Killing for Chaos /// Part 1 /// 839

The growing demand for content means more chances for off-brand work getting out there.

Adobe Express can help.

It's the quick and easy app that gives your HR, sales, and marketing teams the power to create on-brand content at scale.

Ensure everyone follows design guidelines with brand kits and lock templates.

Give them the confidence to create with Firefly generative AI that's safe for business.

And make sure your brand is protected, looks sharp, and shows up consistently in the wild.

Learn more at adobe.com/slash go/slash express.

Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start?

Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to.

Don't know the difference between matte paint finish and satin, or what that clunking sound from your dryer is.

With thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro.

You just have to hire one.

You can hire top-rated pros, see price estimates, and read reviews all on the app.

Download today.

Welcome to True Crime Garage.

Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, thanks for listening.

I'm your host, Nick, and with me, as always, is a man with a reminder that too many cooks spoil the soup.

Here is the captain.

No soup for you.

It's good to be seen and good to see you.

Thanks for listening.

Thanks for telling a friend.

This week, we are very excited to be featuring Wanna Go West by the wonderful and generous folks over at Steel Tank Brewing in beautiful Oconoma Walk, Wisconsin.

Wanna Go West is a West Coast-style IPA.

It's a collaboration beer, which is always interesting and often adventurous.

You win with people, so why not get some more people involved?

The result here: a great, delicious beer with good flavor and balance.

ABV, 7%, GarageGrave, 3% and 3/4 bottle caps out of 5.

And let's give some thanks and praise to our great friends.

First up, a long distance cheers to Magdalena from Gabriellen, which is a small village just outside of Warsaw, Poland.

And a big we like to jib goes out to Miles from Henderson, Kentucky.

Next up, here's the cheers to Grant from Bozier City, Louisiana.

Talk hands in the air to Catherine in Glasgow, Scotland.

And last but certainly not least, we have Diana Jones from Athens, Alabama.

Everyone we just mentioned, they went to TrueCrimeGarage.com and helped us us fill up this stunningly beautiful garage beer fridge for this week's shows.

And for that, we thank you.

Yeah, BWWRU and Beer Run.

And while you're at truecrimegarage.com, make sure you sign up on the mailing list.

And Colonel, that's enough of the business.

All right, everybody, gather around, grab a chair, grab a beer.

Let's talk some true crime.

Chaos is disorder, confusion, unrest, and lawlessness.

And when you have chaos, fear and panic ensues.

Some want chaos for one reason or another.

Some people set out on a mission of chaos to see what it will bring.

An agent of chaos commits a single or even multiple acts with the purpose of intentionally disrupting or destabilizing a system, whether it be a political system, a relationship, or any other social or natural system.

Death, destruction, and fear of either can trigger a chaos domino-like effect, and it doesn't have to be a life-changing or world-changing event.

There's the butterfly effect.

In theory, a small change in one part of a chaotic system can have large, unpredictable effects later on, triggering a cascade of events leading to a larger, unexpected outcome, often drastic outcomes.

Leading to amplified chaos.

Now, fear and panic levels have hit 10x,

spreading even more chaos and chaotic occurrences until we reach complete disorder and instability.

There is no recovery.

Your only hope is to rebuild and start over.

Chaos is always out there in theory and in action, and there is always someone looking to create, incite, and spread it.

This is True Crime Garage.

For today's true crime story, we go out to Wakesha County, Wisconsin.

This is a story that just broke here recently, about two months ago.

The story starts on the morning of Friday, February 28th, 2025, when Waukesha County deputies arrived at a lovely home on Cinder Hills Drive.

The house is large with a three-car attached garage positioned to the left side of the house at the top of the driveway.

The yard is large as well and backs up to a wooded area.

The lawn is well manicured.

There's a basketball hoop at the back of the driveway.

The house has pea green siding and a stone facade.

As you make your way from the driveway, there's an extended walkway leading to the front door of the home.

Shrubs line the left side of the walkway.

The officers approach the front door doing their usual police protocol of casually looking in the windows of the home as they walk by them.

The house looks dark inside, and from their vantage point, there isn't much to see.

