Yeardley: Hey, Small Town Fam. It’s Yeardley. How are you guys? I hope you’re all well and safe. Today’s episode is unique in so many ways. It is a snapshot of a day in the life of a police department. So, the day starts out with nothing big on the call screen. And then all of a sudden, police are sent to deal with an armed and barricaded subject. And now it’s all hands-on deck. It struck me when we recorded this episode that Deputy Aliyah, who is our guest today, is a wife and a mom to two young boys. And when the call about this armed and barricaded man comes over the radio, it’s Aliyah’s day off and she’s with her boys. But now her department needs her to be the lead negotiator in this critical situation. So, Aliyah drops everything and gets to work. It’s broad daylight. Neighbors have begun to gather to see what all the commotion is about.

The suspect’s family has shown up because the man inside the house is refusing to surrender and come out. For four hours, there’s a standoff, and then it’s over. So, Aliyah packs up her gear, drives home, and for the good of her kids, picks up where she left off, ready to do mom things, friend and spouse things, maybe even run an errand because after all, this is still her day off. Here is “High Noon.”

Hi there. I’m Yeardley.

Dan: I’m Dan.

Dave: I’m Dave.

Paul: And I’m Paul.

Yeardley: And this is Small Town Dicks.

Dan: Dave and I are identical twins-

Dave: -And retired detectives from Small Town, USA.

Paul: And I’m a veteran cold case investigator who helped catch the Golden State Killer using a revolutionary DNA tool.

Dan: Between the three of us, we’ve investigated thousands of crimes, from petty theft to sexual assault, child abuse to murder.

Dave: Each case we cover is told by the detective who investigated it, offering a rare, personal account of how they solved the crime.

Paul: Names, places, and certain details have been changed to protect the privacy of victims and their families.

Dan: And although we’re aware that some of our listeners may be familiar with these cases, we ask you to please join us in continuing to protect the true identities of those involved-

Dave: -out of respect for what they’ve been through.

[unison]: Thank you.

[Small Town Dicks theme]

Yeardley: Hey, Small Town Fam. Guess who, it’s Yeardley. How are you guys? Guess what? I have all the usual suspects today. I have Detective Dan.

Dan: Hey there.

Yeardley: Hey there, husband.

Dan: Good to see you.

Yeardley: [laughs] That’s so convincing. I have Detective Dave.

Dave: Hello.

Yeardley: Hello, brother-in-law.

Dave: Hello, sister-in-law.

Yeardley: And I have the one and only Paul Holes.

Paul: Hi, all. How’s it going?

Yeardley: So good. So happy to see you P.

Paul: Glad to be here.

Yeardley: And we are so lucky to welcome back your fan favorite deputy Aliyah.

Aliyah: Hi. I’m so thankful to be back.

Yeardley: We are so happy to see you, Aliyah. It’s so great.

Aliyah: Thank you.

Yeardley: For our listeners, Aliyah and Bre, her sister, have both brought us amazing cases on the podcast in the last several seasons. And it’s hard to get new detectives to come on this podcast because by nature, you’re a squirrely bunch. And I get it because you guys are held to an infinitely higher standard than most of us. And I’m not saying that that’s wrong, but it is true. And so, I think the idea that you’re going to give us a story from soup to nuts about how this investigation came together could feel like a lot of scrutiny. So, we’re grateful and humbled that you guys are willing and able to sit down with us. Thank you so much.

Aliyah: Absolutely.

Yeardley: Aliyah, you’re an old hand at this, so please tell us how this case came to you.

Aliyah: Okay. So, I was a brand-new negotiator. I had only been on the team a handful of months. I had been through my first level of a negotiation course to where I was able to negotiate, but I did not have the skillset to negotiate with something like this. It was actually my day off. And my text thread for my negotiation team started going crazy. And when all the texts start fluttering in, you realize that something’s stirring. So, half of our team was away, which seems to be like every single time something happens, half of the team is gone doing something. It’s just how the universe decides to happen. They were gone at a conference. So that left about seven of us that were still here able to respond to any call out that was going to happen.

So, of course, something starts stirring one of our districts and we’re all kind of tracking, we’re all kind of listening to it. And eventually around 9 o’clock in the morning, I think it was around 9:50 in the morning, we all get the page that there is a barricaded subject Melvin, who is our suspect, he has killed his boyfriend.

Yeardley: Oh.

Aliyah: And he is barricaded in his apartment and is not engaging in any sort of contact with law enforcement, has made it very clear he will not be coming out, and this will be the end of his story. So, SWAT, CNT, and the BOM team, we all get that page.

Yeardley: What’s CNT.

