Yeardley: Hey, Small Town Fam. It’s Yeardley. How are you guys? I hope all is wonderfully well in your worlds. We talk about infuriating, often gut-wrenching things on this podcast and a lot of times the only consolation I get when I listen to these stories is knowing that people like fan favorite detective Bre, who is our guest today, are in charge and advocating for the victims. For example, today’s case is a sex abuse case involving a teenager. The suspect is a piece of shit and the whole scenario is going to make you mad and it’s going to make you wish that every child could be protected from assholes like this. You’re going to wish for the umpteenth time that these cases were few and far between for law enforcement and not the game of whack a mole that they actually are. Just know everyone on this podcast shares your frustration.

But at least detectives like Bre give me hope. If you’re new to Bre, you’re going to love her. She is a dogged, thoughtful, empathetic investigator. So, the teenage victim in this case could not be in better hands. Last, you’re going to get a little taste of what the detectives call gallows humor in this episode. I think of it this way, when your day-to-day involves trying to right the worst wrongs that people do to each other, there needs to be a release valve, something to shed a bit of the proliferating stress that’s part of the job, just to make it possible for you to keep investigating and get justice for your victim. So, enjoy the warmth and candor of these very intimate moments. Here is “Soft Target.”

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: Today on Small Town Dicks, guess what? We have the usual suspects. We have Detective Dan.

Dan: Hello there.

Yeardley: Hello, Dan. Husband.

Dan: Wifey.

Dave: Get a room.

[laughter]

Dan: I got one, Dave.

Yeardley: We have detective Dave.

Dave: Hello.

Yeardley: Hello. Hello, brother-in-law.

Dave: [laughs] Hello, sister-in-law.

Yeardley: And of course we have the one and only Paul Holes.

Paul: The only one unrelated here.

Yeardley: But you’re so close to us. You have so been taken into the fold. There’s no escaping ever now.

Paul: [laughs] I appreciate it.

Yeardley: Whether you like it or not.

[laughter]

And Small-Town Fam. Oh my goodness. We are thrilled to welcome back to the podcast fan favorite, detective extraordinaire, Detective Bre.

Bre: Hey guys.

Yeardley: Hey. It’s so great. I think this is your fourth appearance on the podcast and each one is a gem and I was so delighted to see you, Bre.

Bre: Thank you. It’s very nice to see you guys.

Yeardley: Thank you. I wish we were all in the same room. I complain about that constantly, but it’s how much I wish it. That’s why I complain about it constantly.

Bre: I think I should make my next demand to be that the next time we record it has to be at the same table.

Yeardley: That’s fair.

Dave: That is fair.

Yeardley: We’re into that. We totally support that demand. We do. In the meantime, let’s not waste our listeners time, shall we? Let’s get on with it. So, Bre, you’re an old pro at this now, please tell us how this case came to you.

Bre: So, this case was assigned to me for some follow-up investigation in January of 2017. At the time I had been a detective for a couple years. I get this report that I review and deputies had responded out to the victim’s address after a complaint was made that the victim was engaged in some a sexual relationship or sexual activity with a 45-year-old man and they initiated report and then that was assigned to me.

Yeardley: So, I’m assuming that the victim is underage.

Bre: Correct. She’s only 16 years old.

Yeardley: Okay.

Bre: And her name is Sydney. And so, I reviewed this report and I learned that 16-year-old Sydney lived with her grandparents who had custody of her. And Sydney’s grandmother Linda was approached by Sydney’s friend Olivia, who told her that Sydney had confided in her that she had been having this relationship with this 45-year-old man who we later identify as Tom. So, Olivia is looking out for her friend and she realizes that this is not okay, this is not acceptable. And so, Olivia tells Sydney’s grandma Linda what Sydney’s been up to. And obviously this came from a genuine place. Olivia was legitimately worried about her friend.

Dave: The number of cases I’ve had where best friends got the first disclosure and then either disclosed to their mom or a trusted adult and got the ball rolling on a sexual assault case. Happens all the time. And you get mixed reactions. Sometimes a friend like Sidney looks at Olivia and it’s like, “You betrayed me. That was a secret.” You have other times where there’s that initial bitterness, but in the end, Sydney’s like, “Olivia is just looking out for me.” And then you have others where Olivia is the person that pulled Sydney out of a horrible situation. So, you have all these dynamics between friends, but for Olivia to have the courage to go, “Sorry, friend, but I got to tell your grandma.” That’s a big, big deal.

