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Sword and Scale contains adult themes and
violence, and is not intended for all

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audiences. Listener discretion is advised.
Romary. You say what you did,

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but you don't know why you did
what you did, and you can't you

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don't accept any responsibility for what you
did. Welcome the season eleven, episode

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two hundred and fifty nine of Sword
and Scale. A show that reveals that

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the worst monsters are real. So
here's the thing. I can't talk about

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the uh because otherwise you guys go
crazy and start making up rumors online about

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where to find it out in the
wild. I'm talking about the app,

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of course, which we're working on, and I don't know what to say

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about it because we're in this weird
period of time where we put out these

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episodes a week ahead of time on
Plus, and then they come out to

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everybody else a week later, so
the information changes after a week. I

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don't know what to say to you
right now, other than I don't know.

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Just sit tight, I guess,
and the app will be here eventually.

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By the way. In the meantime, we have a store we're working

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on with all kinds of brand new
merchant stuff. It's partially functional, right

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now. But there's that, So
if you want to support us, head

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on over to store dot swordansguil dot
com and take a look. There's no

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denying it. Teachers hold an immense
power and influence in shaping the lives of

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their students. If your kid is
anything but homeschooled, they spend a good

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chunk of their week with their educators. A good teacher creates an environment where

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open communication and trust are fostered,
allowing students to confide in them about their

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experiences, fears, or concerns.
This is necessary because, as we know,

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teachers are mandated reporters. Because of
the vast amount of time spent with

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their students in a routine based environment, teachers are likely to notice if something

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seems off or if a child is
showing signs of abuse. They become the

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ears and eyes tuned in to the
well being of their students beyond just the

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academic performance, and when they suspect
something isn't right, they are mandated to

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take action and report it, ensuring
that these children get the help and protection

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they deserve. Ultimately, once a
teacher turns a case into child protective services,

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it's up to that agency to deal
with it, and the teacher who

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reported it doesn't get any updates on
the case. The story we're about to

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tell you is indeed about a teacher
opening up a CPS case, but this

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case went a little differently than most
others. I have taught mathematics for thirty

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three years. I just recently retired
during the pandemic. This is Tammy Cooper.

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She spent her long career teaching math
to wait for it, middle schoolers.

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Can you imagine what a pain in
the ass that is? And this

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woman did it for thirty three years. Back on the first of October nineteen

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ninety seven, Tammy woke up early
in the morning and got for another day

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of turning adolescent chaos into calculated brilliance
at Joseph Kerr Middle School in Elk Grove,

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California. I had been teaching middle
school at Joseph Kerr Middle School for

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ten years when Jessa came to me. The day she came to me,

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and so I was an experienced teacher, but it was shocking what she had

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to tell me. Interestingly enough,
this is one of those rare cases where

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we have nearly every single important perspective
directly from the source. This girl Tammy

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is talking about Jessa or Jessica is
now in her late thirties. Her name

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is Jessica Rail and at the time, she was just starting eighth grade and

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Tammy Cooper's math class was Jessica's final
class of the day. Because it was

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all very early in the school year, Tammy didn't have more than an acquaintance

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level relationship with her students in the
classroom. She was just starting to get

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to know them. It was sixth
period and this is the end of September,

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so I'd only known her for,
you know, maybe six weeks.

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As the kids began slowly filtering into
the room, Timmy noticed Jessica timidly walking

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toward her. She came up to
me right before class started and said,

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I can't go home. I need
to find my granny. And I said

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what, I was confused. She
goes, I can't go home. I

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can't go home. I got to
find my granny. And then she said

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they poured bleach on me. And
in my mind, I'm going, what

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the hell's happened here? And I
literally said, sit down, we'll finish

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class and then we'll we'll address it. I didn't I didn't even have the

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and I was a very experienced teacher, but I still didn't have the wherewithal

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at that moment because she showed me
the bleach stains on her arms, and

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it just it. It took me
that fifty minutes of class to just kind

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of take a deep breath. Bleach. This poor girl had just told her

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brand new math teacher that someone had
poured bleach on her hair. It was

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clear the longer Tammy looked at Jessica, her hair was changing colors. It

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was crispy and fried. Her clothes
had bleach stains all over them, and

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she smelled strongly of the chemical.
She was absent a lot in just that

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short period of time, and it
probably is closer to five weeks. Baby,

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but she had a bee in the
class. She always did her makeup

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work. And the ironic thing is
I knew she had a friend who had

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ran away, and it came out, you know, on her email at

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the middle school. And so I
came up to her and said, Hey,

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do you know anything about who?
I can't remember the girl's name,

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and she said no. At that
moment, I would never have million years

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even crossed my mind that she was
in trouble herself. It was just at

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that moment, the way she told
me, and the burns on her arms,

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it just was it just hit me. Upon further investigation, the damage

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was even more shocking than anyone realized. Jessica's clothes had disguised the chemical burns

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on her skin. Throughout the day, I just remember feeling dirty and wanting

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to brush my teeth but couldn't go
into the house. And my hair was

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like I couldn't see it, but
it was felt like straw. It was

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just changing texture as the hours went
on, and I was in a lot

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of pain from the leech burns.
And then I got dressed, got my

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backpack and rode the I think of
like three miles to the Junior High and

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went to school my first because I
was supposed to be gym and I was

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like, I can't change to gym
clothes and they'll see all these burns.

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So I went and I told them
that I fell and bleached, but I

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think they thought I said I fell
off the like the bleachers and let I

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hurt myself and I couldn't do gym
class, and then they let me get

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out of it, and then I
went through most of my classes just I

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knew I smelt, but I don't
know if other people noticed it. And

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then I saw my face in the
bathroom and my hair was like changing colors

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of the day was going on,
and at lunchtime I told my only friend

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that I had at school what had
happened, and she was trying to convince

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me to tell someone, but I
at that point I wasn't one hundred percent

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convinced. But right before my last
period class, I was like, this

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is it either now or never,
Like I either tell someone and see if

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maybe someone will actually help me and
believe me, or I'd go home and

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face whatever's going to happen. We
waited till the end of the period and

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then I had taken her up to
the counseling office. And I just recently

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saw her counselor like a week ago
and updated him. So this was twenty

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five years later, and he had
in fact checked on her earlier in the

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days a some student had reported that
he or she got something was wrong.

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So the counselor did check with her
and she said nothing. She doesn't remember

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that, but he did just recall
back to me. So we sat down,

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sheriff was called. I took her
into the bathroom and took pictures.

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I mean her bra was burned that
you could see the burn marks of where

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the bleach had burned, a broad
to her back and all it was just

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all of her hair. It was
yeah, it was really really shocking.

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Then we came back, we did
finished all the CPS report, and the

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sheriff came and then next place she
was going was to the hospital. And

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right down, as a teacher,
that was the moment that was a pendant

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for me in the sense of I
decided to go to the hospital with her.

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And that's not what teachers do.
Teachers are supposed to report it to

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CPS and then step back and allow
the system to do it's you know,

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what it's supposed to do. And
for whatever even my voice is coming shook,

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for whatever reason, I decided differently, and I told her I would

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be there, and I assured her
I would be there. So at first

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it was unclear to Tammy what exactly
had happened. To Jessica, the confusion

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quickly dissipated. She shared more of
the horrifying details with her teacher. According

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to Jessica, who lived with her
biological mother and stepfather and a nice looking

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single family home in Elk Grove.
It was her stepfather who had poured bleach

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all over her the night before.
This was not an accidental thing. This

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was very malicious and very intentional.
Not only that, but it later became

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clear that Jessica had actually been sleeping
in a shed in the backyard when this

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occurred. Though it appeared relatively normal
from the outside, there was something evil

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happening behind closed doors. No.
I was probably the third or fourth time

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I was made to sleep out in
the shed. Eighth grade had started and

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I was already at school, and
I was made woken up in the middle

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of night, told to go out
there because I couldn't be in the house.

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So I went out there, and
I was sleeping on the lawn chair,

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and in the middle of the night, Larry comes out, opens the

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door and pours a bottle bleach all
over me, screaming about hey, you

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like that, don't you? Demon
And then they left me there covered in

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bleach for I don't know how long, and eventually they came in and sprayed

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me off with the ice cold hoves, and then I got up, changed

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and went to school. I was
lucky that it did have multiple windows because

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we used to have the animals in
there, so it did have like a

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cross breeze, and it was early
September, so it wasn't terribly hot.

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Jessica's mother, Barbara carrasco raised and
bred French bulldogs at one point, keeping

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up to ten dogs created in the
shed at a time. It smelled like

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old wet dog because there were still
dog kennels in there, and like old

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dog food, and it just smelled
dirty because it was a storage shed now,

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But it wasn't terribly hot or uncomfortable. It might be worth noting here

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that though Jessica says now that the
shed wasn't particularly hot or uncomfortable, her

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threshold for discomfort is likely a lot
different than those of us who had even

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somewhat of a normal upbringing. For
example, though she was sleeping out in

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the shed, you might assume her
parents would allow her to come inside and

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use the restroom during the night,
or at least before going to school.

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Right, Oh, there was a
bucket, if I've got one bucket and

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the shed that I was to use
to go to the bathroom. We are

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trained every year to recognize what we
look for, and I'm trying to think

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if I did follow a report before
her I filed several after I honestly can't

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remember, and if I did,
it was nothing of this violent nature.

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But we got to the hospital,
she had to strip and shower and do

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a rape test. And I knew
immediately when just by her body movements,

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that she had been molested. And
she has denied that to me forever until

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just this last year, and I
knew it was just not the kind of

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movement that a thirteen year old girl
would do when they're being tested for rape,

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like, oh, okay, no
big deal. And I expected her

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to be nervous or kind of you
know, like, what's happening. I

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don't understand, because she probably had
never been to a doctor before, and

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she didn't. She was just like, okay, whatever. And I asked

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her, you know now, why
she didn't tell me? She said,

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there was so much going on,
it's just one more thing I didn't want

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to deal with. Jessica hadn't been
molested by this current stepfather, forty nine

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year old Larry Carrasco, but she
had been abused by her mother's former husband,

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Charles, who is also the father
of the rest of Jessica's siblings.

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It had been seven years since Jessica, her mother and grandmother bounced around different

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states before settling down for a while
in a motel across from the Santa Cruz

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Beach Boardwalk in California. Charles owned
the motel and Jessica's grandmother worked there.

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She and Jessica stayed in the attached
department that was reserved for the motel manager,

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which had become her grandmother's job.
Well, we always kind of always

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lived together. I was born in
New Jersey. I know, we did

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maybe a year in Florida when I
was little, but she was there too,

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and then we drove cross country ended
up in California in multiple different places.

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But I've always been with my grandmother
and my mother. But my mom

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would always leave to when I was
little, I to calm her adventures because

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I didn't know what she was doing, but usually involved a new man.

