[music]

George:  Why don’t you tell us what happened?

Scott:  What do you mean? [unintelligible ] from the beginning what happened?

George:  Yeah. We can go back to the beginning. How far back was the beginning? Couple days, a couple weeks?

Scott:  All the way back to the beginning of [unintelligible ].

George:  But we go back in the last couple days.

Scott:  I took a knife and stabbed my brother’s mom eight times till 10 times while she was sleeping.

George:  So she was asleep. She had no means to defend herself. Is that right?

Scott:  Yeah. She had no means to defend herself.

George:  So did you stab her with the intent to kill her?

Scott:  Yeah.

George:  Did you realize you did something illegal at that point when you killed her? Did you know you did something wrong?

[music]

Yeardley:  I’m Yeardley.

Zibby:  And I’m Zibby. And we’re fascinated by true crime.

Yeardley:  So we invited our friends, Detectives Dan and Dave.

Zibby:  To sit down with us and share their most interesting cases.

Dan:  I’m Dan.

Dave:  And I’m Dave.

Dan:  We’re identical twins. 

Dave:  And we’re detectives in Small Town, USA.

Dan:  Dave investigates sex crimes and child abuse.

Dave:  Dan investigates violent crimes. And together, we’ve worked on hundreds of cases, including assaults, robberies, murders, burglaries, sex abuse and child abuse.

Dan:  Names, locations and certain details of these cases have been altered to protect the privacy of the victims and their families.

Dave:  While we realize that some of our listeners may be familiar with these cases, we hope you’ll join us in continuing to protect the true identities of those involved.

Dan:  out of respect for what they’ve been through. Thank you.

[Small Town Dicks theme]

Yeardley:  Today on Small Town Dicks, we have the usual suspects. We have Detective Dave.

Dave:  Pleasure to be here,

Yeardley:  Detective Dan.

Dan:  Thanks for having me.

Yeardley:  And we are thrilled to welcome back Detective George.

George:  It’s nice to be back.

Yeardley:  Thanks for being here. So, George, tell us how this case came to you.

George:  This case came to me, it was just middle of the day at work. Patrol officers got a call to respond out to a house, in town. This particular house is kind of subdivided. The people that owned it rented it out to two separate parties. One party lived in one part of the house, and it was kind of walled off and doored off, so it became a rental for two people to live in one house. At one point, one of the guys that lived there hadn’t heard from the next-door neighbor lady in a while, but he did smell like burning food. And he was concerned maybe there’s some kind of fire or maybe something bad had happened to the lady that lived next door. So he had originally called the fire department.

Yeardley:  And when you say next door, you mean literally in the same house, but on the other side of the divided wall?

George:  Correct.

Yeardley:  Okay.

George:  So he’d smelled what he thought was kind of burning food smell and called 911. And fire department began to respond out there. At some point, the police responded. I think Detective Dave was one of those that came out there. I think he heard the call and started heading that direction. Is that right?

Dave:  Yeah, I was actually leaving my house I just had lunch and was driving back towards the station, and I heard the call come out. So I waited for the patrol officer who was headed that way and I actually joined up with main street just as he was passing by. So I followed him to the residence.

Zibby:  What’s the name of the woman who lives there?

Dave:  Her name’s Lillian. The access to this house, the way went in, there’s two accesses. To victim’s apartment, you can go through the back gate into the backyard, and there’s kind of a side entrance. Her residence is connected to the main residence with a– looks like a garage door that you walk through. And the deadbolt is on the main resident’s side. So, she couldn’t lock the deadbolt from her side, but the neighbor could lock the deadbolt from their side. So went in through the main residence and went in the house that way.

Yeardley:  Sorry, just to clarify, they had a common entrance and then you would veer off into your separate part of the house?

Dave:  No, there’s two entrances, but through the main entrance, you can access Lillian, her residence-

Yeardley:  Oh.

Dave:  -not the other way around, because the deadbolt is on the main residence side, not on Lillian’s side.

Yeardley:  Okay, I see. I see.

George:  So, anyhow, the fire department got there first because they thought it was some kind of fire happening inside. And once they got in, they realized it was a crockpot had been left on. It had been on, we discovered, for a couple days, and the food inside was burning. But once the paramedics and fire guys got inside, they found Lillian’s body and then called the police.

Yeardley:  Oh.

George:  It was wrapped up in a blanket in her bedroom.

Zibby:  Dead body wrapped up in a blanket in her bedroom.

Yeardley:  Was there the smell of decomposition as well as burning food?

George:  I think the burning food was the overwhelming smell. But once you got into her bedroom, you could tell there was some decomp going on. She’d been there a couple days.

Zibby:  Could you tell how she had died?

George:  It was pretty obvious, just initially looking at her, that she had suffered stab wounds and slicing wounds to various parts of her body, her head, her face, her neck. I believe her upper back had some, but I think the most telling were the wounds to her hands that we refer to as defensive wounds, indicating that at some point, she had her hands up to protect herself and suffered stab wounds and slices to her hands.

Zibby:  So this was a murder.

George:  It was a murder. So at that point, the clock started ticking for us to try to figure out who did it. And it didn’t take long to come to the conclusion about who it was. This wasn’t going to be a whodunit. We started talking to neighbors, and one of the neighbors said, “Well, two days before, I remember hearing a loud moaning noise.” And I didn’t think much of it at the time, but I talked to my wife later, and she saw a man driving away in Lillian’s car. So we had somebody driving her car. Her car wasn’t there. We go to the driveway, and there’s water marks from where the car had been parked. So it was obvious somebody had taken it.

Zibby:  And may I ask, did Lillian live alone at that house?

George:  She lived alone. She had family that lived in the area that come by and visit. She had a daughter who lived nearby, a son. One stayed away, and another son who came and went occasionally would stay at her place, and other times would stay at a hotel or somewhere else.

Zibby:  Okay.

Yeardley:  How old is Lillian?

George:  She was in her 50s.

Yeardley:  So these children are grown obviously.

George:  They’re grown adults in their 20s or 30s,the various kids. I used the term kids, but they definitely weren’t living in home. So myself, Detective Dave, and a few other detectives responded out there and just started initially processing the scene, trying to figure out what happened. As I mentioned, Lillian was wrapped up in a comforter on the bed, and there was a pillow over her face as well. And once we began to unravel the comforter, we discovered the wounds to her body, indicators that she’d been there for a day, the decomp starting as well as just the position her body was in. You can tell she had been in that position for a while so the blood had drained to one spot or another.

 But speaking of blood, I think Detective Dave noticed a lot of blood spatter in the bedroom, the wall, the fireplace, bed frame, bookcases there was blood spatter everywhere. There was ripped out hair on the ground as well as in a blanket. And those are all pretty good indicators of a struggle. One of those by itself may not be, but you started combining these things, and it’s obvious somebody struggled for a while, and it was obvious Lillian suffered quite a bit.

Yeardley:  Was she naked or did she have clothes on?

Dave:  She had clothes on. She had a shirt blood soaked. It had holes in the front, holes in the back that corresponded with stab wounds that we found on her body. We didn’t find any other clothing that looked like it had been involved in the struggle, but she had pants and a shirt on as if she was sleeping. Looked like sleep attire. It’s an interesting scene. I remember George already mentioned the smell, but that was my one takeaway from that, is I’ll never forget the smell of decomposition coupled with overcooked beans and onions in a crock pot that have sat for two or three days and other people that were at the scene. Other detectives and patrol officers have all noted like, I’ll never forget that smell.

