You're listening to the Mind Over Murder podcast. My name is Bill Thomas.
I'm a writer, consulting, producer, and now podcaster. I am now
trying to use my experience as the brother of a murder victim to help other
victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book on the unsolved Colonial Parkway
murders and I'm the co administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together with
Kristin Dilley. My name is Kristin Dilley. I'm a writer, a researcher,
a teacher, and a victim's advocate, as well as the social media
manager and co administrator for the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook page with my partner in
crime, Bill Thomas. Welcome to mind Over Murder. I'm Kristin Dilley and
I'm Bill Thomas. It's a lovely day out here in pollen Landia. I
don't know about you, but Virginia is absolutely smothering me with pollen. How
about you up there? Eeticuet mister Thomas, about four to six weeks behind
you. I think it's a beautiful day, sunny, great day for a
dog walk, which we just got back from. Pretty spectacular, but not
heavy duty pollen. Not quite yet. Of course, we had snow on
the ground six weeks ago, so yeah, you guys take a little bit
longer to catch up with the rest of us. I want to imply that
we live at the North Pole or anything like that. It's not Virginia,
that's for sure. That is very true, and it is a lovely day
here in coastal Virginia. So thank you all for joining us for this episode
of Mind Never Murder. And as we have grown so very fond of doing,
we've decided to do another true crime news round up. Because there is
so much true crime news to report on and we're not even getting into some
of those true crime stories. We can only cover so much. It is
always a little bit of a trial trying to figure out what exactly do we
need to cover. In this episode, we decided to pick some of the
big, hard hitting stories, and the one that has definitely captured my attention
more than any other right at the moment is the trial of Doomsday mom Lorie
Valo, for the deaths of her children Tylie, Ryan and JJ Vallow.
I shudder every time I see Lorie Vallo's name or the expression Doomsday Mom.
Yeah, very upsetting. And I just very recently finished reading the book The
Doomsday Mother from John Glatt, because we will be interviewing John on our podcast
here fairly soon. You miss the full depths of the story just because the
news reports can only give you so much. And like the Murdoch case,
which I really only feel I barely got a glimpse of before I watched the
Murdoch Murders documentary, this one is also one of those deeply tangled, rather
upsetting cases that you have to do a deep dive on to really understand it.
I don't know if you feel the same way I do. And I'm
really looking forward to this conversation with John Glatt to talk about his book The
Doomsday Mother, and I think that will give us more of a chance to
drill down because this story just goes on and on. Even reading over the
last couple of days to prepare for this discussion, there were so many disturbing
elements to their story that I had forgotten over the last couple of years.
Yeah, and you know this, I can really only call it depraved because
that's the best adjective I can think of. But I'm sure there are others.
This story really started. It was right before we dropped our first episode
of this podcast that started late twenty nineteen, and there was a report of
two missing children. That is how we first learned the names Tylie, Ryan
and JJ Vallo, and that escalated into an increasingly bizarre story that led to
the arrest of Lorie Vallo, Doomsday Mom, and her boyfriend at first later
husband Chad day Bell will get into his issue. She was in just a
couple of minutes for the murders of not only Laurie Valo's kids, but also
the murders of both their former spouses. To make matters even more complicated in
a case that wasn't complicated enough, we have Lourie Valo's brother, Alex Cox,
who played a role in both of the children's deaths, and just for
good measure, we have a third husband of Laurie Valo who also ended up
dead. So lots of craziness and the Alex Cox tie in where he may
be responsible for the deaths the actual killing of two of her three children.