It's a quarter to 10 a.m.

that morning.

The officers are knocking on the door.

The purpose for their visit, a welfare check at the residence, the officers were dispatched to the home after receiving a call from a Mrs.

Judith Mayer.

Mrs.

Mayer told Dispatch that her son, Donald Mayer, and his wife, Tatiana Kassap and Tatiana's son Nikita Kassap had not been heard from or seen for some time.

And there was growing concern for the family of three's general welfare.

This concern by Donald's mother was compounded by Nikita's absence from school.

Nikita was a student at Wakesha West High School, where their mission, as they say on this school's website, is to challenge minds, foster compassion, and pursue excellence.

There,

a member of law enforcement, this is Officer Edwards, working in the capacity as the school's resource officer, is making some routine school-related phone calls that morning.

One call was concerning Waukesha West High School student 17-year-old Nikita Kasap.

Kassap was a good student, very smart and very focused.

The concern with the youngster wasn't grades or his behavior.

It was simply his absence.

Nikita previously had a perfect attendance up until about two weeks prior to this date.

Since then, the boy had not been at school at all.

These are all unexcused absences, as no excused absences had been provided to the school by either Nikita's mother or stepfather, with whom the boy lived with.

Neither parent had called Nikita in as absent.

However, the school did receive a single email that the school was not able to confirm that it had actually come from the family or actually anyone with the authority to give notice of the boy's absence.

Yeah, sometimes when your child is sick, you'll call it in or if they have a doctor's appointment, you call it in or maybe even send a note with them when they come back to school.

But like you said, Nikita has not been back in school and he's just 17 years old, but his mother is only 35.

His dad's only 51.

So then you think, well, did they go on vacation and just not tell us about it?

And if an email could get you out of school, my friend, I would have sent many a forged email back in the day to go on and have some fun.

The official email of the colonel's parents

at gmail.com.

So what we have here, Captain, are essentially two welfare checks, right?

Requested both for the same home.

One for the husband and stepfather, Donald Mayer, and family.

That one coming from his mother.

And we also have one coming from the school regarding the student and son, Nikita Kasap.

And at the scene.

of this welfare check, officers were not able to make contact with anyone at the residence.

So no one answers the door.

They could see no sign of activity at the home.

A deputy checked with neighbors and was able to make contact with one neighbor who stated that they had not seen the family or any activity at all at the family's property for several days.

It's a big house, too.

Yes, it's a big-looking house,

nice-looking home in a really cool neighborhood.

Yeah, it's one of those neighborhoods where everybody probably has one to two acres,

and then you got a three-car garage.

You have this giant driveway for a basketball hoop.

It's fenced in next to a pond.

I mean, you just go, man,

this is a family that has made it.

Lots of people cutting lots of grass.

Yeah.

So deputies reached out to Donald's mother, back to the high school resource officer, to collect some more information since they weren't able to make contact with anybody at the home.

What they find

is

really like some odd and weird, suspicious text messages.

Okay, so Donald's mother tells police she received suspicious or weird text messages on February 23rd, purportedly from her son.

So this is five days prior to the welfare check.

But she says she has not heard from any member of the family family of three since.

Further, she stated that Donald's sister had last talked to Donald on February 18th.

So this is 10 days prior to the welfare check.

But this communication was simply via text as well, and equally suspicious to the one that Donald's mother received.

This text to Donald's sister was from Donald's phone and saying that he was pretty sick and was going to take some time off of social media.

The school resource officer at Wakesha West High School, Officer Edwards, the one who also requested a welfare check, told police that the son, Nikita, had previously had a perfect school attendance, but had not been present at the school for two weeks.

It's very strange.

Even though this is more of the same, they are

dispatched to this area, to this residence, to knock on the doors, maybe look into the windows, see if there's any activity.

And when they don't see that, they are doing their due diligence to go back to check with dispatch.

Where did these welfare check calls come from?

Who is requesting them?

Can we speak with those individuals directly to figure out if there's any more information that could help us

locate one or all three of the family members?

