurryFucks.com? Who the hell knows? I have no idea. So anyway, this guy's name was DeAndre Holloway, and he lived about an hour away.

Speaker 18 When she first started meeting up with him or seeing him, I wasn't aware of that until June of 2020. She finally brought him around to introduce him to me.

Speaker 15 And

Speaker 18 probably within the first couple of times of meeting him, I recognized some of those signs,

Speaker 18 characteristics, and behaviors that he kind of portrayed. But I had a few relationships where they were emotionally kind of controlling and

Speaker 18 abusive in that way, emotionally and mentally.

Speaker 15 You know the kind. It's all about them.
They're needy, kind of lost. The kind of person who

Speaker 15 never quite seems to have their life together, but always has a story about why,

Speaker 15 why they don't have a place to stay, stay, why they don't have a job, why their family situation is, quote-unquote, complicated.

Speaker 15 They're the kind of people who text a whole lot. They're always checking up on you.
Not, according to them, because they're controlling you, but because they can't stand the silence.

Speaker 15 They suddenly show up unannounced if you're having coffee with your girlfriends and act like that's totally normal and that they're not actually surveilling your activities.

Speaker 15 They don't have a car, or when they do, it's always in the shop.

Speaker 15 Again, it lives there in the shop because they don't have the 50 bucks to get it back. And they always seem to need some help.

Speaker 15 A lot of it. A free ride, a little money, a second chance.

Speaker 15 And somehow, there's always a person that gives it to them. Somebody who sees their potential.

Speaker 15 and believes that if they just had someone stable in their lives, somebody who's patient with them and doesn't give up on them like everyone else has,

Speaker 15 they'll finally be okay.

Speaker 15 Lisa, was that someone for DeAndre?

Speaker 18 There was one time that

Speaker 18 they had been over visiting here at my home. And he, I don't know if he got tired of being here or just wanted to leave, and he was just going to leave on foot, and she was like, no, don't leave.

Speaker 18 And so there was a little

Speaker 18 verbal like, no, I'm leaving. And I was like, Lisa, if he wants to leave, let him go.
You know, if he's that adamant that he wants to leave, let him, no, he can't walk.

Speaker 18 And in Jerseyville, it is a smaller community, and the African-American population is not that large here.

Speaker 18 So she was afraid that, you know, he might be looked at differently walking down the side of the street or whatever. So she was very adamant that he, you know, didn't leave on foot.

Speaker 18 And just that interaction at that time,

Speaker 18 I could already kind of see the manipulation of,

Speaker 18 you know, him escalating things like, I'm just leaving on foot and her trying to fix the situation.

Speaker 15 And that's the very kind of relationship that pulls you in and can eventually pull you under.

Speaker 15 It keeps you busy and focused on someone else's problems instead of your own.

Speaker 15 Not that Lisa had any problems, but she had goals and a full life ahead of her. DeAndre

Speaker 15 did not.

Speaker 15 As aware of the dynamic as Heidi was, she knew better than to dictate to her adult daughter what she could and couldn't do and whom she could and couldn't see.

Speaker 18 It's a very fine line between navigating this with them. And I also recognize

Speaker 18 now

Speaker 18 I'm in my midlife, but I remember being younger and the more my parent tried to clamp down and control who I talked to or how I talked to or how long I was, the more almost rebellious I was.

Speaker 18 So I recognize that it's that fine line where you have to try to be there as much as you can and set boundaries for them, but also recognizing that that could also cause them to go the entire opposite direction and become very rebellious.

Speaker 18 Him acting that way is not really appropriate. And he's kind of using that to get you to do what he wants you to do.

Speaker 18 And, you know, I don't really think this is a good relationship but she was just yeah just very adamant that no like she could help him you know i know he's got all this stuff going on he wasn't currently living at home um he was living with friends in highland so i'm not 100 of all the facts in his backstory so i don't want to allude to things incorrectly but i do know that he had troubles at home in his home life.

Speaker 18 And so whether he left on his own or whether they had asked him to leave at that time, I'm not sure, but he was not living at home, so I think she felt like he could help him through those situations that he was having in his own family life.

Speaker 15 To his acquaintances, DeAndre came off as quiet, sometimes distant. He didn't talk much about his personal life.

Speaker 15 His family described him as someone who drifted between homes, often staying with his mother or sister and showing up unannounced.

Speaker 15 The kind of guy who you ask, where are you staying at, instead of where you living at.

Speaker 15 You know, like normal people.

Speaker 15 His sister said that growing up he was a loner. He'd stay in his room for hours, rarely brought friends over, and didn't seem to connect easily with others.
You could say he was sensitive.