Alex Cox ends up dying supposedly of natural causes, and I know you get
into more detail in a minute. This story just has so many twists and
turns, and there's so many people that end up dead. Almost everybody that
Laurie Valo or Chad day Bell ever love, ends up being murdered. It
is so bizarre and frustrating to try to get a handle on, but I
will. The Doomsday Mother definitely helped me figure out. Okay, where do
we start. So we'll start with the fact that apparently for quite a while
Laurie Valo was like a normal devoted mother to her children and her fourth husband,
Charles Vallo. Or marriages. She became acquainted with Chad day Bell,
who was an author who wrote his books about the end times, the necessity
of prepping for doomsday, those sorts of things, and neither of those are
topics that I've ever felt the need to delve too deeply into. I don't
know about you, more nut job conspiracy theory, craziness. They met at
a conference called Preparing a People, where Chad day Bell was a featured speaker,
and they started what started as an emotional affair and then very quickly moved
into a physical affair. It's interesting John Glatt really paints this picture of Chad
day Bell as being a charismatic cult leader, and he does call him a
cult leader. And I can't say that I had ever really in the stories
that I had originally seen about this, I don't think that I characterized him
as such. When I think of cult leaders, I think of Jim Jones,
or I think of Charles Manson. But I can't say that I thought
of Chad day Bell as a cult leader. I don't know if that image
rang bells for you. Bill. He is out speaking at these bizarre conferences,
and he has written best selling books about the end times, and I
think he probably does check enough boxes to call him a cult leader. So
she was already just like a very deeply religious person. They're both involved in
the LDS Church. She met Chad day Bell at this Preparing a People conference.
Apparently he just ensnared her and tainted her thinking. He started talking to
her about the concepts of dark and light spirits and zombies, which aren't the
flesh eating dawn of the Dead creatures that we think of. It are something
entirely different, and he managed to convince her that her husband, Charles Valo,
was a zombie, and he means a person who's been infected by a
dark spirit whose real soul is now trapped in limbo, and if you listen
to him, the only way to free that person who is now a zombie
is to kill them. I think later they developed a theory that two of
her three children were also in this zombie category and the only way, as
you said, to free them is to murder them. It wasn't just Laurie
who got ensnared into this too, it was her brother Alex Cox, and
so he also drank the kool aid. He also shared Laurie's conclusion and Chad's
that Laurie Valo's husband and her kids needed to die. Jumped on the train
along with the rest of them. Jumped on the crazy train along with the
rest of them. When she said, Hey, I'm going to need some
help killing Charles Valo here, he said, Okay, sure, this is
so convoluted and so crazy. Just bear with us here for a minute as
we go through this. She called Alex Cox and said, I'd like your
help in killing my husband. She called her husband over to her townhouse to
come see Tyle and JJ. When he arrived, her brother Alex Cox shot
him to death and then inflicted himself with a superficial head wound to make it
look like he had been attacked by Valo so that they could argue that it
was self defense. And so the two of them claimed that that Charles Valo
had come at Alex with a baseball bat and Alex had shot him in self
defense, which the police always found a little bit hinky, but they couldn't
really do a whole lot about it at that point. So now Laurie's free
of her husband, and at that point, Chad day Bell murdered his own
wife, Tammy. I'm sitting here shaking my head. The whole thing just
gets so weird. It really truly is. It looks like initially her death
was ruled as natural causes, but after Tylee and JJ's bodies were found,
her family rightfully said, I'm not sure about that. Can we get an
exhamation? And her body was exhumed and an autopsy was performed, and last
I heard, and I think this only came out just last week, her
cause of death was revealed to be asphyxiation, which sure doesn't sound very natural
to me. So now we're down two spouses, But Laurie Vella does have
three children, Tylee and JJ still lived in the home. Colby at this
point had grown up and gotten married. Tad had managed to convince Laurie via
a list that he had written out of all the people in her life that
Tylee and JJ were dark spirits or zombies. It really became a matter of
you have to breathe them from this infestation of bad spirits, and so she
enlisted the help of her brother, Alex Cox, who to murder her children.
We don't have a lot of information on that because the person who very
likely killed Tylee and JJ has now died, and so there's no confession that
they can get out him. I've seen new reports that described testimony that an
area sheriff offered just in the last week or two. I know we try
to avoid getting graphic here on mind over Murder, but the descriptions of the
condition of these two kids whose bodies were found on property owned by Chad day
Bell were so horrific. You could tell that these officers who have seen a
lot were just so completely horrified by how these bodies had been abused. It
was just completely mind blowing just how badly these children and then their bodies were
treated by Lorie Valo Chad day Bell and her brother Alex Cox. It was
horrifying. It's not details that we need to get into because they are so
graphic and so awful. Anybody who's interested, I'm sure can just dig that
up social media or any current news site. Ultimately, the children were killed.