Bre: Yeah. So, Olivia provides Linda with Tom’s Facebook account, which includes a photograph of him. And Linda then does a little bit of research, and she finds Tom’s date of birth. And she finds out that Tom is actually on probation for second-degree murder.

Yeardley: Oh, God. Okay. I didn’t see that coming.

Bre: Right.

Paul: But it’s not first, so.

[laughter]

Yeardley: You’re fired, Paul.

Dan: The silver lining right there.

Dave: Paul’s like, it could have been worse.

Bre: Well, Paul, he was charged with first, if that makes it any better.

[laughter]

He was charged with first. He was convicted of second. Yeah. So, there’s this guy that Linda’s like, okay, a lot just got thrown at her. Now she starts to do a little digging into Tom, and she finds this out. So, Linda, of course, confronts Sydney with this information, and she’s like, “What is going on?” Well, Sydney, at that point, doesn’t really tell her much. She starts to spiral, and she actually tries to commit suicide. And so, she’s then placed on this mental health hold to have an evaluation done. And once Sydney’s in the hospital, Linda takes Sydney’s phone and she starts going through it, and that’s when she finds all of this communication between Sydney and Tom.

And Linda finds out that Sydney snuck Tom into their home while the family slept. This was actually the very first time that they were planning to meet up. So, I know on our last episode, we talked quite extensively about consent and force.

Yeardley: Yes. I called that episode “Dog.” It starts Season 17, and listeners, if you haven’t heard it, you need to put it at the top of your queue my friends.

Bre: Yeah. And so, I just want to reiterate here that although we’re talking about consent, that Sydney consented to this. She is still a minor. And I know we talked about 16 as the age of consent, but she’s 16. She’s not allowed to be having sex with men over the age of 23. Tom’s 45. So, we have an issue. So, Linda also discovers that Tom has provided Sydney with a code which was a three-digit number to him when they began talking. And I assumed that this was probably to make sure that he was actually communicating with Sydney and not maybe a parent or guardian. So, while Sydney is in the hospital, deputies go out, they take the report, they take Sydney’s phone, they obtain a consent to search from Linda.

So, she gives law enforcement consent for us to go through Sydney’s phone to look at all of the data. And deputies also and they collect the bedding from Sydney’s room. When I get the case, I go out to the residence. And at this point, I had communicated with Linda, and I knew that Sydney was home and feeling better. So, I go out there to talk to Linda and to conduct an interview with Sydney. So, I sit down with Sydney and she tells me at that time that she met Tom on Instagram and they began communicating on the phone. So, they would actually have voice calls. So, they didn’t chat as much as they did talk on the phone. And Sydney advised that she knew that Tom was on probation for murder. He told her, and she continued to communicate with him anyway.

She did not know the details of the murder. She just knew that he had murdered someone.

Yeardley: Does Tom say, “Yes, I did it, or I was wrongly convicted?”

Bre: Oh, no, he says he did it.

Yeardley: Oh, Tom admits he. Okay.

Paul: An interesting phenomenon that I’ve seen typically in homicide investigations, you have select individuals, they portray themselves as, this bad wolf that deserves respect. And certain individuals are attracted to that type of person. And I can’t say anything about whether Sydney is seeing this in Tom, you know, as that, “Oh, he’s a murderer.” But let’s say because of her victimology, her upbringing, it’s almost a cool thing. And we’re appalled at the idea of this murderer being brought into the house. But maybe from her perspective, here’s a guy that can handle business. He’s a protector. And it’s so opposite from what we see.

Dave: Should we just get the details out of the way on that murder case if you’ve got him?

Dan: He probably killed somebody. [Dave laughs]

Bre: I don’t have. What did you say?

Dan: I think Tom killed someone.

Dave: Dan was one of our most senior detectives–

[laughter]

and followed clues very well.

Yeardley: Cop humor, kills me.

Speaker 6: So, I was not able to find a ton of information on this murder, like the actual nuts and bolts of it. But what I did find out was that the victim of that homicide had a gunshot wound to the head. His pockets were turned inside out, and he was left at a dump site with garbage. His car was a block away from where his body was found, and his family apparently had no reason why he would have been murdered. I can only surmise that maybe it was a drug rip. Maybe they met up for drugs and something went sideways. That’s a complete guess on my part. Tom is charged with first degree murder, premeditated murder, and robbery, and he was convicted of second degree.