Speaker 15 He'd be thrown off when plans changed or when he felt misunderstood.

Speaker 15 Sometimes he could get a job, but he could never keep it. When things fell through, it it was usually someone else's fault.
A lot of that going around these days.

Speaker 15 At one point, his mother kicked him out of the house because he wasn't contributing and would become combative.

Speaker 15 During a phone conversation with Heidi, he explained why he struggled with confrontation. He said that in his family, if someone challenged you, you took it outside and settled it outside.

Speaker 15 That's just how he learned to handle things.

Speaker 17 I

Speaker 18 recognized that I at different times I did talk to both of them.

Speaker 18 Like I had talked to her about ending the relationship at different times and that it wasn't a good relationship and things, you know, weren't proceeding like healthy relationships do.

Speaker 18 And then I had also said the same things to him, like, it's okay that you guys aren't together or you break up and you you know, you seem better as friends than you do when you're together and people get divorced and trying to support that they didn't have to be together to stay friends and and even the

Speaker 18 maybe you guys just don't need to be together now until you mature and get older and then you can come back together later in life.

Speaker 15 It was a classic toxic relationship, the push and the pull.

Speaker 15 Lisa was working on trying to hold the relationship together. And her mother was using all the tools in her toolbox as a mom and a nurse to guide her daughter down the right path.

Speaker 15 But, you know, 22 is the new 12, isn't it? Kids are dumb as fuck these days. Somewhere in the last couple of decades, something shifted.

Speaker 15 We started recognizing young people as adults on paper, but emotionally and socially, they're stunted.

Speaker 15 They're still trying to figure it out, sometimes into their 30s and 40s. Lisa wanted to help him, and she thought she could, but his problems were a whole lot bigger than immaturity.

Speaker 18 I would probably say the first time I noticed it really escalating was in the spring of 2021.

Speaker 18 He had been homeless and

Speaker 18 she would go out with him in the evening until early, early in the morning and then would drop him off at parks or wherever he would say he could stay. So then they had,

Speaker 18 which I did not like, that she was out that late. And then it came to a point where they had found

Speaker 18 a place to stay in Hillsborough, Illinois.

Speaker 18 And he had, she called me one evening and he was having an episode where he was rocking and having, he always called it a reaction. He was having some type of reaction where he was

Speaker 18 talking about people that were talking in his head and seeing a person in the room.

Speaker 18 And I told her, I said, Lisa, you need to call 911 because he's having, I said, it sounds very much like schizophrenia if he's hearing voices and seeing things.

Speaker 18 Again, I'm not diagnosing him,

Speaker 18 but it sounded very much like that. So I was like, this is not something that you can handle as a 20, I guess she was 21 at that time.
I said, I'm a nurse and have been, but that's not my specialty.

Speaker 18 So you need to call 911 to help him to get him assistance, which she finally,

Speaker 18 he had also had some previous run-ins with the law in 2019.

Speaker 18 So she didn't want to call the ambulance or the police or 911 because she didn't want him to get in trouble and go back to jail.

Speaker 18 But she did end up, I finally convinced her that that was the best option. So she did call 911 and he was taken to a hospital in.

Speaker 18 Hillsborough there for a psych evaluation.

Speaker 18 So that was kind of my first like big, big, oh my gosh, moment where like this is bigger than just, you know, not a healthy relationship.

Speaker 15 Now we've been told for years by the so-called experts that those with mental illness are more likely to be victims than perpetrators.

Speaker 15 But what's also true is that if your boyfriend cuts off your head, he's more likely to be mentally ill than not.

Speaker 15 In fact, it's just about guaranteed. Those two things can be true at the same time, by the way.
It's called a logical fallacy for all you college-educated experts out there.

Speaker 15 Lisa hesitated to call 911 because DeAndre had previously been in trouble with the law, but Heidi finally convinced her it was too much for her to handle alone.

Speaker 15 He was placed in psychiatric holding for 72 hours and sent home with medications.

Speaker 15 And for a while, he was doing a lot better.

Speaker 15 But then his meds ran out.

Speaker 18 So the next, the very first time that it was

Speaker 18 very chilling was

Speaker 18 the end of May of 2021.

Speaker 18 She had come and had a black eye and bruises, and

Speaker 18 he had,

Speaker 18 during one of the altercations, he had choked her out. And she stated that she lost consciousness.

Speaker 18 And now I may get emotional because I've not ever really told this story.

Speaker 18 He had choked her out to where she had lost consciousness and actually she said she saw people.