Tyley was buried in Chad day Bell's pet cemetery, and JJ was murdered
and placed in a wrapping of duct tape and then stuffed inside multiple trash bags
and buried by the pond on Chad day Bell's property. So they were not
in the same place. They were in two separate locations on the same stretch
of property. As we mentioned earlier, Alex Cox died of natural causes,
assumedly natural causes, shortly after the murders of the children, so we do
not have answers on what exactly happened. Given the track record of these two
individuals, I challenge the idea that Alex Cox died of natural causes. This
doesn't pass the smell test for me. I'm telling you, if they go
back and take another look at Alex Cox and then circumstances of his death,
I do not believe he died of natural causes. I believe that his sister
and her husband are likely responsible for Alex Cox's death. He supposedly had a
heart attack, but it's awfully convenient that he died of a heart attack shortly
after being involved into these brutal murders at least three people that he may be
directly responsible for killing, and then he conveniently expires. I guess you could
indirectly tie him to the death of Lorie Vello's third husband, Joe Ryan.
He did actually go after Joe Ryan with a taser at one point, and
he tased him so badly that apparently it caused heart defects and heart issues for
the rest of Joe Ryan's life. Even though Joe Ryan died of a heart
attack, you could indirectly, if you really wanted, to tie Alex Cox's
attack of Joe Ryan into his eventual death from heart issues. We believe that
Alex Cox, Laurie Vallo's brother, is responsible directly for the murder of her
then husband, Charles Vallo, and we also believe that he's responsible for killing
her two children, and then he conveniently dies. Yeah, it's a mess.
It's a total mess. At that point, Laurie Vallo and Chad day
Bell hopped to Hawaii, which was a place that both of them really liked.
They were married in Hawaii and then decamped there. I'm sure they thought
it was permanently. After the police in Rexburg, Idaho, attempted to perform
a welfare check on Tyli and JJ. JJ's grandparents, Kay and Larry Woodcock,
reached out and said, we have not heard from him, and his
mother will not let us speak to him. Can you do a welfare check?
And after a lot of hemming and hallean and oh the kids are safe
and this, that and the other thing, the police eventually said, you're
going to need to produce these kids. You need to produce them, We
need to see them, and rather than do that, they took off to
Hawaii. I thought the Hawaii thing was weird too, because I lived in
Hawaii as a kid. It does feel like you're on the other side of
the world. At the same time, it seems like Laurie and Chad seem
to forget the fact that the state of Hawaii is part of the United States
of America and that they could have easily been forced to come back to Idaho
to face charges. It isn't like they flew off to some South American country
where there's no extradition. They're in Hawaii, flouncing around enjoying their honeymoon weeks
after both of their spouses had been killed, and they're so delusional. They
almost behaved like they didn't expect that their behavior would be seen as suspicious.
It just is very tone deaf in that way. I definitely remember when we
were first starting the podcast, the ongoing search for those two kids, and
waking up every day to monitor the crime news and Joy and I wonder if
this is the day they're going to find their bodies, And then of course
the next question became, so where a Laurie and Chad. But I do
remember the day that they were ultimately arrested in Hawaii and brought back to the
mainland. They kept asserting and that Tayli and JJ were fine, and they
had the story that they were being hidden for their own protection. It's like
they need to be protected from you and not anybody else, not anybody else.
And John glad Outlines did a whole lot more in his book, and
in a much more compelling and convincing way than I can do. Right at
the moment. But Laurie had a long history of manipulating the police and trying
to keep the children from their father Charles Valoe and previous stepfather Joe Ryan.
She really just really made a point of making it difficult for anybody to believe
anything that she had to say. They had this whole story about, oh,
the kids need to be protected clearly from you, not from someone else.
And at the same time, his wife had died two weeks prior to
their fairy tale wedding in Hawaii. The whole thing is just too bizarre for
words. It really truly is. So that's the overview of the case,
and that brings to now, and we are two weeks into Laurie Valo's trial.
I was reading that the trial is expected to last about two months.
The death penalty is off the table for Laurie Valo, but I'm very interested
to see some of what comes out of this trial. Her oldest son,
Colby, testified against her the other day. Apparently was very emotional. Oh
gosh, yes, quite explosive. She was talking to him using Tyle's phone
for a while, like he was trying to get in touch with his sister
and say where are you? Are you okay? She was withholding contact with
them first for a while, and then later of course she murdered her children,
but she was talking to him using Tyle's phone and saying, oh,
I'm fine, I'm okay, I'm just busy, and he obviously very hurtful,
very upsetting for him, and so he really did confront her on both
of those issues in court. Very sad for everybody all the way around.