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When we moved to Santa Cruz,
it was a always been me and my

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grandmother anyway, so it wasn't any
big change for me to be just kind

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of left with my grandmother. Things
were relatively normal for me. My grandmother

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made a good life for us.
I went to school, had friends,

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socialize all of those things, and
my mother would come around whenever she felt

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like it or wanted something from my
grandmother. And eventually she had my brother,

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Chad, and then dropped him off
to live with us. He was

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probably two months old when she dropped
him off for a permanent stay. I

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mean she came back once in a
while. I mean not often, but

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she did come back from time to
time every city they lived in. Jessica's

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grandmother lamented Barbara's erratic and negligent behavior. I mean, honestly, at that

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age, I didn't really know anything
different because my grandmother basically raised me.

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And I used to call my grandmother
mom because my mother was so sporadically in

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my life that her not being around
wasn't any different. I did have moments

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where when she would come around and
I would try to get her attention,

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I would feel bad because she would
always say, don't hang on me,

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don't touch me, like just go
away, And I'm thinking, why are

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you even here, Like if you're
not coming to see us, why are

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you even here? But she was
never really a mother, so didn't really

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make a difference. Soon, Jessica, her grandmother and her new brother Chad,

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who was dressed in a tiny baby
tuxedo, attended Barbara's wedding to Charles.

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Charles, by the way, was
already married with three kids when Barbara

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got pregnant. When I first met
him, I mean, I thought it

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was weird because she was Asian and
they had different cultural things. Like he

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scared me because he ate fish eyes, and he told me he was going

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to make me eat them if I
didn't quit sucking my thumb. Like the

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most this vivid memory I've ever had. I'm like, I barely even know

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this man, and he's like branding
this whole fish at me with eyeballs,

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and I'm like it was just I
wasn't used to the cultural differences. But

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we didn't really spend much time together
before they got married, or even after

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they got married. It wasn't until
he basically lost everything and they all decided

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00:19:19,799 --> 00:19:25,640
to move to Nevada that I actually
lived with him and spent any minute of

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time with him. She saw dollar
signs because he owned the hotel, he

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had other homes, and you know
it was in Mountain View, which is

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00:19:33,279 --> 00:19:37,079
very like a fluid area in California. So my mother saw dollar signs.

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So but the only problem is my
brother Chad was proof of his affair,

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so he lost everything. But she
didn't realize he was going to lose everything

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00:19:48,200 --> 00:19:52,640
in the divorce. By the time
Chad was about to turn one, Barbara

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00:19:52,759 --> 00:20:00,039
dropped off another of her and Charles's
babies. This time it was a the

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00:20:00,079 --> 00:20:04,559
little girl named Alexia, born on
September twenty third, nineteen ninety one.

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Yeah. After Alexia was born,
within a few months, she was dropped

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00:20:10,720 --> 00:20:15,799
off to live with my brother and
I well, my grandmother was now raising

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00:20:15,839 --> 00:20:21,160
three children and running a motel.
Early the next year, everyone including Barbara

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00:20:21,200 --> 00:20:26,200
and her new husband, moved to
Stagecoach, Nevada. The six of them,

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three adults and three children, lived
in a double wide trailer if that

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00:20:30,119 --> 00:20:37,680
surprises you. That summer, Barbara
gave birth to her third baby by Charles,

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this one a boy named Michael.
She knew his name was Michael because

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the guy who was adopting him is
named Michael, so they knew while she

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00:20:47,480 --> 00:20:51,440
was pregnant that they weren't keeping him. I don't know if their relationship was

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00:20:51,480 --> 00:20:55,720
already starting to fall apart or what
was happening at that point. I know

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00:20:55,920 --> 00:21:00,480
Charles became weird and more distant because
his oldest daughter was killed in the car

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00:21:00,519 --> 00:21:04,920
accident, so it kind of just
changed him and he just locked himself in

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his office most of the time.
So I just think it was a downward

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00:21:10,480 --> 00:21:14,920
spiral after the move and after her
death, another baby just wasn't going to

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00:21:14,960 --> 00:21:19,000
be feasible. Just a few weeks
after he was born, once the doctor

236
00:21:19,440 --> 00:21:25,680
cleared him to fly, Barbara sent
Michael off to live with this old friend

237
00:21:25,680 --> 00:21:30,559
of hers who lived in Pennsylvania.
Eventually, Barbara also sent little Chad to

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live with the same man. So
this timeline tells us that at one point

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00:21:37,039 --> 00:21:42,480
Jessica had three siblings. By the
time the incident with the bleach happened,

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00:21:44,200 --> 00:21:48,759
Jessica was the only child living in
the home with her mother and her second

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00:21:48,839 --> 00:21:56,519
stepfather, Larry. So where were
the other children? Where Michael and Chad

242
00:21:57,359 --> 00:22:30,000
really with a man in Pennsylvania?
And where was Alexia. In early September

243
00:22:30,279 --> 00:22:37,119
nineteen ninety seven, thirteen year old
Jessica Rail confided in her math teacher that

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00:22:37,200 --> 00:22:41,559
she was being abused at home,
lifting her shirt to reveal horrible chemical burns

245
00:22:41,599 --> 00:22:48,920
on her skin. Jessica's teacher,
Tammy Cooper, stuck by her through her

246
00:22:48,960 --> 00:22:55,759
hospital evaluations and all of the CPS
paperwork. Tammy and Jessica both knew she

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00:22:55,880 --> 00:23:00,279
wouldn't be returning home to her mother, Barbara and her stepfather, Larry Carrasco.

248
00:23:02,519 --> 00:23:08,319
She'd been shuffled right into the system. By this point, Jessica's mother

249
00:23:08,880 --> 00:23:15,200
and stepfather had forced her grandmother out
of the home, leaving Jessica with no

250
00:23:15,319 --> 00:23:22,880
protection from their atrocities. Jessica's grandmother
wasn't in a position the court saw appropriate

251
00:23:22,960 --> 00:23:27,000
enough to place Jessica in her care, so she instead went to live in

252
00:23:27,079 --> 00:23:36,039
Sacramento Children's Receiving Home. Sounds like
a much better option, I guess when

253
00:23:36,079 --> 00:23:40,480
I walked in, for I didn't
realize even whatever Receiving Home was, But

254
00:23:40,519 --> 00:23:42,759
when I walked in, it almost
looked like a doctor's office in the front.

255
00:23:44,200 --> 00:23:45,880
All the chairs lined up in a
front desk where you can check in.

256
00:23:47,559 --> 00:23:52,799
But it was quite a large facility
that housed seventy children ages zero to

257
00:23:52,880 --> 00:23:56,000
eighteen, boys on one side,
girls in the other, and we were

258
00:23:56,039 --> 00:24:02,240
separated by age groups. And then
it was just supposed to be temporary care

259
00:24:02,319 --> 00:24:07,400
until they can either go home or
find foster placements. I think was after

260
00:24:07,440 --> 00:24:11,720
the hospital, before the hospital,
but we did go to the sheriff's office

261
00:24:11,079 --> 00:24:18,759
and they called Barb called Barbarareil,
who is Jessica's mother, and Jessica was

262
00:24:18,880 --> 00:24:22,200
on the phone me and the sheriff
could hear, and she was saying,

263
00:24:22,519 --> 00:24:26,599
why did you do that? Trying
to get her biological mother to admit to

264
00:24:26,640 --> 00:24:30,440
what she had done. It became
obvious that she was not going to admit

265
00:24:30,680 --> 00:24:36,880
anything, so the sheriff had Jessica
stopped the conversation, and then the next

266
00:24:36,920 --> 00:24:40,079
thing we did was go to the
receiving home. That was the last thing,

267
00:24:41,440 --> 00:24:45,160
and I was told because I was
a family I would not be able

268
00:24:45,200 --> 00:24:49,319
to see her for three days,
but I promised her that I would see

269
00:24:49,319 --> 00:24:53,319
her as soon as I could,
and then her mother and stepfather were arrested

270
00:24:53,319 --> 00:24:57,319
that night about two o'clock in the
morning. The average stay in the receiving

271
00:24:57,319 --> 00:25:02,839
home is less than thirty days because
a lot of people just get other family

272
00:25:02,839 --> 00:25:07,880
members who can take them, or
their parents just had some simple charges and

273
00:25:07,960 --> 00:25:11,839
they get a parenting class or whatever
and send them home. But most people

274
00:25:11,839 --> 00:25:17,440
don't stay more than a month in
total. I ended up being there almost

275
00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:22,119
a year. During Jessica's first month
at the receiving home, there was an

276
00:25:22,160 --> 00:25:27,680
FBI agent in Sacramento who was just
starting to investigate this case, not because

277
00:25:27,680 --> 00:25:33,960
of the child abuse, but because
Jessica's grandmother had called into the Sacramento County

278
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:38,839
Sheriff's Office worried about her grandchildren.
We know that little Chad and Michael were

279
00:25:38,839 --> 00:25:44,799
shipped off to live with a man
in Pennsylvania, and this was confirmed by

280
00:25:44,880 --> 00:25:51,640
the authorities. Alexia, however,
was reportedly living with her father, Charles,

281
00:25:51,839 --> 00:25:56,160
in Chicago. The FBI agent who
helped Sacramento County with this case is

282
00:25:56,279 --> 00:26:03,279
Jeffrey Rinnick, and we talked to
him the way Alexia started. And the

283
00:26:03,319 --> 00:26:06,880
guy in the in fact, I
just saw him the other day. His

284
00:26:06,960 --> 00:26:11,000
name is Steve Hill, and he
was a missing person detective for the Sacramento

285
00:26:11,039 --> 00:26:15,640
County Sheriff's Department. I got a
call from Steve and at the time I

286
00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:21,720
got the call, the what I
was told by Steve Hill was that they

287
00:26:21,720 --> 00:26:26,920
had received a call from a woman
in Pennsylvania, and the woman in Pennsylvania

288
00:26:26,960 --> 00:26:30,759
claimed to be a grandmother of a
little girl down around Elk Grove. She

289
00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:37,400
was calling the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department
because she couldn't reach anyone and she was

290
00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:42,480
worried about her granddaughter, and that's
what they started with. And then when

291
00:26:42,480 --> 00:26:48,000
they got that they called me.
All we knew was that we had this

292
00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:52,160
little girl that was on accounted for. And all I knew was, even

293
00:26:52,200 --> 00:26:53,599
though the FBI had no business in
it, I was going to go with

294
00:26:53,680 --> 00:26:59,359
Steve. I mean, he was
one of my best friends, and I

295
00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:02,240
know the guys I worked with who
cared about those guys. So if it

296
00:27:02,279 --> 00:27:04,480
was an issue or a concern for
backup, we would be there for each

297
00:27:04,519 --> 00:27:08,400
other. So that's how I started
just being back up for Steve Hill.