And again, I don’t have the full details of that, but that was just a little bit that I was able to find through my investigation while I was conducting this sexual assault investigation.

Dave: Certainly, some valuable insight into Tom and his life experience.

Bre: Yeah. And he’s 45 years old. I mean, he’s sorry for the people that are in their 40s and over, but you got a little bit of life experience. [Yeardley laughs]

Yeardley: Hopefully.

Dave: And he spent some time in the criminal college as well, probably.

Bre: Sure. He spent nine years in prison for that homicide.

[Break 1]

Yeardley: Okay, so Sydney knows that Tom has been convicted of second-degree murder, and Tom actually admits that he did it.

Bre: Correct.

Yeardley: And yet it’s not enough of a deterrent.

Bre: No. Let’s just stop for a second and think about that, right? You go to bed at night, you check the doors, you make sure everything’s locked, your alarm is set, and you go to sleep and you hope that, you have a nice quiet night. It’s horrifying to think about the fact that somebody inside the home is opening the door and allowing this type of individual to walk in. They walked in, they walked up the stairs and into Sydney’s bedroom. It just gives me the heebie jeebies, you know?

Yeardley: Yeah, you would definitely be unnerved by that if you are Linda, Sydney’s grandmother.

Bre: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And Sydney had a bit of a rough childhood and a rough start to life. While I sat and talked with her, she told me that she lives with her grandparents because her parents are not– These are her words. They’re not fit to be parents. She didn’t go into the details of that, but she was emotional when she was talking about that part of her life and the fact that she lived with her grandparents. She said her grandparent’s house was stable and she felt safe there. It was her and her younger sister, but they had a rough start, unfortunately. So, Sydney tells Tom that she’s 16 years old. And he initially tells her he’s 30. But she finds out later that he’s actually 45.

Tom left his house at 9 PM. He arrives at Sydney’s house at 1 AM, so he lives about four hours away. So, Sydney tells me that they planned it so that he would arrive in the middle of the night so that no one would know that he was there and that so she could sneak him into her house. So, she walks him in, like I said, through the front door. She leads him upstairs to the bedroom. And I actually looked in her room and it looked like a child’s bedroom. Like it had pink paint on the walls. Remember those little nets that you could hang in between the walls, like in the corners of the room and you could put all your stuffed animals up over your bed.

Dan: Dave’s nodding.

[laughter]

Yeardley: Yes, I get it. It’s a little decor. You can hang all your accoutrements.

Bre: Yeah, it’s all her little stuffed animals and her little pink bedspread and her pink walls and it was clearly a childlike room.

Paul: Yeah, she’s in the butterflies and Unicorns stage, right?

Bre: Right.

Dave: I mean, let’s just talk about how bold that is, knowing that you’re going to a teenage girl’s house, you’re going to be snuck in, secreted upstairs, and whatever’s happening is while there’s adults down the hall or downstairs. How horrifying is that? Like just the description of him walking upstairs with this girl and then entering a room that is clearly a girly girl teenager room. And this guy still is not having the maybe I should leave or I shouldn’t be here. No, because we know what the goal is.

Paul: Well, and it speaks volumes Tom’s psychology. Tom feels he can handle himself in this situation if things go sideways. Tom also is focused in on the physical interaction he’s about to have with Sydney.

Dave: Yep. Oh, it’s gross.

Bre: It’s scary. So, once they’re in Sydney’s room, Sydney says that they have this consensual sex on her bed and that Tom ejaculates on the sheets, which is important for me to know as a detective, because now I know that I need to send the sheets to the lab for testing. So that was already collected, which was great. So, Sydney provides the date that this occurred. And as we’re talking, I ask her to describe Tom. And one of the things that I thought was, I mean, it’s always a little funny. Maybe this is too raunchy. But, you know, she says that his penis is really small and hard to see.

And you just get a little bit of like, you just smirk a little bit like, “Sorry, that’s awful.”

Dave: It’s like Harvey Weinstein. When the victims started talking about Harvey’s lack of prowess, it’s like, let the victims have that little victory there.

Yeardley: That’s true.

Paul: Joseph DeAngelo, Golden State Killer.

Yeardley: That’s right.