These people are not exactly rocket scientists. And one of the things that came
out at trial was that cell phone data places our Cox in the yard of
Chad day Bell's property, which is where they found the two siblings who have
been murdered. So jj Enti League's bodies hidden in separate locations. Here's Alex
Cox, who doesn't even bother to leave his cell phone at home that day,
probably murdering and burying those two kids in two separate locations, all the
while he's got his cell phone in his pocket. The whole entirety of this
case, we could do and will do a whole episode unpacking all of this,
and we are very much looking forward to having John Glatt on, not
just to talk about the Valoe in the day Bell case, but to talk
about his amazing and very prolific career as a true crime writer. So we're
looking forward to that here in the next couple of weeks. But we'll continue
to update on things with the Valoe trial as it continues to unfold. Chad
day Bell will be tried separately, but on similar charges here in the coming
months, so look out for that as well. Another case we've been following
pretty closely is the Phoenix Canal Killer case. You may recall that we did
two episodes on the Canal Killer in twenty twenty. Of course, Kristen,
you feel a strong bond here because you went to school in Arizona and worked
as a teacher after completing your master's degree. Yes, that's right. I
went to asco Go send novels, and I teach for three years in Phoenix.
So yeah, this is definitely a case that is near and dear to
my heart. So the latest news is that a jury has found longtime suspect
Brian Patrick Miller guilty of six counts of murder in the deaths of Angela Brasso
and Melanie Burnus in Phoenix. In the cases that we now know as the
Phoenix Canal killings. Miller who called himself the Zombie Hunter. You may recall
he had this bizarre vehicle all painted up with Zombie Hunter on the side.
Here we are with zombies again. There seems to be a through line here
bizarre sad killers who fashioned themselves as zombie hunters. He did special events where
he would go and appear with this ridiculous car. He attempted an insanity defense,
which went nowhere. His attorneys argued that the combination of abuse at the
hands of his mother and his autism had turned him into a killer. And
we've talked about this a little bit before, Kristen, I certainly understand that
the abusive behavior of Miller's mother is extremely disturbing. She had shown him pornography
as a very young boy, very violent films which were completely inappropriate for a
little kid. It's understandable that his attorney would bring those things up as a
potential defense. Supposedly, Miller appears somewhere on the autism's scale. As you
were saying recently, Kristen, you can't say just because someone's autistic that they
are now going to end up being serial killers. Seems like a ridiculous contention.
It's the same sort of defense of someone who says that person has a
mental illness or mental issues, or however you want to say it. Clearly,
you can hear the air quotes under issues, and that means that they're
somehow more prone to violence. That is just not true. The idea,
the audacity that any defense attorney would say, oh, essentially, his autism
made him do it. Now, that's disgusting and that's despicable, and it
does a great disservice to anyone who is on the spectrum or dealing with any
kind of autism related disorder. We had a couple of people on our social
media page speak to very much the same thing, and they said it far
more eloquently than I can. At the end of the school day, and
I'm tired, I'm barely coherent. The idea that anyone would ever try to
use his autism made him do it as a defense is despicable. I absolutely
cannot believe that they tried that, but I guess they had to try something.
It smacks of desperate from my point of view. Brian Patrick Miller was
guilty up and down in sideways in the Phoenix canal killings. His attorney had
to try whatever they could to offer a defense. It was a pretty feeble
defense. It went nowhere. Judge Suzanne Cohen didn't buy any of this,
and she found Miller guilty on all six counts and he faces the death penalty.
Arizona is a death penalty state, so that's a possibility. As we
know, death penalty cases tend to be very protracted, though, so it's
often years before someone's actually sentenced to death. And this was a bench trial
which took many months. I still have friends in Phoenix, and every week
since January when the bench trial started, I have sent something to my dear
friend David and said, what's going on with canal killer yet? Anything yet?