Now, am I correct

in the sense that if you're law enforcement, you're going to do this welfare check, that you're also looking for probable cause to enter the property yeah you're going to look for suspicious activity because right now these people are by persons that know them right they're unaccounted for and by by both reports they're getting two independent reports that are telling you these people have been unaccounted for for days by this point and and the truancy officer, the resource officer, is saying this boy with perfect attendance has not been at the school now for two weeks.

And we've not heard anything from anybody except for this email that we don't, we, we, the public, don't have any details about that email other than the school simply saying we weren't able to verify that this email was legit.

Well, I think that's an important thing that you just said about the text message that would have came from

his stepdad's phone.

Is we can't just assume that because it comes from somebody's phone or it comes from somebody's email that that's coming from that individual

shortly after 10 a.m

deputies asked dispatch to check with local hospitals

so could you call the local hospitals ask them if all three or any of these three are

had been admitted to a hospital or are receiving any kind of medical attention at any hospital.

And they complied.

The dispatch complied, contacted all local hospitals, and none of the three residents in question were located using those calls to the hospital.

Okay, so now we have a full throttle investigation that is going to be ramping up rather quickly.

So we have Waukesha County Deputy Sponder, last name Sponder, spoke with Donald's boss,

called Donald's boss at his place of employment.

So the boss explained to Officer Sponder that

they had been in somewhat regular contact with Donald, but only via text message,

telling the officer that Donald sent text message contact with him between February 13th and February 25th, with Donald telling him that he was too sick and couldn't talk on the phone.

Further, deputies discovered that the postman indicated that there was a vacation hold on the mail at the residence.

So

here, to put it plain and simple, shit's just not adding up.

Right.

Either these three are skipping out on work and school for two weeks, or something

is very, very wrong.

So law enforcement then checked flock cameras in the area of the residence.

I love Batman utility belt type technology.

This is that.

They are looking for movement of two vehicles.

One, Donald Mayer's 2018 Volkswagen Atlas.

This is one of those crossover vehicles.

And or the vehicle that was registered to Tatiana Cassap.

So you are hoping with this check of these Flock cameras to get a hit on one or both.

of these vehicles, of course.

This is going to be your breadcrumb trail.

So we follow.

A quick aside here, Flock cameras are automatic license plate reader cameras.

They are somewhat common, especially in more populated areas.

Big Brother is watching.

Data, data, however you want to say it, Captain, it is how we catch criminals.

The eye in the sky equals physical evidence and much more importantly, as in this case, what detectives crave, leads.

Yeah, you say data, I say potato.

So these flock cameras or ALPRs cameras capture images of vehicle license plates and other details such as make, model, and color.

And in some of the more advanced types, they can also detect gunshot sounds.

These images and data are stored and can be accessed by law enforcement to help investigate crimes, locate stolen vehicles, or wanted individuals.

Flock safety provides this technology to various entities, including but not limited to, police departments and law enforcement agencies.

So remember, at this time, they are only checking this in the area, right?

The media area where these folks live.

They do get a couple of hits.

Donald's 2018 Volkswagen Atlas was spotted by an ALPR camera on February 23rd, 2025.

Again, five days prior to the welfare check.

And Tatiana's vehicle was last seen on flock camera on February 11th, 2025.

So considerably earlier here in our timeline.

So good news, bad news situation, right?

You have some more information to work with, but it's also been quite some time since the vehicles were seen and active.

Well, and they're not confirming who's driving the vehicles.

Correct.

So again, February 28th is the welfare check.

So five days for Donald's vehicle and 17 days for Tatiana's.

Utility belt resource number two.

Officer Edwards, the school resource officer, had the Waukesha West High School ping Nikita's school-issued computer.

And the last IP address for the computer was in Waukesha on February 23rd, 2025.

That's a smart move by law enforcement.

Brilliant move.

And furthermore, think about what's starting to line up here now, too.

His computer last pinged in the Waukesha area on the same day that a flock camera picks up the Volkswagen Atlas.

So at that same day, we're still on the same day as the welfare check, but now we're going to zoom forward a couple of hours, right?

We talked about the investigation that was going on behind scenes, but now at 1.52 p.m., the Waukesha County Sheriff's Department entered.