[laughter]

Paul: Jane Carson, victim number five stood up in court and held up her fingers indicating how big and just danced in front of him. She loved to revel in the fact that she could basically denigrate him publicly like that.

Dave: Who can blame him?

Yeardley: Yeah. So, Sydney says Tom is not well endowed.

Bre: She says he’s not. And she also tells me that they have this code, and it’s 143, which stands for I love you. And that was how they knew that they were speaking to each other, which I thought was probably the case, but she confirms it. So, 143, I love you. And then they know they can continue talking.

Dan: So Tom and Sydney have this code, 143, which means I love you. When Tom shows up at Sydney’s house at one in the morning, is that the first time they’ve actually met?

Bre: Yes.

Dan: So, they’ve been in contact with each other for, I’m guessing, at least a month or so.

Yeardley: Right.

Dan: The I love you thing, that just kind of.

Yeardley: It’s fast.

Dan: It’s really fast.

Yeardley: Yeah.

Bre: Mm-hmm. So, Sydney is actually able to provide all of Tom’s information. She knows his first and last name, she tells me his birthday, and then she positively identifies him in a photograph for me. So, at 4 AM, when Tom is still at Sydney’s house, Tom receives a phone call from his probation officer who was at his house conducting an unannounced Visit.

Yeardley: Wow at 4 AM.

Bre: Yeah. She wanted to know where he was. So, Tom makes up this story about being in the hospital and he immediately leaves Sydney’s house, books it. But I wouldn’t know that unless Sydney told me. So, it was great. She’s like, “Yeah. He got this phone call, 4 o’clock in the morning from his probation officer, and he told me, I’m going to lie and say I was at the hospital and I got to go.” So, he leaves. So, as I’m investigating this, we try to do a controlled phone call.

Yeardley: And Bre. That’s where Sydney calls Tom and you guys are listening in.

Bre: Correct. He wasn’t down for that. He said he wouldn’t talk with her until he knew that the phone line wasn’t being bugged. So, she tells him that she thinks that she’s pregnant. And he initially says he’s not discussing anything on the phone, but he does tell her that he’ll get her own place and not to panic, so he’s going to take care of things. So, I contact his probation officer Ashley to discuss this case with her. So, I also, at the same time I send the bed sheets off to the lab for testing and I got Sydney’s buccal swab to send as well. So, I go back out to Sydney’s house, we try another controlled phone call, but that’s not working. Tom’s not willing to talk on the phone. He’s like super hinked up. He’s like, “This could be bugged. We’re not having this conversation on the phone.” So, we decide to scratch that.

So, I finally talk with probation officer Ashley and she tells me that this curfew check was conducted on Tom and he wasn’t there and they didn’t make contact with him until 9:30 in the morning that day. So, he tells them, “Yeah, I’ve been in the hospital since 2:30 this morning.

Dave: I wish there was a way to check that.

Bre: Yeah.

[laughter]

Right. So, she does. Obviously, Ashley contacts the hospital and she learns that Tom has checked in at 8:40 AM and he was discharged at 10:10 and so on the phone they made contact with him at 9:30 in the morning. He says he’s been at the hospital.

Yeardley: Ashley ultimately makes contact with Tom at 9:40, but only on the telephone.

Bre: Correct. And he says he’s been in the hospital since 2:30. Because she’s like, “Hey, I was here to check on you, where were you?”

Yeardley: And what did Tom tell Ashley he was in the hospital for?

Bre: It was asthma. He had an asthma attack. So, when I tell her what I know now, of course she goes to the hospital and she starts getting some records and she finds out that he doesn’t check himself in until 8:40. Well remember he’s a four-hour drive. So, at 4 AM. Tom starts driving very quickly back to his town, four hours away, and manages to get himself checked in like just a little after four hours. So, exactly what he said he was going to do. So, she’s got that information. Probation officer Ashley also tells me that she’s currently in the process of violating Tom’s probation for threatening his ex-wife and daughter. I didn’t get the details on that. But obviously, this guy isn’t playing by the rules like he’s supposed to.

Yeardley: So, Tom is married?

Bre: Well, he was. This is his ex-wife, but he was having some issues with his ex-wife and daughter and threatening them in some way.

