Speaker 1: Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is not.
Speaker 2: Intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 3: Many gave me the night.
Speaker 4: And even then he was concerned about me walking behind it, like, well,
Speaker 4: we both got trusted just now, don't.
Speaker 5: There is no honor amongst thieves or murderers. Really, Sometimes
Speaker 5: people that listen to the show get things a little confused.
Speaker 5: They think I hate this race, or this sex, or
Speaker 5: this pan sexual, binary dogkin or whatever the fuck you
Speaker 5: want to be. I really couldn't care less. Sure you're unusual,
Speaker 5: but I think that's what you're going for. But this
Speaker 5: show is about murder, not your personal political causes. So
Speaker 5: if I make fun of some asshole that's pretending to
Speaker 5: be a victim and is instead a killer, well too bad.
Speaker 5: We're gonna keep doing what we do. And if you
Speaker 5: don't like it, well you know where the door is.
Speaker 5: You don't have to announce your exit. It's Monday, September
Speaker 5: twenty third, twenty twenty Keene, New Hampshire. That's the day
Speaker 5: twenty five year old Jonathan Emerald was reported missing. At first,
Speaker 5: nothing about it seemed dirgent. John was a hiker, one
Speaker 5: of those obsessed types. The mountains of New Hampshire were
Speaker 5: his second home. Long grueling day trips, sometimes stretching into
Speaker 5: the night, that was normal for him. He had already
Speaker 5: conquered ninety nine of the one hundred highest peaks in
Speaker 5: New England and nearly every four thousand footer in the region.
Speaker 5: So when his mother didn't hear from him over the weekend,
Speaker 5: she wasn't that alarmed. Maybe he was just out of service.
Speaker 5: Maybe he was with friends. He had plenty of them.
Speaker 5: John had a full life. But then Monday came and
Speaker 5: John didn't show up to work. That's when the unease
Speaker 5: set in, because that just wasn't like him. John was dependable, focused.
Speaker 5: At just twenty five, he was already a biomedical engineer
Speaker 5: at Teleflex Medical, building devices that helped save lives. He
Speaker 5: showed up for work, he checked in, and he loved
Speaker 5: his career. So his mother made the call. She asked
Speaker 5: the police to check in on him. But when officers
Speaker 5: arrived at his quiet cape style home, John was gone,
Speaker 5: and so was his Subaru and Preza, the one with
Speaker 5: the runhappy bumper sticker.
Speaker 6: State Police looking for a missing twenty five year old
Speaker 6: man from Keen. Police say that Jonathan armor Ault was
Speaker 6: reported missing after he failed to show up for work
Speaker 6: in Jaffrey. His family hasn't heard from him since Saturday.
Speaker 6: He may be driving a gray Subaru Impreza with New
Speaker 6: Hampshire plates. Anyone with information asked to contact state police.
Speaker 5: While John's friends rallied on social media to try to
Speaker 5: find their friend. The police pinged his phone and discovered
Speaker 5: its last known location was near a hiking trail in Jaffrey,
Speaker 5: New Hampshire. A desperate scramble started. Most of John's friends
Speaker 5: and family were concerned that something had happened to him
Speaker 5: out on the trail. Maybe he was just sitting there
Speaker 5: with a broken leg, waiting for help. But the police
Speaker 5: got to work chasing down leeds. When they spoke with Teleflex,
Speaker 5: learned that not only had John mysteriously been absent from work,
Speaker 5: but another Teleflex employee, thirty one year old Brittany Baron,
Speaker 5: had also failed to show up on that same day.
Speaker 5: On Monday, September twenty first, Brittany had called HR not
Speaker 5: to call out sick or a personal day, but to
Speaker 5: quit just like that. After six and a half steady
Speaker 5: years at Teleflex, she walked away without a warning it
Speaker 5: didn't make sense. Brittany was a married mother of three
Speaker 5: young girls. Her husband did not work, She was the
Speaker 5: sole earner for the family, and she loved Teleflex. She too,
Speaker 5: had been moving up in the ranks over the years.
Speaker 5: Brittany Baron lived in Jeffrey, New Hampshire with her husband, Armando,
Speaker 5: and their three kids. They lived modestly on one side
Speaker 5: of a duplex house, and Armando's parents lived on the
Speaker 5: other side. When the police arrived at the Baron house,
Speaker 5: they found Armando's mother her hands full watching her granddaughters
Speaker 5: because apparently Brittany and Armando were on a hiking trip.
Speaker 5: Brittany's mother in law told the police that she hadn't
Speaker 5: seen Brittany since Saturday when the couple left for the mountains.
Speaker 7: I think it was Sunday when she called my cell phone.
Speaker 7: But don't for telling it, you know so badly listening
Speaker 7: the messages that I is full. I don't bother to
Speaker 7: delete it, believe guess what's the point, you know, gets
Speaker 7: something through and then she just she just tegts me
Speaker 7: and she says, Mama, please let the phone ring it
Speaker 7: to get to the boy's mail. I want to leave
Speaker 7: a boy's mail to the girls.
Speaker 5: Brittany had called and asked her mother in law to
Speaker 5: let the phone go to voicemail so she could leave
Speaker 5: a special message for her daughters. But her mother in
Speaker 5: law couldn't figure out how to delete her old messages,
Speaker 5: so she just had to relay what Brittany said.
Speaker 7: And then she says, but please tell my girls I
Speaker 7: love them with all of my heart. And then she
Speaker 7: mentioned all the names of the girls, and then she said, remember, girls,
Speaker 7: you're a team. Please pray continuously, pray to Yahooa we
Speaker 7: call God Yahula. And then she goes, be good to
Speaker 7: your Grandmaita Spanish grandma, and to your papa, and I'll
Speaker 7: be I'll see you guys. Should I love you my girls.
Speaker 5: Her message was less like an update from her mom
Speaker 5: on a hiking trip and more like a dark goodbye.
Speaker 7: She called back on Monday, Yeah, she called back on Monday,
Speaker 7: more earlier. And then she goes, she talked to them.
Speaker 7: She talked to all of them, all of them. And
Speaker 7: then she says that she loved them and she's taking
Speaker 7: time off, taking little time because she wants to heal.
Speaker 7: She wants to get the marriage, you know, being a
Speaker 7: better mother.
Speaker 5: That's when Brittany's oldest daughter jumped on the phone.
Speaker 7: Where you at, mom? Then she goes, I am in
Speaker 7: a safe place.
Speaker 5: Though Brittany had told Teleflex she was quitting, she also
Speaker 5: made sure to text a group chat with close friends
Speaker 5: and coworkers to let them know what was going on.
Speaker 5: She told her friends she had left Armando and that
Speaker 5: she was going home to New Mexico to stay with
Speaker 5: her family. She said she needed to get herself right again.
Speaker 5: When her friends asked about her daughters, she said she
Speaker 5: didn't want to bring them along. Unquote mommy's mental breakdown.