 Some other interesting parts of that scene is that when you wander into the living area near the kitchen, there’s a bed laid out on the couch like sheets and a blanket with a pillow. You notice that Lillian’s purse has been rifled through. There’s kind of credit cards and ID and insurance cards scattered about. So it’s obvious we’re not thinking Lillian did this to herself. So it’s pretty clear with the lack of the car in the driveway, the witness statements from the neighbor that we’re going to be looking for somebody else. And it doesn’t take too long for us to figure out who this person is based on previous contacts that Lillian had experienced with a family member.

George:  But all those little details are huge in an investigation like this. Eventually, when you go to find a suspect and interview them, you want to ask them questions that get them to admit what happened. But you also want them to give some corroborating details. And some of the details a suspect would give is, yeah, I took money out of a purse or I took pills or described certain things that only somebody who’s at that crime scene would or should know. You don’t want to ever get a false confession from somebody, somebody that just says, “I did it, lock me up.” You want them to give some details that nobody else should know. So when Dave mentions the purse being rifled through, those are details we want to hear from the suspect to corroborate. We got the right guy.

Yeardley:  Right, of course, sure.

George:  When we unraveled the comforter and the pillows that Lillian’s body was wrapped in, we found a steak knife in there. And that led us to look around that usually if somebody’s intending on going over there to kill, they may show up with their weapon. But if something happens spur of the moment, they’re going to grab the nearest weapon to them or something nearby. So I think Detective Dave went out to the kitchen, looked at the knife block, and there’s two knives missing from the knife block. And the steak knife that was wrapped in the comforter matched one of the missing knives.

Yeardley:  So she was killed with a steak knife?

George:  Yeah, one of her own kitchen knives.

Yeardley:  Wow. You’d think it would have to be something much bigger.

Dave:  We’ve already learned what a paring knife can do to somebody.

Yeardley:  Right, yeah.

Dave:  In season one, this steak knife you know, five, six-inch blade, devastating. It doesn’t take much if you hit the right spot. We’ll talk about injuries later, but one of these stab wounds included her spinal cord.-

Yeardley:  Oh my.

Dave:  -W\which you think plunging a steak knife into somebody’s spinal cord, if you hit the right spot, it doesn’t have to go that deep to do a lot of damage.

Zibby:  Yeah, right.

Dave:  So little knife, big capabilities. I remember some other details. You know, we find this discarded cigarette butt in the room where we find Lillian. We find some cigarette butts outside that are the same brand out in the driveway. I remember turning on the TV just on a hunch and went through the guide and the list to see which recorded programs were on the TV. And when I turned the TV on, it was tuned to the Playboy channel. And I went to the most recently viewed programs. It was all pornography,-

Zibby:  Really, wow.

Dave:  -adult pornography videos. And I wouldn’t expect that this 50-some-year-old woman would be perusing that kind of content. So now it’s starting to drive us in a certain direction. And I’ll let George get into how we pretty quickly determined who was our likely suspect.

George:  Once Dave discovered that, it led us to start asking some questions. And knowing that this house was shared by two different parties. Typically, when cables run to a house, there’s one cable jack and that cable jack powers all the TVs. So when we talked to the neighbor, he was able to pull up information on the cable bill and show that somebody did in fact, order some on-demand porn, Playboy channel, and that’s all charged on your cable bill. And he was able to pull that up and show that they were being charged for it and when that was ordered.

 So then the next question is, “Well, who the heck would order this?” And he said, “Well, it wasn’t me, and I doubt it was Lillian.” But she does have a son, and her son’s name is Scott. He had come over here recently. You might want to look into him.

Zibby:  Going back to the steak knife for a second, I’m struck by the fact that the knife was left with her body. I mean, I thought the one thing you do is take the weapon with you and discard later.

George:  I think a lot of times if you’re with it enough, you’ll take the weapon with you and hide it, destroy it, secrete it somewhere. It all depends on your state of mind. I think in this case, you’ll discover that this person’s state of mind at the time was quite scattered.

Zibby:  Because you guys painted a pretty detailed picture of what you came upon when you responded to the call. And just in my own layman’s perspective, I’m like, “Okay, this seems not planned, seems like somebody was staying there, seems reactive.”

Yeardley:  Spontaneous.

Zibby:  Mm-hmm, spontaneous.

George:  Those are all things. I mean, when we see a lack of forced entry into the residence, that tells us more that somebody was probably a guest there or invited there, or at least welcome. The fact that she was found in her bed and most likely was killed while she was sleeping, she awoke to being killed, indicates somebody was there during that time of night which would typically be a close friend or family member or loved one. Not just a stranger or even a passive friend visiting at that time of night.

Zibby:  But that would be the one thing that makes me go, well, how is this spontaneous and reactive if she was asleep? It’s like usually something like that what comes out of a fight.

Dave:  And that’s the consideration you have to give to Scott is his frame of mind, where he’s coming from, and a little bit of family history that George will probably touch on.

George:  And that’s going to go back to the knife we found. I mentioned we found one knife in the comforter. But there was two missing knives on the butcher block. Then we started putting together the porn, realizing her son Scott was likely there. So we started digging into their history, and we realized that police had responded out to that house about two weeks prior.

Zibby:  What?

George:  When the police got there, they were called to the house because Lillian called the police and said, “Scott’s threatening me with a knife.”

Yeardley:  Oh, my.

George:  He had threatened to carve the number 666 into her head.

Yeardley:  Oh, my God.

Zibby:  What?

George:  So she had called the police. The police came out, responded, talked to both people. Nobody was injured. An assault hadn’t happened. But because when they got there, there’s this steak knife sitting on the couch next to where Scott was. And Lillian said that knife was right there next to him when he threatened me. That’s enough to be arrested. It’s a crime of menacing when you threaten to harm somebody and you have the capability to fulfill that threat.

Yeardley:  How do you ever let somebody like that back into your house?

George:  Moms do that. Moms are very forgiving. I don’t know how many times, whether it’s a murder case or whatever case it is. Being a mother, it’s a whole different state of mind, I imagine. And moms are very forgiving. It’s their own kid. And they’re willing to– I don’t even say forgive and forget, but try to work through it and allow them to come back and be part of their life again. It’s not abnormal at all. So on that day, Scott was arrested, and the knife was seized as evidence. So that explains where the second knife went. So Scott spent a little bit of time in jail. He was in jail for five days, and he was released while the prosecutors made a decision about whether or not to move forward with the case because there were some mental health concerns. They discovered Scott had previous mental health history, had actually been committed at one point, and they were concerned about whether he could actually formulate intent to threaten his mom.

Yeardley:  They were trying to decide if he was mentally able to stand trial basically.

George:  Essentially, yes. So after five days, he was released from jail. Scott’s not employed. He doesn’t have that source of income. However, he does have available money coming in from the government. When you suffer from mental illness, you’re eligible to receive SSI. It’s a form of government money to help you every month, pay your bills, get some power to your house, get some food.

Yeardley:  If he doesn’t have a home, where does his mail go?