[Break 2]

Bre: So, meanwhile, I get information back from the lab that sperm was identified on the bed sheets and that it was mixed with a female profile. So, the male DNA was then entered into CODIS. And then I get the CODIS hit on Tom because he’s already in CODIS because he has criminal history. So, at this point, this gives me my probable cause for an arrest because I have his semen on this child’s bedsheets. So, we wanted an opportunity to interview him in the best way that we could.

So, we devised a plan with the probation officer to have Tom come to the probation officer’s office for a check in, and then I would be there to conduct this interview with him. We also wanted a neutral place because he did have a violent history. So, we wanted to make sure that it was going to be on our playing field, not on his. So, Lieutenant Ryan, formerly Detective Ryan, he and I were flown down to this city four hours away. We actually got to fly in our sheriff’s office helicopter. Our pilots actually flew us down, which was pretty cool. When I say I very lucky to work for an agency that has resources like that. It was pretty cool. We just jumped in the helicopter.

Dan: I think it’s bullshit.

[laughter]

We didn’t have anything cool like that.

Dave: Yeah, you don’t get the helicopter ride for the telephonic harassment or the trespass 3. You get the helicopter ride for guys like Tom.

Bre: Yeah. Yeah, it was pretty great.

Dan: Dave’s making fun of my caseload again.

[laughter]

Bre: Yeah. And the pilot was just like, you know, I’m just going to hang out here at the hangar until you guys come back, and I’ll fly you back. I’m like, “Man, I need that gig.” Right?

Dave: Right. Can you just land us on Tom’s roof?

Bre: Yeah, I’ll rappel down. That’d be great.

[laughter]

So, Lieutenant Ryan and I go down, we get all set up in the probation officer’s office, and Tom shows up to check in with this probation officer. And Lieutenant Ryan and I are sitting there waiting to say hello. So, we conduct a post Miranda interview with him. And initially, like I’ve said in other conversations that we’ve had, Tom starts denying everything. And at this point, I already know because I’ve got your semen on Sydney’s bedsheets. So, we’re kind of past the point of, did you or did you not do this? Right. We know that you did. So, this was my case, so I’m asking the questions, and I noticed that Tom was starting to get very uncomfortable answering me.

And so I would ask the question, and then Tom would look at Ryan, and he would answer, and he kept apologizing to me, and he kept saying, “I’m sorry. I don’t want to offend you.”

Yeardley: Your little hot house flower. You Bre. You’re a little hot house flower, which means you might wilt. The strong language might just be the undoing of you. And, oh, my God, that’ll be the end of everything that we know about Bre.

Bre: I know. Yeah. I was just like, you’re totally fine with having sex with a child in her bedroom, but you don’t want to offend me, the adult sitting at the table.

Dave: Who’s a sex crimes detective and has heard every deviant thing you’ve ever imagined. [laughs]

Bre: Right? Right. But don’t offend me. But Ryan and I quickly recognized this, which was one of the best things about having a partner who knows your case and knows the details. And Ryan was a phenomenal detective to work with. So, we picked this up. And so, Ryan just takes over, and he starts asking the questions. And obviously, Tom gets way more comfortable with this, where he’s not having to look at a female and talk about dirty things that he’s done to a child. So, we transition, and it worked out splendidly. And Tom admits to having sex with this child in her room. So, he initially tells us he hasn’t been to my city since the early 2000s, and he doesn’t know anyone in my city. But then he gives a story about how he’d been to the hospital recently for an asthma attack.

And then he says, well, I did know a girl named Sydney. We met online, but she was 18 years old, and she came to my house, and he was just such a kind soul, and he was helping her through some tough times that she was having. And he says he never left his house because he’s on curfew. And like I said, he initially said, “No, I didn’t have sex with her at all.” So, then Tom finally says he didn’t find out that Sydney was 17 years old until after they had sex, so he thought she was 18. He didn’t find out she was only 17, which she wasn’t 17. She was 16. So, he keeps trying to minimize this whole thing.

So, Tom actually volunteered his DNA, which anytime we have a CODIS hit, that’s enough for probable cause. But we always like to do a direct comparison. So, we’ll take his DNA and we send it to the lab to compare it, just as a double precaution just to make sure that we’ve got the right person.

Yeardley: Do you do that just because you can never have too much evidence?