Speaker 5: She claimed that Armando was being extremely patient and nice
Speaker 5: about the whole thing, which is interesting. She confessed she
Speaker 5: felt like a failure as a mother. But here's the thing.
Speaker 5: Armando and Brittany left on Saturday. That same day, people
Speaker 5: stopped hearing from John. By Monday, Brittany was communicating with
Speaker 5: people only by phone or text. But Armando had returned
Speaker 5: home without his wife, and Brittany.
Speaker 1: Was here as well yesterday with Armando. No, no, she was, and.
Speaker 8: When when did yesterday?
Speaker 9: When did you first see Armando?
Speaker 1: Was he here all day yesterday?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 7: He got here Monday.
Speaker 5: Night Armando's mother didn't find it strange. She thought this
Speaker 5: whole trip was a spiritual way to bring the couple
Speaker 5: closer to God. Yeah, that's what she thought.
Speaker 7: That's because he told me that he needed Also, he
Speaker 7: said that he needed some space, some time off, you know,
Speaker 7: because we pray and fast. I think that is I
Speaker 7: was thinking that this is like a spiritual thing, right,
Speaker 7: But they were not time to pray and be better
Speaker 7: because we believe Jesus common swoman, okay, and we have
Speaker 7: been trying our best to be spiritual means right?
Speaker 1: And what was he here in the morning and then
Speaker 1: left and came back yesterday?
Speaker 3: Yesterday here Monday.
Speaker 7: He lived here with his bed, with the girls and
Speaker 7: me I slipped on the girls.
Speaker 5: Something about Armando's mother felt a little off. Maybe it
Speaker 5: was the language barrier. English wasn't her first language, but
Speaker 5: it didn't feel like confusion. What mattered was this, Armando
Speaker 5: came home without his wife. Behind him was a trail
Speaker 5: of strange phone calls and what sounded like a goodbye
Speaker 5: message from Brittany to her girls. Then, after grabbing some
Speaker 5: food and supplies, Armando took off again, saying he too
Speaker 5: needed space. A little while later, he called his mother,
Speaker 5: this time though he didn't sound like himself.
Speaker 7: Then he called me and then he says, Mom, really
Speaker 7: not with me, and then he said I left her.
Speaker 1: I don't know what.
Speaker 7: He says, I left her, and I'm.
Speaker 8: Just going I'm just gonna be okay, that's okay. Then
Speaker 8: I said what happened? And then he says it.
Speaker 7: Is because she says that she needs time, but she's
Speaker 7: not with me.
Speaker 8: And I said okay, And I said, how are you doing?
Speaker 8: And who was crying? He was crying and he said,
Speaker 8: I don't feel good, Mom.
Speaker 3: I don't know, he says.
Speaker 5: In her text chain with her friends, Brittany also mentioned
Speaker 5: that Teleflex had sent a police officer to her house
Speaker 5: despite her having called in and quit. They knew her
Speaker 5: that well, and we're concerned that her impromptu exit felt wrong.
Speaker 5: Her friends let her know that John also hadn't shown
Speaker 5: up to work and that people were actively searching for him.
Speaker 5: Brittany never called her friends, She just texted, and her
Speaker 5: friends thought that the message, which didn't sound like her.
Speaker 5: But was there a connection between Brittany and John beyond
Speaker 5: the fact that they both worked at Teleflex? It was
Speaker 5: a massive company Brittany worked as a machine operator and
Speaker 5: John was a biomedical engineer. They weren't even in the
Speaker 5: same divisions. Brittany was six years older than John, with
Speaker 5: a husband and kids, and what world would they be friends?
Speaker 1: But something was.
Speaker 5: Pulling their stories together. Then on Tuesday morning, just twenty
Speaker 5: four hours after John's mother had reported a missing New Hampshire,
Speaker 5: Fish and Game found something in the woods of Jaffrey.
Speaker 5: It was a woman all alone, just her and her dog.
Speaker 5: She'd set up a makeshift camp in a place no
Speaker 5: one was supposed to be. She was shaking. Her face
Speaker 5: was destroyed. Both eyes were black, the bruises flooding down
Speaker 5: to her puffy cheeks. One eye was completely swollen, shut,
Speaker 5: filled with blood. She couldn't even see out of it.
Speaker 5: The top of her head was split open, still bleeding,
Speaker 5: and she was crying as a bloody saw sat a
Speaker 5: few feet away on the dirt. This was Brittany Barren.
Speaker 5: A few feet behind her, Fish and Game found John's
Speaker 5: missing Subaru and Presa. Twenty five year old Jonathan Emerald
Speaker 5: had been reported missing in September of twenty twenty. He
Speaker 5: was a biomedical engineer who worked at a company called
Speaker 5: Teleflex in Jeffrey, New Hampshire. Smart driven and aspirational, John
Speaker 5: had climbed the ladder at work, purchased his first home
Speaker 5: and was living life to the fullest when he disappeared.
Speaker 5: But now police had found his coworker, thirty one year
Speaker 5: old Brittany Baron, in a desolate area of the New
Speaker 5: Hampshire Wilderness, beaten to a pulp and camping out with
Speaker 5: John's car parked behind her. The police brought her into
Speaker 5: the station. They knew this woman was the key to
Speaker 5: finding John, and time was of the essence, but coaxing
Speaker 5: things out of a woman who had seemingly been battered
Speaker 5: and abandoned wouldn't be quite so simple.
Speaker 1: How you doing, okay? You need an ambulance or anything
Speaker 1: for your Are you sure? Okay?
Speaker 5: Brittany sat with her head down Beside her was her
Speaker 5: panting and lying at her feet. The officers offered her
Speaker 5: medical help, but she refused. She insisted she was fine.
Speaker 1: Brittany, what brings you? What brings you up up here? Camping?
Speaker 1: Just trying to clear my head, clean your head? Okay?
Speaker 1: You have some stuff going on?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I just needed to get away for a while, Okay.
Speaker 1: So we did.
Speaker 2: Okay, do you mind me asking what happened to your
Speaker 2: eye and your.
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 2: And you don't have to and that's that's you did
Speaker 2: the exactly the right thing. If if if I ask
Speaker 2: you a question you don't feel comfortable, then just don't.
Speaker 2: You don't have to talk about it, okay, But I
Speaker 2: want to make sure that you get whatever help that you.
Speaker 1: That you need if you need it.
Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, So you wanted to to clear your head
Speaker 2: and that's why you would you would come up?
Speaker 1: And where did you go?
Speaker 3: I went to I don't know what it's called.
Speaker 1: I am moose fuck, moose.
Speaker 3: Buck, something like that. Cabins, but you turn off on
Speaker 3: like a logging road.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's pretty far out.
Speaker 3: Okay, Just I knew no would would really be there.
Speaker 1: So okay, what kind of when did you come up?
Speaker 3: Sunday morning?
Speaker 1: Sunday morning? And who did you come up with?
