Speaker 1: Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is
not intended for all audiences.
Speaker 2: Listener discretion is advice.
Speaker 3: So you're gonna let You're gonna let this little punk
over here dictate your life.
Speaker 2: There's blood on your shoe.
Speaker 4: You're in the house a night that this murder happens.
Speaker 2: You can't play stupid.
Speaker 1: If you want to know what the most detrimental thing
in a young man's life is, it's not having a father.
You can be a father and still be absent, still
leave a void in a young man's life. And since
the majority of crime is committed by males, this should
be a problem that we all focus on. When young
men grow up without fathers, they're left searching for guidance,
often pledging loyalty to the wrong people. In the absence
of a steady, strict hand, they idolize whoever steps in,
no matter how toxic they are. We've seen that, haven't
we with a certain set of brothers over in Romania?
Is it and their OnlyFans empire where they flash their
fancy cars and homes and chains and things. It's all
the eager young men out there that are desperate for
a little taste of that life, and too rudderless to
know how to get there, that end up screwing up
their own lives because of bad advice. That misplaced loyalty
can lead to devastating choices in life, the kind of
choices that we talk about here on Sword and Scale.
Sometimes those choices lead to murder. This is episode three
oh six of Sword and Scale, a show that reveals
that sometimes the worst monsters are fatherless and very real.
It was a muggy Florida night. Yes, we're talking about
Florida again in Palm Beach Gardens in early March of
twenty seventeen. I mean, are you surprised, really at this
point we're going to talk about either Florida or Ohio
every week, So, I don't know, fix your own states people.
On this particular night, the sky was black, the highway
was eerily quiet, and the quiet was only broken up
by the occasional whoosh of a car off to the
side of the road. Flames flickered in a patch of
overgrown weeds. Smoke curled up into the air as if
trying to keep a secret. Fire trucks arrived, blazing their lights,
slicing through the dark. It didn't take long to extinguish
the flames, but what they uncovered left the responders frozen.
Two bodies wrapped in sheets and plastic hidden within the
dying fire. By morning, the discovery had been leaked to
the local media. Helicopters swarmed overhead, and news cruise parked
as close as they could to the team of investigators
from the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office working the scene.
Speaker 5: That's right, and crime scene investigators have been busy all morning.
You see them there behind me. They are on the
northeast side of Beeline Highway. They have been focused on
a twenty to thirty yard grassy area. They are looking
for potential evidence and through this murder mystery, they discovered
two burned, unidentified bodies. They were taken through the Medical
Exabitor's office to try and figure out the cause of
death and for positive identification. The Violent Crimes Division has
taken over the investigation. Anyone the information about this homicide
is asked to call the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office.
Speaker 1: The detectives would be starting from scratch. As news of
the bodies traveled around the South of Florida, a woman
named Alice Allen was at home watching the news and
got a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.
Her nephews, Brian and Brandon Allen had not shown up
to work at Chick fil A and were twenty two
year old twin brothers living with their adoptive sister, Linda
Allen in a condominium in Palm Beach Gardens. As soon
as Alice hung up the phone with Chick fil A,
something inside her questioned if these bodies on the highway
could be them. Maybe she was thinking the worst, but
maybe not. Alice was a worry wart, a naturally anxious person,
so she called the boys sister and roommate, twenty two
year old Linda Allen. In a way, Linda, Brian, and
Brandon were like triplets. The Allen family adopted them all
when they were small children in California. The Allen's then
migrated to Florida, where Linda, Bryan, and Brandon were raised.
The three siblings lived together in a newly renovated condominium
in Palm Beach Gardens. Linda Allen came down to the
police station willingly. She wanted to find out what was
going on and to see if the dead boys were
her brothers, all right.
Speaker 6: So thanks for coming in.
Speaker 7: I don't feel that you met my partners over there.
Speaker 6: Detective pie Check and Detective Drake.
Speaker 7: So I just wanted to get a little bit.
Speaker 6: Of information from you.
Speaker 7: And I saw a gentleman came here with you.
Speaker 6: Who is that?
Speaker 7: Who's not my god brother?
Speaker 6: Okay? Not a boyfriend?
Speaker 8: Got okay.
Speaker 1: Julian Catherell had accompanied Linda to the police station. She
told the cops that he was her godbrother and he.
Speaker 7: Lives there with you like he doesn't like he comes
over every now and then.
Speaker 9: Okay.
Speaker 1: Linda was big and soft around the edges, dressed in
baggy cargo shorts, scuffed combat boots and a loose hoodie.
Julian was tall, slick and handsome. They didn't make sense
as a couple, but the detectives had to ask. They
were like siblings. Linda expled.
Speaker 7: So who lives over a off mill brain court with you?
It was me and my two brothers, okay, and I
had let another friend move in, but he was moving.
Speaker 10: Out, okay.
Speaker 6: And your two brothers are Brandon and Brian, yes, okay?
And how long have you lived there?
Speaker 7: Since? March thirty first?
Speaker 6: Of last year.
Speaker 7: Yeah, first it was me and Brian just.
Speaker 10: Staying there, okay.
Speaker 6: And then who else? When who else moved in? Was
it Brandon or your other friend?
Speaker 7: It was Julian at first he came this thing for
a while. Then he had to go to because briand
and agree with him, okay. And then he wanted our
brother to move in there because of a situation in Jacksonville.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 7: How long ago was that that Brandon lived in It
was sometime in December, I know it was around Christmas time,
recent this past Christmas.
Speaker 11: Okay, so only a few months he's going down.
Speaker 4: You say, situation in Jacksonville.
Speaker 6: What do you know about that?
Speaker 7: I wish they would have told me more. I felt
like they weren't telling me the whole truth.
Speaker 1: Linda was the owner of the condominium. After mister and
Missus Allen had passed away, Linda, Brian, and Brandon had
inherited a nice little nest egg, and their parents had
made sure that the executor of their will had set
them up with a place to live. The executor bought
Linda a newly renovated three story condo and Brian moved
in as well. Brandon, who had always been a bit
of a troublemaker, had stayed in Jacksonville, that is, until
he came down and wedged his way into the house.
Brian couldn't say no to his twin brother, his only
blood relative, but Linda wasn't happy about it. Neither was
their other roommate, Julian. Word around the house was that
Brandon had enemies in Jacksonville who were after him.
Speaker 7: He wasn't telling Brian the whole truth and I wasn't.
So it was like, since he wasn't getting Brian the
whole truth, I didn't know need to, so I wasn't
so sure, gotcha, Like it was just really a big
cloud mystery, Like I don't know what was going on.
Speaker 1: Brandon only confided in his brother Brian. Brian filtered information
to the rest of the house members until Linda overheard
a phone call that scared her.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's why when he moved down here, I told Brian,
do you think it's a good idea? Do you think
that him coming down here will cause a problem for us?
Like I was only like more fearful for the fact
that Brandon talked about getting a gun, like I overheard
him on I don't know who he was on the
phone with, but he talked about getting a gun, and
it's like I just want Like I didn't get a
chance to tell I even tried to tell him, like
I don't want no gun in that house. How long
ago was that? Do you think this was like two
in to a mom He said that he was going
to get his permit to carrying.
Speaker 12: He's going to have it regardless, Okay, But he didn't
mention why.
Speaker 7: That's when I was trying to figure out, like what
makes you feel like you need to get a gun?
Do you want to talk about this? Do you need
to call somebody?
Speaker 13: Or like.
Speaker 1: Tensions had been and rising in the home over Brandon's
fear of his enemies in Jacksonville. Brandon had bipolar disorder
and had gone off his medication when his adoptive parents
passed away. But remember, folks, says, I'm often told to
repeat verbatim, people with mental illness are more likely to
become victims and they are perpetrators.
Speaker 2: Is that good?
Speaker 5: Can I go?