Paul: There’s a couple of reasons. One is like what Bre is saying is that first, you ought to make sure that there wasn’t a sample switch when the lab processed his sample that was collected because he’s arrested for homicide. The other thing is that sample that is sent to CODIS as a result of the conviction is considered an administrative sample. You generally don’t see, well, documentation like we see with evidence, chain of custody, and all the markings. And so, when you get into a situation with Tom, you get a direct sample from him that is now considered an evidentiary sample. You treat it as evidence from that very moment it’s lawfully collected. Usually, it’s because a warrant has been issued, an arrest warrant has been issued, and you’ve put a search aspect in it to collect his DNA sample.

So, you have that aspect, and then it verifies that, yes, the CODIS hit to the administrative sample. Well, it was right. Tom’s profile that’s up in CODIS is the same profile you’re getting from the sample that you personally have witnessed and has all the evidentiary protections associated with that.

Yeardley: That’s pretty amazing. Yeah.

Bre: And we’ll get that DNA sample a number of ways. We’ll either ask them and they provide it voluntarily, or we write a search warrant for it. Or if they’re already arrested and they’re going through the court procedures, the state attorney’s office can file a motion for us to take it, and then we’ll get it that way, I’ll go to court, and the judge will say, “Yes, I’m granting this motion, and you have to provide your DNA sample. And then at that time, I would take it, and then I would send it to the lab,” but we get it one way or another. So, in this case, Tom did volunteer to provide his sample. So, at that time, Tom was taken into custody for violating his probation.

And then I later wrote my warrant for the charges, which in our state is called unlawful sexual activity with a minor.

Yeardley: Can I ask you a question, Bre? Is Tom in violation of his probation because he left his home? Because he’s not actually a registered sex offender. He’s on probation for second degree murder, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the crime against Sydney. Isn’t that so. So, he’s in violation of his curfew and he’s not supposed to leave his property, correct?

Bre: Correct. Right. That’s all based off of the murder charge, his curfew, and all of his restrictions.

Dave: I love the compliance check, though.

Bre: Yeah. The 4 AM.

Dave: Where you’re just like, “My PO is in bed, just like every other normal person on the planet. And Ashley’s like, “I work all night and I sleep during the day.” [Yeardley laughs] Tom, why weren’t you home? [laughs]

Yeardley: So, when you arrest Tom, it’s for a probation violation, is it not? Also, against the crime he’s committed against Sydney.

Bre: So, at that time, I had to write my warrant. So, in order to take him into custody right away, Ashley was able to charge him with the violation of probation just to get him into custody.

Yeardley: I see. Okay.

Bre: Probation officers also have a lot more leeway with offenders as well. Like they can do warrantless searches of their house, depending on what their terms are. But Ashley was able at that time with everything that she had, to just go ahead and violate Tom. So that puts him into custody, and then I write my warrant, and then that all gets added on.

[Break 3]

Paul: Yeah, I’m trying to rectify Tom’s decision making. He finds Sydney online, and he’s on probation four hours away. He drives four hours to meet up with Sydney, goes inside Sydney’s house where there’s adults asleep. Seems like Tom could have made a better decision and tried to get Sydney to come down towards him. Why is Tom driving that? You know, this is the one victim I found, and Sydney’s telling Tom that she can’t get out of town and so he has to go see her. Does he think that the distance he’s putting between himself and his probation officer is going to serve him well while Tom is committing this crime? I’m not entirely sure what Tom’s thought process is here, because usually I’m trying to assess offender’s actions under the auspices of self-preservation.

And Tom’s decision seems opposite of what I would expect Tom to do, especially somebody who’s been through the prison system and has already been convicted, so it’s an interesting aspect to Tom that I’m not sure how to resolve in my own mind.

Yeardley: I agree. But it could Also, just be that Sydney, who’s only 16, doesn’t have access to her own car, so Tom has to be the one to travel.

Dan: It’s crazy risky, too, because Tom knows he’s in CODIS also.

Dave: Yeah. I go back to life experience with this case load. The number one thing for sex offenders is to get their hands on a victim. And, I think Tom is in this. Oh, my God. He’s probably excited for four hours driving there and four hours back, he’s in terror because Ashley’s knocking on his door. I would have been great to be a fly and hear the internal monologue and Tom’s car as he’s driving back home. “Oh, shit what am I going to do? What am I going to do? I already told him I went to the hospital. They’re going to be able to check that shit.” Did you sit in the parking lot for four hours waiting to go admit yourself? Like, again? It’s like we’ve seen in other cases where a criminal has a plan and then it gets blown up.