George:  General delivery. You can go to the post office and say, I want my mail sent here, general delivery. And you’ll just respond there and pick it up. And they’ll hold it as a general delivery slot at the post office.

Yeardley:  Really?

Zibby:  May I ask what his diagnosis was? What was his mental illness?

George:  He had schizophrenia, the paranoid schizophrenia and some other factors involved. On top of that, I don’t remember the exact diagnoses.

Zibby:  Was he on medication?

George:  On and off medication. That’s often the problem with mentally ill people is I think the medication’s a temporary fix for their problem, and it works while they’re on it. But there’s so many side effects. It causes those patients to not want to take that medication. The side effects are numerous. It can be other mental health problems. They can have physical ailments as a result of it, and that oftentimes drive people to stop taking their meds. That’s when they turn into their old selves again with the schizophrenic behavior and paranoia and delusional behavior because they’re not medicated. It’s pretty unfortunate.

Zibby:  So he went to this hotel after being released from the menacing charge. What happens?

George:  He had been there for a few days, and he progressively got worse. He was in communication with his mother and his sister, and he would regularly call them on the phone and rant and talk to them about things that they knew he was having some delusions about.

Yeardley:  How did you find that information out?

George:  Well, once we identified who he was, we tried to identify other family members and found his sister Tabitha, who lived nearby. And we talked to her, and she had shared that information with us, that he was on kind of a downward spiral, and he had showed up back at mom’s house.

Unison:  Oh, boy.

George:  So on the 19th of the month, Lillian got a call from Tabitha. Basically, Tabitha learned from her mom that Scott was at the house and he wanted a ride down to another state because he wanted to go kill his brother.

Yeardley:  What?

Zibby:  No.

George: [4] Yeah. Lillian told Tabitha, under no circumstances are you to give him a ride, give him money for a ride, don’t let him get down there. He wants to kill his brother Steve. At that point there’s no real rational reason for that. They both know that. They both know he’s going through delusions and having the schizophrenic behavior, personality wise. And Lillian wanted to warn Tabitha.

Yeardley:  From soup to nuts. That seems like a bad idea that you would give a ride to somebody who says their intention is to murder another sibling.

George:  That’s the intention that he expressed to mom. Mom wasn’t sure what he would tell the sister.

Yeardley:  Right I see he might just change his story and say, “Hey, I need to go down and see Steve. Will you take me?”

George:  Right. So mom wanted to warn her. And little did Tabitha know that would be the last time she talked to her mother.

Yeardley:  Oh, God.

Zibby:  Brutal.

George:  We started trying to backtrack where Scott was and where he could be. And Tabitha said, “Well, I got a call from my brother Steve and Scott made it down there.”

Zibby:  No. Do you know what happened when he got down there?

George:  He showed up in the middle of the night knocking on the window outside of Steve’s house. And keep in mind, Steve lives the next state over about nine hours away.

Yeardley:  Oh, wow.

George:  So it was initially a little weird to Steve that Scott would show up in the middle of the night, banging on his window, wanting to come in. But Steve, being a brother, said, “Okay, let you come in.” They argued.

Yeardley:  Do you know what about?

George:  Steve said he was just ranting at that time and he knew Scott was having problems.

Yeardley:  Right.

George:  So he went to bed and then woke up a couple hours later to Scott standing over him with a knife.

Yeardley:  Oh, dear.

Zibby:  Good God.

George:  At that point, Steve realized he needed to get Scott out of the house. He didn’t really put that much thought into it. He just hopped up out of bed and defended himself. He actually punched Scott, pushed him out of the house and made him wait outside.

Zibby:  He punched him and then made him wait outside.

Yeardley:  To wait for what?

George:  These folks, they all care for one another still. Even though they know Scott has problems and he’s delusional and paranoid and can be violent, they still don’t want to leave Scott hanging. So Steve called his dad, who lived about five hours away, and said, “Dad, you need to come over here and pick up Scott. He’s down here. I don’t know what’s going on. He can’t be around here. He’s violent with me. I got my family here.” So dad drives out to Steve’s place, picks up Scott and takes him to his house.

Yeardley:  And this is a good family, right. In that there’s no drugs, they haven’t been in trouble with the law, they just happen to have a family member who has mental illness.

George:  Yeah, they’re a pretty average family. This isn’t a family in town that we’ve had problems with over the years, because your normal family kind of shows how much mental health problems arise in every part of society, whether you’re rich or poor or anywhere in between.

Zibby:  Right.

Yeardley:  Sure.

George:  This is their circumstance.

Zibby:  It also speaks to how living with a loved one who suffers from mental health issues might give you a much higher tolerance for erratic behavior. Because in any other circumstance, if someone’s family are not standing over my bed with a knife wanting to kill me, I wouldn’t just be like, “Hey, hey none of that.” [Yeardley laughs] And put them outside and call dad.

George:  I think it speaks to maybe how many times he’s been violent or had these outbursts or had these types of things to where it was almost dismissed as, “Oh, it’s just Scott having a problem again.” And never thinking that Scott would follow through on his threat. Steve didn’t believe that his brother was going to stab him or kill him. He thought he was acting out and needed some help.

Break 1

Dan:  So you’ve had a conversation with the sister who advised you. Hey, he’s arrived down at the brother’s house, correct?

George:  Correct.

Dan:  Has she had contact with Steve to let him know that mom is dead?

George:  No, not at this point.

Yeardley:  Did the sister ever call Steve and say, “Hey, just want you to know that Scott said he wants to come to and kill you?”

George:  No, I believe mom called Steve to tell him.

Yeardley:  And still he let Scott into the house.

George:  Because I think it’s a believability thing. I think there’s no way that Scott would do that. It’s just Scott being Scott [crosstalk] and he has his problems, needs to be on his meds.

Dave:  Let’s talk about the creep meter of knowing what Scott has done to his mom. He’s at his brother’s house and they’ve already had a verbal disagreement. He wakes up and Scott’s standing over him in bed while he’s asleep with a knife. You couple that with how long did he stand over mom before he decided to stab her? Like who knows how many seconds or minutes he had been standing there contemplating what he’s going to do to his brother.

Zibby:  Yeah.

George:  At the point that’s happening to Steve, he didn’t know Lillian, his mother, was dead.

Zibby:  Right.

Dave:  It’s just like life can change in a minute.

Zibby:  I have another question. Scott must have cleaned up before making his way down to Steve, his brother, because otherwise wouldn’t Steve have noticed? Hey, you’re like splattered in blood.

George:  You would think so, but he did have blood on his clothes.

Zibby:  What, really?

Yeardley:  How did Scott get to Steve?

George:  Actually, he drove down there in mom’s car. That’s how he made it down there. And this is a nine-hour drive away from our scene, so we thought the same thing. How did Scott get down there? Let’s put a locate out on this car. So we send an interstate locate out throughout the whole country saying be on the lookout for this car. The likelihood of us finding that car initially we thought would be pretty slim. What are the chances somebody comes across it? Well, a short time later we get a hit from an area really close to where Steve lives. And the police jurisdiction down there called and said, “Yeah, we just impounded that car.” And we talked to the supervisor there and asked the circumstances of, what do you mean you impounded that car? Well, we found it parked alongside the highway.