Speaker 7: Now? There was some nine o four number that called
my phone and he said, hey, is Brandon there? And
I was like yeah, sure, So I put the phone
on speakers I'm like, I was trying to eat drop
in that and it's just that, you know, And I
knocked on do I'm like, Brandon, someone want to.
Speaker 8: Talk to you.
Speaker 7: So he just looked at the phone, was like he
had that face like Dan, I did not want this dude,
Like he just waited and then waited and then waited.
Speaker 14: In the.
Speaker 1: Suspicion that these bodies might be Brian and Brandon had
spread through the Allen family after they hadn't shown up
to work at Chick fil A, Linda said that, but
she assumed they were just out with friends. Then twenty
four hours turned into a few days and the fire
appeared on the news.
Speaker 15: You hadn't seen them since Sunday and now it's it's Thursday.
You didn't have any had they ever been done that long?
Speaker 7: No, That's why I was starting to worry, like and
I just had Julius they like say, with me staying
in the house by myself. It was like in PP
I was like, do you know if they, like, if
they talked to you or anything like, because I don't
have none of their friends phone numbers. So I called
Brian's phone and illustrate the voicemail. So are you biologically
related to Brian and Brandon?
Speaker 2: You know, okay?
Speaker 1: The main thing that detectives had to do was figure
out if the bodies were actually Brian and Brandon, but
it would be tough seeing as they had no living
blood relatives that anyone knew about.
Speaker 7: What I'd like to do is I'd like to I'm
gonna do a consent to search.
Speaker 12: It's just to be have the other detective that brought
you over here go and collect maybe their truthbrush or
some spoons or something with their DNA on it so
I can compare it and see if it is in
fact the two people that we have because we have
to since there's no there's no biological family, so I
can't get DNA from you or.
Speaker 6: Any other family to compare.
Speaker 7: I don't have dental records because they don't know the.
Speaker 4: Dentist right now.
Speaker 1: Linda agreed to the search and gave samples of her DNA.
She went into the hallway and waited while the police
decided if they could extract any information from Julian, Linda's
so called god brother. Unlike Linda, twenty two year old
Julian exuded confidence and swagger. He sat down easing into
the chair as though he was taking a seat at
his favorite barber shop, smiling the whole time.
Speaker 4: I like this room, right It's my favorite color gloom.
Speaker 16: Yeah, I feel so uncomfortable with her right now.
Speaker 6: That's like a big thing.
Speaker 2: I love walls like this man nice and saw soul.
Speaker 1: In all of my years doing this, I've never heard
someone compliment of police Department's hideous gray felt walls and
rub them with his hand. Weird. Julian said that he
and Linda had been like family since they met at
a lab class while trying to get their GEDs together.
Linda never completed hers. By the way, Julian also grew
up in foster care, so he and Linda bonded over
being children of the state. Unlike Linda, Bryan and Brandon,
Julian hadn't been adopted into such a fortunate family and
was on his own at age eighteen, no longer under
the States guardianship. He had been staying part time with
his girlfriend and part time with Linda. His relationship with
the twins wasn't close.
Speaker 16: I personally, as far as Brian and Brandon, it's like
a hind by type thing. They're very to themselves. That's
all I really know about them. But I mainly you know,
I mainly stick to.
Speaker 6: Hang Okay, how would you describe them? Not physically, but
just they're just personality.
Speaker 16: They got very like from what I noticed just by
seeing them with each other, they got very like goofy personality,
very goofy personalities. Brian more friendly, Brandon more aggressive.
Speaker 12: Okay, so friends like the real nice kind of more
social one and the other ones kind of Okay.
Speaker 4: Any issues that you've had with.
Speaker 16: Them, we've had, Like the only issue we ever had
was a disagreement about dishes, normal roommate stuff, anything physical.
Speaker 1: But he said the same thing as Linda. Things got
dicey when Brandon arrived and they'd all been worried about
these enemies. He felt he needed protection from Ianna.
Speaker 16: Be honest, I've heard him like, not me trying to
ease drop or anything like I've eased dropped on like
probably like two phone calls Brandon and.
Speaker 2: It was just something about gunsay something about guns man,
and I just just the type.
Speaker 16: Of how he has anger problems. He gets angry quicker
than Brian. I just went, you know, that's that's just one.
Speaker 6: Thing that stuck out to you what.
Speaker 12: I know you're not gonna remember the conversation by heart,
but like what verbiage did he use or what kind
of what did he say?
Speaker 4: If you could remember, it was like he was on
the phone with somebody.
Speaker 2: It's like he was trying to keep his voice down.
He came from Jacksonville. And when he was in.
Speaker 16: Jacksonville, I guess he's had some problems with some people
that ran him out of a condo, okay, like a
hundred I was another condole and he was on the
phone like just I guess I think it was somebody
that was selling guns or something.
Speaker 1: The police were starting to get a clearer picture of
Brandon and Brian, but again, the DNA had to be
confirmed before they could go down this rabbit hole of
what happened to Brandon and Jacksonville.
Speaker 15: So you know how you're sitting in that chair right now, Well,
during our investigation, we may out come to a time
that we need to eliminate you and people that belong
in an area from an object or a place.
Speaker 2: Okay, so can we give a sample of your DNA? Yeah,
all right? Cool.
Speaker 1: Julian and Linda gave DNA samples The analysts then collected
Brian and Brandon's toothbrushes from Linda's condo and analyzed them.
When the results came back, they called Levon Starks, the
legal guardian and executor of the Allen family. Will Sark So,
I know.
Speaker 6: You've been in contact with him.
Speaker 10: This is our first name speaking and loved to believe
submit DNA and it came back.
Speaker 6: To Brian Brandon. I'm so sorry. Oh, we kind of.
Speaker 2: Figured as much.
Speaker 6: Yeah, things have been messing. It didn't come back.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I'd like to get some information if you have
any for us, some backgrounds on them, what their daily
activities are, or anything that maybe you could possibly think of.
Speaker 1: Leavn wasn't surprised. She, like the rest of the Allen family,
had a feeling the twins were dead. She crossed her
legs and sat back in her chair, preparing for what
she knew would be a long conversation with detectives.
Speaker 8: When you heard this is or anything that we have
popped in your head or something that you've been learned about, Well, Brandon, okay,
he was living in Jackson and him coming down here
and I'm not really sure why he was down here,
but that really concerned me.
Speaker 1: Okay, Like Linda and Julian, levonn saw Brandon for what
he was, a magnet for chaos. Trouble clung to him,
swirling around and dragging others into its orbit, like a
cloud of dust that never settles. Lavon explained that Brandon
had his own apartment in Jacksonville, which had been purchased
for him. The idea was to keep Brian and Linda
as far away from him as possible. So when Levon
heard through the family grapevine that Brandon was crashing with
Linda and Brian, he was livid.
Speaker 17: Because Brandon was a bad and he was on both
of them. He has been all their lives, you know,
He's just been to bully all their lives. And so
I say, he can't live. He's a stupid room. And
if he wants to come back to as far, we're
going to do two things. We're going to sell it
there and Jacksonville and they're going to buy him something
he buy himself. Yeah, because I definitely never wanted them
ever together.
Speaker 1: Levon was the cousin of the kids adoptive aunt, although
she wasn't emotionally close to them after their parents died,
she became the default parental figure responsible for dividing the inheritance.
She said that Brian was a good kid. He went
to work, he was going to college, and he was
level headed.
Speaker 6: He's definitely in the bystander and all of us. I
just can't imagine, and we thought of in us.
Speaker 2: What do you think Linda would have anything to do
with this?
Speaker 14: Not at all?
Speaker 17: Like I say, this is Mike pol believe that we
said everything to do with Brandon.
Speaker 1: The cops kept hearing the same thing. Brandon was trouble,
and his trouble stretched all the way to the north
end of Florida. But as Levon sat in that interrogation room,
her story started to expand. Little details, what you may
call throw away comp started to nudge the investigation in
a direction that no one could have expected. Twenty two
year old twin brothers, Brian and Brandon Allen, had been
found wrapped in plastic in bed sheets, then set on
fire and left burning on the side of a highway
in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. The twins shared a condo
with their adoptive sister, Linda and another former foster kid,
Julian Catherine everyone in the house agreed on one thing.
