You're listening to the Mind Over Murder podcast. My name is Bill Thomas.
I'm a writer, consulting, producer, and now podcaster. I am now
trying to use my experience as the brother of a murder victim to help other
victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book on the unsolved Colonial Parkway
murders, and I'm the co administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together
with Kristin Dilley. My name is Kristin Dilley. I'm a writer, a
researcher, a teacher, and a victim's advocate, as well as the social
media manager and co administrator for the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook page with my partner
in crime, Bill Thomas. Welcome to mind Over Murder. I'm Kristin Dilley
and I'm Bill Thomas. Welcome to an episode of True Crime News Round Up.
This is the third such in that series, and that's just because there's
a ton of true news before we get to true crime news. Kristin Dilley,
Yes, we have some news of our own. Yes we did,
Yes, we did, and I'm very excited about it. I'm too excited
for words, so I'm gonna let you announce our big news. Mister Thomas,
you're kidding. I thought you were going to announce it. Maybe we
can say it together. We have reached an important plateau for two young podcasters
who are new to this business and still bright eyed and bushy tailed. We
have reached one millillion downloads. The crowd goes wild. Yes, we were
just saying it off here that we wish we had one dollar for every single
download, because that would mean we'd have a million dollars. That's true.
Just in case anybody starts thinking that that is not the case. That's not
how it all. Unfortunately, but we realized a couple of weeks ago that
sometime around the first of April, give her take, we were going to
cross over a million downloads. Now, we've been on two podcasting platforms,
one called Anchor and then one called Spreaker, and we're very happy here at
Speaker, and they've been great to us. When you look at your statistics,
which is how many downloads did you have this week and how many this
month and that kind of thing, and our numbers have been good and we've
been very pleased. You'll think about it all that much, though, because
we were on anchor and then spreaker our number total downloads to date was divided,
so I'd forgotten about it. And then Kristen and I were talking about
this a few weeks ago and I said something about I think we're going to
hit a million downloads, and so she said, check when you get a
chance, and lo and behold, we very quietly went over a million downloads,
and so here we are. I'm flabbergasted, I guess would be the
best word. It's pretty cool. It is it's hard to believe that it
happened. And of course now we've been at this for what three years in
a bit? Yeah about that. Yeah. The most important thing to do
is we want to thank all of you for your support. This is incredible.
We didn't expect that this would ever happen. We know other podcasters that
have hit other plateaus, including people that hit a million downloads a month and
crazy numbers like that. We're enjoying this immensely. It's a lot of work,
but I think it's something that we're both still enjoying. Yes, and
we will continue to bring your mind over murder. Please tell your friends and
as Kristen says, from time to time. Don't forget those five star reviews.
Again, thank you all very much for your support. So here we
are. Yeah, this is phenomenal, and as Bill said, we do
enjoy doing the podcast very much, and thank all of you, especially our
listeners who have been with us from minute one, because we do have a
number of people out there who we know have stuck with us through our whole
entire three years. So if you are our longest of the long term listeners,
thank you for sticking with us. We appreciate it, and we know
that sometimes it's not easy growing a podcast, and there is a learning curve
and sometimes some episodes are better than others. But thank you for sticking with
us. For those of you guys that have been here from the very first
moment, we really appreciate it and we hope you continue to stick with us.
I think we got better over time. Those first couple of episodes that
we recorded at your kitchen table over Christmas time that would have been late two
thousand nineteen, yep, late twenty nineteen. When I go back and listen
to them, which I don't do very often, I think we sound a
little nervous and like we're still finding our way, but it's gotten better and
easier. It's something that we both really enjoy. I like the podcast where
it's just the two of us, and I like the podcast where we have
guests as well. They're both interesting in their own way, definitely, and
we've just had the nicest group of people who has been willing to come on
and talk about their expertise and share their love of crime and forensics and DNA
and IgG. I think, as you've pointed out a time or two,
no one has ever turned us down and said, yeah, absolutely not,
I'm not going to show up on your podcast. So it's been wonderful to
have all of these amazing people who are willing to share their time and energy
and enthusiasm with us, because that makes our job a whole lot easier and
better too. I'm not saying that I wouldn't enjoy talking with you and doing
episodes just one on one every single day, but I think it's a lot
of fun when we get to have Markolshaker and Jim Fitzgerald and Anne Burgess and
everyone else. So thinking everybody who who has guested with us, and to
everybody who continues to listen to us, we appreciate it. Thank you.