George:  It had a bunch of damage to the car and it was abandoned, nobody was there and somewhat blocking a lane of travel. So we called a tow truck out and impounded it. They didn’t know what they even found at that point.

Yeardley:  So he parked it on the highway.

George:  Ended up being about 500 yards away from Steve’s house.

Yeardley:  Wow.

Zibby:  Sounds like he crashed it.

George:  He got into a couple accidents we’d found out later on the drive down. A couple of hit and runs on the interstate. So we asked about this car, and they said, “It’s impounded.” I said, “Well, keep it where it’s at. It’s a stolen vehicle from a murder victim, and we’ll be in touch.” And at that point, I check with my boss and say, listen, we have this car 500 yards away from where Scott’s brother Steve lives. And we talked to Steve and he says, yeah, Scott went to my dad’s place, but dad lives about five hours away from here, what do we do? At that point we’re developing we have enough probable cause to say Scott did this. So we get a probable cause affidavit done and a warrant issued for him to be arrested, and we call the jurisdiction where dad lives and say, “Would you guys mind heading out to the house where dad lives and seeing if this guy Scott is there? If he’s there, arrest him for this murder and we’ll come down.”

Yeardley:  Meanwhile, Scott still has blood on his clothes. It’s not a red flag.

George:  It is somewhat. And dad notices he needs a change of clothes, so he actually provides him with a change of clothes. But they kept the clothes Scott was wearing. He thought something was up. He didn’t know what exactly had happened at that point.

Dan:  And what I’m struck by is how is news not caught up to dad by now?

Zibby:  Yeah. Really?

Yeardley:  Right.

Dan:  That Lillian is dead.

George:  I can tell you part of the reason why is I think we responded out there to the house at 11:53 AM by the time I talked to Tabitha, it was probably 01:30, 2 o’clock and we’re still in the middle of talking to her. When we’re learning this information, it’s really fluid. I think we learned it right around 03:00 PM that vehicle was found and started putting things together. So only a couple hours had passed.

Dan:  Well, she’d been there for two days. So Scott, right after he kills mom, hops in the car and boogies.

George:  Yeah. So he was down there for quite a while before we even realized that Lillian was dead.

Yeardley:  So Scott kills Lillian, he gets in the car, goes to Steve’s house, he menaces Steve. Steve says, “Dad, come get him.” That all happens hours after Scott has killed his mother. Yes.

George:  Yeah. Scott made it to Steve’s house probably about 14 hours after he killed his mom.

Yeardley:  But now you still have another 24 hours before you guys get called in because it’s 48 hours after Lillian has died that the neighbor calls and says the food is burning, yes.

George:  Correct. So we’re pretty behind at that point.

Yeardley:  Right.

George:  The sister didn’t know until we told her that afternoon, what happened to mom? Nobody knew until we told her an hour before the car was found.

Yeardley:  Ha-ha.

Zibby:  By then she could have told Steve, but Steve was no longer with Scott. Scott was now with dad, and so Steve could try and get ahold of dad. But now at this point, you guys have caught up to the situation.

George:  We’re starting to catch up to it at the same time that Steve’s calling dad and saying, “Hey, is Scott still at your place? The cops may be looking for him.” Dad says, “Yeah, Scott’s here. What’s going on?” Just keep him there. We’re sending the cops there. I don’t know exactly what Steve told him. I don’t think he gave him a lot of details. This is dad’s ex-wife, so obviously he’d still be concerned. But sometimes it’s good not to tell people too much information. They react differently. If somebody would have told Steve, “Hey, don’t tell your dad what’s going on, because dad could freak out and something bad could happen.” It was more or less just keep Scott there. The cops are on their way.

 So we got ahold of that jurisdiction, said, get out to that house, grab onto Scott, and we’ll have a warrant for him any minute. So I wrote an affidavit up as quick as I could, got it to a judge, got an arrest warrant signed, told that jurisdiction down there we have a warrant to arrest him. They were extremely cooperative. You don’t always run into that when you’re calling different jurisdictions, especially different states that you’re in. If I just called somebody up and said, “Hey, I want you to arrest this guy for murder.” Don’t worry, I have probable cause. I got a warrant on the way. Most jurisdictions would be like, “Yeah, we’re not doing anything until you have a warrant, because they don’t know who I am.” That could be the most incompetent cop in the world. That could be the best cop in the world. They don’t know who I am. So as soon as we told them, please go out there and look for this guy. We’re working on a warrant.

 They got out there quick, and we told them, okay, we got the warrant. Arrest them. They did. Not only did they do that, they spoke to Scott’s dad, and I told the cops, ‘Hey, what kind of clothes is he wearing? See if he has blood in the clothes.” Dad said,” Well, yeah, he did have some blood on the clothes.” And actually, we kept him. We gave him some other clothes to change into. But then they gave the cops a bag of clothes that Scott had been wearing. And the cops were really thorough with that. They cataloged that evidence photograph of every item of clothing, focusing on the blood, and retained it down there for us.

Zibby:  And so now what? Because Scott’s being held way far away from where you are.

George:  I guess some guys would probably want to defer to the other agency and say, “Why don’t you just ask them what happened and see if we’ll give a statement to you.” I want to separate good detectives from bad detectives. But I think most guys I work with, they want to follow up on their own case. They don’t want somebody else interviewing their suspect. I mean, you could probably speak to that, Dave, but I think it’s my case. I want to interview my suspect. I don’t want somebody else doing it.

Dave:  Well, and it’s a risky endeavor for somebody who doesn’t have the intimate knowledge of all the details, all the sensory details. If it’s my case and somebody’s bullshitting me and giving me a bunch of lies or minimizing, I want to be able to confront them and basically say, “No, you’re lying. I know you’re lying.” Because X, Y and Z, this is what I saw, this is what I know. So I’m like George and most other detectives are like that they want to be the one who takes care of that and interview and interrogation.

George:  Right. So myself and another detective hopped in a car and started driving down the interstate and made our way down to the county jail where Scott was being held. About nine hours later, we got there almost 02:00 in the morning at that point, got to the jail and talked to the deputies and said, “Hey, we want to interview this guy.” I like to record the interview because it’s very powerful in a trial to a judge or jury later, we can have a video recorded interview of a person making statements, whether they’re confessing or lying. Statements made like that are powerful when you can actually play video. Well, the deputy said, “Yeah, we don’t have anything like that here. We can’t provide you with a room where you can videotape somebody. We don’t have that capability.”

Yeardley:  Oh.

George:  It just was an older jail. The jurisdiction wasn’t exactly a small jurisdiction, but they weren’t up with the times as much, I guess. So they said, “Well, we can give you a private room to talk in, but we don’t have anything to record.” Fortunately, when I packed a bag. I threw my small digital recorder in there and thought maybe it’d come in handy, maybe not. It did come in handy. So I said, “Well, if you just give us room to talk in, we’ll see what we can do.” And they said, “Well, this guy is pretty weird. Are you okay with talking to him?” We said, “Yeah, it’s fine. No big deal.” So we wait around the corner. They go to a holding area. They escort Scott out of the holding area into a smaller, private room where we can talk away from other inmates. And I could tell immediately upon looking at Scott, there’s something going on with this guy. He had the mannerisms of somebody kind of under the influence of methamphetamine. And that methamphetamine often causes paranoia, delusions, and can exacerbate schizophrenia.