Brandon was trouble. He had people in Jacksonville after him,
and it got so bad that he abandoned his newly
purchased apartment there and fled to Palm Beach. Linda had
told the police that she overheard him talking about buying
a gun. Even the Allen kids legal guardian and executor
of their inheritance, Levon Starks, had agreed this murder had
something to do with Brandon. As she sat with police,
she offered more clarity into the lives of these former
foster children.
Speaker 13: I just want to go all the way back to
how you became the executor of their estates. You know,
who are the parents are?
Speaker 7: You know?
Speaker 13: For the Oh my god, I don't get involved, but
I mean, what was a relationship with them?
Speaker 6: My first cousin, My first cousin is who Florid Davis.
Speaker 2: Florid Davis. Okay, she's the one.
Speaker 6: That adopted them.
Speaker 2: Were they when they were adopted by and she got
him at three? Okay?
Speaker 6: Okay?
Speaker 17: They lived in California, Okay, okay, And in nineteen ninety five,
obviously she made this decision to make me the executor of.
Speaker 6: Her will, which I had no clue about. She passed
away twenty eleven. There were twenty eleven.
Speaker 17: It was then when you know, right before death, she
kind of explained to me, I want you to take
care of my daughter.
Speaker 6: Is what she really said.
Speaker 1: On her deathbed. Missus Allen was most concerned about Linda.
She wanted to make sure that she wouldn't be out
there in the world alone. After Missus Allen died, Linda, Brian,
and Brandon continued to live with their father, but Levonn
became involved with the family.
Speaker 6: Well I kind of.
Speaker 17: Stepped in just a little weird to help him out
because she did all the bills. Okay, so I kind
of stepped in and Kenneth set up you know, direct deposit,
I mean, you know.
Speaker 6: Making sure the bills got bad.
Speaker 17: I mean I've always kind of talked to them, kind
of been in their lives in a sense. When they
moved to Florida because I taught it, probably stayed up
in Belgloide.
Speaker 6: So when on my way.
Speaker 17: Back, I was stopping lots agchi and kind of helped
them out with their home works.
Speaker 6: And stuff that they had to do.
Speaker 17: But so I kind of always being the one that's
went involved.
Speaker 1: Despite levon stopping by to help them with their homework
and other things, they still went astray all their lives.
Speaker 17: They've really been on some type of medication, you know,
like eighty eight or something that when their mom passed away,
I think they all took themselves off toubely off. So
I think at the time of adoption, I don't know
if the parents were into drugs or drugs related.
Speaker 6: So they both Linda and.
Speaker 17: The boys were kind of in that situation when my
cousin got them.
Speaker 1: Then mister Allen got sick and died. That's when Levonn
became the sole parental figure in their lives, whether she
wanted to or not.
Speaker 6: He passed away in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 17: Okay, So at this point, the log Box got a
copy of The Wheel, so I kind of read it
and muzzled over it, you know, tried to figure out
what role am I going to play.
Speaker 7: In all this.
Speaker 1: Linda, Brian, and Brandon were all eighteen years old when
both their adoptive parents died, the ones who had rescued
them from foster care.
Speaker 6: Brandon dropped out at tenth grade. Linda dropped out I
think ninth grade.
Speaker 17: Brian is on his way to graduation from high school,
so the rest of them had not finished school.
Speaker 6: That was the long I mean to me, they just
didn't do what it was supposed to.
Speaker 2: His finance.
Speaker 1: Levon had her opinions on how they were brought up,
and she was clear the Allens were not good parents.
Brian was the only one on track to finish high
school under their watch, but this wasn't acceptable to Levon,
so she helped coach Brandon, and with her guidance, he
eventually got his ged. Brian was enrolled at Palm Beach
Day College and Brandon was at college in Jacksonville studying aeronautics.
But Brandon fell off the achievement wagon fast and soon
he dropped out and started getting into trouble.
Speaker 17: So I said, well, here's the deal, Okay, you got
to you gotta go to work.
Speaker 6: I mean there is no option, no other options. You
gotta work.
Speaker 17: So for Brandon his condo that was purchased, I said,
all you got to do is for your light bild.
Speaker 6: That's it.
Speaker 17: I'm taking of everything else, the taxes, everything else, the
same care of Bovi, the estate.
Speaker 6: So I don't know what he did when I bought
the congo. He was there. It was his. I mean
I'm on the on the mortgage. I mean not the mortgage,
but the deed. But it was his. Okay.
Speaker 17: Uh, you know he's called me a couple of times
with issues, you know, like I need some money. I
had some money set up for them. I set up
each one of them account you know, separate accounts. It
was eight thousand for each one of them. This is yours
returns one Brandon.
Speaker 13: Eight eight thousand for eature when they turned twenty one.
Speaker 2: That was a year year ago.
Speaker 6: They just started last year they turned twenty one.
Speaker 11: Quick question, So was there anything if something happened to
each one of them with that money that they.
Speaker 6: Have just go into an estate for the next whoever's lost.
So Linda would get mean powers. Okay, Yeah.
Speaker 1: The Allen children had money, fully paid off condos and
only their electric bills to manage. That's all. They had
very little responsibility in life. But while you would think
this would be a privilege, a upper hand, a starting
point that was better than most, in this case it
was a recipe for failure. To Brandon and Linda, who
dropped out of high school and were only pushed to
succeed when Levon stepped in without basic life skills, the
money and homes were little more than fragile bandages. One
wrong move and everything falls apart.
Speaker 6: The boys is that it's.
Speaker 17: Normal for you to not talk to them for a while, So.
Speaker 6: Stress for you life.
Speaker 18: I've want got you anything that's negative, and they were
all they immediately save modis on me. Yea, I was
not their parent, and I accepted that I did not
ask for this. I'm going to honor your parents' wishes,
but trust me, I am not going to be on
one and daddy right now.
Speaker 1: Though Levin made it clear that she wasn't interested in
babysitting them, there were a few stipulations with the condo
set up for Linda and Brian. First off, Brandon was
not allowed to live there period. Second, no other roommates.
I mean, those are pretty clear instructions. So when Levn
heard Brandon and Linda's friend Julian moved in, she was
pretty pissed. She was pissed that they lied to her
and pissed that she was stuck dealing with these irresponsible,
stunted adults.
Speaker 6: Do you know what all the roommates they have there?
Just found out yesterday? Okay, I am living Linda.
Speaker 2: Who does she say was living there with her?
Speaker 17: Well, I specifically asked the question because I went by
there yesterday when I came in, and I found something
belonging to But anyway, this friend that Linda has always had,
I saw something belonging to him, and I was like,
when was he there? Well, we let him Rent come
in and Rent and I was very recifict.
Speaker 2: I mean when I moved them in there, they had.
Speaker 6: A checklist that they had to sign off on. No
overnight guess.
Speaker 17: So I had to put rooles in place because I
know they are not responsible, so I put rules in place.
Speaker 6: She violated that, and I told her I'm totally disappointed
right now.
Speaker 1: The person she was talking about was Julian Levaughn was
not a fan.
Speaker 6: I know the kid. I met the kid before, but
I know he's not good for Linda. And I told
her that, Juliet, have you met him before?
Speaker 1: Of course, Linda was heavily influenced by Julian. Maybe she
had a bit of a crush on him, but whatever
he said, she did, she really adored him more than
she did her own brothers. She called him, her god brother,
her broski. I know, I know, I'm sorry. I haven't
cringed that hard in a while either.
Speaker 6: So Linda works too.
Speaker 7: She does?
Speaker 6: What does she working? She said, Marshals? She says that Marshall.
Speaker 4: She says Marshalls.