298
00:27:10,440 --> 00:27:15,920
Jeff has had a long, successful
career in the FBI. Before getting involved

299
00:27:15,920 --> 00:27:21,400
in cases of missing children, Jeff
was actually the agent who pulled a murder

300
00:27:21,440 --> 00:27:27,440
confession from Carrie Stainer, a Yosemite
killer. If you know or remember that

301
00:27:27,640 --> 00:27:33,799
case. Carrie was the older brother
of Steven Stainer, a teen who was

302
00:27:33,920 --> 00:27:40,000
kidnapped back in nineteen seventy two and
held captive for seven years. Eventually,

303
00:27:40,039 --> 00:27:45,279
Stephen escaped, bringing with him another
little boy who had also been kidnapped by

304
00:27:45,279 --> 00:27:51,319
the same man. Stephen went on
press tours and was a veritable celebrity after

305
00:27:51,359 --> 00:27:56,839
his escape, but was tragically killed
riding his motor bike home from work in

306
00:27:56,960 --> 00:28:02,079
nineteen eighty nine when a car hit
him and drove away, leaving him to

307
00:28:02,200 --> 00:28:06,839
die of his head injuries. Ten
years later, in nineteen ninety nine,

308
00:28:07,240 --> 00:28:12,920
Steven's older brother, Carrie, began
murdering women near Yosemite National Park. It's

309
00:28:12,960 --> 00:28:18,119
a fascinating story that the brother of
a kidnapped teen would turn into a murderer,

310
00:28:18,839 --> 00:28:25,799
but here we are. He murdered
four women between February and July,

311
00:28:26,799 --> 00:28:30,400
but authorities quickly caught on and he
was arrested on July twenty fourth of that

312
00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:37,200
same year. Jeff went through all
the training at Quantico many many decades ago.

313
00:28:37,720 --> 00:28:44,359
His training on interrogation consisted of a
two hour class. Most of Jeff's

314
00:28:44,400 --> 00:28:48,039
tactics, though, seemed to come
to him naturally, even mirroring the read

315
00:28:48,160 --> 00:28:52,640
technique in some ways. You know, it's funny because you know, you

316
00:28:52,680 --> 00:28:56,920
read about these other techniques, and
they teach you how to feign like you

317
00:28:57,000 --> 00:29:02,599
care, you know, how to
act, so they believe I don't act.

318
00:29:02,640 --> 00:29:06,519
I mean, I mean it's if
I'm interviewing you, and I tell

319
00:29:06,559 --> 00:29:10,079
you I'm going to do something for
you, I'm going to do it.

320
00:29:10,279 --> 00:29:15,160
In Stayner's case, you know,
I promised him that his family had no

321
00:29:15,279 --> 00:29:18,640
idea what was coming, and that
I needed to go down there and tell

322
00:29:18,680 --> 00:29:22,839
him, And that was one of
the things that he was considering before he

323
00:29:22,960 --> 00:29:30,119
started confessing. Now, everybody thinks
killers to be monsters and mean people,

324
00:29:30,599 --> 00:29:37,400
But before I retired, I helped
with a interview of a young boy about

325
00:29:37,480 --> 00:29:44,880
nineteen. He had drowned, deliberately
drowned a fifteen year old boy for somebody.

326
00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:48,400
He wanted to talk to me,
and I was leaving. I had

327
00:29:48,880 --> 00:29:53,599
promised that I wouldn't do any more
interview shouse, but they came and got

328
00:29:53,640 --> 00:29:56,720
me, said he was asking for
me, So I went back in.

329
00:29:56,160 --> 00:30:00,920
So I went in and I took
his confession. But here's the thing,

330
00:30:00,160 --> 00:30:04,200
like when I do my interviews,
like I want to know about this person,

331
00:30:04,279 --> 00:30:08,119
what's his story? So like in
this guy's case, I said,

332
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:14,759
you know, if you could have
anything in the world, what would you

333
00:30:14,799 --> 00:30:18,720
want? And you know, you
can see him going through and going through

334
00:30:18,759 --> 00:30:21,279
and he looks at me, he
says, you know, if I could

335
00:30:21,319 --> 00:30:26,480
have anything in the world, I
would want someone to love me and someone

336
00:30:26,519 --> 00:30:30,960
to love Now, this is coming
from a kid who just killed the fifteen

337
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:33,839
year old kid. So you know, it doesn't fit, It doesn't make

338
00:30:33,839 --> 00:30:37,240
sense. How do you explain it? And I think that's one of the

339
00:30:37,279 --> 00:30:45,400
things that wears out investigators and detectives
because you know, there's just some things

340
00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:48,799
that are not going to make sense. And when you see him, you

341
00:30:48,880 --> 00:30:55,440
conjunction with crime scenes that are beyond
the ability to tolerate. You know,

342
00:30:55,599 --> 00:31:00,799
it just it does what it does. There's a lot of fusion around the

343
00:31:00,839 --> 00:31:06,200
FBI's protocols, specifically when it comes
to cases of missing children. In the

344
00:31:06,279 --> 00:31:15,680
nineteen nineties, the director was Louis
Free, and Louis Free determined that he

345
00:31:15,759 --> 00:31:23,599
was going to enable the FBI's resources
and people to be utilized if a child

346
00:31:23,839 --> 00:31:30,039
is harmed or goes missing or whatever, and so he took away for some

347
00:31:30,079 --> 00:31:32,279
reason. Everybody always says, oh, you got to wait twenty four hours

348
00:31:32,319 --> 00:31:37,240
for the FBI. That is no, you don't wait at all. And

349
00:31:37,319 --> 00:31:41,559
I think a lot of what determines
how the FBI is going to answer is

350
00:31:41,599 --> 00:31:45,440
going to be the person that you're
dealing with, for instance, in our

351
00:31:45,480 --> 00:31:52,119
office, because I was you know, the coordinator. If we got cases

352
00:31:52,160 --> 00:31:56,039
in that, you know, I
didn't care who worked them. And what

353
00:31:56,400 --> 00:32:02,640
started happening was that we start already
seeing what would start out as a runaway

354
00:32:02,640 --> 00:32:07,279
would end up as an abduction or
a false imprisonment because the child had changed

355
00:32:07,319 --> 00:32:10,759
their mind and wanted to come home
and then the adult wouldn't let them come

356
00:32:10,799 --> 00:32:15,200
home. When you talk about the
difference between you know, local cases and

357
00:32:15,359 --> 00:32:19,519
FBI is just an example. The
FBI doesn't go you know, we don't

358
00:32:19,799 --> 00:32:22,319
do that. Not it's not that
it's below us or anything, but we

359
00:32:22,359 --> 00:32:27,319
are required by law to address with
the law tells us to address, and

360
00:32:27,400 --> 00:32:34,519
those things are going to be federal
crimes or any other thing that is legislating.

361
00:32:35,119 --> 00:32:38,240
So that's why, you know,
normally we wouldn't get calls like this,

362
00:32:38,720 --> 00:32:44,240
but because of the relationship we had, we did. So when they

363
00:32:44,279 --> 00:32:47,440
got the call, basically I there
was me, I think one or two

364
00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:52,960
other agents from the office. We
went with their squad, the child abduction

365
00:32:52,079 --> 00:32:57,359
squad, and then or they call
them to their Childhood Reduction Bureau and then

366
00:32:57,880 --> 00:33:02,039
we were down there with them,
just covering them and what we found.

367
00:33:02,039 --> 00:33:07,319
We were unprepared for maybe two weeks
into me being into the receiving home late

368
00:33:07,359 --> 00:33:13,160
September early October, because they had
verified that Alexia was not with her father

369
00:33:13,240 --> 00:33:16,640
in Chicago. He said he hadn't
seen her or talked to her in months,

370
00:33:17,200 --> 00:33:21,079
so they were coming to me to
try to figure it out. And

371
00:33:21,160 --> 00:33:25,359
he was one of the FBI agents, Jeff. He was very mean,

372
00:33:27,200 --> 00:33:30,880
like he made me feel like total
crap. We'll get to that in just

373
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:35,319
a little bit. You might be
thinking, why would this guy try to

374
00:33:35,400 --> 00:33:43,119
scare or guilt a child who was
a victim herself. As we were conducting

375
00:33:43,279 --> 00:33:47,640
investigation looking for the little girl,
we saw there were pictures in the house

376
00:33:49,119 --> 00:33:52,480
with her face cut out of them, So that was not a good feeling.

377
00:33:53,440 --> 00:33:59,880
And then as the day went on, we learned that the victims all

378
00:34:00,359 --> 00:34:06,920
sister. Her name is Jessica.
It's our Jessica had reported to a teacher

379
00:34:06,960 --> 00:34:13,880
that day at school that her stepfather
had poured a leach on her while she

380
00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:19,000
was sleeping in a shed in the
backyard, and because of that, they

381
00:34:19,039 --> 00:34:25,039
had removed her from the house and
were holding her at the child's receiving home.

382
00:34:27,119 --> 00:34:34,239
We realized on the first day,
based on learning and talking with the

383
00:34:34,840 --> 00:34:40,440
detectives, the sheriff detectives, that
something really catastrophic had happened here. And

384
00:34:40,519 --> 00:34:47,679
so at that point it's the day
unfolded. We realized that we had no

385
00:34:50,639 --> 00:34:59,079
evidence that Alexia ever existed, and
so we would stop in nothing, you

386
00:34:59,119 --> 00:35:01,400
know, to look for her,
to find her. So from that point

387
00:35:01,480 --> 00:35:09,199
on, it became a situation where
the Sheriff's department was bringing up the resources,

388
00:35:09,599 --> 00:35:14,679
bringing up their people, and we
were helping them. If interviews need

389
00:35:14,679 --> 00:35:16,800
to be done, that kind of
thing, we would do it. As

390
00:35:16,840 --> 00:35:21,599
we know. When it came to
interviews, Jeff was the man for the

391
00:35:21,719 --> 00:35:24,719
job. This is really hard for
me because I'm not proud of it,

392
00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:30,599
but I will tell you what happened. We spent a day looking for Alexia.

393
00:35:30,840 --> 00:35:34,199
I was with my partner, who
was a new agent, and we

394
00:35:34,199 --> 00:35:38,159
were heading back to our office and
I decided the children's Receiving Home was right

395
00:35:38,199 --> 00:35:43,119
across the street from our office.
So I went into the Children's Receiving Home

396
00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:49,119
and we asked the administrators that we
could see Jessica. So they put us

397
00:35:49,159 --> 00:35:54,519
in a room with Jessica. Glass
door, glass and they left us there.

398
00:35:55,639 --> 00:36:01,920
Jessica's opening remarks were out of profanity. As a law enforcement person,

399
00:36:02,519 --> 00:36:07,880
one of the hardest things in life
is to try and convince a person that

400
00:36:08,039 --> 00:36:14,280
is afraid of you that you're there
to help them. It's really it's not

401
00:36:14,320 --> 00:36:20,000
only hard, but it becomes emotionally
just really taxing. And in this case,

402
00:36:20,639 --> 00:36:23,559
she refused to tell us anything.
She would, you know, throw

403
00:36:23,639 --> 00:36:29,760
profanity at us, like it was
you know, he told me like things

404
00:36:29,800 --> 00:36:34,000
like, who do you think she
was calling for when they were abusing her?