So what's new and true crime news? He asked, Oh, my gosh,
so much. This last week in particular was really crazy, to the
extent that I found myself go into our social media page a couple of times
in one day. I think this was Tuesday, the twenty eighth of March,
and I just found myself going, oh, here's another story, here's
another one up, here's the third. It was a busy news day,
and I would say probably the most stunning of the stories to come out of
the true crime space in the last week or so was the fact that Adnan
Sayed's conviction was reinstated by a Maryland appeals court. I saw that headline come
over my news feed and I nearly dropped my phone. It was absolutely crazy.
Did you see the news when it first came up, or like most
things, did you end up getting a story from me and go, oh
no, what is this? That happens a lot too, but in this
particular example, I had seen the story as well. The stories that initially
ran were incredibly unclear as to what that actually meant, and we do want
to explain that I still think this is a bizarre story, even now that
we understand how this is actually going to work. This case has been mishandled
from the start, and I will offer the opinion it continues to be mishandled
even in these latest developments. Yeah, exactly, So let's go ahead and
get into it. So, as I said, in a very startling and
studying turnaround, on March twenty eighth, Maryland's Appeals Court reinstated the murder conviction
against Adnan Sayed. And that is about six months after he was freed from
prison for the nineteen ninety nine murder of his girlfriend Hayman Late. So here's
ultimately what happened. The Maryland Appeals Court agreed that Hayman Lee's family had not
been given sufficient notice to attend the hearing that ultimately ruled that the conviction should
be vacated. So until a new hearing can be held about the evidence that
was used to vacate his conviction, the charges against him have been reinstated.
That does not mean, however, that he is going back to prison.
And I think that was the first concern that everybody had upon hearing, that
is, does that mean this poor man has to go back to prison?
And thankfully that does not seem to be. I'm going to actually quote from
NBC here because they have some excellent reporting in a lot of cases, they
have stated things better than I can. So, according to reporting from NBC,
Tuesday's decision and the new hearing are seen as a procedural issue, and
there is no reason to believe that Sayed will be sent back to prison.
Oddnan's attorney, ericas Suitor, had this to say with regard to this newest
twist in the Oddnan Sayed case. Quote, the appeal is not about Odnan's
innocence but about notice and mooteness. There is no basis for re traumatizing Oddnan
by returning him to the status of convicted felon. Ensuring justice for Hayman Lee
does not require injustice for Adnan, which I think is a very good point.
Agreed. I still find myself shaking my head because I think this is
not really rectifying the situation. But I'll let you continue. So here's the
sequence of events that happened that said all of this in motion. Prosecutor Becky
Feldman contacted Haym and Lee's brother, Young Lee on September the twelfth and let
him know the state is filing emotion to vacate Adnan Sayed's conviction in his sister's
case. He was given only a few days notice of the hearing time,
which would have required him to fly from his home in California to attend in
person, stated Young Lee's lawyer. He ultimately was not able to get to
the hearing in person. He was able to zoom in on a zoom call,
but the family has basically stated that's not enough. We needed to be
able to be there in person. Bill, as the family member of a
murder victim, how is that sitting with you? Well, I feel like
the prosecution completely blew this thing. If they thought about this more than a
few days in advance and thought to notify Young Lee with a reasonable amount of
notice. I think the thing I find most frustrating about this situation is that
this obviously wasn't decided in a day. This was in process, I would
say, at a minimum for weeks, and more likely for months. They
should have thought to invite Lee's family sooner than just a few days beforehand.
He's supposed to drop every thing he's doing in fly from California to Maryland to
attend this hearing and now, I feel like the decision to go back and
do a redo almost on this hearing. According to the reporting we've seen so
far with NBC, New York Times and other publications, there's no expectation of
a different outcome here. It's pretty easy for me to put myself, I
think, in Lee's position, because he's the brother of a murder victim,
and he wanted to be there, and he should have been given sufficient notice.