Speaker 2: Oh no, oh, no, no, no, which Marshalls is one?
Speaker 17: Yes, No, she been there for a while, yeah, yeah,
but she's not working working, not that she's like part time,
part time.
Speaker 13: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Linda had given up on her ged with only a
few courses left.
Speaker 7: Now.
Speaker 1: She worked one day a week at Marshall's in the
charity program and followed Julian around like a puppy dog.
Sounds like a viable future.
Speaker 2: Does Linda have a Boyfriend's a girlfriend? Needs to be answered, though,
I Does she have any significant she thinks?
Speaker 6: So she's a loner. I mean, I've always known her
to be a loner.
Speaker 13: I mean the only reason we asked is, you know,
we were at the house, and you know, we did
look around and in her bedroom there's you know a
lot of male male male male's correspondence. There was also,
I mean I noticed there was two chargers plugged into
the wall, into the you know, they were strong on
an eath each pillow. They were different chargers, so it
appears to me that somebody is sleeping in that bed
with her.
Speaker 1: As Levon looked over her bi of the Alan children's documents,
birth certificates, adoptive papers, inheritance records, and photographs, the detective
asked a question that made her eyes bug out.
Speaker 6: Do you know anything about Darren Bird? That's another person
that was living in the apartment. Didn't mean any thing
that I never even heard that, namely her.
Speaker 1: Really, Levin had never heard of Darren Bird, but Linda
told police he'd also been staying at the house. That
meant that Linda had three people causing trouble, Brandon and
Darren and Julian. The cops needed to dig deeper. Who
was this Darren Bird and had he been staying in
Linda's bedroom. Both Linda and Julian handed over their DNA
and phones, but as the police interviewed them separately, cracks
in their timeline began to appear. Insisted that they'd stayed
at Julian's girlfriend's house on the Tuesday before Brian and
Brandon were found burning on the road, but Julian claimed
he'd been out with Friends without Linda.
Speaker 5: Then came the.
Speaker 1: Discovery of a cryptic text buried in Julian's phone. When
the police confronted him about it, his easygoing attitude suddenly
went cold.
Speaker 15: Your message in there, you've sent about your house.
Speaker 2: And that you were in danger. That's all about. Oh no,
it was with like it was with some other guys
that tell us, because it was just they not it's like,
that's it's a dead situation. Well tell us, it's not
really important. I really not.
Speaker 7: Let me just say say this.
Speaker 6: This is you're in the homicide unit right now.
Speaker 4: This is serious.
Speaker 1: When they pressed him about the text, his confidence fractured,
replaced by a defiant it's that screamed louder than any lie.
He could tell.
Speaker 2: My situation is on some other street stuff. Okay, you know,
tell us about that because maybe it's related that you
don't even know what it's related.
Speaker 16: It's basically somebody that I owed money, and you know
I didn't pay him.
Speaker 2: The money back on time. So it was just like,
you know, just threat that so much like one hundred
and fifty one hundred and fifteen threats that you don't
feel so and in the street is different, you know,
what I'm saying.
Speaker 16: So when you know somebody has guns and stuff like that,
you don't want to feel safe, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Julian tried to deny the severity, but the text on
his phone said he was scared for his life because
of the one hundred and fifty dollars he owed somebody.
One hundred and fifty dollars. That is the price that
some lives matter and some aren't even worth that much.
Apparently anyway, it wasn't clear who he owed this money to.
It was just somebody from the streets. He explained to
the detectives that there was a code of conduct on
the street, no snitching.
Speaker 16: I'm afraid that if I do say something about my situation,
I'd rather pay my situation off than say anything and
my life becoming danger.
Speaker 2: Because I hear what you're sold, I will Okay.
Speaker 15: I've watched the streets longer than you've been in the streets,
and the fact is people do say shit every fucking day,
depending on what's convenient or.
Speaker 2: Beneficial to them. They'll wrap people out, they will turn
people in anything. So there is no street code. That's
a bunch of bullshit.
Speaker 13: You may believe that.
Speaker 2: For The.
Speaker 1: Detectives kept pressing them, but Julian got tight lipped, locking
up like the safety on a loaded gun.
Speaker 2: I'm not willing to give those names. Let me ask
you this. Yeah, when those people came to the house
and you just.
Speaker 15: Have to happen to be there and they decided they're
they we have money out of your roommates instead, then
you don't think it's your sue them.
Speaker 2: I'm just not willing to speak about it. I'm sorry.
Respect is not weakness. Do you understand that? Of course?
So what are you gonna say just now?
Speaker 16: No, I was saying, like normally, personally, I don't talk
to police officers just because of my personal experience.
Speaker 7: Is sure?
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying. So any light further questions, Man,
I'm gonna just happy.
Speaker 4: I'm not saying anything without an attorney, president or anything
like that.
Speaker 2: So you're gonna have to take off.
Speaker 1: And with that, Julian took back his phone and stopped talking.
He wanted a lawyer. Before the male detective left. He
had one more thing to say to Julian.
Speaker 2: You made me very concerned.
Speaker 1: Linda, on the other hand, was still talking. I guess
she wasn't from the streets, you know. She explained that
Darren was staying there temporarily.
Speaker 15: Evere else has been in the house lately, whether they're
friends of them or friends of yours.
Speaker 2: Past few days, just me and.
Speaker 6: Came by to visit for a couple of hours.
Speaker 2: When then, you love, no one else has been by
at the house at all.
Speaker 3: No, not that I know.
Speaker 2: You know, every time every time someone comes and goes,
that's logged at the gate.
Speaker 7: Yeah, well there was Darren, but we all went to
Julian's girlfriend's house.
Speaker 2: If Darren Darren come to the house, he didn't come
inside and he came to the house. Yeah, okay, well
I need to know that in my house. What con cardass?
Darren troupe?
Speaker 7: He doesn't drive?
Speaker 2: How's he get there?
Speaker 17: Girlfriend? O?
Speaker 2: What's con Card's girlfriend? Drug?
Speaker 7: A red toyota.
Speaker 1: It's like pulling teeth with some people, interrogating though bad
teeth with lots of cavities. Darren Bird was an eighteen
year old kid who had grown up in foster care
with Julian. He was also the only white kid living
in the condo. Darren's biological father was a low life,
deadbeat career thief with a record that was a mile
long after a domestic violence episode in nineteen ninety seven.
Court records allude that young Darren had been put into
foster care. He'd been in the system his whole life.
That's where he met Julian. Darren aged out of the
foster care system at eighteen and enrolled in college. He
used whatever little money he got from the state to
pay for Linda's electric bill instead of rent. If you recall,
Linda didn't have a mortgage, she was only responsible for
the electric bill. Following the details of his girlfriend's red
Toyota made it easy to find Darren. Darren met his
girlfriend while studying at Palm Beach State College. Her father
was a sheriff with the Palm Beach Sheriff's Department, which
was investigating the Alan twins murder. Darren repeated the same
story about Brandon that Julian and Linda had, I mean
a lie.
Speaker 4: After I heard that that they were missing, Like, I
tried not to go back, guys because I'm scared.
Speaker 6: Yeah, because you don't know, right, Like I.
Speaker 4: Said, like whatever, whatever's going on like that, this is
not like it's not normal stuff, you know what I'm saying,
and it kind of it freezed me out, you know
what I'm saying. It's just an Like I said, it's.
Speaker 2: Not a movie.
Speaker 4: This isn't a movie. I haven't even went back to
that because I don't know what's going on. I'm like,
I'm afraid to get your clothes. You know what I'm saying.
I've been wearing the same fucking clothes for like three
days now.
Speaker 1: Okay, Linda's apartment was nice, so it was lined with
cameras and a guard who worked the front gate. Darren's
girlfriend's red Toyota had been seen backing into the garage
on the night the police assumed that the twins had
been murdered. The car waited for twenty one minutes, then
took off. The police had towed Darren's girlfriend's car from
the college for evidence. When she showed up to meet
the police, she was not happy.