405
00:36:34,559 --> 00:36:37,000
You were her only person to help. We know, you know what

406
00:36:37,119 --> 00:36:42,960
happened to her, like it was
some harsh tactics. And he remembers her

407
00:36:42,960 --> 00:36:45,920
differently than I do. But I
don't remember telling him what happened. I

408
00:36:45,920 --> 00:36:51,079
remember walking out of that meeting.
This is how Jeff remembers that interview.

409
00:36:51,760 --> 00:36:57,559
I don't know, something clicked inside
of me. I wasn't gonna I believed

410
00:36:58,400 --> 00:37:01,000
she was the only one who could
tell to where that child was, and

411
00:37:01,119 --> 00:37:06,559
I wasn't going to leave there.
Yeah. According to the FBI agent when

412
00:37:06,599 --> 00:37:09,719
I spoke to him not too long
ago, a few months ago, they

413
00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:17,599
found not a single solitary DNA strand, not a hair, not a fingerprint,

414
00:37:17,880 --> 00:37:22,519
no toys, nothing to indicate that
a child lived in that house.

415
00:37:23,679 --> 00:37:27,760
They every picture she was in,
her face was cut out of it.

416
00:37:28,480 --> 00:37:34,599
I started back from the beginning with
Jessica, and I started taking every memory

417
00:37:34,800 --> 00:37:43,440
she had and establishing from her which
of the memories had Alexia. And and

418
00:37:43,519 --> 00:37:47,239
so she had to do nothing but
think about Alexia. And she's smart.

419
00:37:47,360 --> 00:37:52,480
She knew I was getting a little
we were getting upset. She said something

420
00:37:52,880 --> 00:37:57,599
that indicates she was there. I
heard her say something like that, and

421
00:37:57,639 --> 00:38:00,800
I just uried, nonchalantly got up
and locked the door to the room,

422
00:38:02,039 --> 00:38:09,880
and I went back to Jessica and
I started having her described for us her

423
00:38:09,920 --> 00:38:15,639
favorite times with Alexia, which invariably
would turn out to be the two of

424
00:38:15,679 --> 00:38:22,159
them cuddling in watching TV. We
knew about Alexia, but the only person

425
00:38:22,239 --> 00:38:30,440
who could tell us is you.
And she was screaming and yelling. They

426
00:38:30,440 --> 00:38:34,840
were trying to get in the room. I wouldn't let him in, and

427
00:38:34,920 --> 00:38:40,719
so they were very very angry.
But the end result was that Jessica described

428
00:38:42,440 --> 00:38:46,760
everything that had occurred. It started
when she was very very little, even

429
00:38:46,760 --> 00:38:52,440
when we were still living with Charles
and stagecoach Nevda. I remember coming out

430
00:38:52,960 --> 00:38:57,800
and she's the Alexia is in a
height chair, probably eight nine months old,

431
00:38:58,440 --> 00:39:00,480
and uh, barb was just taking
a lighter to the bottom of her

432
00:39:00,480 --> 00:39:05,719
feet. Walked out, saw her
doing it, and the baby's obviously crying,

433
00:39:06,599 --> 00:39:09,440
and my mother had a look.
And if she gave you that look,

434
00:39:09,480 --> 00:39:13,239
you didn't say anything back. So
I just turned around walked out.

435
00:39:13,639 --> 00:39:17,880
Another memory Jessica can recall from her
childhood really puts Barbara into perspective. My

436
00:39:17,920 --> 00:39:22,239
mother would love to tell me that
I was ugly and fat and worthless and

437
00:39:22,280 --> 00:39:27,920
that I would never amount to anything. I'd be pregnant in high school.

438
00:39:28,119 --> 00:39:31,239
I mean, it was just I
never got any racial slurs, but you

439
00:39:31,280 --> 00:39:36,320
know I was called a bitch and
a cunt anything. I mean. She

440
00:39:36,760 --> 00:39:39,480
took all my awards that I saved
in, all my cards for like birthdays,

441
00:39:40,000 --> 00:39:44,239
and she burned them all in the
fireplace, just because they meant something

442
00:39:44,239 --> 00:39:47,760
to me. Barbara and Charles obviously
didn't work out long term as a couple,

443
00:39:49,320 --> 00:39:53,320
so they split and Barbara quickly went
on the hunt for another man,

444
00:39:54,440 --> 00:40:00,039
as Barbara's often do. We moved
again. We were in the city in

445
00:40:00,079 --> 00:40:06,639
California, and I was in sixth
grade going to school. Chad finally started

446
00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:12,519
kindergarten, and she was off all
the time, supposedly working or looking for

447
00:40:12,599 --> 00:40:15,119
work. And she came home one
time and she's just like, I met

448
00:40:15,119 --> 00:40:20,320
a man and we got married and
we're all moving into his house in Elk

449
00:40:20,320 --> 00:40:24,639
Grove. And my grandmother tried to
convince her to let us finish out the

450
00:40:24,639 --> 00:40:30,239
school year so we didn't have to
change midyear, but she was hearing nothing

451
00:40:30,280 --> 00:40:32,280
about it. She's like, they're
my kids, I'm taking them. So

452
00:40:32,320 --> 00:40:37,360
we ended up moving while I was
in my sixth grade year. Whenever she

453
00:40:37,440 --> 00:40:42,480
could show us off to some boyfriend
or at some event, she would,

454
00:40:42,599 --> 00:40:45,239
but when it came to actual parenting
or being there for when we needed her,

455
00:40:46,039 --> 00:40:50,880
she wanted nothing to do with it. By this point, only one

456
00:40:50,920 --> 00:40:55,039
of Jessica's younger brothers had been sent
to live with the man in Pennsylvania,

457
00:40:55,159 --> 00:41:00,000
so it would be Jessica, Alexia, Chad, and their mother, Barbara

458
00:41:00,159 --> 00:41:07,400
and Grandma making the move. They'd
be moving into a home in Elk Grove,

459
00:41:07,480 --> 00:41:10,960
California, owned by a forty nine
year old man named Larry Carrasco.

460
00:41:12,519 --> 00:41:14,400
Yeah, I don't even know how
he met her, if it was like

461
00:41:14,440 --> 00:41:17,440
at a bar or just down the
street. She never gave us any information.

462
00:41:17,599 --> 00:41:22,840
She just says she married him and
here we are. So I thought

463
00:41:22,880 --> 00:41:28,639
he was just completely normal, everyday
guy, one of the most well put

464
00:41:28,679 --> 00:41:30,760
together guys I've ever seen my mom
date. I thought, well, maybe

465
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:34,559
this will be good, Like,
maybe we'll stay here for a while,

466
00:41:34,679 --> 00:41:37,559
and you know, Mom will be
all right, and we'll get to be

467
00:41:37,599 --> 00:41:44,880
a family. These hopes didn't last
long. Barbara never enrolled Chad in kindergarten

468
00:41:45,440 --> 00:41:50,320
and sent him to live in Pennsylvania
that same summer. Just a reminder,

469
00:41:50,360 --> 00:41:55,599
because these names can get confusing.
Michael was the name of Jessica's little brother

470
00:41:57,320 --> 00:42:00,440
and also the name of the man
their mother's sent the boys to live with.

471
00:42:01,679 --> 00:42:06,679
When Barbara was pregnant with Michael,
she knew she would be sending him

472
00:42:06,719 --> 00:42:13,000
off for this unofficial adoption, so
she named the baby after the man who

473
00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:20,039
would be taking custody of him.
How thoughtful, I guess. Chad was

474
00:42:20,039 --> 00:42:25,519
shipped off a little bit later and
was slightly less planned. After he's sent

475
00:42:27,000 --> 00:42:32,760
to live with Michael, things got
weird. My grandmother was noticing more and

476
00:42:32,800 --> 00:42:38,639
more of the I guess, the
addictive behaviors and the odd punishments and the

477
00:42:38,639 --> 00:42:45,239
meanness towards Alexia, and she was
speaking out about it more and threatening to

478
00:42:45,679 --> 00:42:51,000
call the authorities to get us taken
away. So Barbara and Larry decided to

479
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:55,480
kick my grandmother out, and once
my grandmother no longer lived there, I

480
00:42:55,519 --> 00:43:00,320
missed a lot of school taking care
of Alexia because Barbara went come out of

481
00:43:00,360 --> 00:43:02,960
her room from time to time.
She would tell me to stay home just

482
00:43:04,000 --> 00:43:07,880
because she didn't want to deal with
that Chinese bitch is what she would call

483
00:43:07,920 --> 00:43:10,320
Alexia a lot of the times.
But then other times she's like, you

484
00:43:10,400 --> 00:43:14,000
have to go to school because if
not, the cops are going to come

485
00:43:14,039 --> 00:43:16,480
after me for you missing too many
days. It was hit or miss with

486
00:43:16,519 --> 00:43:22,360
her, But some days I would
stay home if Alexia was feeling emotionally like

487
00:43:22,760 --> 00:43:25,360
unstable, I guess you could say, because there would be some times where

488
00:43:25,360 --> 00:43:29,320
she would be like, I just
don't want to be here alone. She's

489
00:43:29,480 --> 00:43:31,079
always told me when I came home
from school that they don't feed her.

490
00:43:31,159 --> 00:43:34,559
Nobody comes out of the bedroom,
and then they don't feed her while I'm

491
00:43:34,599 --> 00:43:37,760
gone, So it made me not
want to go to school because I didn't

492
00:43:37,800 --> 00:43:40,719
know what was happening to her when
she was gone. When I was gone.

493
00:43:42,639 --> 00:43:46,800
Just like Chad, Alexia approached five
years old and was never enrolled in

494
00:43:46,880 --> 00:43:50,960
kindergarten. She was pretty smart.
I mean I think she would have been

495
00:43:50,960 --> 00:43:54,239
a highly intelligent little girl. I
mean I will never know because she didn't

496
00:43:54,239 --> 00:43:57,840
even get to go to school to
see if she could read or anything like

497
00:43:57,880 --> 00:44:00,119
that. But when you grow up
in the household like I do, you

498
00:44:00,360 --> 00:44:05,599
did, you grow up quicker.
So she was well beyond her years with

499
00:44:05,639 --> 00:44:12,280
her verbal and emotional development. Things
were getting weird, not only because Barbara's

500
00:44:12,280 --> 00:44:16,760
own addiction to methamphetamine was getting worse, but because she had gotten Larry on

501
00:44:16,920 --> 00:44:22,880
meth as well. He once had
a stable job before a workplace injury,

502
00:44:23,639 --> 00:44:30,639
but was unemployed by February of nineteen
ninety seven and had begun skulking back into

503
00:44:30,679 --> 00:44:36,840
the bedroom with Barbara on a daily
basis. At one point, Larry before

504
00:44:36,840 --> 00:44:39,280
his accent, he agreed that she
needed to get help and he kicked her

505
00:44:39,280 --> 00:44:45,079
out. With both my grandmother and
him decided to kick her out, and

506
00:44:45,119 --> 00:44:47,679
within like a few hours, she
went back at the door just crying and

507
00:44:47,760 --> 00:44:51,800
begging to come back, swearing that
she was going to do better and go

508
00:44:51,840 --> 00:44:55,119
to rehab and all of this,
and they both let her back in,

509
00:44:55,199 --> 00:45:04,119
and no rehab ever happened. Soon
they were making paranoid accusations, claiming the

510
00:45:04,159 --> 00:45:10,840
girls were possessed. Every day held
a new scary encounter with Barbara or Larry.