Zibby:  What are the physical mannerisms of someone on meth?

George:  Twitching, jumping, rapid movements, head movements, hand movements, constantly looking around, inability to sit still or stand still, even walking. They walk in a gait that’s just awkward. And you could tell by looking at somebody. Well, this was a little bit more than somebody just on methamphetamine. He walked past me and my partner, and you can almost feel a chill when he walked by. It was just that odd and bizarre.

Zibby:  It was disturbed energy.

George:  Yeah, that’s a great way to describe it. It was disturbed energy to the point where my partner looked at me and I look at him or just have this– it was like an awkward moment when he walked by us, and they directed us into a long hallway leading into a long narrow room. It was used for visiting across the glass visiting. When you go to a jail, you sit one side of the glass and the inmate sits along the other side. And it’s a big, long bench of seats. Well, that’s the room they gave us to talk in.

Yeardley:  Were you separated by glass?

George:  No. They brought him into the room where the inmate would talk to somebody on the other side while went to that same room as him. And Scott made his way down to the very end of the room and sat in the last chair of the room. And I look at my partner. He looks at me and, “Okay, well, we got to talk to this guy. Let’s make it happen.”

Zibby:  Did his energy alter your confidence in that moment?

George:  It altered my confidence in the sense that I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to interview this guy. Not a sense of fear at all.

Dan:  And there’s so many hurdles you’re going to have to get over to get this confession and to make it credible.

George:  You really try to establish as much as you can that this person is sane and is able to understand what I’m saying, understand what he’s saying, understand the law. And you spend a lot of time in the interview going over dumb basic things to try to lay out a foundation that they understand what’s going on.

Yeardley:  Like what?

George:  Where are we at? What day is it? Do you know what we’re doing here? Do you understand the law? And obviously it starts off with advising somebody of their Miranda rights and getting an acknowledgement at least from them that yes, they understand their rights. But then as we’re talking, we go over just basic details of life in general, of trying to set a baseline of what’s this person thinking.

Zibby:  Is that so? I’m assuming you want to establish his cognitive abilities and presence of mind so that you can hold him accountable.

George:  That’s exactly the reason why. And that’s when he walked by. I thought, “Oh, no. We’re not going to be able to get there with him, but let’s give it a try.”

[music]

George:  Obviously, you’re down here in custody. Imagine you know the reason why, they didn’t tell you any reason why they arrested you today?

Scott:  No, I couldn’t care less.

George:  You know why you’re under arrest. Okay, why don’t you tell me what happened?

Scott:  What do you mean [unintelligible ] from the beginning what happened?

George:  Yeah. We can go back to the beginning. How far back was the beginning? Couple days, couple weeks?

Scott:  All the way back to the beginning of this [unintelligible ]?

George:  Okay, how about we don’t go that far back? How about we go back in the last couple days?

Scott:  A few days or so[unintelligible ]. I took a knife and stabbed my brother’s mom eight times. No, ten times while she was sleeping.

George:  When you were referring to your brother’s mom, what’s her name? [beep] Where did this happen?

Scott:  At her house.

George:  Do you know her address? [beep] Okay, you stabbed. Repeated 10 times, you said.

Scott:  Yeah.

George:  What did that happen?

Scott:  Because a piece of brown sand that caused people to eat dog babies and the last little kids on this planet happened. So, they used something they got through my mind and see as God and a time machine to pull people through time in [ [unintelligible] and pile their bodies up out back of Chester. Something about a [unintelligible ] that’s happened many times over. And a whole bunch of other stuff caused me to flip out, inject myself with my own cell, a monocular cell. And the cell was taken and given to my brother when I went down to his house to kill him. He beat me up, blacked my eye.

George:  Was that after you said [beep]

Scott:  Yeah.

George:  Okay, tell me. Let’s go back a little bit more. Today, I guess it’s technically Wednesday morning though. It was late Tuesday night or Tuesday afternoon, I think when you got arrested. How many days ago did this happen that you sat there?

Scott:  30 days ago [unintelligible ]

George:  Do you remember which day of the week it was?

Scott:  Yeah.

George:  Okay, do you remember making any phone calls to anyone before the incident happened?

Scott:  No.

George:  Do you have a sister?

Scott:  Yeah.

George:  What’s her name?

Scott:  [beep]

George:  Okay, before this happened, did you call [beep] to ask her anything?

Scott:  Yeah.

George::  What did you ask her?

Scott:  To give me a ride to my brother’s house.

George:  Why did you ask that?

Scott:  Because I was going to kill him.

George:  Okay, and then did she say anything about giving you a ride? Did she say yes or no about it?

Scott:  No. She said no?

George:  She said no, okay. So then what did you do?

Scott:  So then I was laying the night in a hotel room that I rented with my money for seven nights. And spirits from time, from the future and the past that came through the Imperial Royal Seal, were in my body. And I was sleeping, having a dream. And I’m a professional dancer, a male stripper, professional $20,000 package. Everyone’s trying to steal it from me. They trillionized, zillionized, billionized, millionized.

George:  What, did you leave the hotel [ [unintelligible]

Scott:  Yes, I left the hotel as soon as I found out after the dream.

Zibby:  Was he making eye contact with you?

George:  Yes. Yes, he was. Didn’t blink the whole time.

Yeardley:  His affect is so flat.

George:  Okay. Where did you go after you left the hotel?

Scott:  To [beep]

George:  Okay. What happened when you [beep] got to the house? Did you tell her?

Scott:  Yes.

George:  Did you ask her for anything or tell her anything in particular?

Scott:  No.

George:  Okay. Did you go to bed that night or what happened after you talked to her?

Scott:  I sat up watching TV until she went to sleep.

George:  Okay. And were you watching particular on TV?

Scott:  No.

George:  Did you rent any movies or watch pay per view shows or watch any special programs you remember?

Scott:  Yeah.

George:  What was that?

Scott:  It was some porno.

George:  Okay. Did you have to rent the porno or watch it or like click on some kind of selection?

Scott:  Yeah, you have to rent it.

George:  Okay. How many pornos did you watch, do you remember?

Scott:  Four.

George:  Okay, so you watched all four pornos and [beep] go to sleep.

Scott:  [unintelligible ]

George:  Okay. Do you know if this was Saturday night?

Scott:  Yeah.

George:  It was Saturday night. Okay, so then what happened after you watched the movies.

Scott:  I grabbed a knife and walked in the room while she was sleeping and stabbed her in bed.

George:  Where did you get the knife from?

Scott:  The counter.

George:  The counter, was that at the bathroom counter?

Scott:  Kitchen.

George:  Kitchen counter, okay. And [beep] sleeping in her bedroom, this happened?

Scott:  Yes.

George:  Did she awaken or say anything when you’re doing this?

Scott:  When I was stabbing her?

George:  Yes.

Scott:  Yeah, she’s screamed.

George:  Did she say anything to you?

Scott:  No.

George:  Okay, so you stabbed her, you said 8 to 10 times. What did you do immediately after you stabbed her?

Scott:  Wash off my hands.

George:  Where.

Scott:  In the bath

George::  In the bathroom sink. Okay.