Speaker 3: You sort of telling me why your car is being told, Well,
we believe your cars may have been used and used
by Darren.
Speaker 2: To do something.
Speaker 3: You believe your car was used in a commission of
a crime that Darren was present during. Okay, okay, so
that's why your car is in our custody.
Speaker 7: Okay, So now I know the truth, can we believe
you can.
Speaker 2: Do whatever you want? Okay?
Speaker 4: All right?
Speaker 6: The only to ask was for what call?
Speaker 3: Oh it's going to be here for a long long time.
Why we believe it was used in a crime. So
unless you can kind of help me figure some things out?
Speaker 2: But how am I supposed to?
Speaker 3: Because you know exactly when you talk to Darren, you
know exactly where he was at on sus as such days.
Speaker 2: You can't tell me, you don't.
Speaker 1: Darren's girlfriend clinch her lips and sat down in a huff.
The cop needed to know what happened last Monday night.
Speaker 3: Monday night, if you could look at your other, well,
we text each other to do Okay, what I'm saying,
If you're texting somebody at say ten o'clock on Monday night,
obviously you're not with it right. So if you were
to go back through your phone, you could say, oh, yeah,
Monday night, I wasn't with him.
Speaker 2: I was texting him at ten o'clock. He must have
been somewhere else. With that jog your memory if you
were to do that. Problem not because I believe my.
Speaker 9: Phone phone numbers and my messages okay, like on a
weekly basis.
Speaker 2: Okay, so right, no problem.
Speaker 1: What eighteen year old college student do you know, deletes
their entire phone history on a weekly basis? Come on,
I believe you're not telling me all the truth.
Speaker 2: That's what I'm just trying to sell right now. Well,
I just feel like, do not understan.
Speaker 3: That would you have a problem letting us download your
phone to get your deleted.
Speaker 13: Text messages from him?
Speaker 2: Yes, you would have a problem. Yes, okay.
Speaker 1: Darren's girlfriend refused to hand over her deleted texts, citing
privacy concerns. She wasn't under any legal obligation to share
her phone, so she didn't. But the cops had her
car and they zeroed in on Darren. The red Toyota
Corolla told them everything they needed to know, and when
they opened the trunk, the blood they found was confirmed
by DNA to belong to Brandon.
Speaker 15: Forensically, we've done a lot of investigation in this case.
There are two people that are dead. This is not
going to go away. We are confident that you are
lying to us now and you know more. So let's
go back to when you actually last saw the brothers
and be honest.
Speaker 2: Okay, be honest.
Speaker 4: I told you the last time I saw the brothers
because like I said, I didn't see them except the
night like on Sunday, you know what I'm saying, and
then Monday when I loved for school, is the last
time I.
Speaker 2: Seen one of them.
Speaker 6: And that's not true.
Speaker 11: And I know that's not true, as forensically in other
ways that we do things, we know that that's not true.
Speaker 4: So I need you you know the tree, I didn't
because I'm trying to tell you what I know is I.
Speaker 6: Don't want to know the truth.
Speaker 2: I mean, did that picture of that truth?
Speaker 1: The police had searched Linda's house from top to bottom
after using luminol. They found bloodstains in the foyer and garage.
There were also a pair of sneakers in Linda's bedroom
with blood on the bottom of them.
Speaker 15: Darren, I can't impart on you how important it is
that you that you just come out with what you know,
what you saw, not this distancing thing that you're doing.
Right now, Let's show you some photos. I'm gonna show
you a picture of a shoe, and so.
Speaker 1: Before we can go further than this, the detective leaned forward,
gray hair disheveled, his frustration barely contained. He could have
been Darren's father with that worn, determined look. But Darren
sat there, arms crossed, stubborn as a mule. The detective
pulled out a photo and slid it across the table.
Speaker 4: What's that shoes you were for me?
Speaker 9: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Nine and a half to ten?
Speaker 6: All right? Do you have a pair of shoes similar
to that?
Speaker 4: Do you do?
Speaker 6: Okay?
Speaker 15: What would you say if I told you I had
you on a video. I'm going to tell you this,
I'm well, that would mean that would support us.
Speaker 2: Knowing that you have some more knowledge than you're saying.
Speaker 4: I would love to see that video.
Speaker 1: Then, the video they had showed Darren pulling up till
Linda's condo gate and his girlfriend's read Toyota the day
after the bodies were discovered. You saw a cluster of
flashing police vehicles outside Linda's driveway, pulled a U turn
and took off.
Speaker 15: So there was never a time you came through that
gate and you saw law enforcement down in front of
your house.
Speaker 2: That's not true.
Speaker 15: We saw you turn around in your girlfriend's car and
go back out the gate, and you were checking hold on,
hold on, I'm just gonna give you this a little
east egg.
Speaker 2: You security told us that you were there. They were
watching for you. They saw you come down, We saw you.
I actually saw you turn around and go back out
in the girlfriend's car.
Speaker 6: So you're not telling the truth, Darren. If you saw that, then.
Speaker 1: I know that didn't happen.
Speaker 9: Really, yes, I do know that didn't happen, because that
I'm thinking about everything that never happened.
Speaker 1: Darren walked into the police station the day after the murders, unprompted,
ready to give a statement. According to him, he tried
to speak with someone but was told the detectives weren't
available a few days past. By then, the police had
already talked to Linda, Julian and Levn. They'd even told
Darren's girlfriend's Toyota into evidence. That's when they showed up
at the college to pick him up.
Speaker 9: If I'm going to go in and make a police statement, Darren,
I have finish what I'm saying. Sorry to cut you off,
but no, you're sitting there trying to put something. You're
trying to say some crazy stuff right now, and I'm
trying to help you.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 9: If it was going to if I seen detectives, and
I'm going to see a detective anyways, why wouldn't I
just go and get that out of the lease so
I'm not dragged out of school and maybe look like
a fucking criminal.
Speaker 2: Hey, Darren, on a night these two guys were murdered,
you were seen at a location. Okay, I will tell
you that much.
Speaker 6: Where was I I want to know what happened that night.
Speaker 19: I do not know, I said.
Speaker 1: Darren wasn't going to crack. His fight against the evidence
was as solid as the table between them. The blood,
the sneaker, the car. It was all closing in. He
had an excuse for everything. But Darren wasn't staying strong
in an attempt to only save himself. He was protecting
someone else, someone he loved way too much to betray.
Brian and Brandon Allen had been found murdered and left
to burn on the side of a highway in Palm
Beach Gardens. The Allen twins lived with their adoptive sister, Linda,
and two other products of the foster care system, Julian
Catherell and Darren Byrd. Everyone, even the Allen Children's executor
of the estate thought the murder had something to do
with Brandon and his enemies in Jacksonville, but new evidence
had pointed to Darren and Julian. Julian first played at
cool with the cops, then they dug into his record.
He was the only one with jail time under his
belt and carried himself like a street wise, tough guy,
a reputation he clearly enjoyed. In twenty sixteen, he'd been
arrested for carrying a loaded gun without a license, and
he was still on parole when the murders happened. But
despite being on probation, Julian asked for a lawyer and
that was it. They had nothing to tie him to
the crime. Then Linda was called back to the station
like a lost little child. She slumped her head and
arms on the desk and spoke softly.
Speaker 2: So, you said you last spoke with Darren Lenz Saturday.
Come on, give us a little more of that. You
spoke about more than just a movie he watched.
Speaker 7: Yeah, because I was going to tell him that they
I didn't like. So they say they identified the bodies,
and then he just kind of ran going on about
a movie and it kind of just pissed me off,
like he just the way he is, he just made
me mad, so I didn't really want to talk to
him all long.
Speaker 2: Indians.
Speaker 15: I mean this is these are your brothers, and you
didn't have a conversation with Darren that one of your
roommates about.
Speaker 2: About your brothers. I mean, come on, straight up, come
on the hold back.