511
00:45:13,119 --> 00:45:44,400
And this was all just the beginning. Thirteen year old Jessica Rail sat

512
00:45:44,480 --> 00:45:50,119
in an interrogation room in late nineteen
ninety seven, rehashing every single detail of

513
00:45:50,119 --> 00:45:54,079
what happened to her little sister,
five year old Alexia. There was not

514
00:45:54,280 --> 00:46:00,039
a crumb of evidence that Alexia even
existed in the Carrasco home, but she

515
00:46:00,199 --> 00:46:07,760
had lived there with Jessica, hidden
within the confines of the deceivingly normal looking

516
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:13,159
outer walls. As she began to
divulge more of her story, police officers

517
00:46:13,159 --> 00:46:19,280
and FBI agents couldn't believe what they
were hearing, especially because they didn't have

518
00:46:19,320 --> 00:46:25,440
any evidence that could corroborate that Jessica's
story was even true. This would soon

519
00:46:25,599 --> 00:46:31,920
change very shortly before the worst part
of Jessica's story, she told detectives about

520
00:46:31,920 --> 00:46:38,039
her mother and Larry's drug use and
increased paranoia, something that eventually led to

521
00:46:38,079 --> 00:46:45,559
the couple accusing both Jessica and little
Alexia of being possessed by demons. It's

522
00:46:45,599 --> 00:46:51,440
important to note, though, that
Barbara's behavior can't be mitigated by her drug

523
00:46:51,519 --> 00:46:54,559
use. It would be easy to
blame everything on drugs, of course it

524
00:46:54,599 --> 00:47:02,679
would, but Barbara's personality was poisoned
from the very beginning. Math just you

525
00:47:02,679 --> 00:47:07,800
know, had a little uh and
a little spice to the mix, a

526
00:47:07,800 --> 00:47:15,079
little chaser on your cocktail if you
don't mind the uh comparison. My grandmother

527
00:47:15,440 --> 00:47:20,519
raised her with her father, and
I know she was very spoiled. My

528
00:47:20,599 --> 00:47:28,159
grandmother had my uncle and then she
had like eight miscarriages over like thirteen years

529
00:47:28,199 --> 00:47:31,679
before she got pregnant with my mother. So she spoiled the hell out of

530
00:47:31,679 --> 00:47:35,719
my mother. She had everything under
the sun, Like I don't think she

531
00:47:35,760 --> 00:47:39,159
ever worked for anything in her life, high or not high. My mother

532
00:47:39,519 --> 00:47:45,960
was. It was always what she
wanted, how she wanted it, and

533
00:47:45,079 --> 00:47:52,280
if only if it benefited her.
Fearing for her little sister's safety, Jessica

534
00:47:52,320 --> 00:47:55,800
began missing more and more school so
that she could stay home and keep an

535
00:47:55,840 --> 00:48:00,360
eye on her. So she stayed
home as often as she could. There

536
00:48:00,400 --> 00:48:05,519
were, of course, still days
when Jessica had to be away at school

537
00:48:05,760 --> 00:48:10,880
all day long, anxious the entire
day knowing that Alexia was without her protection.

538
00:48:12,679 --> 00:48:15,360
I think that was one of the
saddest things I've ever witnessed is I

539
00:48:15,440 --> 00:48:19,840
came home from school and she was
in her room and she was playing,

540
00:48:19,920 --> 00:48:23,440
and the door was slightly open,
and I see her just playing with the

541
00:48:23,559 --> 00:48:29,679
stuffed dogs and I'm like, well, where's your baby dolls? And She's

542
00:48:29,719 --> 00:48:31,320
like, they're under the bed,
and I'm like why, she goes well,

543
00:48:31,360 --> 00:48:35,280
because babies are babies are bad and
they need to be locked up.

544
00:48:35,840 --> 00:48:37,800
And I just was like, then, why are we playing with the puppies?

545
00:48:38,400 --> 00:48:43,880
She was because everybody loves puppies,
And I was just like, the

546
00:48:43,920 --> 00:48:45,960
most heartrenching, saddest thing I think
I've ever witnessed. And I was like

547
00:48:46,000 --> 00:48:50,559
twelve at the time, and that's
what the first thing I thought was,

548
00:48:50,719 --> 00:48:55,320
Well, if she's playing this with
her dolls, something has to be happening

549
00:48:55,320 --> 00:48:59,960
while I'm at school. All I
really got out of her is the fact

550
00:48:59,960 --> 00:49:01,719
that they left her alone and they
never fed her, and she was always

551
00:49:01,760 --> 00:49:07,800
hungry. Once summer started, I
got to witness a lot of what they

552
00:49:07,840 --> 00:49:10,840
were doing, and it was a
lot of locking her in a closet cutting

553
00:49:10,880 --> 00:49:15,400
all her hair off one time because
my mother didn't want to deal with it.

554
00:49:15,039 --> 00:49:21,639
And that was an emotionally hard thing
to watch because I hear her crying

555
00:49:21,679 --> 00:49:27,119
and I go find them in their
master bedroom closet and she's got Alexia taped

556
00:49:27,320 --> 00:49:30,480
like duct taped to a four poster
chair while she's just cutting all her hair

557
00:49:30,519 --> 00:49:36,519
off, and I'm under like,
I don't didn't understand why would we need

558
00:49:36,559 --> 00:49:38,599
to do that? And Barbara's excuse
was she didn't want to take care of

559
00:49:38,639 --> 00:49:42,760
her hair, and then I,
with my smart mouth, said well you

560
00:49:42,800 --> 00:49:45,679
don't, I do like leave it
alone, like I'll take care of it.

561
00:49:45,679 --> 00:49:49,960
It didn't work out. She's still
cut basically all of her hair off.

562
00:49:51,000 --> 00:49:52,599
She said lots of nasty things to
her while she was cutting her hair

563
00:49:52,639 --> 00:49:59,800
off. The demons and the vampire
talk started probably right after my grandmother was

564
00:50:00,119 --> 00:50:02,719
out, but it wasn't on a
regular basis. I finished my seventh grade

565
00:50:02,800 --> 00:50:07,880
year and then during that summer more
and more talk of the demons and the

566
00:50:07,960 --> 00:50:15,079
vampires. Apparently Lexia and I were
demons. And Barbara thought she was God

567
00:50:15,119 --> 00:50:20,039
at one point, and she was
pregnant Jesus, and she told me that

568
00:50:20,199 --> 00:50:24,079
I had to die because I was
sucking the electricity out of her baby.

569
00:50:24,480 --> 00:50:31,039
It was just random, out of
nowhere things. And I never said I

570
00:50:31,159 --> 00:50:35,440
was I never said I wasn't.
I didn't go against her. I just

571
00:50:35,719 --> 00:50:42,639
let her talk. On two different
occasions, someone probably Jessica's grandmother, called

572
00:50:42,679 --> 00:50:46,599
CPS or the Sheriff's department to go
out to the Carrasco home and check on

573
00:50:46,639 --> 00:50:52,360
the girls. Of course, Barbara
and Larry had prepared the girls for events

574
00:50:52,639 --> 00:50:57,960
like this, and they behaved accordingly. It was in the summer, like

575
00:50:58,000 --> 00:51:00,800
the very beginning of summer. Right
after my grandmother was kicked out. The

576
00:51:00,840 --> 00:51:07,000
cops came and I told them everything
was fine, but I wasn't gonna say

577
00:51:07,320 --> 00:51:09,760
things were horrible or anything was going
on, because Barbara and Larry were standing

578
00:51:10,519 --> 00:51:15,039
right next to me, and the
cops weren't even coming in the house,

579
00:51:15,079 --> 00:51:19,320
they just stood in the doorway.
So I just went with it. Everything's

580
00:51:19,320 --> 00:51:22,639
fine, I'm good, We're all
good. And then the more talks of

581
00:51:22,679 --> 00:51:29,599
demons and vampires and Barbara putting like
cameras in the ceiling to watch me,

582
00:51:29,760 --> 00:51:34,480
because apparently I was trying to sneak
out or kill her or whatever she thought

583
00:51:34,480 --> 00:51:40,000
I was doing. We had my
bedroom windows was bolted shut. There's really

584
00:51:40,039 --> 00:51:44,679
no escaping that house. She took
the phone out away, so I couldn't

585
00:51:44,719 --> 00:51:46,880
call anybody, and it was summertime, so it's not like I had a

586
00:51:46,920 --> 00:51:51,360
reason to leave the house. And
then all of a sudden, she and

587
00:51:51,440 --> 00:51:54,599
Larry sit us down and tell us
that they figured out how to get rid

588
00:51:54,639 --> 00:51:58,840
of the demons and the vampires,
and that we would need to drink these

589
00:51:59,320 --> 00:52:04,000
leash milk three times a day for
eight days to rid us of our demons.

590
00:52:04,639 --> 00:52:09,440
Three bleach milkshakes per day for eight
days meant that each girl would have

591
00:52:09,480 --> 00:52:16,239
to consume twenty four total milkshakes,
which were often mixed with garlic and other

592
00:52:16,360 --> 00:52:22,320
spices. Jessica was a middle schooler, but Alexia was a tiny, little

593
00:52:22,360 --> 00:52:28,280
five year old. Jessica knew there
was no way Alexia would be able to

594
00:52:28,280 --> 00:52:34,400
survive all twenty four of those shakes. It was very an intimidating process because

595
00:52:34,440 --> 00:52:37,840
Larry and Barbara both sat at the
table with us and like stared us down,

596
00:52:37,840 --> 00:52:43,039
and we weren't allowed to leave unless
we drank it. But initially I

597
00:52:43,159 --> 00:52:45,760
had refused, and Larry punched me
in the face and gave me two black

598
00:52:45,760 --> 00:52:51,880
eyes because I refused to come out
of my bedroom to go drink this concoction.