Yeardley:  I’m so struck by how even you are, George. As though he’s telling you a recipe or something.

George:  It’s kind of disturbing sometimes listening to myself. You have to be careful not to react too much.

Yeardley:  Of course.

George:  What happened to [beep] after you stabbed her? Did you do anything with your body?

Scott:  What do you mean? [ [unintelligible] right there in her room.

George:  It was. But did you move it somewhere? Did she stay on the bed? Did she go to another part of the room? Those type of things.

Scott:  No, she fell to the floor. I covered it with the blanket.

George:  Why did you cover it with a blanket?

Scott:  So no one would see it.

George:  Why were you concerned somebody would see it?

Scott:  I wasn’t concerned, believe me.

George:  Why did you cover that? You said nobody would see it. Why did you not want somebody to see it?

Scott:  Because I didn’t want to look at it. It was disgusting.

George:  Did you know you did something wrong at that point?

Scott:  Oh God. Obviously, I’d be wrong.

George:  But did you realize you did something illegal at that point when you killed her?

Scott:  Yeah, I know I’ve done something illegal [ [unintelligible] gas, fast gas. Mashed my brother 76 times. Killed him with a knife hundreds of times.

George:  After you stabbed, [beep] you covered her body, because if was there somebody in particular you were worried would see her?

Scott:  No.

George:  Okay. What did you do after you covered her body with a blanket.

Scott:  Stole their car.

George:  And did you take anything else from the house?

Scott  Pills.

George:  What kind of pills did you take?

Scott:  Clonazepam.

George:  Okay. Whose pills were those?

Scott:  Hers.

George:  Did you take a whole bottle or part of a bottle?

Scott:  Part of the bottle?

George:  How many pills do you think you took?

Scott:  12.

George:  Did you take anything else from her room, her purse?

Scott:  $17.

George:  $17? Okay. You said you stole her car.

Scott:  Mm-hmm.

George:  Why did you do that?

Scott:  So, I can get to my brothers.

George:  Okay. Were you concerned about the police finding you?

Scott:  No.

George:  Were you leaving town so the police wouldn’t locate you?

Scott:  That’s not why I left town.

George:  Did you think that was a possibility?

Scott:  I really didn’t care about it.

George:  Why not?

Scott:  Because I’m not scared of it. It doesn’t bother, not scared of it.

George:  What did you think [beep] when you were seven or ten times.

Scott:  Probably something messed up. What if someone [unintelligible ]?

George:  Did she cause harm to you? Did she hurt you?

Scott:  Yeah.

George:  Did she attack you when this happened? Or is he talking about some other.

Scott:  No, I’m talking about mental abuse.

George:  Okay. How about that night? So she was asleep. She had no means to defend herself. Is that right?

Scott:  Yeah, she had no means to defend herself.

George:  So you just have her with the intent to kill her?

Scott:  Yeah.

George:  And why do you want to kill her?

Scott:  Because she cooked up her grandson in a pot and ate it.

George:  Whose son?

Scott:  My sister’s.

George:  Okay. Does [beep] your mother also?

Scott:  I like to consider her.

George:  Well, how about technically, legally speaking, is she [ [unintelligible]?

Scott:  [unintelligible ] four molecules and the bees.

[music]

Zibby:  Wow.

Yeardley:  That is so intense.

Zibby:  How long does the interview last?

George:  We talk some more after that and just kind of revisit the issues he brought up, try to clarify a few things. He rants some more about other odds and ends, like the stuff with the molecules and I’m God and some of the weird stuff. I still to this day can’t comprehend what he’s saying. He admits taking her phone, driving her car, getting into hit and run as he’s fleeing just more corroboration. Then towards the end, he does more ranting. So we kind of end it after that. It was probably a total of about 30-minute interview. Once you get to that point with somebody who’s that mentally ill, you’ve gotten everything you can get from them. Anything more than that, it’s overkill.

Yeardley:  I was so struck by the fact that he avoids calling his mother Lillian or saying my mother.

George:  I think it’s his own way, whether he intentionally does it or not, of separating himself a little bit mentally from what he did. If he can say he killed Lillian or killed his brother’s mother.

Yeardley:  His brother’s mother, –

George:  It’s easier for him. But when he’s confronted about it, he’ll admit it, that it’s his mom, but I think it’s a coping thing for him.

Zibby:  Was he in handcuffs?

George:  No.

Zibby:  Did you feel like there was any sort of aggression?

George:  No. It was odd sitting there talking to him just because his mannerisms and the arrogance and the way he spoke. But I didn’t ever feel threatened or anything like that by him.

Yeardley:  Is he a big guy?

George:  He’s bigger than I am, and I’m not a big guy so. [chuckles]

Yeardley:  [chuckles] You’re not a small guy?

George:  I’m not a small guy. He’s a little bit bigger than average, but like 6 foot, 180 pounds or something like that. Just average-looking guy. But when you know you’re sitting across from a guy from just stabbed his mother, you’re aware of what he can do. But at the same time, if I reciprocate his tone of voice with him, if he’s calm, I’m calm. It encourages him to keep on talking. If I get aggressive or loud or accusatory too much, it may shut him down. So it’s easier to just keep that same tone of voice as best I can. As weird as that is, it’s best not to react and let them know how you think.

Yeardley:  Right.

George:  You have to be careful not to insult them at the same time when they’re going on that tangent like that you don’t–

Zibby:  You don’t want to deny their reality.

George:  Exactly. You don’t want to encourage them to keep talking, but you don’t want to deny it either. You acknowledge it and then go back to what you want to talk about. Fortunately, in this case, he was able to do that.

Yeardley:  It was masterful. You really got him to come back to the moment at least. That was pretty incredible.

Break 2

Dan:  Did he touch at all on maybe some resentment or anger over the two weeks prior phone call to police about the menacing?

George:  He didn’t really mention that a whole lot. Is the reason why he went back there? No, I think it upset him, but it didn’t seem to lend to a motive on this one.

Dave:  Did he give any sort of motive for why he might want to harm his brother?

George:  Yes, and it was the same delusional, ranting explanation of– It just didn’t even make sense. It’s not even a motive I can even explain. When you hear it’s like, “Okay, this person has got some problems.” It wasn’t anything logical.

Zibby:  I also noticed that you would always steer the conversation back to the sequence of events by kind of reiterating what he had said previously and then trying to sort of feed him back into describing what happened next. Does a defense attorney object to that strategy? Does it come off as leading the interview too much?

George:  They can, but the best way to do it is to refer back to the last thing they just said and bring them back into the conversation that way. Okay, you told me you stabbed your mom 8 to 10 times, then what happened? So when he went off on his tangent, it was like, okay, you told me that you went in there, waited for her to go to sleep. What happened when you stabbed her? :Well, she started screaming a lot.” Okay, then what did you do? “I went and washed my hands.” Then what happened? I think if you played dumb enough, if you act like you really want to know the answer to something because they’re the only person that can give you that answer, they almost feel like honored to answer that question, to provide you with the answer. They know something that you don’t know, they’ll give it to you. “Well, it was disgusting.” Why was it disgusting? Why you stabbed her in the face. Okay. Then I start going into, did you know what you did was wrong? “Yeah, I knew what I did was wrong.” Did you know it was illegal? “Yes, I knew it was illegal.” We can go back and forth on that later in court, whether he understood it or not, but him at least making that statement can be helpful at the time.