They actually go in and enter the residence.

And rather quickly,

they located a deceased female on the first floor hallway.

Oh, shit.

The female was wearing a jacket and had towels over her legs and a blanket over her body.

Her face was blackened from decomposition, and they also found quite a bit of dried blood on the floor around her.

Now, we need to note here, Captain, that she could not be identified at the scene.

This due to the decomp.

Deputies observed a possible exit wound in the female's back near her right shoulder and further observed a possible bullet hole in a wall in that hallway where she was located so near the body.

I mean in layman's terms this means that she's been there for quite a while.

She's been there for quite some time.

And even though she can't be identified at the scene, what the deputies are seeing is you're seeing obvious signs of a homicide.

And so now this case is just completely flipped into a whole different type of investigation.

So what they're going to do here is

they're going to leave.

They're going to exit the residence upon finding her body.

They're going to secure the residence.

And this is something that we we talk about a lot here in the garage, and I think it gets overlooked because people like to pick at nits with what law enforcement does and what they don't do.

And where I get frustrated is: look, there are plenty of times where law enforcement botch it, right?

Or where they just screw it up, or there's somebody lazy or stupid on the case and it just doesn't work out.

Or they're just human and they made a mistake.

Yes, a lazy, stupid human.

Now,

what they're doing here, Captain, is very brilliant.

We talk about this often.

You need to not only be investigating and doing your job and protecting everyone, but at the same time, once you all of a sudden realize you got a major case, this is now a homicide situation, you need to make sure that all of your actions going forward, from the minute you found out this is a homicide, that all of our actions going forward and what we do will hold up in court one day because our end goal,

our first goal, was to find these people alive and well and report back to the family in school that, hey, they're fine.

It was just a misunderstanding.

That goal doesn't look like it's going to be able to be achieved because right now you're sitting with a situation with we found a dead person.

We don't know who she is 100%.

Right.

And we still have two other missing people.

We now have a homicide case.

So now our goal is to solve this homicide and get justice for this victim.

So they exit the residence and they secure the home.

Now, upon exiting, they do make some observations.

These observations are

twofold.

One, deputies did find Tatiana's vehicle at the residence in the garage.

But what they didn't find in the garage was Donald's vehicle.

So that's not located at at the residence.

Well, and if you're law enforcement and if you have any idea of what's going on behind the scenes, because the people doing the welfare check or law enforcement doing the welfare check might not be the same individuals that are privy to some of this information that Donald's cell phone was at least communicating with his work.

So

you have a missing mother.

You stumble upon a victim that's probably roughly her age.

So we can assume a little bit that this could be the mother.

We can lean towards that idea, but we haven't found the father.

So you start then thinking, well, was there some kind of dispute?

And then the father kills the mother.

And now where is

the stepson?

Right.

Unfortunately, there's no shortage of domestic

disputes, violence, or homicides in this country.

Right.

And so now

what's going to be taking place at the scene, at the residence, is after it's secured, you're really just waiting on paperwork at this point.

You're presenting everything that you now know to a judge, getting them to sign off on a proper search warrant, right?

Because before you entered the home under probable cause, now you want to enter the home armed with paperwork saying that we can legally do what we are going to do and we can collect evidence because now we've identified that there's been a homicide that took place in this residence.

So at this time, while they're waiting on the paperwork to come through,

which will be expedited and come through rather quickly, deputies were able to locate a neighbor and speak with him.

His name is Paul France.

Paul France tells deputies that on February 23rd, at approximately 12, 11 p.m.,

So shortly after noon that day, he says he was pulling into his residence and he passed Donald's Volkswagen Atlas, and he observed that it was being operated by Nikita, the son, the 17-year-old son.

Right.

Which he might have a license.

Well, he tells the deputies that this Nikita kid appeared to be alone.

And a different neighbor told investigators that the family had a small black dog, and that the dog had not been seen outside.

in quite some time.

And one thing that the deputies didn't see when they were inside the residence was a small black dog.

They didn't see a dog at all.

The officers ran Nikita's driving record and quickly found out that he has never been issued a driver's license.