And in this case, it’s Ashley blowing up Tom’s plan. And now Tom is playing catch up and scrambling to try to explain why he didn’t answer his door. Like, you have to do all these things. And Tom can only control what Tom can control. He can’t control all these other factors. And in the end, sex offenders want to get their hands on kids. It is what it is.

Bre: Yeah. And he probably wasn’t expecting a knock on the door at 4 o’clock in the morning, but we talked on the last episode about this serendipitous type of things that happen, and it’s like, this is the first time that they met up. He drives away. This happens to be the time that Ashley does this check at 4 o’clock in the morning. And sometimes I just think things just happen the way that they’re supposed to. You know, like, everything lines up and this would never have been disclosed to us if we didn’t have a friend who was really concerned.

Yeardley: You mean Olivia, who we met at the beginning of this episode?

Bre: Yeah. I’m not sure that on her own, Sydney would have come forward as quickly as this case forced her to. But, yeah, I mean, and some of these guys just think that they’re smarter. They think that they’re better and they’re smarter and that they can outwit everyone else, or they think that they’ve groomed the victim so well. That the victim’s not going to tell on them.

Yeardley: Bre, once you get involved, does Sydney understand why her relationship with Tom is such a problem?

Bre: Yeah. When I went to talk to Sydney after she had been released from the hospital, she was very cooperative. She knew that this was not great decision. And I’m not victim blaming her at all. This is not her fault. But she recognized the severity of the situation. And I think even though she wasn’t the one to come forward initially, she realized that this was something that needed to be investigated that Tom was in the wrong and that he needed to go to jail. I mean, that’s just the bottom line. And I think she was remorseful at least for allowing this man into her grandparent’s home and she had a lot of demons. She was battling a lot of things on her own.

Yeardley: Yeah. And these predators, all they do is hunt for vulnerable victims like Sydney. So, it seems really unlikely that she was Tom’s only target.

Bre: Yeah. And I’m sure they probably have multiple conversations going at one time. They’re just casting a wide net, trying to figure out who they can catch and then that’s it and then it’s the grooming and the manipulation and on a child who’s had a rough start in life, who maybe hasn’t gotten the male attention that she’s desired from her own father, who she said is unfit to be a parent. You know, and here’s this older guy who’s going to come in and take care of her. And it’s all the typical grooming and manipulation that we typically see.

Dave: I was going to say she fits the victimology side of that with marginalized, rough upbringing, lack of stable biological parents in the family. All these things that Tom can use to wedge his way in and manipulate. It’s all grooming Bre’s exactly right and Tom had four hours of a drive to reconcile what he was doing at Sydney’s house. He could have turned around at any moment.

Bre: Think about that four-hour drive back though. His pants are probably on fire.

[laughter]

Dave: Can you imagine? Ashley? Yeah. I’m at your front door. I mean, the panic attack that must induce is. “Oh shit. What the fuck is my PO doing at my house at O’Dark 30?”

Bre: Right.

Dave: Ashley made him a project. I love it.

Yeardley: Yeah.

Bre: Yeah. And then you got to think like Tom came up with the whole hospital thing. I mean, I don’t know that I would have– [crosstalk]

Dave: On the fly.

Bre: On the fly like that. Yeah. So, he ends up getting two years for this offense, and he’s put on sex offender probation. So, Tom violates his probation in 2023 for failing to register as a sex offender, and he was arrested again, and he was just released again at the end of 2024. So, we’ll see.

Dan: So the sanction that Ashley gives Tom isn’t he’s violated his parole and he’s going to go back to prison and serve out the remaining time. He just gets a jail sanction, I’m guessing.

Bre: I’m not really sure exactly how that works because, I mean, he only got two years, and then he was right back out. So, I imagine that violation of probation didn’t carry a whole lot of weight, unfortunately.

Yeardley: Yeah.

Bre: You know, because what, he wasn’t at home?

Yeardley: Yeah. But at first, it’s that Ashley thinks Tom wasn’t at home, and that’s the violation. But then, quite quickly, it comes to light that Tom was not at home because he was having sex with a minor four hours away. Like, you think that the compounding of those two offenses would amount to a bigger sentence.

Dave: That makes you a reasonable person. Yeardley.  [laughs]

Yeardley: Yeah.