599
00:52:52,039 --> 00:52:54,880
After he did that, I realized
I had no choice in that if

600
00:52:55,039 --> 00:53:02,639
I didn't, I was probably gonna
end up beaten. So I started drinking

601
00:53:02,719 --> 00:53:08,800
them. But it was chalky,
and it burned, and you wanted to

602
00:53:08,840 --> 00:53:15,320
throw up, and it was just
a horrible experience. And Alexia had to

603
00:53:15,440 --> 00:53:22,280
drink the same amount as mean and
obviously would have major effects on someone being

604
00:53:22,320 --> 00:53:28,639
so little as opposed to me was
a little bit heavier as a teenager and

605
00:53:28,679 --> 00:53:35,440
a little forty pound year big kid
drinking the same amount. It burned my

606
00:53:35,559 --> 00:53:39,599
throat and burned my stomach, but
it didn't like last long for some reason,

607
00:53:39,719 --> 00:53:43,599
and it didn't like make me nauseous
or anything. After like the third

608
00:53:43,679 --> 00:53:46,159
day, it was horrible tasting,
but I was able to just get them

609
00:53:46,199 --> 00:53:52,320
down. The first couple times we
had those shakes, I was able to

610
00:53:52,320 --> 00:53:57,679
sneak Alexia and I off into the
bathroom and throw up. I had to

611
00:53:58,559 --> 00:54:01,840
basically put my fingers down her throat
because she didn't understand the concept to make

612
00:54:01,880 --> 00:54:07,639
her throw up, But Larry and
Barbara caught us doing that, and then

613
00:54:07,719 --> 00:54:13,360
after that we were always kept separated
and weren't allowed to go back to our

614
00:54:13,360 --> 00:54:17,320
wounds until they determined it to be
safe, or they would just put us

615
00:54:17,320 --> 00:54:21,039
directly in our rooms and lock us
in there, so we had no way

616
00:54:21,079 --> 00:54:25,800
of throwing up unless we wanted to
puke in our beds. Well, I

617
00:54:25,800 --> 00:54:31,880
think we barely made halfway through the
second day, and we were separated the

618
00:54:31,920 --> 00:54:37,360
rest of the time. For most
of the time, honestly, I didn't

619
00:54:37,400 --> 00:54:39,079
get to see or know. I
mean I would hear her like crying and

620
00:54:39,079 --> 00:54:43,840
whimpering, so I knew she was
still alive. But a lot of times,

621
00:54:44,719 --> 00:54:47,400
unless both of them were there,
we weren't allowed to be together.

622
00:54:49,559 --> 00:54:54,360
As if the bleach milkshakes weren't bad
enough, Barbara and Larry began doing the

623
00:54:54,480 --> 00:55:02,880
unthinkable. They did bring us out
together sometimes to additional fun torture when she

624
00:55:04,920 --> 00:55:09,239
put bleach in our ears and our
eyes on a daily basis, we got

625
00:55:09,239 --> 00:55:14,039
to do that together, but other
than that, she was normally a pretty

626
00:55:14,119 --> 00:55:19,000
much locked in the master bedroom closet
I mean, I just remember every time

627
00:55:19,400 --> 00:55:23,039
Barbara did it to her, she
just screamed, like uncontrollably screamed. Yeah,

628
00:55:23,280 --> 00:55:27,280
it was horrible, But I honestly
I blocked a lot of stuff out.

629
00:55:27,800 --> 00:55:30,679
I didn't allow myself to think or
feel about a lot of things because

630
00:55:30,800 --> 00:55:35,719
I just I felt just so defeated
because there was nothing I could do anyway.

631
00:55:37,000 --> 00:55:42,159
No matter what option I thought of, none of them ended well.

632
00:55:43,039 --> 00:55:45,199
So if I thought of escaping,
like how do I get Alexia out?

633
00:55:45,280 --> 00:55:49,800
Because I can't leave without her,
I can't get to the phone. And

634
00:55:49,880 --> 00:55:52,760
eventually just became too much and I
kind of honestly gave up. It was

635
00:55:52,840 --> 00:55:58,440
nearing the end of the eight days, and Barbara had even more in store

636
00:55:58,519 --> 00:56:04,480
for the girls, Jessica in particular. At this time, Barbara and Larry

637
00:56:05,119 --> 00:56:09,519
still had their ten French bulldogs back
in the dog shed, and Barbara loved

638
00:56:09,519 --> 00:56:15,760
those dogs more than her own children, even so she killed them all.

639
00:56:16,360 --> 00:56:20,519
They probably had two days left,
maybe three days left of the bleach shakes,

640
00:56:20,519 --> 00:56:24,320
and Barbara made me come outside and
watch, well help her. I

641
00:56:24,360 --> 00:56:28,039
guess it didn't help, but she
made me bring the dogs out one by

642
00:56:28,119 --> 00:56:30,360
one and she drowned each one of
them in a bucket of bleach water in

643
00:56:30,400 --> 00:56:36,960
the backyard midle of summer, and
nobody. Nobody knew a thing, nobody

644
00:56:37,360 --> 00:56:40,360
heard a thing, No neighbors called. And it's not like we lived far

645
00:56:40,400 --> 00:56:45,199
from other neighbors. It was residential. They were right there. You could

646
00:56:45,199 --> 00:56:49,639
have looked over your fence and seenior
neighbor. She loved those dogs in one

647
00:56:49,679 --> 00:56:52,920
them, She loved us, and
they were her income. So I don't

648
00:56:52,000 --> 00:56:58,360
understand why she just drowned all of
her income. That was more of the

649
00:56:58,400 --> 00:57:00,320
reason, Like she just wanted to
show me that she could do this,

650
00:57:00,400 --> 00:57:04,639
And if she could do it to
these dogs that I know she loved more

651
00:57:04,679 --> 00:57:07,880
than us, it would be easier
for her to do it to us too,

652
00:57:07,679 --> 00:57:13,599
Just as Jessica feared, Alexia didn't
make it through the full eight days

653
00:57:13,599 --> 00:57:17,400
of bleach shakes. Each time Jessica
saw her, on the occasions they were

654
00:57:17,400 --> 00:57:24,079
both dragged from isolation for torture sessions, Alexia looked more pale and sickly.

655
00:57:25,119 --> 00:57:31,280
Her skin had a grayish cast,
and the sparkle had left the little girl's

656
00:57:31,280 --> 00:57:37,719
eyes. It was day seven and
Alexia had failed to drink her milkshake.

657
00:57:37,920 --> 00:57:45,039
She was, after all, nearly
catatonic by this point. Barbara dragged Alexia

658
00:57:45,119 --> 00:57:50,280
out of the kitchen by her hair
and locked her in the master bedroom closet.

659
00:57:51,599 --> 00:57:55,760
When lunchtime rolled around and it was
time for another round of milkshakes,

660
00:57:57,960 --> 00:58:02,119
Alexia was absent on the table When
I walked down the hallway to come out

661
00:58:02,159 --> 00:58:12,400
to have my you know, twentyeth
shake. Alexia was completely naked in the

662
00:58:12,440 --> 00:58:19,000
bathtub and there was a enema bag
in the bathtub with her. She was

663
00:58:19,039 --> 00:58:22,440
making small sounds, but she wasn't
really moving. I wanted to go in,

664
00:58:22,880 --> 00:58:27,400
but Larry pushed me and told me
to go sit down and have my

665
00:58:27,480 --> 00:58:34,199
shake. So I'm sitting with Larry
at the table having my shake. Barbara

666
00:58:34,360 --> 00:58:38,000
goes into the bathroom. I don't
know what she was doing to Alexia while

667
00:58:38,039 --> 00:58:43,239
she was in the bathroom, but
then she brings Alexia out of the bathtub,

668
00:58:43,480 --> 00:58:49,280
lays her naked on the floor,
and realizes that she's not breathing.

669
00:58:50,800 --> 00:58:53,719
She swear she you know, she's
already died. So she leans over her

670
00:58:54,079 --> 00:59:00,159
and gives her like one half assed
attempt at CPR, like one breath,

671
00:59:00,559 --> 00:59:08,679
no compressions, no nothing, and
then just smiles and realizes she's dead,

672
00:59:09,880 --> 00:59:15,360
and I'm freaking out, like asking
are you sure, because isn't there a

673
00:59:15,360 --> 00:59:19,280
way to save her? Like how
do you know? You're not a doctor.

674
00:59:20,480 --> 00:59:24,800
But nobody did any further attempts to
save her or make sure she was

675
00:59:24,840 --> 00:59:30,199
actually really past. So that was
it. Ex Yeah, was gone,

676
00:59:31,239 --> 00:59:39,280
and Barbara and Larry seemed relieved.
Barbara had killed her own little girl and

677
00:59:39,400 --> 00:59:45,639
ten of her own dogs. What
would stop her from killing Jessica too?

678
00:59:45,559 --> 00:59:51,480
My mother was always looking for a
way to keep me locked up. She

679
00:59:51,679 --> 00:59:53,559
told me that there was bad men
out there, that they would take me

680
00:59:53,599 --> 00:59:58,480
and do worse things to me.
She told me that the cops were on

681
00:59:58,519 --> 01:00:01,440
her side and they would just bring
me right back. She also told me

682
01:00:01,480 --> 01:00:06,920
that nobody would believe me, because
who's going to believe that this is happening.

683
01:00:07,360 --> 01:00:10,559
They would just think you're crazy and
lock you up. She had a

684
01:00:09,960 --> 01:00:15,960
lot of reasons, and I,
you know, not really having much contact

685
01:00:15,960 --> 01:00:20,199
with the outside world for quite a
long time. Name she was right,

686
01:00:20,480 --> 01:00:24,719
so I didn't even attempt to try
to leave. Even praying to God,

687
01:00:24,920 --> 01:00:30,239
as her grandmother had taught her,
seemed like a futile effort. She had

688
01:00:30,280 --> 01:00:37,280
tried it before, and God clearly
hadn't heard her or hadn't cared for a

689
01:00:37,280 --> 01:00:38,880
little while I was in my room, because I guess they were discussing what

690
01:00:38,960 --> 01:00:45,119
to do with her. But immediately
before they made the huge plan what to

691
01:00:45,159 --> 01:00:46,760
do with her, they'd put her
in a black trash brag and put her

692
01:00:46,800 --> 01:00:52,599
in the freezer in our garage.
I didn't believe in God, because how

693
01:00:52,599 --> 01:00:58,199
could a god allow things like this
to happen to children? And then I

694
01:00:58,199 --> 01:01:02,480
was also highly confused because Barbara said
she was God and then pregnant with Jesus,

695
01:01:02,599 --> 01:01:07,760
And while I knew that wasn't right, I also thought, well,

696
01:01:07,800 --> 01:01:10,480
why did my mom lie? Like
moms aren't supposed to lie to you.

697
01:01:12,039 --> 01:01:15,400
So it was very confusing trying to
like, you know what's not right,

698
01:01:17,719 --> 01:01:21,280
but you want your mom to love
you so much, and you want your

699
01:01:21,280 --> 01:01:23,639
mom to take care of you,
so you want to believe her, and

700
01:01:23,679 --> 01:01:28,559
you go with what she says because
it makes it easier. It was just

701
01:01:28,599 --> 01:01:34,360
a mess. In the time before
they finally disposed of Alexia's frozen body,

702
01:01:35,199 --> 01:01:38,920
Barbara and Larry made a game out
of sending Jessica to the garage to get

703
01:01:38,960 --> 01:01:45,920
sodas for them, sometimes even requiring
her to get meat and other things out

704
01:01:45,920 --> 01:01:51,760
of the same freezer that held Alexia's
corpse. She was in the freezer probably

705
01:01:51,800 --> 01:01:58,199
for about a week before they really
decided what their process of elimination was going

706
01:01:58,239 --> 01:02:01,800
to be and their backstorre. I
was brought out of my room one day

707
01:02:01,880 --> 01:02:07,360
and sat down and told that if
anybody asked what happened to Alexia, we're

708
01:02:07,440 --> 01:02:09,559
just going to tell them that she
lives in Chicago with her biological father.