Aliyah: CNT is the Crisis Negotiation Team.

Yeardley: Okay.

Aliyah: And that is what I am a part of.

Dave: Basically, the heaviest hitters in the department are on [crosstalk] the CNT team.

Aliyah: Yes. [Yeardley laughs] The hardest job, I will say.

Yeardley: Yeah.

Aliyah: It is very hard to stand outside in a full kit. No shade to our SWAT team. But it is definitely difficult to speak to somebody that’s on the edge. They’re having the crisis of their life, and you’re the person that’s coming in to try to bring them back.

Yeardley: If there had been an opportunity for you all to intervene when this dispute happened, maybe even before the boyfriend was murdered, that you would have a much better chance, I would think of talking this person metaphorically off the ledge and back into the window. But by the time you guys show up, things are so far down the line that it just seems like an almost insurmountable task.

Aliyah: Yes. And that is what we go up against almost every time we’re called out. Because once that $500,000 button is pushed, that means that things are really bad, and they need the people that are trained the best for this situation.

Yeardley: When you say it’s $500,000 button, that means to marshal those resources is hugely expensive.

Aliyah: Mm-hmm. Lots of over time.

Yeardley: So, this is where the team gets called in.

Aliyah: Yeah. The Crisis Negotiation Team, the SWAT team, and then our BOM team.

Yeardley: Why the BOM team?

Aliyah: They have a lot of resources. We utilize their robots. Their robots can get into places. They can breach doors. They have a dog robot that can climb all sorts of things, and it looks like an actual dog. It’s really, really cool. [Yeardley laughs] Their robots can place explosives, but they can also blow door hinges and stuff off with water, like water cannons. They have video capabilities, audio capabilities. I have negotiated through the BOM robots before, so they’re very, very helpful.

Yeardley: Interesting.

Dan: Aliyah, how did your department, your agency learn that a suspect had committed a murder?

Aliyah: So, what ended up transpiring was Melvin. Our crisis principal is what we call them in the negotiation world, FaceTimed, their mutual friend Justin. Melvin and his boyfriend, who was the victim in this case, William, met Justin in prison.

Yeardley: Oh.

Aliyah: They all met together in prison.

Yeardley: Okay. That’s a club.

Aliyah: Mm-hmm. That is a club. They were in a club. Yes.

Yeardley: Do we know what Melvin was in prison for?

Aliyah: So, Melvin was in prison for some sexual offenses, and that is where he met his boyfriend William, and then their mutual friend Justin. So, Justin gets this FaceTime call from Melvin, and Melvin starts telling him that an argument between Melvin and William got out of hand and Melvin had stomped, beaten, and shot William to death.

Yeardley: And it goes without saying that since they were in prison, they’re not supposed to have firearms.

Aliyah: Yeah. Melvin should not have had the firearm in the first place. But that’s a whole other tangent. So, Melvin FaceTimes Justin, and Melvin shows Justin, William’s body on the floor. William is lying face down. He’s not moving. There’s a pool of blood. So, Justin is screen recording the FaceTime conversation between Melvin and himself.

Yeardley: Can’t you tell that somebody is screen recording your conversation?

Aliyah: I don’t know that you can tell, but the part that was missing from it was audio. We had no audio from the screen record, but we did have Melvin on the screen recording, gun in his hand, showing William’s body on the floor. So, Justin calls law enforcement and says, “Hey, my friends are boyfriends. They’ve been having issues. Melvin is very controlling. William started going through Melvin’s phone, and whatever he found in Melvin’s phone triggered this argument. I’ve seen William’s body on the floor. I know that Melvin is in the apartment with him, because I just got off FaceTime with him, and you guys need to get there. I don’t know whether William is still alive, but we need law enforcement there.”

Yeardley: Aliyah, about how old are these three men?

Aliyah: I believe that they’re somewhere in their late 20s, early 30s.

Yeardley: Oh, they’re young. Okay.

Aliyah: Young, yes.

Paul: Hey, Aliyah, considering Justin’s past, they all were in prison together. Was Justin looking for any type of favor from law enforcement for sharing this information about Melvin?

Aliyah: It did not seem as if he was. I think he was genuinely concerned. Justin knew that William and Melvin were having a lot of relationship issues, and they had involved him in a lot of their arguments, and he had just been a close friend, I guess, because they all bonded in prison together.

Yeardley: And how long had William and Melvin been a couple?

Aliyah: I think that they had been out of prison for maybe just under two years. And when they got out around the same time and they moved in together and started a relationship from there.