Speaker 15 Let's be clear. These were not the same people that the mentally ill DeAndre was seeing.
These were not demons or gods or whatever the hell was telling him what to do.

Speaker 15 No, these are the kind of people you see at the end of the tunnel of light, if you catch my drift.

Speaker 18 And I explained to her that that was probably her dying.

Speaker 18 You don't normally see people, and that it's a very serious situation that he could kill her. So at that time, she did get away from him.

Speaker 18 We actually put her on a plane to, we had a discussion about it, and she was very adamant, you know, that she wanted to end the relationship and get away from him.

Speaker 18 And so we bought her a one-way ticket to Colorado. I have family in Colorado.
So she was actually going to move out there.

Speaker 18 She also has a friend that had relocated, a best friend that relocated to Colorado. So she was going to stay with her.

Speaker 15 But that lasted about a week.

Speaker 18 I will say as a parent, that is one of the hardest and difficult things of trying to assist your kids through these things is because of cell phones and social media, there is really no way

Speaker 18 to disconnect them from each other unless they make that full effort to disconnect.

Speaker 18 They can talk on Snapchat, they can messenger, they can Instagram each other, they can DM, they can Facebook, they can, so it's not just the phone anymore that is a communication tool.

Speaker 18 There's so many ways they can still communicate.

Speaker 15 Maybe someday someone will have the balls to do a study on how many deaths social media is indirectly or directly responsible for.

Speaker 15 From that point on, Heidi panicked every time the phone rang. She kept all the local police numbers in her phone in case of an emergency.

Speaker 15 She told Lisa that she was always 100% welcome to move back home, just not with DeAndre.

Speaker 15 She knew if that happened and there were problems, she had her husband to think about.

Speaker 15 What if he popped off and did something to intervene and hurt DeAndre? And the next thing you know, he lands himself in jail.

Speaker 15 It felt like there was no good end, no good options, as long as her adult daughter chose to stay with this boyfriend.

Speaker 15 DeAndre's violence escalated to the point where practically everybody who knew them knew about it. Lisa could only make excuses about running into doors or tripping downstairs for so long.

Speaker 15 It was becoming obvious, even to her employer.

Speaker 18 Okay. She had gone out on break.
She didn't come back from break, and the manager on duty had called me to let me know, and I was concerned for her. So I had texted Lisa to see if she was okay.

Speaker 18 And a couple hours later, she texted me back and said that her boyfriend had gotten in an altercation and that she was at the Litchville Hospital emergency room and thought that her nose was broken.

Speaker 18 And then she texted me back and said she had seen the doctor and was waiting on the x-rays and that she would be into work the next day, but her nose was broken.

Speaker 18 So were they in the car when that happened or were they outside the car? No, they were in the the car and we have cameras on the back of the building.

Speaker 18 We actually tried to roll the cameras back, but they're not very good definition, so we weren't able to actually see it.

Speaker 16 Oh, crap. Yeah.

Speaker 18 I wanted to call the police and she did not want to do that.

Speaker 16 Okay.

Speaker 18 And I probably should have.

Speaker 15 Finally, an incident happened and Heidi called 911.

Speaker 15 She just got back from a run. She takes out her earbuds and wipes her forehead and steps into the front door on a hot summer day.

Speaker 15 She's making her way into the kitchen for a drink of water when she sees Lisa's car pull up.

Speaker 15 She can tell by the frantic expression on her daughter and DeAndre's faces that they're arguing again, and he's been smacking her. Lisa runs into the house and starts banging on the door.

Speaker 15 While Heidi lets Lisa in, her husband rushes out to confront the screaming boyfriend who is rage-walking towards the house. Her mind races as as she sees and hears him yelling at DeAndre.

Speaker 15 No, get out of our driveway. We don't want you here.
Just leave. Now.

Speaker 15 Lisa's stepdad is shouting this as he makes his way to her car, grabs DeAndre's things, and throws them onto the street and gets the keys.

Speaker 15 That's when Lisa's mother dials 911.

Speaker 18 And also, just reliving it in your head is like you just can't even imagine.

Speaker 16 I'm a cry

Speaker 18 being in those high

Speaker 18 those high intensity situations is just so unbelievable

Speaker 18 to

Speaker 18 look back on

Speaker 18 so I had I did call 911

Speaker 18 at that time but I didn't realize when I had gone for my run I would use earbuds And when I had come home, actually when she was banging on the door, I pulled the earbuds out of my ear and had gone outside to tell him to go and that I was calling 911.

Speaker 18 And when it was connecting to 911, it was actually connecting through the earbuds and not my phone. So I never actually spoke to the police.