Dan: The fact that you’re violating your probation or your parole by committing a felony.

Yeardley: That seems like a big deal.

Dan: Yeah, I gotcha.

Dave: Yep.

Bre: Yeah, we don’t always get the sentences we want, unfortunately. I mean, even the homicide when I looked at that, it took place in the early 2000s, and Tom was in his 30s at the time. He was sentenced to 15 years. He only served nine of it. And then he got out right before he offended on Sydney. He got out, and then a couple months later, he’s offending on Sydney. You know, different crimes but still, you’re in that world of doing illegal things, you don’t have regard for the law.

Dave: Yeah. With steep penalties, the high-risk behavior after serving a prison sentence and then going to hook up with teenage girls is– I mean, how do you explain that other than, like Paul says, this is a compulsion. That the only thing Tom cared about was his goal, which is contact with this minor, Sydney. And even with patrol officers you try to explain this to patrol officers and people don’t think that way. And you’re like, “Oh, yeah, they do.” There are evil fuckers out there who only care about getting their hands on kids. I promise you I wouldn’t have a job if there wasn’t. It’s hard to convince people of that, but truly, it is prolific. They’re widespread. They’re everywhere.

Bre: Its scary. Like, these are the people next door. These are the people that you don’t expect to have to worry about leaving your children with. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve run a criminal history one of these guys, and they have nothing. They have no criminal history, and they’ve done awful, terrible things to children. And my husband thinks that I’m crazy and calls me a helicopter mom, I think, lovingly, but, yeah, I’m a helicopter mom. You can’t know the things that I know and then not take appropriate action with your children.

Dave: Yep. What I love about these cases is when you have the person who finally says, enough Sydney and Olivia. The number of people that they saved, we can’t calculate. But do we think that Tom would have stopped at Sydney if that relationship imploded and the police never found out, but they “Break up” or they don’t speak anymore. We all know Tom would have done this with the next one. That’s the thing, is we got to have a timeout. Somebody has to go to the penalty box. And Sydney got Tom in the penalty box. I love it.

Yeardley: Yeah. I really hope Tom doesn’t cross your desk again, Bre.

Bre: Me, too.

Dave: He’s going to stay out of your county. [laughs]

Bre: Right, right. Yeah. He doesn’t even live in my county, and he became my problem.

Dave: Right.

Bre: Jerk.

Yeardley: Thank you so much for bringing that to us today. Again, such good work. I always feel like if something horrific ever happened to me like that, I just want one of you guys to– Well, three of you are retired. But anyway, Bre, I’ll do it in your county.  [Bre laughs] I just want somebody to look after me like you guys look after your victims.

Bre: Thanks.

Dan: Good work. I just want to highlight the whole aspect of you and Lieutenant Ryan in the interview room and that agility to recognize we’re not going to get there with the way we’re doing things, and you guys just pivot. I think it’s amazing. And it’s just there are a lot of people in law enforcement that don’t have that ability, and there are a lot of people in law enforcement that do, and we like to highlight those things.

Dave: Yep.

Yeardley: Yeah. It’s cool.

Bre: Yeah. And I will say, too. I mean, I’ve been on interviews with other detectives, and I can remember one in particular where the guy was so close, he started crying, and I was like, “All right, we’re right there,” and I just needed the detective next to me to step in and just close a deal. And I Looked at him like, “Do you have anything that you would like to say?” And he’s like, “Nope, I’m good.”

[laughter]

And I’m just like, “Oh, gosh. Okay.” So, really, it speaks to Ryan. I mean, he was a phenomenal partner. He was a great detective. He’s a great supervisor now. But he came to that prepared. He didn’t have to read my case. He didn’t have to ask me details. He could have done a half assed job at getting up to speed on my case, but he didn’t. He read my report. He asked me lots of questions while we were traveling down there. And just for this reason exactly. If we need to pivot for whatever reason, you know my case as well as I do and you can pick up and you can take over, which is phenomenal. I mean, truly, so invested in the victims, really, because that’s what this is about and knowing the cases and being prepared to do whatever we have to do to get the closure and resolution that these cases deserve. So, it’s really a testament to Ryan and his ability to be an amazing partner.

Paul: Another awesome job, Bre.

Yeardley: Yeah.

Dave: Agree. Your agency is an example of how I hope things work.

Bre: Yeah, we have a good one. Thanks, guys.

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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