What I'm not clear on is how does going back and doing a perfunctory
revisitation of this hearing with the same outcome, how is that really helping things
exactly? And there actually was a dissenting judge in this case, Judge Stewart
Berger. He basically said in an opinion about the decision to reinstate his conviction,
quote, Lee's family does not have a right to speak at the hearing
over whether to vacate a conviction, and electronic attendance was most likely sufficient to
satisfy the family's rights as in to attend the trial. Judge also allowed Lee's
brother to make a statement to the court, so he said, in his
mind, like you said, why are we doing this? It should have
been enough for them to be on a zoom conference because them being in the
courtroom wasn't going to affect the outcome anyway. And Adnan's lawyer did say,
we are living in a state now, a state of we're not at a
state of emergency anymore with COVID, but we are still living in a state
where zoom calls are at the norm. Witness you and I do in a
podcast to via zoom. She feels that a zoom conference is more than sufficient
to satisfy that right of the Lee family being able to attend a hearing and
offer an impact statement. They're definitely people on both sides who are like,
why are we doing this a second time? It's not going to change the
outcome of it. Eight days very odd. Yeah, I find the whole
thing incredibly frustrating. If the prosecutors had done this right the first time,
if they've given the Lee family sufficient notice, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
And I don't see how doing this all over again now that a non
Sayed's sentence has been vacated. I don't see how this do over is getting
us anything here. If anything, now we're driving Sayed's nightmares because it does
appear that he did not kill himanly after serving all of these years, and
so now we create all of this uncertainty six months after this gentleman was released.
The whole thing has been so badly handled. I'm flabbergasted. I understand
the Lee's frustration and even anger at not being consulted and not being given sufficient
notice, but I don't see how this resolves anything. I agree with you.
The day after this announcement, so Wednesday, March twenty ninth, Robbia
Chadre, who has done the most work on Oddnon's case, went ahead and
hosted an Instagram live session so that she could explain what's going on, and
it was you can feel, you could just feel the frustration radiating off of
her. This has obviously been an ordeal for everybody involved in the side case.
And I'm not saying that the Lee family hasn't had a hard time,
of course they have, but this really does seem to be like, what
are we going to accomplish with this? Other than basically saying, hey,
we screwed up the first time procedurally, let's fix that now. I don't
think you're going to do over on something like this. They can't fix this.
This seems completely pointless to me. So we don't have or at least
I was unable to find at this point today April fifth, when a new
hearing will be scheduled, but I have to assume it will be fairly soon.
We'll continue to post updates about odd Non Sayd's conviction hearings and so on
and so forth. But let's hope that the second time around the redo his
conviction is once again vacated and he does continue to walk as a freeman after
all of these years. I did see some reporting that referenced a sixty day
time frame, so that would be from March twenty eighth to approximately May twenty
eighth. I think this will be resolved one way or another by the end
of May, let's hope. So. In other news, we've been a
little hesitant to cover this case because we've found that when we've discussed school shootings
on Mind over Murder in the past, immediately everything seems to get so politically
polarized. Yeah, between our friends who were on the liberal side of the
conversation and on the conservative side of the same conversation. And then of course
we have a lot of people that are somewhere in the middle. I don't
think we can let this pass without offering you some sort of update regarding the
Nashville Covenant shooting. This past week, the Nashville Police Department released an inventory
of the property that was seized from twenty eight year old Audrey Hale after last
week's mass shooting at the Covenant School. Hale as killed three nine year old
students at Covenant School, as well as three adults three administrators at the school,
including the head of school and a beloved custodian. This terrible incident unfolded
in less than fourteen minutes from the time the police were called to the time
that the Nashville Police Department responding in an incredibly professional and brave way. Those
of you that saw the video of the officers making their way into the school
and quickly clearing room after room while seeking the shooter, I couldn't help but
think of Vivaldi and the completely botched response from the law enforcement people in Texas
versus the incredible job that these officers did in Nashville. You're not going to
see me shed any tears to see a school shooter shot to death, thus
preventing additional children and staff and others being put at risk. But Yeah,
that body camp footage was incredible. I have heard some criticism in recent days
that as well done as that operation was, people that are Marine Corps trained
and other people who have a serious military training said, even though the Nashville