To protect your brand, all the content your company creates needs to be on-brand.

Meet Adobe Express, the quick and easy app that empowers marketing, HR, and sales teams to make on-brand content.

Now everyone can edit reports, resize ads, and translate text.

Brand kits and lock templates make following design guidelines a breeze.

And generative AI, that's safe for business, lets people create confidently.

Help your teams make pro-looking content.

Learn more at adobe.com slash express.

While you're buying new school supplies and trying to plan a new schedule this season, the last thing you want to factor in is a giant wireless bill.

But with Mint Mobile, you can get the coverage and speed you're used to for way less money.

For a limited time, Mint Mobile is offering three months of unlimited premium wireless service for 15 bucks a month.

That's right, $15 a month for really great premium wireless service.

I love Mint Mobile.

Why?

Because it's the same great service that I get with other providers that shall not be named at a fraction of the price.

So great service, save money.

That's Mint Mobile.

Get this new customer offer and your three-month unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com slash TCG.

That's mintmobile.com slash TCG.

Upfront payment of $45 required, equivalent to $15 a month.

Limited time, new customer offer for the first three months only.

Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan.

Taxes and fees extra.

See Mint Mobile for details.

Hi, we're Emochi Health, your long-term weight loss solution.

We'll connect you with a board-certified provider to discuss your unique goals.

Eligible patients can access custom formulated GLP-1 medications at an affordable fixed price, deliver to their door monthly.

Take our free eligibility quiz at joinmochi.com and use code AUDIOFORDIATCHEKOT for $40 off your first month of membership.

That's joinmochi.com.

Results may vary.

Eligible GOP1 patients typically lose one to two pounds per week in their first six months with mochi combined with a healthy lifestyle.

All right, we are back.

Cheers, mates.

Talk hands in the air.

Cheers to you, Colonel.

Double-fisted talk hands in the air.

Cheers to everybody

for checking out off the record.

And a reminder, we will be at, God willing, we'll be at CrimeCon Denver in September.

And if you want to save a little cash, please use our promo code, TCG.

We're told that it will save you a little bit of cash.

And we hope to see all of you, as many of you as possible out there in Denver in September.

All right.

So

this.

What you were hoping, you're an officer, you're arriving at this residence, and you're hoping that this would be a pretty routine welfare check.

Officers make more of these welfare checks than I think most citizens are aware of.

And most of the time, somebody answers the door.

It's a misunderstanding, just like a lot of missing teenager cases or missing persons' cases where the person will be located within the first 24 hours.

But

now we have a whole different set of circumstances.

Things went from questionable to horrible upon entering the residence and finding the body of a female.

Yeah, with gunshot blast.

And you have to be working under the assumption that because she lived there, that the deceased female is in fact one of the three people who you were looking for, that it's likely Tatiana.

You're either going to find two more bodies or you're going to have to start looking for individuals that might be responsible for the deaths.

Yeah, if that proves true, well, then you are still missing two other people that lived at that house so utility belt resource number three

an exigent ping was placed for Donald's and Nikita's cell phones and it was learned that both cell phones pinged in Cheyenne Wyoming so this is

approximately 980 miles away so roughly a 13 and a half to 14 hour drive west

of the residence in Waukesha Wisconsin.

Right.

So we have a murder victim, and it looks like we have somebody on the run.

Now, we do have another report, and I do want to state that both are from very reputable sources.

This report is stating that the phones pinged in Laramie, Wyoming, which is a considerable distance from Cheyenne.

And kudos to the folks at AT ⁇ T who complied and acted so quickly to help with those emergency pings.

Now, both reports, I believe, Captain, are likely accurate because to me, these phones appear to be on the move.

You said somebody might be on the run.

These phones appear to be on the move.

And if they are,

you're going to be requesting updated GPS information regularly.

And so both reports could be very true if these phones are, in fact, on the move.

Later that day, we're still on February 28th.

This is at approximately 5 p.m.

The Waukesha County Sheriff's Office, they now have a search warrant in hand.

So they execute that search warrant at the residence.

Upon entering the home once again, and now that they are armed with this judge-signed paperwork permitting the full search of the residence, a second deceased subject was located in what is best described as an office room, again on the first floor of the home.