Speaker 5: Her speech was slow and removed. The thirty one year
Speaker 5: old mother slowly tucked her brown hair behind her ear
Speaker 5: and closed her eyes. The white of her right eye
Speaker 5: wasn't even white anymore. It was a deep blood red.
Speaker 5: It was uncomfortable to look at.
Speaker 1: What kinds of what kinds of things are you going through?
Speaker 1: I don't know. Okay, is everybody with are your three kids? Okay?
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay there with my mother.
Speaker 5: Brittany assured the officer that she was only taking some
Speaker 5: time alone to clear her head. There was too much
Speaker 5: going on, but her face told a different story.
Speaker 1: Nobody knows where I am. Okay.
Speaker 2: Well, part of the concern was people want to make
Speaker 2: sure that you were okay.
Speaker 4: They know that I'm safe and okay, but that I'm
Speaker 4: choosing to not come home for now. I wanted, like,
Speaker 4: I just didn't want my girls to see my face, okay, honestly,
Speaker 4: So I was like, if I can spend at least
Speaker 4: a couple of weeks trying to get it done, and
Speaker 4: when I look at them, they're not going to be
Speaker 4: afraid of me.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 5: When Fish and Game found Brittany in the woods, they
Speaker 5: handed her over to New Hampshire deputies, who arrested her
Speaker 5: for illegal camping, not so much for the crime, but
Speaker 5: as a cover. It was the only way to get
Speaker 5: this beaten, terrified woman somewhere safe to find out what
Speaker 5: happened and why exactly she had John's car. Now, she
Speaker 5: sat under fluorescent lights shaking, insisting she'd only gone into
Speaker 5: the woods so her girls wouldn't have to see her
Speaker 5: face the way it was.
Speaker 2: You said that you had come up here with someone,
Speaker 2: but you didn't want to get into who that person was.
Speaker 2: We know that there's a car that's where you're, where
Speaker 2: your camp was. Did you come up with that person
Speaker 2: that's that car belongs to? I don't Okay, Well, Brittany,
Speaker 2: the thing is obviously you've been injured. You know, we
Speaker 2: know that the person who owns that car is missing.
Speaker 2: I know that you think that you might be in trouble,
Speaker 2: and what I don't know is kind of what the
Speaker 2: circumstances were that led up to that and why you
Speaker 2: feel that way. And my guess is that your your eye,
Speaker 2: your eyes, something happened that led to to that, And
Speaker 2: I think that that's important to explain that what happened
Speaker 2: to you. Did John cause those injuries to you?
Speaker 1: No? Yeah, did, Armando.
Speaker 5: Brittany looked down and whispered, I don't want to talk
Speaker 5: about it. That's when the cop knew what was happening.
Speaker 5: He knew he had to get through to this damaged,
Speaker 5: battered woman to find out the truth about where John
Speaker 5: was and what exactly happened in those woods.
Speaker 1: Well before before you leave here today.
Speaker 2: And you're leaving here today, regardless of what we talk about,
Speaker 2: regardless of what you say, You're you're going to leave today, Okay,
Speaker 2: regardless of what you say.
Speaker 1: You have my word.
Speaker 2: I'm telling you now, you're leaving here as long as
Speaker 2: I have your word that you'll stay in contact.
Speaker 1: With me if we need to. Okay, Is that is
Speaker 1: that fair? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Okay, it's kind of a good faith thing if you
Speaker 2: if I can take your word and you can take
Speaker 2: my word.
Speaker 3: Then do I get to go back?
Speaker 2: Yes, as long as we can establish that it's safe.
Speaker 2: But we need to we need to make sure that
Speaker 2: it's safe. But you understand why, I'm kind of in
Speaker 2: a difficult position right now.
Speaker 1: I'm don crank because I can.
Speaker 3: Girls.
Speaker 5: That's when Brittany broke everything she'd been holding inside slowly
Speaker 5: started coming out at the thought that if she told
Speaker 5: the truth, she'd get to go home and hug her
Speaker 5: children once again.
Speaker 1: All I want is the truth. I don't want any
Speaker 1: more or any less. I just want. I just want
Speaker 1: the truth, whatever that may be.
Speaker 2: And if that means that you were in fear you
Speaker 2: were in danger if it means that you were, you know,
Speaker 2: in a relationship with you know, John from work. Whatever
Speaker 2: it may be, Whatever the truth is is all I want.
Speaker 2: If that's not the truth, that's not what I want,
Speaker 2: you know. But I also don't want to be reliant
Speaker 2: on what other people tell us, you know.
Speaker 10: I mean, I'm going to find out that.
Speaker 3: Me and John were talking to each other.
Speaker 4: We only talked for like a week, and he was
Speaker 4: really serious.
Speaker 1: What do you mean by he was really serious? She
Speaker 1: just really liked.
Speaker 3: Me, okay, And I didn't realized that he liked me
Speaker 3: a lot like that.
Speaker 4: We worked together for a long time, but I didn't
Speaker 4: talk to him because I was attracted to him.
Speaker 5: John liked Brittany. He had made it known, and though
Speaker 5: she felt the same way, she avoided him. After all,
Speaker 5: she was a married woman who had been with her
Speaker 5: husband since she was eighteen. She grew up in faith,
Speaker 5: adultery was out of the question, no matter what problems
Speaker 5: were brewing inside her marriage. Supposedly that is.
Speaker 4: And then like beginning of the month, I made it
Speaker 4: a stupid nickname for him at work, and I felt
Speaker 4: really bad. I called him Abercrommie because he looked like immortial.
Speaker 3: It's really handsome.
Speaker 4: And he found out about the nickname because somebody called
Speaker 4: him that and they.
Speaker 3: Really, isn't that your last name?
Speaker 4: It is because I called him Armani at first, and
Speaker 4: then I said he's way too young.
Speaker 3: He's an Abercromie model, and we laughed and it stuck.
Speaker 3: But he didn't know because I was not going to
Speaker 3: tell him that I caught that.
Speaker 5: Is this normal behavior for women in the workplace. I
Speaker 5: wonder how many times former coworkers referred to me as
Speaker 5: Adonis back in the day. Bets You think the Abercrombie
Speaker 5: nickname Brittany made up for John spread throughout the office,
Speaker 5: as things do, and eventually it got back to him.
Speaker 5: At first, he thought people were making fun of him,
Speaker 5: Brittany explained, because as a kid, John was often made
Speaker 5: fun of for his outfits. You see, he was color blind,
Speaker 5: so he didn't really match very well. So when Brittany
Speaker 5: found out about all of this, she felt bad and
Speaker 5: decided to talk to John. Big mistake.
Speaker 4: I always felt bad and I told my friend to
Speaker 4: just tell him the truth, like, just tell him that
Speaker 4: it was because he's really hard. I mean, I don't
Speaker 4: want to be a jerk, you know, and make him
Speaker 4: think that people were saying many things about him, right, so.
Speaker 3: She told him, but I never really apologized.