Dave: So, I’m just thinking about this call that Justin makes to the PD if you’re on patrol that day, and that call starts getting dispatched, based on my experience, what you would be hearing as you’re driving around in your patrol car looking for soccer moms to pull over and give tickets to him.

Aliyah: On day shift for sure.

[laughter]

Dave: That you hear this and several units would be dispatched to a call like this and the details. if Justin is relaying them to dispatch and dispatch is relaying what they’re hearing is, this is going to be a hairy call and you know it.

Aliyah: Absolutely.

Dave: This guy just FaceTimed his buddy and said, “Hey, I just killed my boyfriend. And here’s video of it.” That response is much different than an unknown problem type call that we get when it’s a neighbor saying, “Hey, I think my neighbors are fighting. But it was loud and all of a sudden, it’s really quiet.” When you have what Justin is given, probably the whole shift is heading to that neighborhood.

Aliyah: Absolutely. And that’s exactly what happened.

[Break 1]

Pretty much everybody that was in service at the time met outside of the apartment complex that Melvin and William were in and game planned. Obviously, we all know that things like swatting calls exist and they sound similar to something like this. It sounds almost like a movie. Like you wouldn’t get a call like that.

Yeardley: Right.

Aliyah: So, obviously we are going to treat it that it’s real and we’re going to make sure that we have all of the correct resources in place. And patrol did just that. They did an amazing job. Patrol actually did a reverse 911 on the entire apartment complex and told everybody to evacuate.

Yeardley: What’s a reverse 911? And how do you do that?

Aliyah: So, our dispatch system started looking up any numbers within that apartment. They started running address histories and things like that and calling people that they believed were still living in those apartments to tell them to leave their apartment.

Yeardley: Wow. I’ve never heard of that. That’s very cool.

Aliyah: Yeah. Which would give us less of an obstacle once SWAT got there and started trying to move people out of their apartments. Because once lights and sirens and BearCats and all of these things start coming in, Melvin is going to start amping up essentially. Within that time period, the sergeant working patrol at the time, his name is Sergeant Connor. Sergeant Connor started trying to text the number that Justin gave for Melvin prior to us going and knocking on the front door doing something that’s just tactically not sound. So, he started trying to make contact with him via the phone first, which is what the crisis negotiation team would probably do already. Melvin actually responded a few times and basically said to Sergeant Connor that he was at work, he was not at home.

He wasn’t sure the wellbeing of William that he didn’t want to speak to us and that he wasn’t even anywhere near their residence.

Yeardley: So, Melvin is lying to Sergeant Connor.

Aliyah: Yes. Lying through his teeth.

Yeardley: Even though he’s just literally shown his friend Justin a video of his dead boyfriend in a pool of blood moments ago.

Aliyah: Moments ago, absolutely.

Dave: The consideration here is, and I love what Sergeant Connor’s doing is trying to determine where Melvin is, because that’s going to matter a lot here momentarily. So, it’s not surprising to me that Melvin’s like, “Well, I’m not even home.” But in order to get this body warrant, we’ve got to tell a judge I know for a fact that Melvin is inside this building. Police are very used to this, where people say, “Well, I’m not even at home right now. And you’re like, well, you’re in the back closet. We know where you are.”

[laughter]

You’re hiding where everybody else hides in the last place we’re going to look. So, it’s interesting, this happens in every jurisdiction, these kinds of games between suspect and the people outside on the perimeter.

Aliyah: Yeah. It is definitely the same across the board. People are people and they do what people do. So, eventually, through the text messages between Sergeant Connor and Melvin, he basically comes to start saying, like, “I’ve made up my mind. You guys do what you’re going to do. I’m not coming out,” kind of language. And then just stops responding via text message.

Yeardley: Melvin does.

Aliyah: Melvin does. So, at that point, patrol supervisors hit that big red button and started calling out all the specialty teams. And that was when I got the call out to respond to this jurisdiction to assist in a negotiator capacity. So, when I got there, I was placed in the forward bullhorn team, which myself and Deputy James went into a BearCat with the SWAT team. And my job basically was to bullhorn through the BearCat right up on Melvin’s apartment because his apartment faced the parking lot and try to get some sort of contact with him. Give the phone number that we were utilizing to try to contact him and try to get any signs of life within the apartment.

Dan: Aliyah, can you describe the structure that you’re looking at? These apartment complexes many times are very difficult to navigate.

Aliyah: Yeah. And I will like seeing patrols praise us all day long because they had already narrowed down exactly where we needed to be, exactly what apartment it was. They had confirmed a lot of things before we even got there. Melvin and William’s apartment was that first apartment on the bottom floor of a three-story apartment complex.