That subject was a male with a gray beard and was covered by a pile of clothing.

The deceased male at that time was believed to be Donald Mayer.

Officers observed an obvious wound to the back of the victim's head.

Now, through records, this is advanced location records that were obtained, police learned that Nikita's phone appeared to leave the Wakesha area on February 24th at approximately 10 a.m.

The device took a very general route through multiple states: Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Colorado.

These records indicating that the device belonging to Nikita appeared to stop at Iowa 80,

the world's largest truck stop, located in Walcott, Iowa, on February 24th,

between the approximate times of 2.25 p.m.

and 2.50 p.m.

So Detective Jensen,

you can see this, Captain, is an all-hands-on-deck situation.

We got.

Well, that's a great name for a detective if you're the chief.

Jensen.

It's great for the chief.

Jensen in my office now, Jensen.

It's also great if you are a character on an HBO crime thriller.

Yeah.

Jensen?

What do we have here?

So Detective Jensen contacted the Walcott Iowa Police Department, and he's requesting that they check the video at the world's largest truck stop for the date of the 24th and provided them with the window of time that was in question.

They needed to determine if they could observe Donald's Volkswagen Atlas

there because we know that Nikita's phone was there.

And they also want if they can spot that vehicle,

or maybe not by plate, just a vehicle matching that description.

You want to see if there are any cameras that might tell you

who may be driving the vehicle.

The police department there

sent Officer Tim Horihan,

who responded and went out to the scene, reviewed the security video,

and bingo, Officer Horihan observed a vehicle matching Donald's Volkswagen Atlas on camera during the time frame of interest.

The sheriff's office provided the Iowa Police Department with a photo of Nikita.

And based on that school photo, Officer Horrohan

believed

the lone occupant that he could see in surveillance footage of that vehicle was, in fact, Nikita.

And in fact,

the footage was so detailed here, Captain, that

officer said that he could see a small black dog was with the lone occupant of that vehicle.

So, this, of course, consistent with the dog that was missing from the residence.

Yeah, like you said, we have this welfare check, law enforcement.

I mean, you don't know, so you're hoping for the best, but there's also situations

where something goes wrong and there's a

poisoning, right?

Carbon monoxide poisoning.

But you show up, now you have this victim by gunshot.

You find another victim by gunshot.

Appears to be a gunshot.

And appears to

a gunshot hole in the hallway wall of the residence as well.

And it's a large property, like we said.

So then you're looking for the sun.

And then you don't find the sun.

Then you have other options.

Okay, now is the sun responsible for this?

Or was this,

did somebody break into the house?

Is this kid kidnapped by somebody?

You have multiple possibilities.

So now we're tracking this car.

And once you see that it's just the son by himself, he has made no contact with the school or authorities.

family members or friends that we know of, right?

And he's all by himself with the dog driving his stepdad's car.

It doesn't look good.

No.

It looks like a situation where the 17-year-old murdered his mother and stepfather.

And appears to have moved the phones of the murdered victims.

The stepson doesn't have a driver's license.

And look,

it wouldn't be crazy to think of any other scenario because we've reviewed here in the garage.

I think it was seven or eight years ago, the middle of the night, some maniac shows up and guns down two parents and kidnaps the teenage daughter.

Right.

Holds her captive for an extended period of time.

And detectives

probably had a better idea of what was going on.

But us, the public, the general public, we were left clueless.

We were like,

was the kid involved?

Is the kid dead somewhere?

You know, we were left with no answers to the daughter.

Is there a kid a murderer or a victim?

And are they dead or alive?

And so at least we're getting some answers here we

two dead parents the child's alive now you have to start going you're narrowing down the possibilities especially when you see the son by himself identified by a photograph and in the company of the missing dog from the residence in a vehicle that matches the stepdad's vehicle description Now, you had said they don't find the son at the home.

What they do find during this continued search of the residence, they find paperwork.

This paperwork is telling them that Donald Mayer at some point purchased a Smith Wesson 357 Magnum firearm and that a search of the home, they could not find that gun.