Speaker 18 In the meantime, my husband, like I said, had gone outside and gotten Dre's belongings out of her car and handed them to him and told him to just go on down the road.

Speaker 18 So Dre took off walking down the road.

Speaker 18 And as I was sitting next to Lisa, I could see her eye

Speaker 18 turning black from him smacking her.

Speaker 15 Heidi says the cops did drive down her street several times, but by that time, DeAndre was on foot and long gone, somewhere. Lisa had finally had enough.
Again.

Speaker 15 Understand that, statistically, it takes about seven attempts at leaving an abusive relationship before it's actually final, which is bonkers, by the way.

Speaker 15 To help her along, Heidi took her phone for over a week, just to make sure there wouldn't be any immediate contact with DeAndre.

Speaker 15 Then, when it seemed like she was able to think straight and was living with her sister Shelby for a few weeks, she got her phone back.

Speaker 15 The weeks turned into months, and even though Lisa still had some communication with DeAndre,

Speaker 15 they did not see each other in person.

Speaker 15 Supposedly, he'd left the state and was in Memphis, Tennessee.

Speaker 15 It was during this this time that she discovered that she was pregnant. She was planning on going it alone.

Speaker 15 This was in the winter of 2021.

Speaker 15 Fast forward to the spring of 2022, and guess who's back?

Speaker 15 Yeah,

Speaker 15 DeAndre.

Speaker 15 Wanting to make things work, saying he was a new person now, and once again monopolizing Lisa's life.

Speaker 15 This time, Heidi had a serious talk with him. She told him that she was onto him and all the bruises he'd inflicted on Lisa.

Speaker 15 She showed him a file of pictures with exact dates, times, and documentation that she'd put together so that if he ever laid a hand on her again, his whole life would be taken to the police.

Speaker 15 It was, in some ways, like a small security blanket for Heidi. But Deandre just looked her dead in the eye.
In so many words, he said,

Speaker 15 That doesn't really matter. I'm crazy, and everyone knows it.
So I'll just play the crazy card.

Speaker 18 I did let him know that, yes. Because the whole time I told him, you know, abusing someone you supposedly love is not really appropriate and it's not okay.

Speaker 18 And it is abuse. And, you know, people go to jail for that.
And

Speaker 18 he had said to me on more than one occasion that it didn't matter because he would just pull the crazy card and he felt like nothing would happen to him because he did have some mental health issues.

Speaker 18 And I don't know if he had that feeling because that's what he'd used in the past to get out of any

Speaker 18 situations he had with the authorities, or if that was just his own personal feeling. But yes, more than once he said that to me, that it didn't matter because he would just pull the crazy card.

Speaker 15 There you go. There it is.
The result of no repercussions because dumb people keep making dumb laws that protect violent assholes. The intersection of crime and politics.

Speaker 15 Y'all know about intersectionality, right?

Speaker 15 He'd said this more than once. But this time, it felt like a real threat.
Maybe even a confession of what was to come.

Speaker 15 Because this wasn't just someone with a short temper or a bruised ego. According to his family, DeAndre had been hearing voices for years.

Speaker 15 He told them there was three of them. One of them had a name,

Speaker 15 Ruth.

Speaker 15 Lover Steakhouse, by the way.

Speaker 15 Ruth told him who he could trust and who he couldn't. She told him what to do sometimes, that she was looking out for him.

Speaker 15 She'd tell him who he could and couldn't forgive.

Speaker 15 And sometimes it felt like Ruth was the one in charge, not DeAndre.

Speaker 15 The morning after Lisa's body was discovered, surveillance footage captures someone walking away from the apartment. It looks kind of like a woman.

Speaker 15 Her face wrapped in a yellow scarf and she's wearing oversized female clothing. Lisa's clothing.
A hoodie, sneakers, and joggers.

Speaker 15 She's carrying a white laundry basket and moving calmly, methodically, walking towards a dumpster.

Speaker 15 Police said it was DeAndre, but watching it now, frame to frame, you have to wonder, is that really him?

Speaker 15 Or is that Ruth?

Speaker 15 It's possible that Ruth was hiding inside DeAndre's mind all along, or maybe she just showed up on special occasions. Whatever the case may be, he was acting normal the last time they were reunited.

Speaker 15 In fact, so normal that Heidi was surprised he seemed to take her ultimatum seriously. There were no more bruises, and for months, as Lisa's belly grew, the couple got along better than ever.

Speaker 18 In March of 2022, we did the gender reveal at the apartment there outside. And she did one of those.
I got one of those

Speaker 18 confetti cannons.