Speaker 4: The beginning of the month, I messaged him on Facebook
Speaker 4: and I apologized for the nickname.
Speaker 5: That first Facebook message opened everything. John had always had
Speaker 5: a crush on Brittany, and now she responded. By early September,
Speaker 5: they were talking online and then at work they took
Speaker 5: breaks together. But this mutual attraction and communication had only
Speaker 5: been going on for about two weeks.
Speaker 3: So let's just we were just talking anyways, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean, Like we weren't dating because we couldn't.
Speaker 3: But he really liked me.
Speaker 1: I really liked him. What did he say to you?
Speaker 1: What do you mean? Like, what do you how do
Speaker 1: you know that he really liked you?
Speaker 3: He wanted me to go with him, like be with him.
Speaker 1: Like leave your leave your husband and be with him.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like basically my husband admitted to me like last
Speaker 4: year that he cheated on me.
Speaker 1: Like our whole marriage since coming to New.
Speaker 4: Hampshire, like you know, like the whole time, Like yeah,
Speaker 4: like a year in he messed with somebody else.
Speaker 3: And then I knew that he was like hitting on
Speaker 3: my like he would hit on my friends and stuff.
Speaker 1: But like.
Speaker 4: I didn't know that he was accounting sex with other women.
Speaker 4: And then he told me about like two other times,
Speaker 4: and so we were.
Speaker 2: Like, when when was the when was the you said
Speaker 2: I uarantee of marriage? When was the most recent since
Speaker 2: you've moved here.
Speaker 3: When I was pregnant with my last baby?
Speaker 1: Okay, sorry me too. So John knew that you told him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was kind of your somebody that you trusted
Speaker 2: that you could confide him.
Speaker 4: He became in really short time. Like again, I hadn't
Speaker 4: really spoken to him until this month. I didn't say
Speaker 4: a word to him. I avoided him at all. Class
Speaker 4: I'd really weird. He used to laugh at me because
Speaker 4: I acted really weird. I just avoided him.
Speaker 2: You were just initially physically attracted to him, and then
Speaker 2: once you got to know him over the last couple
Speaker 2: of weeks.
Speaker 4: Wow, you're actually really cool too, like genuinely, genuinely nice.
Speaker 5: Brittany found in John what she'd been missing, a partner
Speaker 5: who felt like a friend at home. Her marriage to
Speaker 5: Armando was unraveling years of cheating, no financial support from
Speaker 5: this lazy douchebag Armando unless his parents gave him some money.
Speaker 5: That is, there was no way out. She'd been with
Speaker 5: this adult toddler since she was very young, their families
Speaker 5: living side by side. But Brittany had changed. She'd lost
Speaker 5: over one hundred and thirty pounds in the last two years.
Speaker 5: She'd built up her confidence and started building a career.
Speaker 5: She was building a life, you know, and in John
Speaker 5: she saw something potentially dangerous, a way out of her
Speaker 5: life with Armando. So Brittany told Armando that she wasn't
Speaker 5: in love with him anymore. He begged her for forgiveness
Speaker 5: about the cheating. He promised he would change, but she
Speaker 5: told him she was not interested in trying. She was
Speaker 5: just exhausted, which is understandable.
Speaker 2: So Saturday leaving, did Armando go with you? I know
Speaker 2: that when the fishing game person came up to today,
Speaker 2: you were digging, digging a hole today, and you told
Speaker 2: him that you felt like you were in a lot
Speaker 2: of trouble, that you were going to be in a
Speaker 2: lot of trouble. That there there are clearly some some
Speaker 2: answers that that we need to give to John's family.
Speaker 2: You know, they're looking for They're looking for their son
Speaker 2: right now, that man Jonah dead.
Speaker 3: I did not kill him.
Speaker 1: How do you know that he's dead?
Speaker 5: Brittany broke. Her tears were soft at first, and then
Speaker 5: the truth slipped out. She said she'd be betraying him
Speaker 5: if she spoke, but the officer already knew she wasn't
Speaker 5: a killer. The bruises on her face, the blood tangled
Speaker 5: in her hair, the way they found her alone in
Speaker 5: the woods, digging a hole and crying. This was not
Speaker 5: a choice.
Speaker 3: He found my phone on Sorday, Armando did, and he opened.
Speaker 4: My stop chat and saw my messages, which held me
Speaker 4: to the bathroom where he was when he found it.
Speaker 3: He grabbed me by my neck and threw me down,
Speaker 3: and he showed me the phone and he was choking me.
Speaker 5: Armando choked Brittany until she saw black specs and stars.
Speaker 5: She told the officers she was surprised that he let
Speaker 5: her live.
Speaker 1: My face was.
Speaker 3: Already pretty school and he opened the middle door.
Speaker 10: We fought for why.
Speaker 3: I struggled and put the gun.
Speaker 1: In my mouth.
Speaker 3: I was just praying and I kept screaming, so he
Speaker 3: kept joking me so that I wouldn't scream. So the
Speaker 3: girls looking in they were upstairs. He told the girls
Speaker 3: to go into Grandma's house.
Speaker 4: And then he went and he told his mom, like.
Speaker 3: We stot in the doorway, and he's like, stay right there.
Speaker 4: And he was holding me, and I saw my oldest daughter,
Speaker 4: and I just I was telling her, help me, help me,
Speaker 4: like without words, like without saying it. And my poor baby,
Speaker 4: she just looked at me and her eyes rolled back
Speaker 4: in her head and she fainted.
Speaker 3: And I was like, fuck, I'm gonna die.
Speaker 4: He just told his mom, Hey, mom, going out, and
Speaker 4: she didn't ask any questions. She was in the living
Speaker 4: room with the baby, and she just thought we were
Speaker 4: having relationship problems.
Speaker 3: So she was like, of course, go out, have a date,
Speaker 3: you know, do whatever you guys need to do. I
Speaker 3: screamed so loud, and no one heard me.
Speaker 9: No one heard me all.
Speaker 5: Armando walked Brittany outside to her car and started driving.
Speaker 5: He continued reading through her messages as they drove, administering
Speaker 5: blow after blow to her face with each flirty text.
Speaker 5: He discovered by the time they got to Annette State Park,
Speaker 5: her face was dripping with blood. After they parked, Armando
Speaker 5: started texting John from Brittany's phone, and.
Speaker 3: He messages him and I'm just like please, and he
Speaker 3: messaged him, Hey, can we meet?
Speaker 4: And of course John was super stoked because it was me,
Speaker 4: and he was like finally regaining That was.
Speaker 3: Probably ten o'clock. It's probably around ten o'clock.
Speaker 5: John replied he'd be there in thirty minutes.
Speaker 1: He said.
Speaker 5: Brittany waited, praying for anything to stop him, but nothing did.
Speaker 5: Soon John's car pulled into the lot.
Speaker 1: He gets out of the car.