Speaker 15: I mean you said you said you're down here on
your own. You must be down here because you're concerned.
You want to assist us, obviously in the murder of
your brothers, right yeah or no?
Speaker 13: Yeah?
Speaker 15: Okay, So honestly, you know, I don't believe that you
didn't talk to him about this.
Speaker 1: Linda was weak. The detectives could tell that someone had
fed her a story to repeat, and somewhere along the
way she messed it up. Now Here she was a
ninth grade dropout who worked one day a week at
Marshall's being questioned about her involvement in the murder of
her twin brothers.
Speaker 10: And we went into your apartment and there is a
a lot of evidence that we found in that apartment.
Speaker 6: And I need you to be honest with me what
happened to your brothers, because.
Speaker 7: I know that you know.
Speaker 2: Hold on, okay, this is the situation.
Speaker 15: You're either part of what happened or you're simply someone
that knows about what happened. Those are the only two
things that I believe that you are. We don't tell
you the evidence that we have, and I'm sure you
know we went back in there. We got a search warrant,
and we recovered an amazing amount of evidence.
Speaker 1: Linda pressed her hand to her forehead. She closed her
eyes and shook her head like the information she knew
would somehow magically fall out and disappear.
Speaker 2: Just talking to me, talking to everybody, going to discuss
where are your phone?
Speaker 6: We have a search work, we.
Speaker 2: Have search I don't want to know, and I'm just
going to explain how a searchment works. We can take
everything that you deleted in this phone and it will
be recovered. We do it all the time. We're not planned,
We're not going away.
Speaker 1: Linda handed over her phone and the male detective left
the room to extract what he could. Left alone with
the female officer, Linda started to open up.
Speaker 7: I won't say that I know how this works, how
what works? How would I say who did it? Without
them saying that I told him, like, if you always
do find out who didn't, can you just say you
guys cleaned up really bad?
Speaker 6: And Linda doesn't know that I'm not. I don't tell well,
I'm not going to tell them that you said anything.
Speaker 11: Okay, if you are in fear for your life, that
something's going to happen to you, I'm not putting you
in danger, because then guess who's homicide.
Speaker 6: I'm going to be working. I don't want anything bad
to happen to you.
Speaker 11: I want to put these people away so they can't
hurt you or anybody else, because what they did to
your brothers is absolutely disgusting.
Speaker 1: Linda looked down at her hands and then sighed. She
knew she was safe to talk, so she did.
Speaker 7: For a long time ago, after her parents died, Branding
had on her dad's gun and listings things from years ago. Okay,
I didn't know how the whole payment they meant, but
Julian had bought the gun from Branding, I guess for
one hundred and fifty dollars, and he never gave him
the money for it, so he made like a payment
plan or something.
Speaker 1: Along with the money and the apartments. Brandon also had
inherited mister Allen's gun with his possessions. He sold it
to Julian, who was eventually arrested for carrying it around
without a license. But Julian never paid for the gun.
So when brand and then came down from Jacksonville, he
wanted his one hundred and fifty dollars, but Julian kept
brushing him off he'd pay him. Soon, the tensions mounted,
and Julian the.
Speaker 7: Nflrobation, the police, the Sheriff's to family, Damiser's, the house
and na founding Darren refounder and Julian's back okay, and
then like Julian went to jail for for five days
and said it low Darren's calls and when he wasn't
jelling me and shouldn't really the only ones concerned and
trying to do something apparently, so Julie and Darren weren't
trying to and it really because him off. He was
supposed to be myself far brother.
Speaker 1: Julian was like Darren's older brother. They were four years apart.
They'd been shuffled from Foster Home to Foster Home and
tandem and they had stuck together through it all. Linda
said that now there was even more tension in the house,
and that's when Brandon asked Darren to help him buy
a shotgun.
Speaker 7: Came to Darren to buy a shot then fifteen hundred dollars,
so basically do off of Julian because he didn't give
him money.
Speaker 1: Julian found out Brandon was trying to get a gun
to hurt him, and this weird gossip chain brought Darren
and Julian back together. That's when they decided that Brandon
was actually the enemy in the house. Meanwhile, Brandon was
not shy about his plan to kill Julian over one
hundred and fifty dollars.
Speaker 7: Oh, I'll put a nigga throw and they sleep and
new and this and that, and I'm like, wow, he
used to try to do the same thing to mean
when we were kids, okay, and then it's like and
it's just like it kind of hit Julian there. It's
like he put two and two together, like wow, he's
really like that, and he's like it was only then
like they they stopped fugling at Brandon like period because
they saw how he was. And he eventually got three
hundred and fifty dollars from Brian. He bought three hundred
and fifty dollars from Brian to get the shot und
of it. Yeah, okay, and it's like everything was starting
to come to lif so and maybe even worse. When
Julian overheard Brandon on the phone talking to somebody about
doing something to somebody and threatening people's lives and inking
the shopping at a dumb show.
Speaker 1: Darren and Julian thought that Brandon was going to kill
them both, or at least that's what they told Linda. Meanwhile,
Brandon steered clear of everyone and created fear in the house.
Julian wasn't one to accept fear, especially from a kid
his own age, another alpha male trying to take his
place in the house. No, no way, ain't gonna happen.
Julian texted a photo of the gun that Brandon had
sold him to his girlfriend.
Speaker 6: And she wrote looks used as fuck.
Speaker 7: Lol, that'll work.
Speaker 1: Julian wrote back, it is lowell, but shit as long
as it knocking nigga off his feet. It's a quote. Guys,
try controlling your emotions for once, but testosterone, rage, resentment,
and rumors swirled around Linda's condo until she just couldn't
take it anymore. They called a roommate house meeting.
Speaker 10: I had on.
Speaker 7: Texted Brian told him, Hey, we need to have a
talk in the garage and it's about Brandy.
Speaker 1: Linda, Darren, and Julian went into the garage and waited
for the twins. Julian had the gun in his pants,
Linda knew it, but said nothing. When the twins came in,
the arguments started. Linda tried to play motherly mediator, but
her desperate cries were ignored and things escalated between Darren,
Julian and Brandon.
Speaker 7: You guys, please, I'm begging you to just listen to me.
Speaker 6: Please.
Speaker 7: I was begging God to let them just shut up
and listen to me for once. You guys don't ever
listen to me every time I tried to sell something.
And then they just talked about how like whatever I say,
doesn't he build his Billy Brian house to YadA yah yah.
So I threw my hands up.
Speaker 1: Linda started to make her way to the door. Then
Julian pulled out his gun and fired it at Brian.
Speaker 7: Julian of the pistol, and there, I did not believe
shot my bill.
Speaker 1: Stomach Brian staggered backwards, his breath hitching as the bullet
tore into him. He was the first to be shot.
It was ironic, really, since he'd been the one man
in this fight who barely had a voice.
Speaker 6: He got shot? How many times he got shot in
the stomach? His stomach? Okay? And did he say did
he die right away?
Speaker 20: Or you know?
Speaker 7: He was look scary. I couldn't even think straight after that.
I just saw my brother get shot. I don't know
what to do. And it's like I heard the second
shot in Brandon got shut my arm, and I guess
he tried to leave. I don't know how Darren got
back inside, but Brandon tried to put back inside, and
Daron pushed them back down there.
Speaker 4: And I felt like I was in a horror movie.
Speaker 7: I walked out the back door and I just kept walking,
and I heard another gun shot, and I just kept walking.
Speaker 1: Paralyzed with fear, Linda burst out the back door and
walked aimlessly through her condo complex. She walked and sobbed,
pushing the tears angrily off her cheeks. She had nowhere
to go, no one to run to. Brandon and Brian
were dead. Julian was all she had left, so she
turned around and walked back to her condo.
Speaker 7: I was barefoot that day was cold outside, and I
didn't know where I was going. I just didn't want
to be there. And then around the time I got
to look on the door, everything was quiet, and.