Speaker 18 And then we also did a t-shirt.

Speaker 18 And I put pink

Speaker 18 watercolor in the

Speaker 18 water gun and she sprayed the shirt and that's how we did the gender reveal. The pink water came out of the gun and

Speaker 18 dyed the t-shirt pink.

Speaker 16 So

Speaker 18 he participated. He's the one that discharged the pink gun and he, the confetti gun.
And he actually, I think, had a t-shirt on that said father to be. She had one on that said mom to be.

Speaker 18 I had one for grandma to be coming soon.

Speaker 18 And then Shelby had an aunt t-shirt on. So yeah, and Shelby's fiancé was there.
So yeah, he participated in that and we had a nice day.

Speaker 15 Outwardly, everything seemed fine. DeAndre was there for the gender reveal.
He smiled for the pictures. He helped load gifts into the car.
He said he wanted to be part of it all.

Speaker 15 To anyone watching, he looked like he meant it. There was no scene except a happy one, and he was going to be a dad.

Speaker 15 But,

Speaker 15 and get this, this is the M-Night Shyamalan twist. This is why you

Speaker 15 pay me the big bucks.

Speaker 15 You ready?

Speaker 15 All right, enough dilly-dallying. Let's get on with it.

Speaker 15 Here it is.

Speaker 15 The baby

Speaker 15 wasn't his.

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Speaker 15 On June 9th, 2022, Lisa Dodd was found murdered in her Alton apartment. She was 22 years old and seven months pregnant.

Speaker 15 That afternoon, her mother discovered her daughter's body, her hand lying on top of a book about pregnancy.

Speaker 15 The thing is, even though babies are viable at 33 weeks, they can't live for more than 10 minutes without their mother's blood circulating through their body. Lisa's blood had already run cold.

Speaker 15 Heidi found her that afternoon in a state she never should have seen. A body.

Speaker 15 without a head.

Speaker 15 By the next morning, her boyfriend DeAndre, dressed as the incarnation of Ruth, an imaginary person in his head, was gone. And the investigation was just starting.

Speaker 16 If you're going, do not touch anything. Okay?

Speaker 16 Ma'am.

Speaker 16 Yes, some deep breaths, okay?

Speaker 16 Yeah,

Speaker 16 I mean, I'm freaked out, but I don't care. Totally understandable.

Speaker 16 Okay, I want you to take some big deep breaths for me, though, okay?

Speaker 16 Fuck, I knew he was going to do this. I have pitches where he abused her in the past.

Speaker 15 Police knew who they were looking for. Surveillance footage showed him leaving the apartment with a laundry basket.
Then he went back into the apartment and came back out with more discarded things.

Speaker 15 Three separate trips. The last time he was seen, his face was wrapped in cloth.
He was wearing Lisa's hoodie and sneakers.

Speaker 15 While Deandre was making his way across Litchfield, Illinois, investigators back in Alton were knocking on doors, unit by unit, floor by floor.

Speaker 15 The occupant living in Unit 2 was a 19-year-old female whose mother was with her when police were asking questions.

Speaker 16 Just get a statement.

Speaker 16 She said that this always happens, that they always have this.

Speaker 16 They fight a lot.

Speaker 16 Why do you think you would need to go to

Speaker 16 our marriage? Um, the downstairs neighborhood directly below you.

Speaker 16 What's your apartment number? Three ain't it. Yeah.
I'm number two. She's two.
She's right under the city. She's up to the left.

Speaker 16 She She said she heard stuff last night and she was going to come here. Like, wasn't it? She said, like, nine or something, she heard something real loud, but she didn't go to check.

Speaker 16 Like, she lives by herself, so she said it was almost 10 o'clock. But she's a, my daughter's like a little young one.
She's straight out of college. She's 19.

Speaker 16 She's going to come at 2 o'clock.

Speaker 16 She's at work, and we're not letting her. I have to move on to the station though, okay? Just didn't come here.
So

Speaker 16 just tell her.

Speaker 16 Yeah, they just want you to come to this station. Just tell her that God is ask for a detective.
Ask for detective. What just any detective? Any detective.
What's her name, Deer?

Speaker 15 This young woman and other neighbors had heard everything.

Speaker 15 Everyone knew that DeAndre and Lisa had a volatile relationship. And they had to have known she was being abused.
Lisa had the black eyes to prove it. But that night was unusually chaotic and loud.

Speaker 15 One neighbor said it it started with the arguing, not unusual for that unit. But this time the arguing didn't stop.
It escalated.