They could not find that firearm.

It's not discovered within the residence during that search.

So here we go, Captain.

We are going to a tiny little town called Waikini, Kansas.

Yeah, that's what I wear to the, to the beach, a Joaquini.

That's right.

It's a three-piece.

It's a 17-piece.

This is approximately,

so it's over 800 miles from the Welfare Czech residence.

This is in Trego County, Kansas.

Joaquini, other than being located right in Tornado Alley, this place looks very cool to me.

Population less than 2,000.

Shout Shout out to the brazen bull, which, if I'm ever in Joaquini, I'll be dropping by for a beer and a burger over there.

I looked Joaquini Police Department up on Facebook and on X just to see what their activity is.

Because nowadays, like there's constant communication from a lot of these law enforcement agencies.

And some of it's just kind of happy, cheerful stuff.

And others, like, hey, we're looking for this person

or a stolen vehicle situation.

The Joaquini Police Department, Facebook,

it consists

almost primarily, and when I say primarily, Captain, I mean it's like 95%

missing dog found.

Like this is a very

community-oriented area, small, small town.

Everybody knows everybody, and the police department's nice enough that, you know what?

We don't have much crime going on here.

So we go around and collect

stray animals that we find posted on Facebook, and

we're returning pets to their owners.

Owners are collecting their pets.

That is a lot of what the law enforcement activity is or appears to be via Facebook anyway

here in this small little town.

So, all right, let's focus.

I'll focus.

It's 11.25 p.m., so late at night.

This is still the night of February 28th, the same day as the welfare check, the same day as two bodies found

still unidentified back in Wisconsin.

The Waukini Police Department while working traffic stopped a vehicle with out-of-state plates.

The officer lit him up and pulled him over at 745 South 1st Street.

The traffic stop was initiated due to the vehicle exiting Interstate 70 and then failing to stop at a stop sign.

The officer ran the the plate and the vehicle came back as stolen out of Wisconsin.

So the Trago County Sheriff's Office responded to back up the officer as well as another member of the Joaquini Police Department.

They arrive on the scene.

Information from the Wisconsin Sheriff's Office that was provided to the officers at the traffic stop scene is telling them that the person driving this vehicle could be armed with a handgun.

The vehicle, of course, was a Volkswagen Atlas.

They believed that it was likely Nikita Kassap that was operating the vehicle.

After approach, officers observed in plain view a handgun on the passenger side floorboard.

The driver was quickly identified to be Nikita,

and the juvenile was taken into custody at approximately 11:37 p.m.

all without incident.

Thank God.

Further inspection of the vehicle.

The officers located Donald and Tatiana's driver's license, unused ammunition, and spent shell casings.

Also recovered was the little black dog.

This is not looking good.

Not at all, my friend.

Not at all.

But we grab two more beers from the fridge and we venture on.

So the gun that they took from the vehicle, spoiler alert, it's later determined to be a Smith ⁇ Wesson 357 Magnum firearm.

Yeah, the one owned by his stepfather.

Correct.

As said, the subject was identified as Nikita, a juvenile who, by this time,

just about 13 hours after the police had entered the home for the welfare check, or first knocked on the door, I should say.

He's wanted.

By this point, he's wanted out of Wisconsin.

Right.

As a person of interest in a double homicide that the Waukesha Sheriff's Office was still openly investigating.

The vehicle was listed as stolen, and that information went out to the world only 90 minutes prior to him failing to stop at the stop sign.

It's almost like destiny, right?

That an officer happened to see him failing to stop at the stop sign.

It's literally minutes after this thing was first reported stolen.

Who's to say that that late at night in a small town that the officer approaches and doesn't see the gun and lets the guy off with a warning, doesn't run the plates?

I mean, really, it's everybody doing their jobs.

And it's multiple departments and multiple agencies across state lines in a very quick manner.

So beyond the gun and the driver's licenses belonging to his parents.

The first reports that were coming out were short, but did say that Nikita did have items in the vehicle with him that were consistent with the information received from the Wisconsin Sheriff's Office.

These items,

with that short description here, Captain, would later would get some details on it.