Speaker 4: He saw my face, like he saw me sitting because
Speaker 4: I was sitting in the driver's side, and Armando got
Speaker 4: out before he got there, and.
Speaker 3: He stood behind the car so that John wouldn't see
Speaker 3: that he was there.
Speaker 4: Booh, I could tell John who something was wrong. And
Speaker 4: then when he saw my face, he definitely knew something okay.
Speaker 4: And then that's when Armando came around the car and
Speaker 4: he pointed the gun at him.
Speaker 5: John threw his hands up, pleading for his life. Armando
Speaker 5: was in control. He had a loaded gun.
Speaker 1: He punched him.
Speaker 4: John fell and then he just started kicking him and
Speaker 4: kicking him and kicking him. He stomped on his face
Speaker 4: at one point, just killed me because I've been thinking
Speaker 4: about a NonStop. At one point, Armano looked at me
Speaker 4: and said, yeah, so you're gonna fuck my wife.
Speaker 7: Bro.
Speaker 3: He's like, look at it, now, do you still think
Speaker 3: she's pretty? Jah looked up at meaning yeah, she's still right.
Speaker 3: I like, even when your life was like you, we're
Speaker 3: still so nice to me.
Speaker 5: But the memory of John standing up to Armando was
Speaker 5: too much for Brittany. She had never experienced a man
Speaker 5: being that chivalrous.
Speaker 4: Started asking you questions about us to see if the
Speaker 4: story's matt and I didn't tell him everything because I
Speaker 4: didn't want to die. And then John admitted stuff that
Speaker 4: he didn't know. He got even angrier. At one point,
Speaker 4: he handed me the gun and he told me to
Speaker 4: do it.
Speaker 1: Rondo handed you the gun and told you to shoot John.
Speaker 4: But we were outside and I was like, I can't
Speaker 4: do it. He's like, no, no, you want to. You
Speaker 4: want to do this, and I was like I don't.
Speaker 4: Like he's trying to make me prove who I was
Speaker 4: loyal to. And then he said fine, stand on his throne.
Speaker 4: He said, come on, hurry, he's not dying fast enough.
Speaker 5: Brittany was crying, begging Armando to stop, but he said
Speaker 5: he'd kill her too.
Speaker 3: I wasn't heavy enough to do anything to him.
Speaker 5: Humble brag.
Speaker 4: I don't know. I guess, I don't know. He had
Speaker 4: me stay on there for a while, and then finally
Speaker 4: John like actually had the ability to like move like
Speaker 4: like just jerked me off, and I.
Speaker 2: Was like, you think you when you had your foot
Speaker 2: on his threate? What was Armando doing standing there watching?
Speaker 2: Where does he have the gun pointed out us?
Speaker 10: Okay?
Speaker 1: Is it still in his hand? Okay? Is he pointing
Speaker 1: at you? Pointing at him?
Speaker 3: I'm not exactly sure. I was trying.
Speaker 1: And that goes on for what feels like a long
Speaker 1: time to you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it wasn't long enough. And then what happens,
Speaker 3: like finds is taking too long? Get off.
Speaker 5: Armando was frustrated. He wanted Britney's stuff up on John's
Speaker 5: throat to be the final pain that killed him Shakespearean
Speaker 5: this guy was. But John was still jerking and moaning,
Speaker 5: fighting for his life under her heel. That's when Armando
Speaker 5: picked John up like a sack and pushed him into
Speaker 5: the back of his own car. Then Armando handed a
Speaker 5: knife to Brittany and told her to slit John's wrists.
Speaker 5: Brittany refused, but then he threatened her again. So Brittany here,
Speaker 5: who couldn't point a gun at a perpetrator that was
Speaker 5: threatening her life, gave her new boyfriend what she calls
Speaker 5: a shallow cut, just deep enough to satisfy Armando yet
Speaker 5: keep John alive.
Speaker 1: Which way did you cut like that? Down? Like down
Speaker 1: the floor arm?
Speaker 3: But I couldn't get I couldn't.
Speaker 1: It was really hard to cut, like, it was really
Speaker 1: hard to cut. It wouldn't just how many times do
Speaker 1: you go down as soon as it was open?
Speaker 3: I just once.
Speaker 1: I didn't both sides.
Speaker 4: Okay, I don't even think the second one, or I
Speaker 4: even didn't.
Speaker 3: I don't even think I.
Speaker 4: Cut him, cut him deep enough to actually do any of.
Speaker 1: You cut anywhere else?
Speaker 4: No, No, that was the only thing. I stood on
Speaker 4: his throat and he made was.
Speaker 1: This inside the car outside the car.
Speaker 3: Gris was inside the crent standing on his throat with
Speaker 3: outside the car.
Speaker 1: Okay, where is he inside the car? From the back?
Speaker 5: They say, if you want to slit your wrists and
Speaker 5: have it actually be effective, you should cut down the
Speaker 5: forearm lengthwise. Not across has so many unsuccessful suicides do
Speaker 5: suicideise suicide.
Speaker 1: E's is John fighting at all?
Speaker 3: He knew I didn't have a choice.
Speaker 4: He was like please, no, please, but he wasn't like
Speaker 4: struggling to get his arms away from me or fight
Speaker 4: me words.
Speaker 5: Armando grabbed Brittany, forced the trunk shut, and the two
Speaker 5: of them got in the front of John's car with
Speaker 5: him stuck in the back.
Speaker 4: And we were both in the car, and at one
Speaker 4: point Armando got out of the passenger side.
Speaker 1: To go get you close the who closes the background?
Speaker 3: I don't remember. It might have been or it might
Speaker 3: have been me, I don't remember.
Speaker 1: So the back hatch goes down, and then we.
Speaker 4: Go into the front of the car, and then Armando
Speaker 4: puts the machete in the car, which I believe he
Speaker 4: hit him a couple of times with that.
Speaker 1: Too, okay, with like the the blade, Yeah, but.
Speaker 3: It didn't do a crazy amount.
Speaker 1: Of you don't worry him.
Speaker 3: I don't I know his hands.
Speaker 4: Probably he was like covering, so like whatever was covering
Speaker 4: got hid.
Speaker 1: Okay, And you guys go in the car, yes, And
Speaker 1: then who goes in sea.
Speaker 4: I went in the driver's site and Armando went in
Speaker 4: the passenger and he put the machete down on the
Speaker 4: floor and he's like, get some.
Speaker 3: I don't know why he left me.
Speaker 1: I don't know why.
Speaker 4: And he looked at me too, like I don't know
Speaker 4: if I should And when he like John sent him,
Speaker 4: He's like, just pick up the machete and kill him.
Speaker 4: Just pick up the machete and kill him. And I'm like,
Speaker 4: he don't understand, man, I'm not going to kill him
Speaker 4: with that blow. And We're both gonna die in this car.