Speaker 15 Another said it turned into screaming, then muffled yelling, like someone was trying to shout through something,

Speaker 15 then five, maybe six heavy thuds. It sounded like someone was chopping wood, according to a witness.

Speaker 15 And then

Speaker 15 Someone else said they heard footsteps after that, someone walking out of the building, with calm steps.

Speaker 15 But no one called 911.

Speaker 15 It was just business as usual.

Speaker 15 They'd heard the fighting before and everything turned out okay. Why should they intervene? They could have prevented Lisa from being beaten in the face and head, suffocated, and then decapitated.

Speaker 15 And the odd-shaped rectangle rectangle and circles on her body, those were bloody leftover imprints from the knife handle her killer used and then casually placed on her body before getting rid of it.

Speaker 15 Lisa's black Kia Optima was missing also.

Speaker 15 It was obvious who took it, and it was easy to find.

Speaker 15 Just blocks away at a local business with a fur sale sign on it.

Speaker 15 Although they knew right away it was her car,

Speaker 15 it was sitting on private property and the owner wasn't around, just an employee who didn't want to get involved.

Speaker 16 There's nothing looking at you, but we need somebody to contact her. It's a serious thing that happened over there.
It has nothing to do with you.

Speaker 16 I don't want to be contacted by whatever happened back there.

Speaker 16 Okay, but we need to contact her whether we're going to subpoena or not. I need people to contact her.
I just need a point of contact. So I either need a name of the owner or I need your phone number.

Speaker 16 So I would say sometime between 12 a.m. to 12 p.m., but it's probably the car hit on a license plate reader at 1 in the morning.

Speaker 16 Maybe a black key at Octoma. I have to say, yeah, it's always fun thing too.

Speaker 16 Yeah, so that last hit there, and that's probably what we're looking for anytime somebody might have been around that vehicle and when it left.

Speaker 15 At 2.30 in the morning, DeAndre's sister is at her grandmother's place in Litchfield. She wakes up from her slumber for some reason and now hears her brother DeAndre knocking at the front door.

Speaker 15 This isn't unusual. Grandma's house is frequented by some of her grandkids, but not usually at this hour.

Speaker 15 Lights from his car outside illuminate the driveway, and she can hear the engine still running.

Speaker 15 She looks out the window from where she is and sees his girlfriend's car, so she assumes he's just stopped by for some reason for a minute and Lisa is still in the car.

Speaker 15 She's not really sure why he's here, but after just a little bit, he says he forgot to give his girlfriend her car keys and leaves the house.

Speaker 15 His sister dozes off, and when she wakes up again a few hours later, the car and DeAndre are gone. Later that morning, DeAndre shows up at another sister's place close by with no call ahead.

Speaker 15 He walks in wearing oversized clothes that she's seen before on Lisa.

Speaker 15 She asks him what he's wearing, but He doesn't explain. Instead, he goes straight to the bathroom and locks the door.
She hears the buzz of clippers through the wall.

Speaker 15 When he comes out, his long dreads are gone, just scattered pieces left behind in the sink. This isn't right, she thinks.

Speaker 15 He spent two years growing out those dreads and said he was never going to cut them off in a million years. She doesn't say anything because he seems agitated.

Speaker 15 She knows what he's like when he's in this state. He rocks back and forth.
If his mood gets worse, he might start punching himself in the head or face, so she stays quiet.

Speaker 15 Then, he walks to the kitchen and picks up a bottle of bleach.

Speaker 15 For some reason, he starts dumping it out on the floor. Now, she asks, what the fuck are you doing? His response is to shrug and tell her he thought it was soap.

Speaker 15 The hell does that mean?

Speaker 15 She notices, He doesn't grab anything to eat, even though she's offered. He just says he's going to go mow lawns, but he doesn't take the mower.

Speaker 15 He walks out the door and disappears. A short time later, Litchfield police spotted him on a bike that happened to be stolen.

Speaker 15 Just what they needed to take him in and hold him.

Speaker 16 I thought I would.

Speaker 16 The best I can. I guess not the best I can do.

Speaker 15 At first, DeAndre was quiet, but polite.

Speaker 15 He thought he would just be questioned about a bike and then let go.

Speaker 15 At least, until he could figure out a better plan or get out of town. But that wasn't going to happen.

Speaker 15 Pretty soon, he was complaining that police were keeping him from his job. What a joke.
For maybe the first time in his life, he was concerned about being fired.

Speaker 15 But everybody knew that he didn't have a job.

Speaker 16 So again, you're going to get me fired because you are holding me from work.

Speaker 16 You understand though that we have a job to do also?