Dave: Makes things much easier. [laughs]

Aliyah: It does that it was on the first floor.

Yeardley: Yeah.

Aliyah: Yes, for sure.

Yeardley: Wow.

Aliyah: So, I’m thinking, what am I going to say to this guy? Being on a forward bullhorn team is very difficult because imagine just talking to a wall, a wall that doesn’t want to go back to prison. It is hard. It is hard to think of things in your mind to get their attention, to have them respond in some sort of capacity.

Yeardley: Are you using a bullhorn in this case because Melvin refuses to answer his phone?

Aliyah: Yes. So, he was not answering to us at the time. And we quickly learned that he was not answering our phone calls because he was on Facebook Live showing all of his family and all of William’s family what was happening inside the apartment.

Yeardley: Oh, boy.

Aliyah: So, when Melvin got on Facebook Live showing William’s body and basically apologizing to both of their families and stating that he is not going to go back to prison, he’s not going to come out alive, he is broadcasting this to everybody. All of William’s family, all of Melvin’s family are now seeing William deceased. And what is transpiring right now? So, what do you think the whole entire family does?

Dave: Oh, yeah.

Aliyah: They start coming to the scene.

Dave: Yeah.

Yeardley: Oh, so they’re in the area. Are these people who are showing up primarily Melvin’s family in defense of Melvin, or are they William’s family in outrage, or perhaps they’re all in outrage?

Aliyah: It’s both. And they are not happy with each other, not happy with what is transpiring. And obviously that’s very understandable on both sides, but it’s causing more conflict and more chaos in already very chaotic situation.

Dave: I’ve had a few negotiations where family start showing up from both sides of the argument that require the police to respond, and they can be extremely detrimental to any progress you’re making. We come to these policies because of lessons learned, what not to do, like, “Hey, I want to talk to my mom.” [laughs] Well, we’re going to hold off on that for a bit before you say your goodbyes. So, you get these situations where somebody’s at the outer perimeter and you can hear them screaming from 100 yards away and so can the suspect, and they can go, “Oh, that sounds like my family member.” And then you have the family member telling the police, “I’ll negotiate for you. I know exactly what to say to talk Melvin down,” for example. And we’re all like, well, I mean, “I’ve seen the movie The Negotiator. I know what we’re not supposed to do,” [Yeardley laughs] and that’s probably on the list.

They’re complicated situations, and a lot of times you’re screwed if you go one way, you’re screwed if you go the other. I have let a family member who demonstrated themselves to be very rational and very logical to speak to somebody in a crisis like that, but they’re few and far between. It’s such a gamble.

Aliyah: It is Dave, you’ve hit the nail on the head. You are so correct. And we utilize things like third party intermediaries, where we would get a recording from somebody that says, “Hey, I love you. I don’t want you to do this. We will support you. We will help you,” and things like that to try to get them to bring that rationality back. And sometimes that’s very very helpful, especially when they start showing up to the scene. But in this case, because the stakes were so high and William was obviously deceased, it was just chaos. There wasn’t a whole lot of positive, progressive things that we could have gotten out of either family at that point because the family’s emotions were all so high.

Dave: That’s what I’m thinking. In the meantime, you’re just trying to get confirmation that Melvin’s still in the apartment. And if Melvin’s willing to have a discussion, at least get some communication going. That’s the first step.

Aliyah: Absolutely. So, we were able to ping Melvin’s phone, and it did come back that he was obviously in the apartment. And so, we want to start that verbal containment. That is step number one. We want to get him on the phone, but we’re having a really, really hard time because Melvin is on his phone on Facebook Live, and he is also on William’s phone on Facebook Live. So, he’s coming at it from multiple different angles. So, we contact William’s phone carrier to stop his phone, because we’re trying to shut down at least one area that he is broadcasting William’s dead body over. So, we contact this certain phone carrier and we’re like, “Hey, listen, we are from this agency. We are dealing with this situation right now.” And they’re like, “Yeah, but William’s a paying customer. He’s up to date on his payment plan so stop it.”

Dan: William’s not paying any more bills.

Aliyah: William is deceased. William is no longer a paying customer, and you need to shut off his phone right now. And they’re like, “Yeah, no, no he’s paid up.”

Dave: Yeardley, I love your reaction right now because you’re like, [Aliyah laughs] “What the fuck?” And police were like, “Oh, yeah,” this happens all the time. And we all had the same reaction the first few times it happened. Like, “What the fuck what do you mean.”

Yeardley: What the– I can’t even– I don’t understand.

Aliyah: It was incredibly frustrating for us.

Yeardley: Is this phone company under no obligation to abide by law enforcement’s direction in this crisis.