Police Department did an outstanding job, there are lessons to be learned from that
outcome, and that those officers took steps which may have put themselves at greater
risk if they've been going up again someone who was more experienced. Perhaps There's
been some back and forthing in the media about whether we're going to call Audrey
he or she. I've actually been defaulting more to she recently. It does
appear that Audrey was in the process of transitioning, and I don't think that
has anything to do with her mental illness or the fact that she killed six
people and then got herself killed basically by the Nashville Police Department. Yeah,
most of the reporting that I've seen has defaulted to she. It has been
a little bit of a question in my mind, like how should we be
doing what pronounce should we be using to reference the shooter as we do our
reporting, And because most of the news media outlets have been defaulting to she
that's the stance that we're going to take, at least on my side,
I will, and that is not meant in any way to be disrespectful and
their gender identity. That just seems to be how most people are referring to
it, and so that is going to be my default as well, unless
proven otherwise or given other instructions. So I just want to make sure that
we're clear on the pronouns there. There is a manifesto, if you will,
that is supposed to be released at some point once the FBI and other
law enforcement agencies signaled that it's okay to be released. It's very clear now
in the past few days with additional reporting that we were talking about someone who's
seriously mentally apparently was planning this assault for months. She had studied previous mass
shooters and had an incredibly detailed plan about how she was going to take out
this school where she had once been a student. Among the items seized from
the shooters home where she lived with her parents, in addition to the weapons
that she carried to the school, was at twelve Gage Mossberg ninety, At
twenty Gage Winchester, twelve hundred miscellaneous firearms accessories and AMMO bag with targets and
empty ammo boxes, six different laptops, seven different cell phones, at least
twenty journals, including items labeled psych folder slash medical folder. She had hung
on to five years of yearbooks from the Covenant School and a school photo,
and then of course they required a suicide note. The whole thing just seems
incredibly sad, and as usual, I find myself thinking, is there any
way this could have been prevented? Because the ramp up here to the shooting
is so pronounced. She purchased seven weapons in a matter of days, and
I think that's something that we as a society need to be looking at.
Should we be permitting people to buy multiple guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition
in fairly short order. I think that's usually a sign that there's something seriously
going wrong here. I was looking at this inventory item list, and this
was the actual photos of that inventory were posted by the New York Post,
and I'm getting all of the contents of this from that inventory list. I
was interested in two things in particular. Number one, one of the inventory
items lists three folders and fourteen journals. It looked like it could have been
either fourteen or nineteen. I'm going to error on the side of fourteen.
It said three folders fourteen journals, and then behind it in parentheses it read
school shootings and firearms Courses. So I'm thinking that this is the studying related
to school shootings and mass murderers that has been referenced in the press over the
last couple of days. So it sounds like she had done a great deal
of research. And I was interested in just one item on that list that
had been entirely redacted, and that is item number twenty three on the inventory
sheet. So there's forty seven items in total on that inventory list, things
that we're taken from the house, but number twenty three is the only item
that was entirely redacted. And so now, of course I'm very interested in
what item number twenty three is, hoping that there will be some further information
on that moving forward. And then of course this manifesto. These documents are
usually so sad and it will be interesting to see what comes out of this,
but clearly this is an individual who is very disturbed. We're not here
to discuss gun control at any length. I don't think there's much way around
this, and I don't think this is an outrageous overstatement to say that we
as a country need to do something. This is the only country in the
world. The United States is the only country in the world where we're seeing
this problem over and over again. And why is it that places like Australia
and New Zealand and the United Kingdom, when they've had mass shootings have managed
to take reasonable steps to prevent mass shootings of this type. We're not trying
to take anyone's guns away. We're not trying to eliminate the Second Amendment,
which many of my conservative friends hold up as the holy grail. We have
to do something as a country. We can't go on like this. Churches,
synagogues, schools, mosques, movie theaters, grocery stores. I could
just keep naming places. We're not ever going to be able to leave our
house. And when I read about and talk with friends who've got young children
who are confessing that they are memorizing their children's clothing every single day so they
can identify their bodies when they come home from elementary school, I'm sorry.