Speaker 4: And I just told him just to be quiet, just stop,
Speaker 4: don't just stop, because he hadn't killed him yet, and
Speaker 4: he told him that he wasn't going to it. He
Speaker 4: was like, I'm thinking, He's like, I just might let
Speaker 4: you live. Like he kept on playing with him. He
Speaker 4: even said something about the judge. He's like, do you
Speaker 4: know what this is?
Speaker 1: Like he was just so.
Speaker 4: He came back to the car and he sat in it,
Speaker 4: and I don't remember what he said after that.
Speaker 3: All I remember was hearing.
Speaker 4: He pointed the gun at him, and I.
Speaker 3: Heard the one gun shot.
Speaker 1: You're on the driver's driver's seat. I didn't look back
Speaker 1: to see does he go back and open up the back.
Speaker 3: He did it from the passager.
Speaker 2: He did it from the passenger seat. He was turned
Speaker 2: back andamed, how do you know where he shot him?
Speaker 2: He told me, after how many shots did you hear?
Speaker 5: Two in the body and one in the Brittany claims
Speaker 5: she kept her face forward as the shots rang out.
Speaker 5: She said she couldn't bear to turn her around. Yet
Speaker 5: somehow she knew exactly where her boyfriend was shot. She
Speaker 5: told detectives she thought she'd be next, But then Armando
Speaker 5: told Brittany to start the car and take them home.
Speaker 5: Brittany's mind raced with all the possible scenarios, each one
Speaker 5: more graphic than the last. According to Brittany, as they
Speaker 5: pulled up to their house, Armando instructed her to go
Speaker 5: inside and pack up all their camping gear. He stood
Speaker 5: there and watched her holding the gun down the hallway.
Speaker 5: Their girls and Armando's parents were fast asleep.
Speaker 3: Every time we went outside, I could hear John.
Speaker 1: So John was still making noise. What was he? What
Speaker 1: was he doing or saying? Er?
Speaker 5: Armando told Brittany they'd be going deep into the woods
Speaker 5: in Jeffrey. He had her follow him in the jeep
Speaker 5: and she drove John's car again. She's in a car.
Speaker 5: She has control of the car. She doesn't have to
Speaker 5: follow him, but she does. He handed her phone back
Speaker 5: so he could stay on the line the entire time.
Speaker 5: And it was one o'clock in the morning. The sky
Speaker 5: was black, the roads were vacant. Armando stopped at a
Speaker 5: store to get a shovel and buy some supplies, all
Speaker 5: the while Brittany's in John's car with his body in
Speaker 5: the back. She thought she was next, she says. Armando
Speaker 5: kept talking on the phone, asking questions she had to answer,
Speaker 5: keeping her paralyzed with fear. When they finally got to
Speaker 5: the forest at the end of the long logging road,
Speaker 5: Armando guided them deeper into the thick, cold woods. This
Speaker 5: was a place only a hunter would venture.
Speaker 4: I was waiting for him to shoot me out there,
Speaker 4: like I was waiting for it. I was afraid for
Speaker 4: him to walk behind me, and so he told me
Speaker 4: to get rid of the body and to hide the car,
Speaker 4: and that he would be back Freddy.
Speaker 5: But before he left, Armando said something chilling.
Speaker 4: As soon as the sun comes off, I'm going to
Speaker 4: forgive you, like I decided I forgive you. He was like,
Speaker 4: even after all this, I'm still in love with you.
Speaker 5: Isn't that sweet? And they say romance is dead. Brittany's
Speaker 5: phone had died, so he left it with her, Knowing
Speaker 5: she couldn't get help, he took off in their car.
Speaker 5: He planned to go home and resume life as usual,
Speaker 5: tell his mother some lies about Brittany needing some space,
Speaker 5: and his kids off to her while he plans his
Speaker 5: next move. By now, though it was Monday and Brittany
Speaker 5: was expected at work, you know the thing that Armando
Speaker 5: doesn't do. Armando had sent an email to her boss
Speaker 5: on Saturday night saying she wouldn't be there. But what
Speaker 5: Armando didn't know was that Brittany's boss was aware of
Speaker 5: Armando's violence. This wasn't the first time he had beat Brittany.
Speaker 5: He had done it once before, and Brittany had confided
Speaker 5: in her manager. So when Brittany mysteriously didn't show up
Speaker 5: for work, her manager sent police to her house. As
Speaker 5: Armando drove away from the campsite, he hit a cell
Speaker 5: service area and his mother started calling, freaking out that
Speaker 5: the police were at her door. So Armando backtracked to Brittany.
Speaker 5: He needed to get her to call HR and stop
Speaker 5: the police from sniffing around so I called Jen.
Speaker 3: And again he's sitting with me the whole time, so
Speaker 3: I'm like.
Speaker 1: He called gen den Bell from my work.
Speaker 3: She's the HR lady, and she was just like, are
Speaker 3: you okay? And I'm like I am. She asked me
Speaker 3: when I had heard from John last, and I lied
Speaker 3: to her?
Speaker 1: Would you say?
Speaker 4: I told her the last time I talked to him
Speaker 4: was on Saturday and that we met at Temple Mountain
Speaker 4: because that's what Armando was writing down for me to say.
Speaker 5: HR was actively looking for John at this point and
Speaker 5: they knew something was going on between him and Brittany.
Speaker 5: She lied, She said she hadn't heard from him. Then
Speaker 5: Armando texted her friends a strange message from Brittany saying
Speaker 5: she was leaving and going to New Mexico alone. He
Speaker 5: thought he had all his bases covered. Armando took her
Speaker 5: back to the campsite and left her with their dog
Speaker 5: in a twenty two for protection. Yeah, he gave her
Speaker 5: the gun he used to kill John and told her
Speaker 5: what to do next. So once again she's standing there
Speaker 5: holding a gun and not pointing it at her aggressor.
Speaker 5: That's twice now for you keeping score at home.
Speaker 1: And what was the plan for you to bury that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he wanted.
Speaker 3: He made me cut off his head.
Speaker 5: Who wha, wha wha Hold on a second, you did
Speaker 5: what because he wanted.
Speaker 3: The dental records to knock be found.
Speaker 1: Okay, So where is John's head? It's it's in the woods.
Speaker 1: And what did you use to cut?
Speaker 3: A saw? They're going to find it right next to
Speaker 3: the car. It's a saw. It was a saw.
Speaker 1: Now, when did you do that?
Speaker 3: Yesterday morning?
Speaker 5: Armado stood back and watched. After all, he wasn't big
Speaker 5: on things like working. He claimed he couldn't do it himself,
Speaker 5: so he made her do it. He put the saw
Speaker 5: in Brittany's hand and waited and she obeyed. Now people
Speaker 5: like to believe they'd fight, they'd refuse, they'd run, But
Speaker 5: in that moment, with death standing right in front of you,
Speaker 5: sometimes survival doesn't look like bravery. Sometimes it looks like
Speaker 5: doing something absolutely demonic, just for the slim chance to
Speaker 5: see your children one more time. And anyone who thinks
Speaker 5: that they know what they would do in a situation
Speaker 5: like this is deluding themselves.