Speaker 16 And part of that job is talking to you and kind of sorting out some things that have been going on.

Speaker 16 And

Speaker 16 if you can let us do our job, we can hopefully, you know, like clear up some of that confusion and, you know, try and figure out where we go from here. You know what I mean? But like

Speaker 16 on some level,

Speaker 16 like we do have to work with each other to a certain extent, you know.

Speaker 16 And,

Speaker 16 you know, first and foremost

Speaker 16 for us is we want to make sure that you're taken care of here, that you're not under any specific distress or anything you're not having any kind of physical or emotional or mental struggle or whatever.

Speaker 16 And then ultimately, I can try to talk to you about some of the stuff that's been going on.

Speaker 15 Today, there were no voices. It was just plain old DeAndre.

Speaker 15 And he seemed to be, well,

Speaker 15 sane, I guess. He wasn't playing the crazy card, at least.
Just the belligerent one. Except for one point when he let the word disassociate slip from his mouth.

Speaker 16 You mentioned a minute ago that you dis, I think your word for you said you disassociated.

Speaker 16 Is that something

Speaker 16 like do you, is that something you have trouble with

Speaker 16 on a regular basis? Or like, do you see like a doctor? Or like. I'd say it's a problem for sure.
Okay.

Speaker 16 Do you have medicine that you take?

Speaker 16 I'll take it. Okay.

Speaker 16 But probably exposed to or something?

Speaker 16 Well, no, no, that's not necessarily. Okay.

Speaker 16 We're talking about prescriptions for

Speaker 16 psych right now,

Speaker 16 speaking on.

Speaker 16 I don't believe in taking it because I'm sitting here right now composing myself.

Speaker 16 Okay. Gotcha.

Speaker 16 What type of stuff do you do to try and like

Speaker 16 so you have like other

Speaker 16 methods that you use or whatever, like what do you what do you try and do typically?

Speaker 16 Do you like Like I know for me personally, like I exercise. Like that's one of the ways I kind of help keep my head in the right space.

Speaker 16 Everybody has their own different things. Some people like to, you know, write in a journal, or some people like to,

Speaker 16 you know, take a walk or

Speaker 16 spend time with family or, you know, like whatever.

Speaker 15 Here was his chance to pull the crazy card. He admitted he'd been evaluated and given medicines, and then he said he didn't take them.
But hey, look, I'm sitting here and I'm fine.

Speaker 15 The only thing he did seem to focus on was work.

Speaker 15 It was a little weird.

Speaker 16 I gotta quit. I have to quit.
Dean, I'm actually glad you said that because I think

Speaker 16 we went on because again, I was already in motion. Don't do that when I'm in motion.
Please.

Speaker 16 I'm asking nicely. Don't do that stuff.

Speaker 16 When I'm in motion, I understand how that goes. I'm sitting here trying to go to work, and y'all are sitting here keeping me from my job.

Speaker 16 I'm getting upset because again there's money out of my pocket out of my family's pocket I'm sure y'all will be pissed off too sure yeah so again can I go to work please I'm asking you nicely if this is your job I'm sure you'll see me again all right

Speaker 16 hope not exactly so again why can't I go to work

Speaker 16 please don't say it because again I know that's what I'm saying I'm really trying to go to work I'm acting like that because I can't go to work I don't get pissed off too man

Speaker 16 Dean, before we get any further with any of these conversations, like you mentioned your rights a minute ago, and like one of the really important things that our job entails is making sure you understand your rights.

Speaker 16 Okay.

Speaker 16 So I think we should probably go through those ones together.

Speaker 15 It was a long interview with a lot of silence from DeAndre, who just kept repeating that he had to go do some work. Work, work, work.

Speaker 15 Imagine that, a homeless guy worried about going to work.

Speaker 15 The detectives just weren't buying it. They knew what was up.

Speaker 16 I'm I'm not being detained. I literally was just supposed to be leaving already.
Yep, well,

Speaker 16 I can't let you leave from right here. So we've got to walk back over to work.

Speaker 16 Stop. Stop it.

Speaker 15 I'm sure DeAndre felt challenged. I mean, they were outright laughing at him.
And you know what DeAndre said about being challenged? Surprisingly, he didn't demand that they settle it outside.

Speaker 15 Finally, after he was read his rights, he gave up and asked for a lawyer. So they put him in handcuffs.

Speaker 16 That's a little tight.

Speaker 16 I said that's a little tight.

Speaker 16 I said this one you just put on. It's a little tight.
It's section. I can feel my finger.

Speaker 16 This is in it.