This is not the way we're supposed to be living our lives. I promised
to climb off this soapbox here, but I really think all of us gun
owners and people that would never ever own a gun, and everyone in the
middle, we have to work together some kind of sensible, thoughtful approach so
that crazy people cannot amass a group of weapons and go in and slaughter school
kids in a school in Nashville or anywhere else. My biggest fear is that
we're talking about Nashville right now, and we'll be talking about somewhere else next
week. It happens over and over again, so end of rant. I
tried very hard not to be political, but I think as a country,
we've got to do. And of course, as a teacher, this is
a worst case scenario nightmare for me who goes into a high school every single
day of the teaching year, hoping and praying that this will not be the
day that something happens at my school. And fortunately we have such a wonderful
school community where I teach, and couldn't ask for a better place to teach
and to work and a better community. You're listening to, mind over Murder
will be right back after this word from our sponsors. We're back here at
Mind over Murder. This actually does go directly to our next true crime news
story, and that is the lawsuit that was filed against Newport News Public School
from Abigail's Warner, the twenty five year old teacher who was shot in her
classroom by her six year old student in January twenty twenty three, so it
was just a couple of months ago. Abbey has filed a forty million dollar
lawsuit against former Richneck assistant Principal Abbany Parker, Principal Branna Foster Newton, the
Newport News School Board, and former superintendent George Parker. The third very interesting
to read the details of this suit because there is a lot of I would
have to say, damning information in there about the warnings that the school had
about this student on the day of the shooting, and it exposed a series
of failures in working with that student. Now, the student has not been
named, of course, as we would expect, so he is referred to
as John Doe in the lawsuits. So I'm going to go through a couple
of the interesting pieces of information that came out in this lawsuit. So there
were at least three separate warnings that the student had a gun on the day
of the shooting. It came from staff members, and there was at least
one student who came forward and told teachers that he saw the gun, that
the student, John Doe, had revealed the gun to him. Administrations still
failed to act on this part. The lawsuit interestingly revealed a pattern of very
setting and troubling behaviors from this six year old things that made me as a
teacher just it raised the hair on the back of my neck. So here's
a couple of things that came out in this said the complaint for this lawsuit,
And this is reporting from the Today Show and from our local newspaper here,
the Daily Press, who has done an outstanding job thus far on all
of the reporting that they've done. So we do know that the student,
John Doe, attended rich Neck Elementary School for kindergarten in the twenty twenty one
twenty twenty two school year. During that time his kindergarten year, he quote
strangled and choked a teacher and was removed from the school. During that same
school year, he pulled up the dress of a student who had fallen on
the ground and quote began to touch the child inappropriately until reprimanded by a teacher.
That itself was just enough to make me go, WHOA, what is
happening with this child? And why is this kid in a regular school.
I'm sorry, I'll let you continue, But even just this first paragraph,
I'm sitting here thinking, what in the world is little Johnny Doe doing in
regular school? This kid is disturbed. So after that, John Doe was
placed in the Denbe Early Childhood Center. He was allowed to return to rich
Neck for this current school year. At some point during the school year,
and again I know there's still a lot of information that has not been revealed
and probably will not come out for a little bit. Sometime during the school
year, he was placed on what's referred to as just a modified schedule in
the complaint. The schedule was put in place after quote he chased students around
the playground with a belt and an effort to whip them with it, as
well as cursing its staff in teachers. And again, I'm stunned that this
is behavior from a six year old. I don't remember much about what I
was like at six. I just have trouble recognize that I would have had
the cognitive ability to do those things. This is so outside my experience a
kid that might have been considered naughty or disruptive in the first grade, which
admittedly was a long time ago for me, But it just this is so
beyond anything I've ever experienced. The complaint goes on to say that at least
one parent was required to attend school with him daily because of his violent tendencies.
I don't know where that's coming from. That is not a typical accommodation
that is made in any plan for student behavior that I am aware of.