Aliyah: They did not shut down his phone.

Yeardley: Shut the fuck up. I can’t even– Wow.

Aliyah: We were all having the same reaction. We’re like, “Okay, well, you are now just going to let William deceased body be shown to everybody.” Our whole team that was away, the half that was away at this conference, obviously they have wind of what’s going on. So, they are on Melvin’s Facebook live listening to me, like, loud hail from outside of the apartment.

Yeardley: Wow.

Aliyah: So, not only do I have everybody that’s there, all of the command staff, all the deputies hearing me try to get Melvin’s attention, I also have my whole team at their conference watching me on Facebook live, listening to me and sending me messages like, “Hey, you’re doing a great job and whatever.” And they were being very encouraging, but it was very nerve wracking to sit there and try to get his attention. So, after that, our homicide detectives had gotten to the scene because obviously we knew that one person was deceased inside already.

So, they had shown up and they actually were able to get Facebook to shut down the Facebook Live, which was very helpful for us in maintaining some integrity of, one, the investigation if Melvin came out, and two the chaos of the families going back and forth with each other because they’re all there watching this together.

Yeardley: On their own devices and everything.

Aliyah: Exactly.

Yeardley: So, when Facebook shuts it down, they essentially kill two birds with one stone. Because now both feeds from Melvin’s phone and William’s phone are out.

Aliyah: Luckily, yes.

[Break 2]

So, Detective Joanna ended up getting landline with Melvin, and she starts a dialogue with him. And basically, Melvin’s affect the entire time was that he was not going back to prison. He had made up his mind, he did what he did, and there was no going back. Melvin had a heavy suicide by cop tone, wanted us to come in there and take care of him. He was not coming out. We were coming in. He wasn’t going to give up his position. He was not going to come out of the apartment no matter what we said or did to him, and continue to hang up on Detective Joanna. He would answer again, but then he would call different family members because that one carrier would not shut down William’s phone. He was continuing to call people on both phones.

So, he would be online with Detective Joanna and also be online with somebody else on William’s phone so she could hear his conversation with other people. Also, he’d come back and start talking to her a little bit, and then he’d stop talking to her and go back and start talking to family members and friends.

Yeardley: I do have a question for you, Aliyah. I’m curious. Is there a conscious decision made with command staff to say, “I think this barricaded subject, in this case Melvin, will respond to a female better than a man?”

Aliyah: Absolutely. So, anytime that there is a call out, our entire team gets dispatched. We go as a whole unit. There’s 14 members on my team and everybody who is available responds.

Dave: Charging overtime.

[laughter]

Aliyah: Oh yeah. Exactly. Who we put on the phone, though, is very calculated. It is always who we think will respond best in that situation. And a lot of times the situation dictates, right. In that moment, we thought that a female negotiator would probably make a little bit more headway than a male negotiator.

Yeardley: And if in fact, that turned out not to be true, you guys then have the capability to be nimble enough to go, “Okay, now we’re going to switch to a male negotiator and see how that goes.”

Aliyah: And that’s why the secondary was a male at the time.

Dave: Yeah. And that’s pretty common. What you’re describing, Yeardley, is “All right. We’re not really getting any traction with this person.” I mean, we had to do it on Kilcullen.

Yeardley: I remember. And for our listeners, Dave, you’re talking about End of Watch, which was an episode we did in Season 7. It’s such a good episode. If you guys haven’t heard it, you should go back and listen to that one.

Dave: Yeah. We had three of us rotating. You’d get about 10 minutes of traction and then it was slipping. And then you’d have to bring in a new voice with a new intonation. Our team used women pretty often with men that were extremely heightened. They just had a way of talking to bring folks down. Dispatchers are really good at deescalating over the phone. And we had a few dispatchers on our team, but they were really effective at getting folks lower than where they were and dispatcher Dawn was really one of the best. She also had a very good, strict mom tone.

Aliyah: I have definitely been used as the mom tone.

Yeardley: So, Interesting.

Aliyah: Yeah. And I think that that goes with knowing your team as well. And like, we all check our egos at the door. There is no egos on our team. There’s no rank on our team. We have a team leader. He happens to be a sergeant. So, if somebody says, hey, you’re not getting anywhere, you’re not getting any traction, we’re going to try a different route.” That’s okay. And we’re all okay with that. And we know that it’s not a personal attack. We know that sometimes we just need to make a shift and it’s for the better of everyone.

Yeardley: Right?

Dave: Yeah.