Dave:  And looking at some of the family dynamic, I know that there was some anger and frustration on his part because there was talk among the family members that we need to kind of cut him off financially and stop enabling him. You look at the way this guy interacts with people. He’s not employable, so he’s got these financial issues. He’s kind of couch surfing, motel surfing. And he’s upset with the family because they were having discussions about, let’s not be giving him any more money. We’re just kind of prolonging and enabling our loved one. And he was pissed off about it.

Yeardley:  Did they have plans to commit him? If they cut him off and he just was motel surfing, then what does he become a problem on the streets for you guys?

George:  He becomes a police problem.

Dave:  Yeah. And that’s the thing is, you know a lot of people would be like, “Well, the police never did anything to help this guy.” We can’t take away someone’s freedom. It’s not against the law to have mental health problems.

George:  We could do a whole episode on mental health problems.

Dave:  Yeah. And what the police can and can’t do and what communities and families can and can’t do for their loved ones that are affected by this stuff.

George:  When a person’s a danger to themselves or a danger to others, they’re threatening to harm themselves or threatening to harm others, police can get involved. But short of that, being schizophrenic and paranoid is not a crime. But when that paranoid schizophrenia turns into disorderly behavior in the middle of the night, that’s when it turns criminal. And that’s why a lot of jails are filled with mentally ill people.

Zibby:  Can I ask you a personal question about your experience interviewing him? At some point, did you stop searching for a way to hold him accountable as a sane person would be for this murder? Or where does it lie in you and how you sort of set this case up to be prosecuted once you’re getting a flavor of him?

George:  I think it would be irresponsible of me to try to take an opinion in one way or the other and be wrong. To assume he’s completely sane and tricking me or fooling me, or I think it would be improper for me to diagnose him and say he’s mentally ill? My role is to provide all the facts that I can possibly provide to a prosecutor so they can determine what to do with the case. And then they will lean on mental health professionals, psychologists to evaluate. I just think it’d be irresponsible for me to assume one way or the other. That’s the hardest thing to do as a cop sometimes, is not take things personally or not assume one way or the other who this person is or what their problem is. I think you come across more genuine in court when you’re able to say, I’m just gathering facts. Here’s the facts I’m just presenting them. You make the decision to the judge or the jury or whoever’s making the decision. You’re much better off that way.

Dan:  I’ve been interviews with victims and suspects who have mental illness and it’s very, very difficult. You try to direct the interview, but at times it’s incoherent.

George:  Yeah. At that point, by the time I got done interviewing Scott, I’ve been up for 24 hours at that point. So I am mentally exhausted. And we still had a lot more to do after interviewing him.

Yeardley:  24 hours. Oh my God.

Zibby:  24 hours. What more do you have to do?

George:  Well, I call my prosecutor and tell him what happened. I called my boss and then we got to work on getting extradition paperwork because he’s in another state. I’m not going to wait around to this jail for extradition paperwork because he has to make a court appearance at least a day or two later. So we decided, let’s just hop in the car and drive five hours back over to where brother Steve lived. And that’s where the car was at in that county. So we got ahold of the cops there. We’re doing Small Town Dicks here, but some of these towns are even smaller than where we live and they don’t have a lot of resources, a lot of experience in dealing with major crimes.

 And I ended up coming across a couple of cops who had been 20, 25-year cops who really have had one homicide the whole time. They didn’t know, “Okay, well, we’ve got to seize this car. It’s evidenced in our homicide case. We need to get it back up to our state.” Well, go ahead and take it. That’s not how it works. They were more than cooperative and helpful. They just didn’t know what processes to jump through. So let’s get ahold of your prosecutor and we need to write a warrant to seize this car so we can transport it back to our state. And then I’ll write another warrant, process it and any belongings inside of it forensically for any kind of blood and evidence, things like that. So that took a better part of a day.

Zibby:  Had you had any sleep at this point?

George:  Not that point. No, I think I finished interviewing Scott at about 04:00 in the morning, 05:00 in the morning, which is about almost the time I wake up. So about 24 hours at that point, we drove five hours over to the neighboring county. We got in town, I think around 10:30 in the morning. I was hungry, so we actually stopped and got some breakfast and then met with the DA that afternoon. And that DA hadn’t dealt with a lot of these type of cases either. So I basically rewrote my probable cause affidavit for him and said, “This is what I know to be true.” And then I added a paragraph or two about what Scott had told me at the jail to add to my probable cause about why we need to seize this car. Because now I’m not dealing with prosecutors and judges in my state, I’m dealing with prosecutors and judges in another state. And their standard can be completely different. But we finally got him convinced at about 03:00 in the afternoon.

Zibby:  And I’m sorry, but just human being to human being, you’re going on more than 24 hours without sleep. How do you stay awake? Like, what’s your vice? Are you coffee? Are you five-hour energy?

George:  Coffee and food.

Zibby:  That’s it.

George:  I would be a total monster on all those energy drinks. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. I tried one once and I was so jittery. I want nothing to do with those ever again.

[laughter]

Zibby:  I just need to know how people. It’s tons of paperwork. It’s traveling across state lines.

George:  I think adrenaline helps once in a while. But the problem with adrenaline is when you’re done, all of a sudden, you’re exhausted immediately. And that hit when I was sitting in the office of the officers that were down there helping us out. I remember distinctly, barring their computer. I had one of those little thumb drives with me and I plugged into their computer and I was trying to write my affidavit. 15, 20 minutes, I looked down and nothing I was writing was making sense. That’s when my adrenaline wore off. I think once I got down to the jail and talked to Scott, I was so awake, I was feeling good. And we’re going to interview this guy. It lasted throughout the drive, five hours over to the other county.

 It wore off right when I got to the police station and had to start right in the affidavit again. But it’s hard to sleep. You’re constantly thinking of your case and what do I have to do next? And trying to remember this stuff. Anyhow, it just took us till about 4 o’clock in the afternoon to get the warrant to seize the car. Then we arranged for a tow truck to come down and pick it up and drive it back.

Yeardley:  Once you get to the car, do you find any evidence that’s useful?

George:  We found Scott’s DNA mixed in with Lillian’s DNA in blood on the steering wheel of the car. We found Lillian’s blood on a seat cushion on the driver’s side. Those are important things, obviously link him.

Zibby:  What about Scott’s clothes? The ones that his father had saved?

George:  Those got tested by the lab. Her blood was on his clothes. So her blood in his clothes, her blood on the seat of the car. Which I guess a defense attorney can say, “Of course it’s her car, there’s going to be blood in it.”

Yeardley:  No, no.

George:  The important thing was his fingerprints mixed in with her blood in the steering wheel.

Yeardley:  There’s no blood in my car.

George:  There shouldn’t be, but defense attorneys can be pretty convincing when they want to convince people that anything’s normal. Then we found the empty bottle of clonazepam in the car. Which corroborates not only did he take it, but that’s the car he was in.

Zibby:  What happens with Scott?

George:  He gets extradited back up here. A couple days later, two other detectives drove down there, picked him up and brought him back here.

Yeardley:  What was that ride like, do you think?