Speaker 10: So you, guys, together, you and Armando cut his head off.
Speaker 1: It's just it was just.
Speaker 3: You but you said Armando was still there.
Speaker 1: He was there, so he made you do that. He watched. Okay,
Speaker 1: that was you said anything? Correct me wrong? That was
Speaker 1: part of your punishment.
Speaker 3: He said it wasn't.
Speaker 10: Oh he said it wasn't the punishment.
Speaker 1: He made you do that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you didn't have the stomach for it. He expected
Speaker 4: me to cut the whole thing up. What do you
Speaker 4: like to chop him up?
Speaker 1: So?
Speaker 3: Was that the planet areas well?
Speaker 4: He he's mentioned that, and once I did it, I
Speaker 4: was like what, like, I ah, what, No.
Speaker 3: I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that anymore never again?
Speaker 3: Like lah, no what?
Speaker 4: And then he said, okay, like just bury him, Like
Speaker 4: but you need like, no later than tomorrow.
Speaker 1: It has to be done.
Speaker 5: Armando told Brittany what to do. She had the guns,
Speaker 5: her bloody saw, a shovel, and her dog to keep
Speaker 5: her company. She stared at John's decapitated body, raw and ragged,
Speaker 5: unable to process exactly what she'd done. Armando hugged her,
Speaker 5: told her it was hard for him to leave, but
Speaker 5: then he did. Anyway, I hate myself.
Speaker 3: It's wonderfault. I should have just left to kill alone.
Speaker 3: He's twenty five in twenty five. He was so nice
Speaker 3: to me, But you didn't know this was gonna happen.
Speaker 3: I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't know. I didn't know that talking him, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna call him his life dude.
Speaker 11: No, he who does that?
Speaker 1: Who kills somebody like that?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 11: God, he's so stupid. He could just left him alone.
Speaker 11: He could have just been like, you're quitting your job,
Speaker 11: you're never going back. Yeah, that's all he had to do.
Speaker 11: When you're quitting your job, you're never going back. You
Speaker 11: can't talk to him anymore.
Speaker 1: Leave the guy.
Speaker 9: Alone, Leave him alone. He was such a gentleman. He
Speaker 9: was so nice, so sweet, he was so good at
Speaker 9: his job. He didn't deserve any of it. And I
Speaker 9: didn't do I didn't do I heard him do. I
Speaker 9: really shocked that I'm even still alife. And I was
Speaker 9: all one thinking to him, like where he comes back,
Speaker 9: when he comes back after I dispose of it? And
Speaker 9: then he just lost me too.
Speaker 5: Without Armando hovering over her, putting her under pressure, she
Speaker 5: just sat at the campsite, trying to figure out what
Speaker 5: to do next. A million thoughts ran through her head
Speaker 5: about John, his family, her girls, back home, Armando, all
Speaker 5: of it before Saturday.
Speaker 10: Has Armando been physically abusive to you in the past
Speaker 10: is a past?
Speaker 4: Yeah, the early past, like in team past, so in
Speaker 4: the beginning of your relationship, and it's abusive.
Speaker 1: It was just like a.
Speaker 4: Control thing, like he wanted me to be a certain way,
Speaker 4: like I wanted to smoke him, party and drink. He
Speaker 4: didn't want me to want that. But he he gave
Speaker 4: me a black eye once before, one time, and when
Speaker 4: I was nineteen and he was still out of nowhere.
Speaker 4: And that was the scary part about him is that
Speaker 4: he has emotion, but he doesn't show it. So when
Speaker 4: he blows up, it's like you didn't even see it
Speaker 4: coming because there was nothing there before. And he said
Speaker 4: something to me, and I kind of pushed him, like
Speaker 4: I like pushed him like that, and he got on
Speaker 4: top of me and he just started launching and this
Speaker 4: when to me, Oh, yeah.
Speaker 10: This I too.
Speaker 4: He's slapping the hell out of me, basically just slapping me,
Speaker 4: and I was just like staring at him like I
Speaker 4: had no idea what was going on, Like no idea
Speaker 4: what was going on? And then he said sorry and
Speaker 4: he was super apologetic.
Speaker 3: And but now was it?
Speaker 1: And then.
Speaker 4: Up until that Saturday that I said I wasn't in
Speaker 4: love with him anymore.
Speaker 10: Which was the Saturday before last when he slapped before.
Speaker 4: This and he slapped me then and that was that
Speaker 4: was then, and then Saturday night and Sunday morning ages.
Speaker 10: So from age nineteen till two sad days ago there
Speaker 10: was no physical abuse.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 5: No, here's the thing about a man like Armando. He's
Speaker 5: deeply insecure, but his insecurity doesn't show up as tears.
Speaker 5: It comes out in rushes of rage. Brittany said that
Speaker 5: until two Saturdays ago, he hadn't been her like that
Speaker 5: since the early days of their marriage. Maybe she had
Speaker 5: just learned how to stay in line just enough to
Speaker 5: avoid punishment, or maybe it was that his mother was
Speaker 5: living next door, always close, always watching for bruises. But
Speaker 5: then Brittany changed. She lost one hundred and thirty pounds
Speaker 5: to control of her diet, started exercising, and started getting attention.
Speaker 5: And when Armando saw proof of that new life in
Speaker 5: her snapchat messages with John, something in him snapped. Because
Speaker 5: in his world there were rules. He could cheat, he
Speaker 5: could call prostitutes, he could not work for years, basically
Speaker 5: be a complete deadbeat piece of shit. He could do
Speaker 5: whatever the fuck he wanted, because he's the man. But
Speaker 5: Brittany was never supposed to become someone else. She was
Speaker 5: never supposed to have options besides him.
Speaker 3: Like, I don't know when that decision to not kill
Speaker 3: me happened.
Speaker 4: I don't know, because he's like on his own, he
Speaker 4: told me that, He's like, you were both gonna die
Speaker 4: that night, he.
Speaker 3: Told both of you, So you were both going to
Speaker 3: die that night.
Speaker 1: I hope you know.
Speaker 4: I really didn't expect you to say you surely proved
Speaker 4: and really cared about the family.
Speaker 3: He said the same thing about the head.
Speaker 5: In Armando's warped mind, Brittany had proven herself. Every order followed,
Speaker 5: every step obeyed. It all feed his delusion of loyalty.
Speaker 5: But none of this was loyalty. It was just pure survival,
Speaker 5: and that delusion, his inability to see the truth, may
Speaker 5: have been the only reason she lived.
Speaker 2: I am going to ask you for a couple of
Speaker 2: more things, one being to bring us out to John's
Speaker 2: head and show us where that is, and the other
Speaker 2: being I would like to be able to document your
Speaker 2: injuries with some photographs.
Speaker 5: Brittany nodded and agreed. Now the police had the story.
Speaker 5: They knew what had happened, but knowing wasn't enough. They
Speaker 5: had to retrace every step, lock down every piece of evidence.