Yeardley: I have a question for all the law enforcement folks on this podcast. What is the psychology behind this ongoing broadcast to your family members, even as Melvin engages with Detective Joanna? Like, what is Melvin’s endgame beyond the declaration of suicide by cop, I don’t understand who can help me.

Dan: To me, it just sounds like narcissism.

Yeardley: Yeah, I just want this attention. So, I’m going to drag everybody into my vortex.

Dan: Paul’s our resident psychologist here, so.

Yeardley: Go P go.

Paul: You know what, though? I think you guys, having worked on patrol and dealing with this type of psychology, have a better read on Melvin than I do. When you start assessing what is Melvin’s intention from his own internal psychology, it’s really hard to judge just based off of this one incident. It really goes into, “Well, what is his past? What is his relationship with the family, with William’s family, what would be the benefit to Melvin to do this?” And I think the narcissistic aspect is probably spot on because you do see, the online aspect, it hasn’t happened unless it’s been posted online.

So, there is a certain aspect of he’s putting it out there, but in terms of how he benefits from this, especially with his mentality at this point in time of going, “I’m done, you know, I’m just waiting for somebody to come in and shoot me.”

Dave: Yeah, I’m thinking about this anecdotally from my 15 years being on patrol, being a detective, being a negotiator, seeing how people introduce these types of circumstances into their life. So, how did Melvin get here? What’s Melvin going to do? I think back to all the jail calls I’ve heard over the years where you have Melvin-type person who we know is into sex crimes. So, you have these dynamics where Melvin only cares about himself, Melvin wants the attention. Melvin’s going to be a victim throughout all of this. “Woe is me. Look what William made me do to him. Look what the cops are doing to me now.” I pictured what Aliyah had described. All the hang ups and the back and forth that you have. You get two minutes of productivity and then five hang ups in a row.

Like, that’s the land you’re in. Like, back to 13-year-olds with boyfriend and girlfriend where you’re fighting on the phone. That’s what we’re looking at.

Yeardley: That’s insane.

Aliyah: Yes. So, every time he would hang up with Detective Joanna, I would get on the forward bullhorn and we have what’s called an LRAD. It’s a long-range acoustic device and we will put that on the front of the BearCat. It is a device that will literally blow your eardrums out if you are on the other side of it and too close. So, every time Melvin would hang up on Detective Joanna, I would start talking. And I learned throughout the time that we were there that Melvin actually had some children with a prior spouse or girlfriend. So, I was trying to utilize the children as a hook with Melvin to try to get some sort of response from him.

And it seemed as if every time I would talk about the children, he would get back landline with Detective Joanna and start trying to talk to her again. But it was still a lot of suicidal ideation. I already know what I did, I feel guilty, but I’m not going back to prison. I didn’t mean to kill William, but this is the end for me because I can’t go back to prison.

Dave: And it’s your job to point out the optimism in the day that the world is not coming to an end. Even though Melvin knows he’s in really deep shit. That’s the mountain you have to climb.

Aliyah: Yes.

Dave: You can’t lie to him. You can’t tell Melvin, “Hey, man, maybe we can talk about this. Maybe there’s a reason why this happened.” He knows.

Dan: Melvin only sees one option at this point and you got to sell him another one.

Aliyah: Absolutely. Which is so, so difficult. And I know, Dave, you have probably climbed that mountain before where it’s like “They know, they’ve played the game,” right. They have been through the system. He spent time in prison. He knows how the system works. You can’t lie. You can’t really try to BS any type of nonsense to him because Melvin already knows. And now he’s killed somebody.

Dave: Are you aware of what type of firearm William was killed with?

Aliyah: It was a 38-caliber handgun. Interestingly, Melvin was a little bit of a red flag to us because Melvin made no demands whatsoever. He was very matter of fact that this was the end. He’s either going to die by suicide by cop. If they are seeking some sort of future, a lot of times they will start making those demands and things like that. But he did not.

Dave: Yeah, again, Melvin knows where he is, like consequences wise. So, it really is hard to overcome. So, at this point, you’re in a BearCat, yards from the front door. And Detective Joanna is doing these negotiations. How far until you guys start to get a little change in the narrative?

Aliyah: We got activated at 9:50 in the morning around 12:50-ish Melvin started saying, “Get everybody out of here. Get everybody out of here now.”

Yeardley: Like, get off my front lawn kind of deal.

Aliyah: He was talking about everybody in the apartment complex.

Yeardley: Oh.

Aliyah: About that time, the SWAT team started seeing thick black smoke start to fill the apartment. And I started seeing it too from the front of the BearCat.

[Break 3]

The fire alarm started going off, and you could hear that very loudly.