Dave:  I’m remembering. The two detectives that went down there were undercover drug detectives, and they’re kind of grungy and they don’t look like clean cut street cops that are in patrol uniforms. And they’re driving this marked police car and they’re told, don’t get any driving complaints, don’t be speeding. It says the name of our city right on the side of the car. And I understand where they’re coming from. They’re thinking, let’s get down there, let’s pick him up, let’s get back lickety-split. And they get multiple complaints called in that two grungy tweaker looking guys are driving a police car, they think it’s stolen and they’re speeding.

Yeardley:  [Zibby laughs] Wow.

Dave:  So they get back and Sergeant Dave’s waiting for him. Did we not have a discussion about getting a complaint on the way down? I got multiple calls about you.

George:  They could have been the best drivers in the world, but a couple of grungy guys in a cop car from out of state gets people’s attention.

Dave:  Yeah.

Zibby:  Yeah.

Yeardley:  That’s funny. But no trouble from Scott, the suspect?

George:  No, no trouble at all. He made a couple of passive statements about what was going on, what he had done, and the officers wrote in the report.

Yeardley:  So I just want to ask you, while all the DNA swabs from the clothes and the car are being tested, is Scott, he’s just sitting in jail and does that testing happen quickly?

George:  It does not happen quickly. Actually, Scott was in jail initially, and while he’s in jail his defense attorneys made a motion to have him evaluated for mental health reasons. So he gets sent up to the state hospital to get evaluated, saying he’s not fit to stand trial.

Yeardley:  That’s what the result is.

George:  Initially that’s what the call is when somebody is unfit to stand trial. They say, “Well, go get him evaluated and see if we can make him fit for trial.” So he gets checked out and treated by a psychologist. So in the meantime, we’re doing all this processing. The state police lab sends everything up. So this incident happened in October. In September the following year, we finally got the results of all the DNA.

Yeardley:  What?

Zibby:  I cannot ever believe how long it takes.

Yeardley:  11 months.

George:  11 months. Yeah.

Yeardley:  George.

George:  I know.

Zibby:  What can we do about this?

Yeardley:  Wow.

Dave:  Hollywood needs to fund police departments.

Zibby:  Do we need to start a GoFundMe campaign?

Yeardley:  Seriously. For your own crime lab?

Zibby:  What if here at your agency you had your own DNA lab, your forensic, criminal, whatever you need your own crime lab, [crosstalk]. Can we GoFundMe a crime lab?

Dave:  That’s a big price tag.

Zibby:  What are we talking? I’m serious. I’m just curious. Like, what are we talking?

Dave:  Millions?

George:  Tens of millions.

Zibby:  Tens of millions?

George:  Yeah. With equipment and education. It’s outrageous but and I’m not going to make excuses for them, but I think if this had been a case where we need to get these results right away. We have an unknown suspect. We need to find him, arrest him. They can move quicker. The lab knows how to prioritize stuff and they learn, okay, they have a suspect, he’s named, he’s locked up. There’s no danger to the public. A trial date isn’t even set because he’s being evaluated in a mental institution. We could take our time processing this and we can process more priority stuff before we get to this. And there’s a lot of priority stuff when we have one DNA lab for the whole state.

Yeardley:  Ah, one.

Zibby:  One

George:  One DNA lab up in the biggest city in the state. And that’s where they’re centered, but we have crime labs, small labs throughout the state for fingerprints, for guns. But for DNA, there’s one lab in the whole state.

Zibby:  Is that generally true of all the states?

George:  I certainly don’t think so. But I think in smaller states or even these sparsely populated states, I’d say maybe it’s more common to have one or two DNA labs. I think in larger states there’s multiple metropolitan areas. Each metropolitan area has its own lab. Where we live, we don’t have that luxury. So they have to prioritize it. It’s like triaging in the ER who needs to get treated first.

Zibby:  Okay, that makes sense. So when and how does this case resolve?

George:  26 months later, after I arrested him, he returned to court and pled guilty but insane to the crime of murder.

Yeardley:  The plea, guilty and insane, do they cancel each other out?

George:  Yes, in a way he’s not going to spend time in jail ever. He is in a mental institution the rest of his life. He’s in a psychiatric institution run by the state. He’s sentenced there for the rest of his life.

Yeardley:  It seems like he could escape from there.

Dave:  [sigh] That happens.

George:  Does happen. We hope in this instance that he will actually be there the rest of his life. And when you’re found guilty but insane, that means you’re not criminally liable for the crime you committed. You’re liable for it, but not criminally you’re civilly committed to the psychiatric institution and the state for the rest of your life. That’s what he was sentenced to two years ago this month.

Zibby:  Now, what about his family members? His dad, Steve, Tabitha, were they behind him during this whole investigation?

George:  They were in a tough spot.

Zibby:  Yeah.

George:  They really were. They cared for him, they loved him. But none of them were outspoken for him to say, “Don’t hold him accountable. He’s just crazy.” They didn’t make excuses. They knew what he was. They realized this is it. This is the only thing we could do for him, is make sure he’s safely committed for the rest of his life so he doesn’t harm himself or anybody else. A couple of family members showed up at the hearing that day. They didn’t speak in the court. They wanted to be there for it. I remember the news, trying to talk to these folks and they didn’t want to talk to anybody. They were embarrassed, they were ashamed. They were maybe even somewhat guilt ridden to the extent of, I think everybody second guesses themselves. What could we have done to prevent this?

Yeardley:  Like we never took his threat seriously and now look, right.

George:  Yes. I think they felt that way. And all you could do is try to reassure them. You did what you thought was right at the time. And nobody could have predicted this was going to happen.

Dan:  I wonder if on some level if there is some relief on the family’s part that now he’s not such a burden on us. Unfortunately, it takes this tragedy to make that happen. But now he’s going to get taken care of, they don’t have to feel the guilt of pushing him away anymore.

George:  I don’t think it’s selfish to think that. I think it’s a relief to them. Like you said, I know the sister was a mess trying to think about how to take care of him, how to prevent other things from happening, and I think she’s more relieved after this.

Zibby:  It’s such a heartbreaking and complex tragedy for everyone involved, really.

Yeardley:  Thank you so much, George for taking the time to tell us about this case.

George:  Thank you.

[music]

Yeardley:  Small Town Dicks is produced by Zibby Allen and Yeardley Smith and co-produced by detectives Dan and Dave.

Zibby:  This episode was edited by Soren Begin, Yeardley Smith, and Zibby Allen.

Yeardley:  Music for the show was composed by John Forrest. Our associate producer is Erin Gaynor. And our books are cooked and cats wrangled by Ben Cornwell.

Zibby:  If you like what you hear and want to stay up to date with the show, head on over to smalltowndicks.com and become our pal on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter @smalltowndicks. We love hearing from our Small Town Fam, so hit us up.

Yeardley:  Yeah. Also, we have a YouTube channel where you can see trailers for past and forthcoming episodes. And we’re part of Stitcher Premium now.

Zibby:  That’s right. If you choose to subscribe, you’ll be supporting our podcast. That way we can keep going to small towns across the country and bringing you the finest in rare true crime cases, told as always by the detectives who investigated them. Thanks for listening, Small Town Fam.

Yeardley:  Nobody’s better than you.

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