And these items turn out to be boxes of 357 Magnum and 38 special ammunition.

They also located Donald Mayer's and Tatiana's wallets and a large amount of U.S.

currency and Euros

and two cell phones belonging to Donald Mayer and Tatiana were also found in the vehicle.

I want to touch on the large amount of U.S.

currency and Euros here

for a moment.

We know absolutely true because these are legal documents that state that it was U.S.

currency and Euros.

I've seen the

total sum

reported differently in this case.

I've seen it, I believe, as little as $14,000 and maybe as high as $18,000.

I don't know why the discrepancy, the discrepancy may come from that they had two different kinds of currency that was found in this vehicle.

But regardless, this is a considerable amount of money that's found in the vehicle with this kid who appears to have fled from the home of his murdered parents.

You have the murdered victims, these parents, two individuals.

You're looking for the third.

You're hopeful that they're alive, but then they're alive, and then they become a suspect.

And with all these items, I mean,

you don't have to be the greatest detective.

Jensen?

Yeah, we didn't need Jensen on this one.

We could have...

Yeah, you can kind of figure out that

this kid is...

probably responsible for murdering his parents.

Being killed by your own gun.

I mean, it's a sad, sick world.

And it just gets stranger every day.

It seems like we're going through a strange, dark period.

2025 is setting up real nice, Clark.

Real nice.

Yeah, Jensen.

The thing here is, too,

think about the,

even with the vague description provided to us,

you can almost see this play out in your head, right?

Allegedly, he killed his parents.

He's accused and will be eventually accused of such.

Now, as you said, killed with your own gun.

Donald Mayer is found with a single shot to the back of the head

in the office, a room described as the office on the first floor.

And then the wounds to Nikita's mother, Tatiana, there's multiple wounds, and she is,

it appears very different to me, Captain, right?

It almost looks like Nikita snuck up behind Donald Mayer

and was able to get point blank and shoot him right in the back of the head.

And he was not moved much further than where he fell.

He may have been

playing on the computer, working in his home office.

I don't know if he had a home office.

We do know that he had to report to work

on occasion.

I don't know if it was every day, but regardless, that's what it looks like to me.

Nikita sneaks up behind Donald, and boom, single shot.

He's down.

He's dead.

Now, probably reactionary to that is

Tatiana, in a very different manner, is gunned down in the hallway.

of that home.

Now, this boy flees the scene.

But he doesn't flee right away.

So we know for at least a time period, if he's responsible for these murders, he is

living,

coexisting with these corpses.

Well, and you would have to believe that right out of the gate because of a couple of reasons.

One, the decomp of the two bodies that were found inside of the home, and then you have data and information that's telling you that Nikita did not leave the Wakesha area until the 23rd, 24th.

And so,

but keep in mind, it's still, you're still looking for clues and searching for information and answers here,

some of it being scientific and some of it being evidentiary, because

we've seen accelerated decomposition in some cases.

And we're talking about a difference of four or five days between the time that he's located and the welfare check takes place to when the information says that he left the area.

So still a lot left to

sift through here.

But the key here is, Captain, that night, he is taken into custody.

Nikita's brought into custody, but he's not charged with murder at this time.

He was not been charged in connection with his parents' death.

And in fact, the law enforcement agency goes public stating, look,

here's what's going on with this situation.

We have located an individual that we think is responsible.

We have located the vehicle.

We've located the gun that we believe to be the murder weapon.

However, this is an ongoing and active investigation.

Until we have all the information and all of the evidence, we're not going to charge Nikita with the murder of his mother and stepfather.

What we're going to charge him with is things that are obvious, right?

Driving without a license.

We know he broke that law.

He was pulled over operating a vehicle.

He was also operating a vehicle that was reported stolen by the sheriff's office.

So he's going to be charged with theft of that vehicle.

And it's also based off of

Donald Mayer being deceased that they have to believe all signs point to Donald Mayer didn't allow him to use the vehicle or his handgun.

Therefore, we can charge him with the theft of the handgun as well.

So much more to get to in this bizarre case.

Stick around for part two.

Until then, be good, be kind, and don't linger.