Dave: I’m sure it’s going out over the radio. The apartment’s filling with smoke. What do you guys do?

Aliyah: So luckily, our fire department trains with the SWAT team, so there are several SWAT medics on the team, and the SWAT medics on the team are responsible for any life saving measures. So, we already had that fire department on standby because we knew that William was at least hurt within the apartment. So, as soon as we started seeing that really thick smoke billowing, the SWAT medics were basically like, “No one inside of there is going to survive this thick smoke that we’re already seeing.” So, the SWAT medics got the hose from their fire truck that was already staging and started putting out the fire. We breached the front windows with the BearCat. And when they got the fire under control enough, the SWAT team made entry and found Melvin and William deceased in the back bedroom.

Yeardley: Oh, my God. So, what happened? Did Melvin die from the fire?

Aliyah: So, what Melvin eventually ended up doing was he lit his apartment on fire. And he had done that a little bit prior to starting to tell everybody that they needed to get out and then Melvin ended up shooting himself right over William’s body.

Yeardley: Oh, my God.

Dan: Do you hear the gunshot?

Aliyah: I did not. None of us did. And we have recordings of all of the conversation because we record all of our negotiations, and you can’t hear anything other than him saying, like, “Get everybody out of here.” But I think he hung up the phone before he shot himself.

Dan: Yeah. I’m not surprised. Aliyah, as this thing wraps up, you’ve got family members from William and Melvin’s side, and obviously they know that the dynamic has changed. They see a lot of action around the apartment. You guys breach the window. What goes on after this? I’m imagining William’s family. I just feel bad for him.

Aliyah: Yeah. Obviously, it was very chaotic, and they can tell when everybody just starts packing up their stuff and the SWAT team’s walking away and the negotiators are walking away and patrol’s still there and they can see the smoke. They know that isn’t probably something unrelated. Luckily, patrol did a very good job and had them in a parking lot in front of the apartment complex. But it was chaotic. It was very chaotic for the patrol deputies trying to keep everybody at bay, not fighting with each other, not freaking out, not committing more crimes. Homicide was already there and they just started going to work and interviewing people and separating people.

Paul: Yes. I was listening to you, Aliyah, talk about the fire being started, firefighters putting water into the crime scene. When your day is ending, this is when homicide’s day is starting and CSI’s day is starting. And I’m just thinking, oh, that crime scene, it’s really a mess when you have all that smoke, you have all that water, and yet you still have to process it like it’s a homicide crime scene.

Aliyah: Yeah. Because you have to close the case.

Dave: Yeah. I’m thinking, Paul, I’ve only been into a handful of burnout houses. Say Melvin had lived and you’re going to process the crime scene, you’re Paul Holes and everything’s going to be found exactly where it was left. Perfect crime scene. [Paul laughs] How do you handle this, getting prepared for a prosecution when you’ve got all this water damage, the fire department apartment has probably pulled down all the drywall in the walls, in the ceiling, how do you go through that house?

Paul: It really is processing it like any other homicide scene. You are just dealing with a mess, and you have to be cognizant. The fire completely changes the appearance of everyday objects. You know, so if you truly have something that’s really burned up, let’s say it’s like a hair dryer, all this plastic has melted. You’re seeing the metal still part of the hairdryer, but it doesn’t look like a hairdryer. This is where getting an arson investigator or we would have a state fire marshal agent come in, because they’re used to looking at the world that way. And they can walk with me through the crime scene and say, “Okay, here’s a point of origin. Here’s what this is, this is, this is.” And of course, you’re dealing with the burned bodies.

You know, some are not very burned and some are burned beyond recognition. But you still have to do all the same documentation. You think about in this case, Melvin basically admitting to killing William through, you know, he’s shooting him with .38 caliber. You’ve got the stomping and I think there is some other bludgeoning. There’s still evidence of those acts of violence. You have to find that bullet. You have to show that Melvin shot himself. You have SWAT going into this apartment. Did an officer shoot Melvin? So, you have to consider that. And so that’s all part of this. And of course, everybody Melvin’s talking to or Facebook living with, they’re all witnesses, [laughs] so they have to interview all these people. It’s still a flipping lot of work, even though it’s an open and shut case.

Dave: That’s the thing is, as a homicide detective, you’re looking at it going, okay, this one’s solved. I have to do the same amount of work.

Yeardley: I think that’s probably surprising to people on my side. I mean, obviously you’d want to make sure that there was nobody else in the apartment that Melvin was not mentioning, as a hostage or anything. But once that’s done, I really appreciate that the work product is the same. The bar doesn’t drop just because this was resolved in a single day and we actually know what happened.