Granted, I am not a special ed teacher. I work with many wonderful
people who are special ed teachers, though, and in our own discussion of
this case, none of them can recall a time in which that accommodation would
have been made for a student. So I will be very interested to know
where did that accommodation plan, whatever you want to call it, Where did
that come from? So John Doe's parents, one of them, was supposed
to be there every single day he was in school, according to the complaint.
Yes, but like I said, I have never heard of that.
Then again, I am a high school teacher, and I know that we
are very different from the elementary school teachers. But I've never heard of that
before. I'm going to continue doing some reporting here from the Daily Press.
We're going to go to this next quote here, Teachers concerns with John Doe's
behavior was regularly brought to the attention of Richneck Elementary School administration, and the
concerns were always dismissed. This is the part that also made me want to
throw things. Quote. Teachers concerns with John Dowe's behavior was regularly brought to
the attention of Richneck Elementary School administration, and the concerns were always dismissed.
Often when he was taken to the school office to address his behavior, he
would return to the classroom shortly thereafter with some type of reward, such as
a piece of candy end quote. That's what we want to be doing,
those rewarding this kid's horrifically bad behavior by sugaring him up and sending him back
into the classroom. Yeah, and I don't know what that's about either.
It doesn't sound like any type of PBIS or positive behavior intervention strategy that people
should be implementing. We've been told in professional development over the years that we
should be trying to reinforce positive behavior and not reward negative behaviors. But this
doesn't sound anything remotely close to something that we should be doing with children,
especially one who is demonstrating violent tendencies like this. I don't know what's going
on with that. Very interesting information coming out in this complaint. This also
is interesting and new. On January fourth, two days before the shooting,
John Doe slammed Abby's Werner's cell phone into the ground and shattered it. For
this, he received a one day suspension, which he served on January fifth,
that is, the day before the shooting. On January sixth, he
was supposed to return to school. He returned to school, as we now
know, with a nine millimeter hand. His mother did not stay with him
during the school day. Again, I'm not entirely clear what that's about.
If the expectation is a parent has to come to school with you, why
would you allow that student to be there by themselves. The complaint also stated
that no one at the school assigned him a one on one companion, so
he didn't have an aid or any other type of adult working with him during
that day. Around eleven fifteen that day, Abby's Werner approached administration with concerns
that the student quote appeared to be in a violent mood. She sated he
had already threatened to physically assault a classmate. Further, according to the complaint,
the Assistant prince Miss Parker had no response and in fact, would not
even look at Abby's Werner as she attempted to discuss the student. This is
insane. They're just completely not dealing with the fact that this kid is completely
out of her During the course of that day between eleven fifteen in the shooting,
which took place at one fifty nine in the afternoon, four teachers reported
concerns about the student and the gun two administrators. A teacher went to the
administration and stated that she thought she saw the student take an object out of
his backpack and place it in the front pocket of his hoodie during recess.
The assistant Principal Parker dismissed that concern saying that his pocket was quote too small
to hold a handgun. I'm so glad that Assistant Principal Parker is such an
expert on firearms that she would know whether or not a handgun would fit in
the pocket of his Hoodie was appalled by that, and that was one of
the first things that came out. I think Durian initial reporting was that statement
had happened and continues to appase. Four adults ultimately reported, we think this
kid has a gun the backpack which he did. He did, he did.
He had a gun which he had gotten at home, and the parent
or parents claim the gun was properly secured, but a six year old kid
managed to take that gun and bring it fully loaded to school. At one
fifty nine pm, Abbey's runer was shot in her classroom. The bullet went
through her left hand, which she held up to deflect what was coming.
The bullet went through her hand and into her chest, the bullet fragments to
remain lodged there. She has had a number of surgeries at this point on
her hand, and according to the interview she recently did on the Today's Show,
it looks like there may be another couple in order. She said,
the bullet fragments are going to stay in her chest for now, and ultimately
that resulted in an ten day hospital stay. At this point, she is
working to regain that equilibrium to do the physical therapy and everything else. That's
required. I wish having nothing but the best. I think that the Newport
News Public School Division needs to be held accountable for what happened at that school.
The administrators who were in the building at that time need to be held
accountable to it. There has been some discussion from the principle who states that
she was never made aware of this situation with the student. She did not
know that there was a gun on campus or a threat of a gun on
campus that day. There was even some discussion on a local news station the
other day that she is threatening to bring a counter suit against Abigail's werner because
of her being named in the suit. Be interested to see whether that continues.