Speaker 4: We and Darren came down.
Speaker 7: I was shaking. I couldn't think straight.
Speaker 13: And then.
Speaker 7: They said, come on, we have to get out of here.
Speaker 1: Linda followed Julian and Darren as they led her through
the back of the complex over the gate. The three
ran until they reached the back of the target. They
waited until Julian said it was safe, and then they
returned home.
Speaker 7: We went inside, but I didn't want to look inside
the doorage. I went into the close the door and
I upstairs. I felt sick to missed on.
Speaker 4: It, and I wanted to be asleep.
Speaker 2: I was really tired.
Speaker 7: I couldn't go to sleep. But they were going to
try and clean it up, and they talked about getting
all the bedspreads and everything, and they were getting gathering
up the bedspreads. So they pulled wrapped the bodies up
and bring them upstairs. I didn't want anything to do
with it. After that, I was just praying to gather
to make the pain out of my head.
Speaker 1: Julian and Darren told Linda to close her bedroom door
and stay put. The boys worked together, stripping bed sheets
to wrap the twins' lifeless bodies. One by one, they
dragged them upstairs, the weight of their actions heavier with
each step, and dumped them on top of each other
in the master bathtub. Brandon and Brian's bodies mirrored how
their lives started. Two brothers tangled together as they had
been in the womb.
Speaker 7: As I was coming in the room with the stissy
the bat them to open. Darren looked at me and
saw how hard I was, so he closed the door.
I was really angry, Like I couldn't even express how angry.
Speaker 1: I was, although she was angry. Linda let Darren and
Julian into her room after they had finished cleaning up
the crime scene. The three curled up in Linda's bed
together and fell asleep, knowing they would have to take
this to the grave.
Speaker 7: Not bris with all I had left, And to be honest,
I'm still kind of holding a grudge against.
Speaker 14: Him for that.
Speaker 1: The one hundred and fifty dollars that Julian owed Brandon
was the alleged street business that Julian would not elaborate on.
For the detectives in the vague text on his phone,
they had discovered his motive for murder, and he knew it,
so he shut his mouth and pleaded the fifth. Julian
was the only seasoned criminal in the bunch. When the
murder was done, he told Linda and Darren to delete
all their messages. He instructed them to use WhatsApp to
text about anything having to do with Brandon or Brian.
He thought he was clever enough to get away with murder.
He scared Linda into silence, convincing her that if any
of them went down, they'd all go down together. He
thought she'd never talk, but when the cops gave her
the option, she told the truth. Julian was never her godbrother.
He was just an opportunistic user who took advantage of Linda.
Whether she saw this or not, the goodness still left
in her made her tell the truth. Finally, So you.
Speaker 15: Told us all this because it's true, and this because
your two brothers are murdered and you want the people
that did it to come to justice. Yes, Why are
you telling this because we've maybe you tell tell you no, it's.
Speaker 7: Not fair to Brandon and Brian that they lived like that.
Speaker 2: So you're saying this because you're terrible. I can see
it's just.
Speaker 7: But like nobody understands how I feel right now.
Speaker 15: I don't know what you're feeling because my brother's not
that it must be horrible. I don't know what you're
going through. It's got to be terrible. And these are
people that you more or less trusted. You feel betrayed,
don't you.
Speaker 7: I didn't know he was going to do that.
Speaker 15: You've been scared for a little bit, haven't you?
Speaker 7: After that? I barely had talked to him and Darren
I didn't even want anything.
Speaker 2: Have they contacted to today either of them?
Speaker 7: No, not Darren, but Julia just act like said his
usual he good morning.
Speaker 2: Does he know you're going to come down here today?
Did you tell him?
Speaker 7: I don't recall, and he hasn't added, So don't.
Speaker 2: Don't tell him that you came down here today.
Speaker 1: Linda said she was afraid Julian would kill her if
he knew she told the truth. The detectives promised to
get her on a plane to Georgia to be with
Levaughn as soon as possible, Linda said, shaking as the
detectives took her phone again extract the deleted evidence. Then
she piped up with a question.
Speaker 7: But if you guys do recover anything, you guys aren't
gonna make it be deleted. You guys can recover because
there's some stuff that I deleted.
Speaker 2: And want it back. Yeah, recover everything.
Speaker 7: You had texted me on my birthday and told me something.
Speaker 2: Well, you tell you on your birthday.
Speaker 7: You know you're getting older and you've done a lot
for this family and how much they appreciated it. Me
and Brian we went three years about talking to each
other in the house ones.
Speaker 1: You know, stuff like that makes me happy with Linda.
Brian and Brandon may not have had the best upbringings
or parental figures, or they may not have even come
from the same bloodline, but they were family. Now Linda
would be out in the world alone. With Linda's confession
and hand, the detectives turned to Darren. They needed him
to unravel enough to pin the murders on Julian, but
Darren was as unyielding as he was devoted to the
only brother he'd ever truly had. Maybe it was the
guilt Julian palinum over those five measly days in jail,
or the endless need to prove he was worthy of
Julian's respect. Maybe it was their age, their skin, or
maybe something deeper. They were two fatherless boys lost in
the shuffle, fumbling through life and trying to figure out
how to be men in all the wrong ways. It's
tough out there for young men in twenty twenty five.
And don't you forget about it. Don't minimize it, don't
laugh about it, don't pretend it isn't a problem.
Speaker 6: It is.
Speaker 16: So you could just.
Speaker 12: Step up and be honest with us, because you're going
to go down for somebody else's shit.
Speaker 6: Have a criminal record you do not have. You're not
a bad person, You're not a bad kid.
Speaker 2: You're saying you didn't do something. Tell me what you saw.
Speaker 8: I didn't see.
Speaker 17: I was not I was not there.
Speaker 1: Three detectives question Darren for over six hours. He denied
knowing anything. His ability to lie under pressure was impressive
for an eighteen year old, but the detectives played Linda
and Julian against him, saying those two had agreed that
Darren committed the murders.
Speaker 2: They have done this to you.
Speaker 15: You got put in a position by this guy here,
and you're.
Speaker 6: Not the bad You're not the bad kid.
Speaker 2: You're the loyal one. He brought you in here, and
you're misplaced loyalty.
Speaker 15: You're screwed. You're not giving yourself an out. Hey, I'm
just being giving you fatherly advice. If it was my son,
I want him fighting for himself in this, not sticking
up for somebody else.
Speaker 1: Just saying, But Darren knew it wasn't true. He was
loyal to his promise to Julian. The truth goes to
the grave. Darren was free to go, and in the meantime,
they found his girlfriend and served her a warrant for
her cell phone.
Speaker 3: All right, is that your cell phone?
Speaker 13: M still warrant for your cell phone?
Speaker 2: Okay, here you go.
Speaker 1: There's a copy of it.
Speaker 13: We're taking your cell phone once we get it downloaded.
Speaker 1: I don't know if we're keeping it or not.
Speaker 14: What it is is.
Speaker 2: I think after we copy it fully then we'll be
able to get it back to you. I'll have to.
Speaker 3: Consult with the attorney and see what's going on.
Speaker 2: But well, I'll do my best to get it back
to you.
Speaker 1: Darren's girlfriend stood dumbfounded as the police confiscated her phone.
Speaker 7: You didn't come here and give me a warn.
Speaker 17: If you never give me a heads up and say, hey,
we're gonna take your life, like who am.
Speaker 7: Supposed to car?
Speaker 14: Would you like me to call your dad and say, hey, Joe,
because I.
Speaker 12: Think he's an asshole, and I don't know what you
told him, but he's really bitching about like thinking, I'm
like the same thing that you told me.
Speaker 6: Okay, I'm telling the truth. He thinks I'm not telling
the truth to be asked and telling him to keep
his nose out of the investigation because it's not his place.
Speaker 1: Darren's girlfriend's phone revealed that she actually had no involvement.