Paul: The only difference is that in this case with Melvin and William, you don’t have an outstanding suspect. There isn’t an active public safety threat, at least on the surface. If you go in and find out, “Oh, hold on,” [laughs] Melvin didn’t shoot himself. Somebody else was in the apartment and set the apartment on fire and must have escaped. But this sounds like it’s pretty easy. And so, you have a slower pace to this type of investigation just because you don’t have that outstanding suspect.

Yeardley: Right, right. That’s really well said. All of the things I never even considered.

Aliyah: And I felt really bad for one of our negotiators. Because he was a homicide detective. So, he had to go from negotiator to homicide detective.

Yeardley: Immediately, like put on a different hat and go into that apartment and now do the other job.

Aliyah: Yeah, but as Paul was saying, like the SWAT team had to breach that back door. And so, the bed frame that he had barricading that door was now on top of them as well. So, it just changes so many things when you’re talking about an investigation and proving what we know to happen to close the case because the state still has to sign off on the case being closed.

Dave: You got a front row seat to this breaching of the front window, talk to us about your point of view.

Aliyah: Like I said, I was a brand-new negotiator. My first call out was a big one. So, I had already seen SWAT work in different ways. My first call out, I was actually up in the stack with them trying to negotiate through the door of a hotel room. So, it was a little bit different. But having some time on patrol before I joined the negotiation team and then starting to go to calls for service on a call out instead of just a regular call, you feel like a brand-new deputy. You feel like a phase 1 day 1 recruit that doesn’t know anything that’s going on. So, I was sitting there in awe.

I snapped some pictures of SWAT doing their thing, and I was just like, “Man, I really just sat here and watched this entire thing take place from the closest view I could possibly have, which would be in the BearCat.” Every call out is a humbling experience. I think we just had one this past Friday, and every single one brings something different and just a different thought process in your head and just some new information. Especially for me, now that I’m off of patrol, I don’t get as much action. So, they’re always bringing something different to me now. But it being one of my first ones and then just packing up and going home because it was my day off, it kind of feels surreal.

You’re like, I was just on this movie set all morning, and then I’m home now, and back with my kids and back just being a mom, it’s very strange. It’s very humbling, I guess.

Dan: I remember big calls, cases that we’ve done on this podcast, rampage, 10 below, where it’s a circus outside the tape, and you’re inside the tape and what that feeling is like. It’s very unique. And Aliyah describing that, like, “Hey, I was on this movie set and now I’m at home.” It resonated with me.

Dave: It gave me chills when you said it too, because I remember, I think I talked about in recent weeks, feeling like you’re no longer in the game, you’re not on the team anymore. But that brings you right back to it. I was thinking about the same thing Dan was. Later on, you get home and then your phone starts blowing up and people go, “Hey, are you aware of what happened on 5th street today?” And you’re like, “I mean, I was there.” [laughs] Those are the things I miss being in the game-type stuff. Who knows? Maybe we’ll make a movie someday.

[laughter]

Paul: I flashed to every time I’d go out, middle of the night, the crime scene tape is up. Patrol has the lights pulsing. I’m ducking underneath the tape and it’s now showtime. There’s an adrenaline rush, but it’s more than just that. You know, this is something that is just part of you. You miss that. You did a great job on this, Aliyah. Good job telling the story and I look forward to the next time.

Aliyah: Thank you.

Dave: Nice work.

Aliyah: Thank you all very much.

Yeardley: As I’m fond of saying, my weekday will never look like that ever, ever. That’s really a job well done. I really always appreciate your thoroughness and your integrity.

Aliyah: Thank you.

[music]

Yeardley: Small Town Dicks was created by Detectives Dan and Dave. The podcast is produced by Jessica Halstead and me, Yeardley Smith. Our senior editor is Soren Begin and our editor is Christina Bracamontes. Our associate producers are the Real Nick Smitty and Erin Gaynor. Logan Heftel is our production manager. Our books are cooked and cats wrangled by Ben Cornwell. And our social media maven is Monika Scott. It would make our day if you became a member of our Small Town Fam by following us on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube at @smalltowndicks, we love hearing from you.

Oh, our groovy theme song was composed by John Forrest. Also, if you’d like to support the making of this podcast, go to smalltowndicks.com/superfam and hit that little join button. There, for a small subscription fee, you’ll find exclusive content you can’t get anywhere else.

The transcripts of this podcast are thanks to SpeechDocs and they can be found on our website, smalltowndicks.com. Thank you SpeechDocs for this wonderful service. Small Town Dicks is an Audio 99 Production. Small Town Fam, thanks for listening. Nobody is better than you.

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