Tell me more? And he just reached a point where he was sending
me everything. Yeah, he didn't have to field my text anymore. He
could just send me whatever. He did send me an article actually just this
morning, I haven't had more than a minute to look at it. I
guess his defense attorney is arguing that life in prison, it's fine, it's
fine. Life in prison is the better thing to do. You don't have
to go for the death penalty. And again I know that's his role as
his attorney. I got that our criticisms shouldn't be taken as implying that we
think that Brian pet Miller deserves anything less than a vigorous defense. He's entitled
to that legally. I just think that his attorney made a number of odd
choices. The bench trial seemed like an odd choice in that keep in mind,
with a jury trial, all it takes is one juror not being willing
to move forward. To move you to not guilty verdict, you have to
have a unanimous twelve person jury buy into whatever is being presented. I thought
the bench trial strategy was a range choice. I'm not quite sure what Miller's
defense thought they might gain. I think most judges have seen it all and
heard it all, and not likely going to say this person is not guilty
of this brutal series of homicides. I'm so glad that this is finally coming
to an end because this has really haunted the Phoenix area and of course the
families of the victims. I think it's going to be very interesting to see
what ultimately does become of this. Does it become a matter of life in
prison without parole? For Brian Patrick Miller or does it become case for a
capital punishment. It would be very interesting to see you're listening to mind Over
Murder. Will be right back after this word from our sponsors. We're back
here at Mind Over Murder. We do encourage you, if you haven't done
so already, to listen to our coverage of the Phoenix Canal killings. That
was our sec and season of Mind Over Murder. I believe I think you're
correct twenty twenty, and we did have an interview in there with Colleen Fitzpatrick,
our very own resident rocket scientist, who did all that She did the
gena and genealogy work for this and this is unbelievably cool for her to see
this go all the way from we don't have a name to now we have
a trial and a verdict. I remember when she was telling us the story,
when she got to the place where she had figured out that they were
looking for a suspect whose last name was likely Miller, she really knew she
was onto something. And this is several years back, so investigative genetic genealogy
was still fairly new, and of course Colleen is one of the originators of
this technique. This is a case that she worked on in the early going
of investigative genetic genealogy, so it's a fascinating story. I think this is
a great outcome. This isn't going to bring back Angela Brasso or Melanie or
us, but I think it hopefully will provide a small measure of justice in
that case. Absolutely. In the continued saga of the rich Necks shooting here
from January sixth, we do have charges that we're finally filed against Deja Nicole
Taylor. She is the mother of the six year old school shooter, and
because the Daily Press and various other media e lets have named her, we
are as well. So she has been indicted by a grand jury in Newport
News on two charges of child neglect and reckless endangerment, and she did turn
herself over to the Newport News police as arranged with her attorney and was released
on bond that same afternoon. The felony charge is for child neglect, and
then I think, bizarrely the firearm charge. This is allowing a minor to
have access to an unsecured somehow in Virginia, that's a misdemeanor charge. I
think that is very problematic as well. I think there should be two felony
charges in this case. The grand jury is going to continue investigating whether charges
should be filed against anyone else in this case, and that does include members
of the rich Neck Elementary School administration eagerly looking forward to the results of that.
There was some reporting from the Daily Press, and again I'm eager to
hear more about some of the issues that we have talked about from early on
in this case, and this is about the behavior plan that was put in
place to have a family member attend school with the six year old shooter.
The story revealed that plan was revisited after winter break, with the decision being
made that it was no longer necessary for an adult to attend class with him,
and I think we can all see right now that it was necessary.
It is still unclear from the reporting who set that behavior plan in place,
because again, parent attending school with child is not a typical accommodation, and
it is still not clear who decided that the six year old did not need
parental accompaniment any longer. That person, I think definitely needs to be asked.
I'm sorry what what you're thinking on this as Abigail z Werner's court case
proceeds, I think we may get to the bottom of some of this,
because these are really important questions. You had said that you have worked with
a number of special ed teachers, and the people that you've talked to have
said they've never heard of an accommodation like this where a parent was supposed to
be with this child. It's worth noting, by the way, we're still
not naming the child. We are now naming the mother because her name has
been reported in the media. I think if this Werner case moves forward,
as I expect that it will, these kind of questions will be asked and
I hope answered in the future. It needs to the sequence of events here.
The return from winter break was January third. Okay, everybody came back
at the same time high school elementary winners. On January fourth, this kiddo
smashed Abby's Warner's cell phone, so he can't even keep himself out of trouble
for one day. He served a one day out of school suspension for smashing
her phone on January fifth, and then next day, January sixth, he
returned to school with a nine millimeter handgun and he shot his teacher. That
is unconscionable, and this kid's out of control. I'm not even sure this
kid belongs in a mainstream elementary school classroom. In some good news on this
front, as we continued the saga here, Abby's Warner was honored on the
floor of the Virginia Senate and hailed as a hero for the actions that she
took on January six, in which she hearded her eighteen students to safety after
she was shot before making her way to the front office to ask for help.