709
01:02:10,599 --> 01:02:17,159
And as they were telling me this, they're bringing me into the master bedroom,

710
01:02:19,000 --> 01:02:23,239
into the closet, and the Alexia's
body in the trash bag is on

711
01:02:23,280 --> 01:02:30,880
the closet floor, and I'm forced
in the closet with Larry standing by and

712
01:02:30,920 --> 01:02:34,480
sitting next to me with a gun
pointed at me, telling me to repeat

713
01:02:34,480 --> 01:02:39,199
the story over and over again while
they work on dismembering her body. They

714
01:02:39,239 --> 01:02:43,039
had a whole set up, the
whole All of the clothes were gone,

715
01:02:43,559 --> 01:02:46,679
there was like no they had redone
the floor, so it was like linoleum

716
01:02:46,719 --> 01:02:51,880
on the floor in the closet,
and they had the trash bags and plastic

717
01:02:51,920 --> 01:02:54,920
taped to the floor, and there
was a meat cleaver and axe and some

718
01:02:55,000 --> 01:03:00,480
kind of saw and extra trash bags
all set up and ready to go.

719
01:03:01,119 --> 01:03:07,360
And they at first Barbara couldn't do
it, She couldn't start dismembering her,

720
01:03:07,480 --> 01:03:10,719
so Larry gave her the gun.
She kept the gun trained on me,

721
01:03:12,000 --> 01:03:16,199
and Larry removed Alexia's head from her
body. And then after that point Barbara

722
01:03:16,320 --> 01:03:20,400
was like, oh, I think
I can do this, and she takes

723
01:03:20,440 --> 01:03:28,039
over dismembering her thoroughly. I didn't
know you could make a body look the

724
01:03:28,079 --> 01:03:34,800
way she ended up looking, and
just handfuls of her in a trash bag

725
01:03:34,920 --> 01:03:39,440
like at a time until there was
nothing left. They more or less made

726
01:03:39,480 --> 01:03:45,920
it like she went through a meat
grinder. Though they had a huge mess

727
01:03:45,920 --> 01:03:51,280
to clean up. Barbara and Larry
were on meth, so just imagine a

728
01:03:51,320 --> 01:03:54,480
couple of meth heads cleaning up a
crime scene. What I'm trying to say

729
01:03:54,559 --> 01:04:00,320
is they left not a single stray
hair to be found by lawn horsemen.

730
01:04:00,480 --> 01:04:09,119
They got everything. I mean,
they should start a business for cleaning homes.

731
01:04:09,199 --> 01:04:15,719
Just immaculate, really. And they
also had a plan for what to

732
01:04:15,800 --> 01:04:19,760
do with the remainder of Alexia's body
once they were finished. In the closet.

733
01:04:20,000 --> 01:04:24,280
They had placed all of her remains
in her trash bag. I was

734
01:04:24,320 --> 01:04:29,159
allowed to go take a shower finally, which was well needed because I had

735
01:04:29,480 --> 01:04:35,639
bits of body pieces that hew from
the force of her chopping all over me.

736
01:04:36,159 --> 01:04:40,320
So I was allowed to take a
shower. After my shower, it

737
01:04:40,400 --> 01:04:47,000
brought out into the family room and
they burned her body in the fireplace,

738
01:04:49,239 --> 01:04:56,679
literally larry one handful out of time, and after throughout three or four hours,

739
01:04:56,719 --> 01:05:03,960
they eventually burned the whole bag.
Just a reminder, this all occurred

740
01:05:03,960 --> 01:05:10,960
in the middle of July. The
smoke from a burning body looks and smells

741
01:05:11,079 --> 01:05:16,199
much different than any other kind of
smoke. It's not like a burning pile

742
01:05:16,280 --> 01:05:24,440
of leaves or a cozy fireplace.
It's not even like a backyard barbecue cookout,

743
01:05:25,519 --> 01:05:30,679
not even the pellet grill me.
I like the trigger. It's easy

744
01:05:30,719 --> 01:05:35,039
to keep your temperatures regulated. And
there's all sorts of different flavors of pellets

745
01:05:35,039 --> 01:05:39,840
to choose from. I like the
hickory. A lot of people like apple,

746
01:05:40,639 --> 01:05:45,440
but I like hickory. Smells pretty
good. There's a nice, sharp

747
01:05:45,920 --> 01:05:49,400
smoky taste on your meats. Anyway, this must be a part of California

748
01:05:49,440 --> 01:05:55,199
that has a lot of cookouts,
because nobody complained about the smell or the

749
01:05:55,239 --> 01:05:59,679
fact that there was even a fireplace
on in California in the middle of July.

750
01:06:00,079 --> 01:06:06,519
Despite these oddities, nobody bothered to
call police. Not even one anonymous

751
01:06:06,559 --> 01:06:13,199
tip was left. I guess people
in California are so used to seeing just

752
01:06:13,639 --> 01:06:16,920
horrible, fucked up shit that they
just don't even bother anymore. In any

753
01:06:16,960 --> 01:06:20,039
case, in the middle of the
night, the three of them drove off

754
01:06:20,079 --> 01:06:28,079
in Barbara's white Ford Bronco dump Alexia's
ashes into the Sacramento River, along with

755
01:06:28,119 --> 01:06:33,440
all the tools they used to dismember
her, and also the ice chest that

756
01:06:33,559 --> 01:06:38,840
held her frozen body. And then
on the way back to the car,

757
01:06:40,280 --> 01:06:44,119
they realized that they locked the keys
in the car, so they had to

758
01:06:44,159 --> 01:06:48,519
break the window to get in so
we could get home. This would be

759
01:06:48,559 --> 01:06:57,119
the one detail in Jessica's story that
corroborated evidence found by law enforcement. This

760
01:06:57,239 --> 01:07:02,360
meant that police could believe what she
was saying, even though Alexia's body and

761
01:07:02,400 --> 01:07:09,400
the rest of the physical evidence were
long gone. Jessica had told us that

762
01:07:09,559 --> 01:07:14,440
Larry and Barbara had locked themselves out
of the car at the Sacramento River and

763
01:07:14,599 --> 01:07:17,719
that had to break the window to
get in, and based on her description,

764
01:07:18,000 --> 01:07:21,400
there was a ton of glass right
there, so the lapse took the

765
01:07:21,440 --> 01:07:26,400
glass and it turned out to be
from their car. Just a side note

766
01:07:26,639 --> 01:07:30,639
and something that is totally on brand
for Barbara in case you missed it,

767
01:07:31,039 --> 01:07:39,000
she drove a white Ford Bronco in
nineteen ninety seven, the same exact kind

768
01:07:39,239 --> 01:07:45,920
of Ford Bronco that OJ Simpson was
famous for driving. This was no accident.

769
01:07:46,599 --> 01:07:51,400
I hated that car. She had
to buy one. When OJ Simpson

770
01:07:51,400 --> 01:07:57,239
went up for trial and he had
that white Bronco, she had to buy

771
01:07:57,280 --> 01:08:00,280
one. And she loved driving it
because it was around the same time as

772
01:08:00,280 --> 01:08:03,599
the trial was going on, and
everybody would be like, go Oj,

773
01:08:03,920 --> 01:08:08,039
as we're driving, and she just
got the biggest kick at it, being

774
01:08:08,079 --> 01:08:12,159
like the center of attention over the
stupid car. As we know now,

775
01:08:12,599 --> 01:08:17,279
Barbara and OJ have a lot in
common, She too would soon become the

776
01:08:17,319 --> 01:08:23,439
center of attention, not just because
of the Ford Bronco, but because she

777
01:08:23,479 --> 01:08:28,960
had murdered someone. First, law
enforcement had to make sure the case would

778
01:08:29,000 --> 01:08:34,640
be prosecutable. The lack of physical
evidence would certainly make that a challenge Alexia's

779
01:08:34,680 --> 01:08:42,880
case. I never was successfully able
to guess where we were going. Ever.

780
01:08:43,640 --> 01:08:46,680
Mona Fjord was the detective in charge
of the case, and I think

781
01:08:46,720 --> 01:08:50,800
she went back and got like five
search warrants. I mean, she just

782
01:08:51,159 --> 01:09:00,560
was absolutely determined to go back there. And we brought a a crime scene

783
01:09:00,560 --> 01:09:08,680
investigator who literally peeled the paint off
the walls, looking for a residue of

784
01:09:08,760 --> 01:09:13,279
blood or anything that could have been
there underneath it. We also sent the

785
01:09:13,319 --> 01:09:18,319
fireplace from the house back to Quantico
and had that tested by the FED the

786
01:09:18,840 --> 01:09:26,479
FBI lab, and that didn't give
up anything either. I knew that I

787
01:09:26,600 --> 01:09:35,279
deliberately caused Jessica to experience an emotional
up people, and I knew it was

788
01:09:35,359 --> 01:09:43,399
my fault. The choice I made
that day was was it more important to

789
01:09:43,520 --> 01:09:48,520
leave Jessica alone or was it more
important to try and find out what happened

790
01:09:48,560 --> 01:09:55,800
to Alexia. I chose Alexia,
and I'm glad I did, and I

791
01:09:55,800 --> 01:10:00,720
think Jessica is glad I did.
But you know, when and Jessica's demeanor

792
01:10:02,000 --> 01:10:05,680
and how she described things, there
was no question that she was telling the

793
01:10:05,680 --> 01:10:13,239
truth. Both Larry and Barbara's convictions
would rest on Jessica's testimony and the broken

794
01:10:13,279 --> 01:10:16,560
glass from the car window. The
testimony was fine, but they also said

795
01:10:16,600 --> 01:10:20,840
because I lied for so long,
the jury would trying to make it seem

796
01:10:20,880 --> 01:10:25,399
like I wasn't credible because I had
lied for so long. But once they

797
01:10:25,479 --> 01:10:30,640
did serve Barbara and Larry with their
resta warrant for the murder, they both

798
01:10:30,720 --> 01:10:35,880
started like basically telling the same story, just blaming it on each other.