The night that the bodies were dumped, she was texting
Darren crazy messages that read like novels, so angry that
he was late returning her car with the blood evidence,
video footage, DNA and Linda's confession Darren and Julian were
looking at murder and tampering with evidence. Only fourteen days
after Brian and Brandon were murdered, Darren and Julian were
separately arrested. Julian stayed quiet, but Darren asked to talk
to a detective one more time.
Speaker 2: Was go on, if you asked to.
Speaker 7: Talk to me?
Speaker 2: Yes, right, I have a question.
Speaker 4: So I know all the shows are and stuff, but
how does witness protection actually work?
Speaker 6: Why?
Speaker 2: Just can I just ask you? Why have you been threatened?
Speaker 4: Or I'm to this out of the question right now,
I'm asking how does witness protection work?
Speaker 2: And hey, let's say I did have something to say.
I need assurance. I need assurance.
Speaker 1: The detective sat in his chair while Darren stood before
him like a subordinate, getting the courage to ask his
boss for a raise that he knew he didn't deserve.
Speaker 2: Do you understand that you're being charged with murder? Correct?
You understand that? Okay, so you're not You're not going
to be outside of the jail at all. Okay, Okay,
you're going to jail.
Speaker 4: All right.
Speaker 2: So you've been charged with murder.
Speaker 1: But it hadn't done on Darren. He thought that if
he finally told the truth, there may be some golden
ticket of freedom for him. On the other side that
was never on the table. Darren was going to trial
and possibly life in prison. He was still terrified to
tell the truth for one reason. Julian, I'm scared to.
Speaker 7: Talk to.
Speaker 6: Nothing's going to happen to you.
Speaker 2: Oh, I know, all right, nothing's going to happen to you.
Speaker 13: You know, we're we're going to arrest Julian just like
we arrested you.
Speaker 6: All right, So he's going to be he's gonna be.
Speaker 14: Also, you know, in jail, not able to get to
anybody or do anything like that. Okay, you guys will
be separating and nobody'll be next to each other.
Speaker 2: You're going to be in your own little area.
Speaker 13: He'll be in his own little so you're not going
to be anywhere close to each other.
Speaker 6: There's no way he's going to get to you.
Speaker 1: Julian had put the fear of God in Darren, and
it showed. Sitting with the detective. Darren let the detail
of murder slip. He knew the type of gun, he
helped clean up, he moved bodies, and even drove his
girlfriend's Toyota to the burn side. Toyota's a great car,
by the way, not just saying that because they're a sponsor,
although they have been quite generous. Good preservation of your
car's value there on resale, usually with a Toyota, just
saying all right, anyway, sorry, Getting back to the story,
he didn't drive that Toyota to the burn site and
did a whole bunch of other stuff, but he just
couldn't tell the whole story. Every few minutes he stopped,
his words, catching in his throat, as if two voices
were warring inside his own head, his own conscience and
Julian's looming presence.
Speaker 2: Where did you clean the car out?
Speaker 3: You didn't come back to the apartment that night?
Speaker 6: Did you in that car?
Speaker 2: Where'd you go after? I mean her car back? Where
did you take it to give her a car back?
Speaker 13: I met her?
Speaker 2: Where we were at? Where's where's that.
Speaker 7: We were hanging out?
Speaker 4: You know, out of park?
Speaker 2: Okay, well park?
Speaker 4: I can't keep doing what because man, I need some insurance.
Like I'm already scared, bro, I've told you, I've done.
Speaker 6: I told you, ma'am, I'm gonna be fine.
Speaker 1: But things wouldn't be just fine. And Darren knew it
as he sat in jail awaiting trial and paralyzed with
fear that Julian would be friends some goons to come
kill him in his cell. He had a change of heart.
All that time alone to think in his cell really worked,
and on April fourth, twenty seventeen, Darren was taken out
of jail to get in a police car and drive
to the corner of Windsor Avenue in Thirteenth Street in
West Palm Beach.
Speaker 2: Out here at the time, on the right, down on
the right, this one right here.
Speaker 1: In the storm drain, the police pulled out the old
semi automatic pistol that Brandon had sold Julian, the same
one he used to murder the Allen twins. It was
wrapped in a plastic bag and thrown in the gutter.
They found pictures of the gun in the deleted images
on Julian's cell phone.
Speaker 20: You know what he did with the SHELFA.
Speaker 19: Actually, I may know where one is. Holy shit, I
also may know where one of their cell phone lose.
Speaker 1: Darren led police to a spot on Martin Luther King
Junior Boulevard where Julian had thrown Brandon's cell phone. Despite
his cooperation, Darren was still charged with murder and a
slew of other felonies. Julian's trial went first in twenty
twenty two. He was sentenced to life in prison for
the deaths of both Brandon and Brian Allen. Darren's trial
took place in twenty twenty four. He'd grown a thick,
blonde beard on his babyish face. Darren was sentenced to
life in prison for tampering with physical evidence and second
degree murder for Brandon Allen. He was acquitted of the
murder for Brian Allen. There's one last piece of this puzzle,
and we need your help to solve it. A video
was recovered from the night the bodies were burned. That's
just six seconds long. In the background, you can hear
the fire crackling consuming what was left of the twins.
Then a voice cuts.
Speaker 7: Through the night woo yeah or fire a dare.
Speaker 1: The detectives can't figure out whose voice this was. It
didn't quite match Darren's girlfriend, or Julian's girlfriend who had
a low voice, or Linda.
Speaker 5: But who am I to say?
Speaker 1: I'm not a forensic voice analyst. I don't know is
that a job? Not sure where you would even go
to get a degree for that, But it sounds like
a woman was there watching as the bodies were unloaded
and set a blaze. Was it Linda was her entire
story of fabrication or is it someone who has yet
to face justice. The only female owned cell phones the
police had warrants for were Darren's girlfriend and Linda. You've
heard both of their voices on this episode. Without knowing
which phone the video came from, We'll never know, and
detectives could not tell us when we asked for clarification,
So I'll leave it up to you, the listener whose
voice was on that tape?
Speaker 6: Ooo, yeah never fire.
Speaker 1: Dan, Brian, Brandon, and Linda were rescued from foster care
when the Allen family adopted them, But as Levaughn had said,
their parents failed them where it mattered most. They gave Linda, Brandon,
and Brian condos and bank accounts in their death, but
neglected to instill basic life skills while they were still alive.
But Darren and Julian were entirely abandoned by the system.
Left defend for themselves, they lacked the guidance every kid needs.
Maybe things would have been different if his father had
been a dad who knows, but instead he had only
Julian to love and fear like a father. Brian also
looked to Brandon with a certain authority, but I don't
think it had anything to do with fatherlessness, more so
wanting to keep the connection to his twin. No matter
how flawed Brandon was, he was still Brian's twin, and
in the end, siding with Brandon was the reason he
lost his life. Be careful where you place your loyalty.
Sometimes the ones you idolize her just as misguided as you,
may be, still searching for their destiny, good or evil.
Well I tried. I tried to make Sword and Scale
television available on other platforms like Facebook for example, and YouTube,
but I don't think I can you see all this
woke shit got me canceled, and there you are. You
could just be on Patreon and avoid the whole thing.
I mean, I don't think you guys realized how much
money it costs to build your own app, not to
mention how complicated it is. You never please everybody, but
you know we're doing the best we can here. So
if you like sort Scale, head on over to Swordinscale
dot com, check out our website, download our app, and
check out our TV show. I mean, there's a whole
lot of it right now, sixteen episodes. I believe all
very good, very very good. So here's your chance to
be part of something. Help us fund it, help us
create it from scratch. Eventually, we'd like to have multiple
seasons spanning many years that we can broadcast to you
in some way, the general public.
Speaker 2: That is.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if it's going to be on TV
because the future of TV doesn't look very bright, you
know what I mean. But thanks for joining us once again,
and until next time, stay safe.
Speaker 20: Sill Span stations spots, station s