Bravo to her, an amazing story. Couldn't ask for anything any greater
honor for her, that's fantastic. Right after all of this information came out,
then came another story which all of us at school, like every educator
that I know, is following this case because we're very interested in what all
is going to happen. The day that this next story came out, a
bunch of us were sending links to it back and forth to each other through
text message to make sure that everybody had seen it, because it's very interesting.
The family of a student who was in Abbey's Werners classroom at the time
of the shooting has filed a complaint against Newport News Public Schools with the Department
of Education. Now here's why. The student and the family those are unnamed
at this time, represented by attorney Harold Bakowitz, And this is according to
reporting from wtk R thirteen News. Now, mister Buckwitz was investigating every incident
at the school that led up to the January sixth shooting of Abbey's Werner.
Quote. We are aware of numerous incidents of bullying, harassment, and assault
by students at Richneck Elementary School during the months leading up to the January sixth,
twenty twenty three shooting. School and NPS administrators chose to ignore ongoing parent
complaints about such intolerable conduct. Concerning student behaviors went unaddressed, and the school
system did not take necessary measures to stop or prevent it. That sounds pretty
fair to me. Yeah, it does to me too. One of the
things I'm wondering about is this is only one student being represented by the attorney.
I'm wondering if other students within the classroom there were eighteen kids in the
classroom that day, if they may be joining in this lawsuit via attorney Belkowitz
or filing a larger or independent lawsuit. The Newport News school system is in
for a world of hurt. They have botched this situation from top to bottom.
And now in addition to having Abigail's werner suing them, you now have
the students parents whose kids were in that classroom that day, who obviously lived
through an incredibly terrifying thing seeing their teacher, who apparently was very popular and
well liked by the students, nearly shot to death in front of them.
I could see eighteen different sets of parents joining in this lawsuit. They have
every right to go after Newport News. Newport News has failed on so many
levels, and it continues to do so because there's more to this story if
you can believe that. So, this attorney filed a formal complaint against Newport
News Public Schools with the Department after school employees and administrators repeatedly failed to turn
over requested education records to that family. For that lawsuit, families are allowed
access to their education records. That's part of FERBA Family Educational Rights and Privacy
Act. I'm going to quote here again among the records sought our documents relating
to administrators failure to appropriately and effectively address the parents numerous please concerning the dangerous
environment at Richneck Elementary. You can ask for your kids records. The policy
from Department of d in VDOE is that the agency or institution or its components
shall comply with the request for access to records within a reasonable amount of time,
but no more than forty five days. So Balkowitz reached out to n
NPS for those records on January thirtieth, and they said, now, we're
not giving them up. Now. By my account, we're at seventy five
days give or take at the time of this recording, and they've never responded.
So they're more than a month late in responding to this attorney representing these
parents, and they have a legal right to these documents and they're failing to
provide them. They are just continuing to screw this case up. And I
like the fact that this attorney did what I think is probably the only thing
he could do at this point, which is play his hand and say,
you know what, you're not going to respond. I'm telling everybody about it.
Good for him. Starts to sound like the Colonial Parkway murders had done
that he did say it is disturbing that NPS is hindering our client's lawful efforts
to uncover the truth of what happened at Richneck Elementary School, And as of
my last check on this, new Portnews Public Schools had not commented on the
complaint. Let's just compound our mistakes by failing to comply with the law.
We know that this is going to be a long and continued story. We're
in for it. We're in for the marathon, not for the sprint,
if you'll pardon the running pun there. So, of course, you will
continue to hear more from us on this story as it unfolds. I referenced
the Colonial Parkway murders a moment ago. I hope if you haven't had time
to go back and take a listen to our podcast episode with Joyce Call Canada
that ran last Monday. It's episode two hundred and fifty one regarding the thirty
fifth anniversary of the disappearance of Richard Keith Call and Cassandra Sandy Hailey, and
we talked quite a bit about the status of the investigation, and we hope
you'll take a few minutes to listen to that episode and let us know what
you think. We have irons in the fire. We have things that we're
percolating, but that's going to be things that Bill and are working together on
over the summer. And we were looking forward to bring any more information and
more coverage on the Colonial Parkway murders. And then finally we wanted to update
you on the Rust case. You may recall we've covered this situation. We
found ourselves New Mexico, where film and television star Alec Baldwin was charged with
two counts of manslaughter after an accidental shooting on the set of the Western themed
film Rust. Helena Hutchins, cinematographer on Rust, was shot to death and
director Joel Susa was badly injured after a pop gun was found to be loaded
with live ammunition, and this resulted in Helena Hutchins's death and Joel Susan's injuries.