By the way, for this principle to admit that she had no idea
of the problems with this child is unbelievable. I saw the articles that mentioned
that the principle was considering filing a countersuit. Way to show support for your
teachers by filing a lawsuit when you are the responsible person running that school and
you and your assistant principle have failed on every single level to protect the students
and your faculty. I understand that from a defense perspective, the principles.
Lawyers may be advising her that she may have to file a countersuit. Wow,
this does not sit well. No, it doesn't. My heart goes
out to Abby, it truly does. And friends with her aunt, she
is a very dear and special person to me. I've been following everything that
has happened here with Abby with the hope that she has the best possible outcome
here. She has a long road ahead of her, and I feel that
there is no amount of money that can repair the damage that has been done
to her physically, emotionally, mentally. She has every right to file this
lawsuit and I hope that it is successful. When we had posted this on
our social media pages, I did have a friend who pushed back and was
like, you know what, forty million dollars is too much. That's not
fair. You shouldn't be doing that because it's going to impact the school's budget.
I think she deserves every penny of it and more. That is also
coming from someone who feels very deeply for what Abbey is going through. But
what are your thoughts on the price tag there? Bill, Well, the
price tag is just an opening volley. As someone who's negotiated all sorts of
contracts and agreements, record deals, you name it. Forty million dollars is
a starting point. You have to put a figure out there. She could
have said it was one hundred million dollars. It doesn't necessar, sarahly mean
that we're going to end up at forty million dollars. But keep in mind,
this is a twenty five year old teacher who was right at the beginning
of her career. Depending on how badly damaged her hand is, she may
not be able to teach, or she may have to go through the rest
of her life with pain and suffering. She's twenty five years old. She
could be alive for seventy five more years living with the pain of the consequences
that came about because this school system failed to protect her and her students.
There have to be consequences here. This, as you said, Kristen,
falls to the Newport News school system. They failed to protect Abbey and her
students and did a disservice to everyone up to and including John Doe, the
shooter. One other thing I'm still baffled by, and I will be completely
infurious if there are not ultimately charges filed against the parents because these people allowed
this kid access to a deadly weapon, which he took to school and shot
his teacher. There's no way around that, and no responsible parent is going
to allow their six year old access to a deadly firearm. We're lucky he
didn't kill the teacher or other people that day. That could have easily happened.
As it is, we have a teacher who was very badly injured and
fortunately will survive. Forty million dollars, it's just a number. It's just
the start of a conversation. There will be a settlement, in my opinion,
and it will be substantial, and it should serve as a reminder to
Newport News and every school system around the country. You can't just ignore the
fact that multiple people are reporting problems with a particular child, and on a
given day, four different adults reported that they believe this kid had a gun.
One thing that's not mentioned here, but we did talk about it a
few weeks ago. When we spoke about this case, there was some hope
that they get to the end of the school day and the kid would go
home with the gun. You just think, to yourself, are you insane?
That's your resolution? The law of the land since nine eleven really was
if you see something, say something, and of course that went for suspicious
packages in various places like that, there are signs posted in every school district
if you see something, say something. Four people outside of Abigail's werner saw
something, said something, and it was roundly ignored. That is a may
major problem for me as an educator, but I think for everybody in general,
if the rule of the land is going to be if you see something,
say something, you cannot afford to ignore it when people say something.
That's only some of the true crime news, believe it or not, that
has hit over the last week or so in between the last time that we
recorded episodes, and I'm sure there is going to be more. We have
information to share with you about the exhimation and autopsy of Stephen Smith as related
to the Alec Murda investigation. We also have information about Doomsday Mom Laurie Valo
and her trial which is about to start. So I would say expect another
round of true crime news come in your way in the not too distant future.
Sounds good. If you like what we're doing here on the podcast,
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that as well. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of mind
over Murder. We'll see you next time. Mind Over Murder is a production
of Absolute Zero and Another Dog Productions. Our executive producers are Bill Thomas and
Kristin Dilley. Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois. Our theme music is
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