Speaker 16 This is literally in this. Okay, let's do one thing at a time.

Speaker 16 One thing at a time.

Speaker 16 Okay, when I sit in the walk, it scratches on the back of this. I have one already from all day walking around.

Speaker 16 Who?

Speaker 16 Exactly. So again, please, I'm asking you nicely.
Please put this.

Speaker 15 I wonder how often the whole I'm asking you nicely bullshit has paid off for him in the past. That veiled threat.

Speaker 15 After his arrest, DeAndre Holiday was charged with multiple felonies, including first-degree murder, intentional homicide of an unborn child, and concealment of a homicidal

Speaker 15 Apparently the motive didn't have anything to do with the child being someone else's.

Speaker 15 According to statements he made, he was okay with that because he had a girlfriend during the same time he and Lisa were apart. That girlfriend became pregnant, so in his mind it was tit for tat.

Speaker 15 The motive was nothing more than a mentally unfit, abusive, and sick person grasping for control and losing it during an argument. He lost control and Lisa lost her life.

Speaker 15 He must have quote unquote asked her nicely a whole lot that day.

Speaker 15 At first, questions came up about his mental fitness to stand trial. I mean, he did hear voices, including the voice of that imaginary woman, Ruth.

Speaker 15 At first, he was found unfit and committed to a state institution for treatment, but after several months, he was deemed competent to stand trial.

Speaker 15 In December 2024, Holloway pleaded guilty to the charges.

Speaker 15 In January 2025, he was sentenced to 60 years in prison, 30 years for first-degree murder, 20 years for the homicide of an unborn child, and 10 years for concealment of a homicidal death.

Speaker 15 During the investigation, authorities discovered the final but most important thing that was missing.

Speaker 15 It was Lisa Dodd's beautiful but severed head in a dumpster behind a business on Milton Road, wrapped in bedding inside a white laundry basket.

Speaker 15 Lisa's neighbors who heard it all will never forget that they failed to call 911 that night. And you can't really help but feel sorry for them, at least a little bit.

Speaker 15 I mean, how the hell were they supposed to know that those dull thuds that they heard that night were were chopping sounds.

Speaker 17 They let us know that somebody was found dead next door

Speaker 17 to have to lose a child that way.

Speaker 15 And

Speaker 17 that baby is an extension of her mother and the rest of her family. So they lost a child as well.
They lost two.

Speaker 17 Her family would not be burying her and

Speaker 18 their

Speaker 15 grandchild.

Speaker 15 Monsters thrive in darkness and complacency. It makes them powerful and unstoppable.

Speaker 15 Heidi saw what so many others didn't.

Speaker 15 She saw the danger. She named it.
She documented it. She took her daughter's phone, called the police, and begged her to come home.
She stood between Lisa and the chaos with everything

Speaker 15 she had.

Speaker 15 But it was never her problem to solve. All she could do as a parent was exactly what she did.

Speaker 15 Sometimes, no matter how hard you try to help and guide your children, it's up to them to decide their own path. And that path can be treacherous and filled with monsters.

Speaker 15 Heidi's words to DeAndre at sentencing were these:

Speaker 15 I do not hate you. The world holds enough anger and hate for you that I don't have to carry those emotions.

Speaker 15 I'm sad and disappointed in you. Disappointed that you didn't keep your word when you told me you wouldn't come back the next time you left.

Speaker 15 Sad you thought your mental instability was a free pass from being held accountable for your crimes.

Speaker 15 Sad that you destroyed so many lives, so many hopes and dreams, including your own.

Speaker 18 That night that I saw her on June 8th, when we were having our conversation about the baby shower, she had actually said,

Speaker 18 I wish I could see baby bean tonight. I'm ready to see my baby.
Now I'm a craggin.

Speaker 18 And I said, well, she's not ready yet. It's, you know, she was 33 weeks

Speaker 18 when this happened, 33 weeks along.

Speaker 18 And I said, well, she's not ready. And she goes, but, you know, she's viable.

Speaker 18 People have babies at 22 and 24 weeks and they live. And I'm like, well, that's true, but, you know, let's let her cook in there a little bit longer.

Speaker 18 So the fact that that night she got to be with her baby

Speaker 18 does bring me comfort. And

Speaker 18 in my mind's eye, I see

Speaker 18 God and Bean waiting for Lisa to join them, to walk her home.

Speaker 15 Unfortunately, sometimes your baby just isn't ready yet. And no matter how much you try to help them make the right decisions, to let go of those toxic relationships and move on to better things,

Speaker 15 they just

Speaker 15 aren't ready yet.

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