Alec Baldwin was among the people charged, and of course Alec Baldman is
the person that actually pulled the trigger. Surprisingly, today it was announced that
it appears that manslaughter charges against Alec Baldwin have been dropped. This on the
same day that shooting, that is, shooting of motion picture film has resumed
on the Rust set. Which has now been relocated to Montana from its original
New Mexico location. Interestingly, it was not reported that armorer Hannah Guceiera's read
still has charges pending against her. She was also hit with two manslaughter charges.
Although charges seem to have been dropped against Baldwin, there's no mention of
dropping those charges against Hannah Gutierra's read. David Halls, the first assistant director
on set who was responsible for overall safety, had pled guilty unsafe behavior on
the set, and he was only sentenced to six months unsupervised probation, which
is essentially nothing at all, perhaps tying in all of these charges being dropped
one by one, not one, but two separate prosecutors have stepped down in
this case so far, which is not a good sign. Keep you posted
on what we're seeing here. It appears that Alec Baldwin man end up walking.
There was a civil suit and a substantial settlement to Helena Hutchins widower,
and he's ended up becoming an executive producer on the Rust film, and whatever
cash settlement was involved there appears to have been paid. In terms of criminal
charges against Baldwin, they seem to be dropping one charge after another. I
don't know how I feel about this. Honestly and clearly, it doesn't matter
how I feel about it, but for the interest of this podcast, we
read the affidavit and it is so clear that he was so negligent on so
many things. I understand. He is Alec Baldwin, he is a famous
actor. He's got amazing probably very well paid attorneys. We're working behind the
scenes to make sure that this goes away. I really do feel that he
is very much culpable, and I'm a little disappointed. I don't mean to
sound cold blooded, are bloodthirsty, or anything like that, but I just
feel like that's wrong. Really, something else needs to happen, and it
shouldn't just be let me pay a ton of money to the victim's widower.
I just feel like something else needs to happen there. I don't know,
are you in the same boat with me or are you? I think all
three of them, Alec Baldwin, Hannah Gautiera's Read and David Halls are all
responsible, and I believe they all should be held to some appropriate standard.
I think all three of them are culpable in this terrible accident. No one
intended to shoot their cinematographer to death and badly wound their director, both of
whom were standing directly in front of Alec Baldwin when he fired this gun so
carelessly. But at the same time, David Halls, who handed in the
gun, and Hannah Gautierra's read who was responsible for all the guns on set,
it committed grievous errors that resulted in a woman's death and you can't get
around that, and Alec Baldwin pulled the trigger. It's shocking to me that
it seems like there isn't going to be any justice in this case. We'll
see what happens with the remaining charges against Hannah Gauchier as Reid, who I
think should be held accountable. But I don't see how she's more responsible than
Alec Baldwin. He's the producer, he was the actor on set at the
time. I think you just said it very nicely. This doesn't feel like
justice to me, No, not in the least. We'll keep you posted
on what we're hearing regarding the charges in this tragic shooting, and will report
back to you as we can. There is so much true crime news,
but we can only report on a small portion of it, and this is
our small portion for this week. We hope you've enjoyed this true crime round
up. If you like what we're doing with the podcast, please do leave
us some five star ratings and reviews, and thank you to everyone who has
done so. So far. We got some beautiful reviews that just made me
blush. May even have made mister Thomas blush too. And again, thanks
everybody for your kind words about us crossing the million plays threshold here at Mindover
Murder. We really appreciate all of your kind words and the terrific reviews.
That's going to do it for this episode of mind Over Murder. We'll see
you next time. Mind Over Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and Another
Dog Productions. Our executive producers are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley. Our logo
art is by Pamela Arnois. Our theme music is by Kevin McLeod. Mind
Over Murder is distributed in partnership with Coral Space Media. You can follow us
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Mind Over Murder.