799
01:10:36,920 --> 01:10:43,640
Both Barbara and Larry still pleaded not
guilty, which meant both of them would

800
01:10:43,640 --> 01:10:48,239
go to trial. Larry's trial was
first in February of two thousand and it

801
01:10:48,319 --> 01:10:56,159
lasted three days. The jury found
him guilty of second degree murder and ten

802
01:10:56,239 --> 01:11:00,119
counts of child abuse and torture.
A month later, he was sentenced to

803
01:11:00,279 --> 01:11:08,640
forty years to life. Barbara's timeline
was a bit different. Her first plea

804
01:11:08,880 --> 01:11:13,760
was a not guilty plea, but
then she changed it to not guilty by

805
01:11:13,800 --> 01:11:18,239
reason of insanity. On the day
of jury selection for both of their cases,

806
01:11:18,279 --> 01:11:25,279
Barbara changed her plea to guilty.
In May. A judge found her

807
01:11:25,359 --> 01:11:30,479
legally sane when she committed the murder, which meant she'd spend her sentence in

808
01:11:30,520 --> 01:11:36,640
prison, not a mental institution.
She finally did take a plea deal where

809
01:11:36,680 --> 01:11:42,520
they dropped basically all of the torture
charges and she took her I believe it

810
01:11:42,520 --> 01:11:47,760
was murder one and got sentenced to
fifteen years to life. I was pissed

811
01:11:47,800 --> 01:11:53,720
off because, yes, she I
guess technically admitted to killing my sister,

812
01:11:54,319 --> 01:11:59,359
but she wasn't getting any time for
what she did. The of a torture

813
01:11:59,399 --> 01:12:03,439
that she did me or my sister. If you have an insane attention to

814
01:12:03,479 --> 01:12:09,079
detail, and most of our listeners
do, Unfortunately, maybe you've done the

815
01:12:09,119 --> 01:12:14,239
math. By now, It's been
well over fifteen years since Barbara's conviction.

816
01:12:15,319 --> 01:12:19,399
She's already been up for parole several
times. Jessica and I both thought,

817
01:12:19,720 --> 01:12:25,279
because California of law right now is
to let people out of jail, and

818
01:12:25,399 --> 01:12:30,479
that's you know, the politics,
and so we really are surprised that she

819
01:12:30,680 --> 01:12:34,960
has been in there still twenty five
years and again was denied parole. We

820
01:12:35,199 --> 01:12:41,640
have thought for a good the last
two or three hearings that she would be

821
01:12:41,680 --> 01:12:45,680
released, and prepared for that to
happen. The thing what the reason that

822
01:12:46,000 --> 01:12:50,600
they always give at the end of
when they make their decision, they come

823
01:12:50,640 --> 01:12:55,640
in and still it takes twenty minutes
or whatever. They come back in and

824
01:12:55,680 --> 01:13:00,079
they say, no, Barbara,
you say what you did, but you

825
01:13:00,640 --> 01:13:05,000
don't know why you did what you
did, and you can't you don't accept

826
01:13:05,039 --> 01:13:11,399
any responsibility for what you did.
Aways been up I think four or five

827
01:13:11,479 --> 01:13:15,720
times. The first one I wasn't
aware of. I found out about her

828
01:13:15,760 --> 01:13:20,680
being denied through a newspaper article because
Hammy saw it in the newspaper in California

829
01:13:20,720 --> 01:13:25,760
and sent it to me, and
then I after that, I requested through

830
01:13:25,840 --> 01:13:29,920
victim Services to be notified at whenever
she had a hearing, so I would

831
01:13:29,920 --> 01:13:34,479
attend them via the phone, because
I didn't have a local courthouse to actually

832
01:13:34,560 --> 01:13:41,159
do it like via teleconference. But
her most recent one was last December,

833
01:13:41,239 --> 01:13:45,680
December twenty two, and I did
that one via zoom from my house because

834
01:13:45,720 --> 01:13:50,279
COVID allows us to do it that
way now. So I got to see

835
01:13:50,319 --> 01:13:57,880
her and hear about all of her
wonderful successes and how you know, she's

836
01:13:57,880 --> 01:14:03,039
got her education, and she's found
religion, and she's mentors all the new

837
01:14:03,079 --> 01:14:10,760
lifers and she's just this wonderful human
being now and I get to tell my

838
01:14:10,840 --> 01:14:17,920
peace and defunk everything she says.
And she still has not taken full responsibility

839
01:14:18,000 --> 01:14:24,159
for her part in my sister's death, and she still has no remorse whatsoever

840
01:14:24,199 --> 01:14:29,399
for anything that happened and her Basically, the only truthful thing I got out

841
01:14:29,439 --> 01:14:31,680
of her in the last hearing was
that she never wanted us and never loved

842
01:14:31,720 --> 01:14:38,600
any of us. Despite spending her
entire adolescence in the foster care system,

843
01:14:39,199 --> 01:14:44,840
Jessica now has three children of her
own, a college degree, and her

844
01:14:44,840 --> 01:14:50,359
own business, yet further proof that
you do not have to be confined by

845
01:14:50,399 --> 01:14:58,039
where you come from. There is
a way out if you put in the

846
01:14:58,159 --> 01:15:04,479
work days. Jessica strives to be
a good mother by deliberately avoiding any resemblance

847
01:15:05,319 --> 01:15:12,439
to her own mother, a common
tactic by many who come from abusive homes.

848
01:15:13,520 --> 01:15:17,640
When Jessica had her first child,
a girl, she wanted to memorialize

849
01:15:17,640 --> 01:15:25,640
Alexia, so she named her first
born after her little sister. Jessica's math

850
01:15:25,680 --> 01:15:30,399
teacher from all of those years ago, Tammy Cooper, still keeps in touch

851
01:15:30,439 --> 01:15:34,720
with her and they visit each other's
families regularly. I'm really glad I picked

852
01:15:34,800 --> 01:15:39,920
miss Cooper Tammy to be the one
to tell out of all my teachers.

853
01:15:40,600 --> 01:15:43,800
She made a promise to me that
that day that she would stay with me

854
01:15:43,840 --> 01:15:46,439
and she would always be there as
long as I wanted her in my life.

855
01:15:46,600 --> 01:15:50,680
And I didn't believe her because nobody
ever stuck around, But then she

856
01:15:50,720 --> 01:15:55,359
did. She stayed to the hospital
visit, she stayed while I was getting

857
01:15:55,359 --> 01:16:00,920
registered in the receiving home. She
started visiting me afterwards, and she was

858
01:16:00,399 --> 01:16:05,800
instrumental and getting my grandmother because she
didn't have a car, getting my grandmother

859
01:16:06,119 --> 01:16:09,720
able to come see me, because
she would pick her up for me or

860
01:16:09,760 --> 01:16:14,359
take me to my visits. Everything
she said she was going to do,

861
01:16:14,479 --> 01:16:16,199
she did, and she really did
end up becoming like my best friend as

862
01:16:16,199 --> 01:16:25,760
a teenager, Jessica. I never
gave Jessica any money. I never supported

863
01:16:25,760 --> 01:16:29,680
her as a mother or father would
and I gave her, you know,

864
01:16:29,760 --> 01:16:33,880
money here and there for a birthday
or whatever, but never supported her as

865
01:16:34,039 --> 01:16:40,760
my child. And so I had
her teacher and that's the role that we

866
01:16:41,399 --> 01:16:46,800
agreed kind of without talking, and
I followed her. I did several gofund

867
01:16:46,880 --> 01:16:50,840
me pages when she was at a
really bad time, like being kicked out

868
01:16:50,840 --> 01:16:57,199
of her, her home that she
was renting, and we got her through

869
01:16:57,319 --> 01:17:03,960
everything, but she never once depended
on me as her advocate to change her

870
01:17:04,000 --> 01:17:11,119
life and make her life better.
All that she ever, I think wanted

871
01:17:11,159 --> 01:17:15,199
from me was what I could give, which was my love and respect and

872
01:17:15,239 --> 01:17:19,880
that shared history. I'm the only
person who's known this. I'm the only

873
01:17:19,920 --> 01:17:25,439
person that she has known since this
happened. There's nobody else, and so

874
01:17:25,760 --> 01:17:31,680
you know, we have that connection, and I'm so just so proud of

875
01:17:31,760 --> 01:17:39,920
her, just really really proud of
her. Jessica wrote a book that she

876
01:17:40,199 --> 01:17:45,760
self published this year. She only
began therapy for her traumas in recent years

877
01:17:45,800 --> 01:17:51,319
and went through something called memory regression. After every session, she began writing

878
01:17:51,399 --> 01:17:58,880
journal entries recalling each and every detail
of her horrible experiences. When she was

879
01:17:58,920 --> 01:18:03,399
done, she figured she'd turn it
into a book. It's called I'm Not

880
01:18:03,520 --> 01:18:10,319
Broken Surviving the House Demons, and
you can pick up your own copy if

881
01:18:10,359 --> 01:18:15,199
you're interested, at Amazon. The
link will appear in the show notes at

882
01:18:15,239 --> 01:18:21,720
Swordinscale dot com. Jeffrey Rinnick also
has a book detailing his most memorable cases

883
01:18:21,760 --> 01:18:29,319
throughout his thirty plus year FBI career. It's called In the Name of Children,

884
01:18:30,000 --> 01:18:35,000
an FBI agent's relentless pursuit of the
nation's worst predators. If you found

885
01:18:35,079 --> 01:18:43,760
this episode entertaining or interesting, you'll
love their books. Barbara and Larry Carrasco

886
01:18:44,720 --> 01:18:51,640
try to erase the very existence of
five year old Alexia, but she is

887
01:18:51,720 --> 01:19:00,520
forever memorialized in Jessica's Oldest Daughter and
Jeffrey and Jessica's books, and in this

888
01:19:00,840 --> 01:19:08,920
podcast episode you're listening to right now. Now all of you know Barbara's name

889
01:19:09,560 --> 01:19:15,720
also, so if California ever does
let her out, more of us can

890
01:19:15,760 --> 01:19:45,720
be aware that she is and will
forever be a child murderer. And look

891
01:19:45,760 --> 01:19:49,560
at that, another one wrapped up
every week, just like clockwork. Isn't

892
01:19:49,560 --> 01:19:56,359
that weird how they just keep coming. Head on over to sortinscale dot com

893
01:19:56,399 --> 01:20:00,279
to support us and keep them coming
if you want to, and uh,

894
01:20:00,520 --> 01:20:56,640
until next time, stay safe.
I guessed my name, and I want

895
01:20:56,640 --> 01:21:01,800
to start off I apologizing. I
was snipening more and scale greatness for many

896
01:21:01,880 --> 01:21:06,680
years and I realized this is amazing. I need to be supporting this.

897
01:21:08,319 --> 01:21:13,279
I'm ready for stupid Netflix, and
it's nowhere near the amount of time and

898
01:21:14,119 --> 01:21:17,840
information that I've gotten from anywhere else
to Sword Scale. So I started out

899
01:21:17,840 --> 01:21:21,720
a ten dollars level. Stop telling
people about the ten dollars level or you

900
01:21:21,960 --> 01:21:27,079
already at the five dollar level.
Forget it. Pay more white by buck

901
01:21:27,399 --> 01:21:31,319
bottom line work the show Sword and
Scale TV. Holy shit, like this

902
01:21:31,479 --> 01:21:35,920
is amazing. I cannot wait.
I screamed when you announced that. And

903
01:21:35,920 --> 01:21:42,079
there's such a sweet full so excited
that's whole price. Funny what happens when

904
01:21:42,119 --> 01:22:30,199
we turn off RSS feeds? Huhn? Moment, another moment, another moment, a moment