Speaker 5: They had to move fast because Armando Baron was still
Speaker 5: out there, still armed, still unstable and unraveling, and no
Speaker 5: one knew exactly what he might do next. When Jonathan
Speaker 5: Emerrault went missing in late September twenty twenty, no one
Speaker 5: suspected foul play. The assumption was simple. He was lost.
Speaker 5: An avid outdoorsman and biomedical engineer, John spent as much
Speaker 5: time as he could on the trails. If anyone could
Speaker 5: vanish by accident, it was him. But then something just
Speaker 5: didn't add up. Around the same time as coworker Brittany
Speaker 5: barn abruptly quit and disappeared inside the office, rumors had
Speaker 5: already started circulating. They had grown close in the weeks
Speaker 5: before he went missing. What felt like a coincidence started
Speaker 5: to feel connected. Then Fish and Game made a discovery.
Speaker 5: Deep in the woods. They found Brittany at a remote campsite, alone,
Speaker 5: beaten and terrified. Nearby was John's Subaru, and not far
Speaker 5: from that John his body had been dismembered and decapitated.
Speaker 5: Brittany told investigators that her husband, Armando, had discovered the
Speaker 5: flirtation and snapped out in the woods. Under constant threat,
Speaker 5: he forced her to cut off John's head herself. She obeyed,
Speaker 5: only to survive. Before leaving the campsite for the final time,
Speaker 5: Armando told her he forgave her. In his mind, she
Speaker 5: had proven her loyalty to him, to their family. He believed,
Speaker 5: in his dumb, underdeveloped mind, that they could simply return home,
Speaker 5: resume their lives, and move forward as if none of
Speaker 5: this had ever happened. But nothing about this was forgettable.
Speaker 5: Armando had taken the life of Jonathan Emerald, who was
Speaker 5: deeply loved by his family, his friends, his colleagues, and
Speaker 5: everyone who ever met him. He wasn't someone who would
Speaker 5: fade into the background. He was someone whose absence would
Speaker 5: be felt forever. The police found Armando quickly. It was easy.
Speaker 5: He wasn't that smart.
Speaker 12: You're under arrest for domestic violence assault. So a domestic assault?
Speaker 1: What's that? Who?
Speaker 3: I'm Brittany, Brittany.
Speaker 12: Okay, Okay, So that's that's what you're charged with. So
Speaker 12: that's what we want to talk to you a little
Speaker 12: bit about. Okay, So where is she Brittany. Brittany is
Speaker 12: at another police department right now?
Speaker 3: Okay, okay.
Speaker 5: The officer started reading Armando his rights, informing him that
Speaker 5: they already had Brittany in custody and had her testimony.
Speaker 5: Then he interjected, so when do they get to call?
Speaker 1: He? Well, like, so do you understand these are these rights?
Speaker 1: All right? I'm gonna just ask you to initial next
Speaker 1: to yes.
Speaker 12: And then understanding these rights, are you willing to answer
Speaker 12: questions a lawyer?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 5: Armando may be dumb, but asking for a lawyer was
Speaker 5: a surefire away to tell he knew the difference between
Speaker 5: right and wrong when it came to abuse, torture, and murder.
Speaker 5: He wasn't crazy, he was just evil. But still, Brittany
Speaker 5: told the officers she knew he would never hurt their children.
Speaker 5: Then again, I'm sure she would say she never thought
Speaker 5: any of this would happen either. That exactly a great
Speaker 5: judge of character.
Speaker 1: You don't think he would do it with Oh no, no, no, no, no
Speaker 1: no no.
Speaker 4: I just I'm like, I hope they're not there when
Speaker 4: they arrest him.
Speaker 1: I hope they're not there.
Speaker 3: I hope they don't see it. I feel so bad
Speaker 3: for him.
Speaker 4: Even I know it's stupid, but even after all that,
Speaker 4: I feel bad for him, Like I feel bad for
Speaker 4: what's going to happen.
Speaker 5: She felt bad for him. Let that sink in. We've
Speaker 5: covered so many domestic violence episodes on this show, and
Speaker 5: any expert worth their salt will tell you that most
Speaker 5: domestic violence homicides are preventable. If someone strangles you to
Speaker 5: the point of passing out and puts a gun in
Speaker 5: your mouth, death is the next step. But Armando had
Speaker 5: only given Brittany a taste of what he was capable
Speaker 5: of at age nineteen. Then he hurt her in other
Speaker 5: ways by not being a provider, by cheating on her
Speaker 5: and harming her emotionally. But that violence never reared its
Speaker 5: head again, although it had clearly been brewing seething inside Armando,
Speaker 5: and on the night he found the texts, he lost
Speaker 5: all control. Armando did a very good job at hiding
Speaker 5: who he really was, but we can only hide pure
Speaker 5: evil for so long. The police put Armando in a
Speaker 5: holding cell and he requested his phone call, so they
Speaker 5: let him call his mother, and of course it went
Speaker 5: to voicemail. I'm sure she never got it.
Speaker 3: Mom, is me they're taking me to m.
Speaker 12: Cheshire House of Corrections, which is in Marlboro.
Speaker 7: House of Corrections in Marlboro.
Speaker 2: They're charging you more than.
Speaker 3: If I guess I just I love him.
Speaker 7: You can get a lawyer from me.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 5: Jonathan's family was devastated. They avoided the media entirely as
Speaker 5: news of his brutal murder spread across local headlines and
Speaker 5: flooded the internet. His friends were great trying to process
Speaker 5: the loss. At Teleflex, John and Brittany's coworkers were unable
Speaker 5: to comprehend how a rumored workplace flirtation could spiral into
Speaker 5: something so horrific. Even Brittany said it herself. Armando didn't
Speaker 5: have to do this. There were other options. He could
Speaker 5: have forced her to quit, made her find another job,
Speaker 5: put distance between them, But he didn't. Armando let something
Speaker 5: much darker take hold. Jealousy rage. It consumed him completely,
Speaker 5: spreading fast like a cancer, and in that spiral he
Speaker 5: never stopped to think. Perhaps he was incapable of it.
Speaker 5: Armando was charged with capital murder and twelve additional charges.
Speaker 5: Brittany was charged with falsifying evidence. Armando faced life. Brittany
Speaker 5: was looking at three to seven years. They were both
Speaker 5: put in jail, leaving their kids in the care of
Speaker 5: Armando's broken, helpless mother who didn't even know how to
Speaker 5: check her voicemail. But as clips of Brittany's bruised, battered
Speaker 5: face in that arraignment room spread across the internet, a
Speaker 5: question lingered, did she really deserve to be locked away?
Speaker 5: I mean, this was a woman who had been brutally beaten, strangled,
Speaker 5: and had a gun forced into her mouth inside her
Speaker 5: own home. She was made to watch John die and
Speaker 5: forced to participate in his torture. She was dragged miles
Speaker 5: into the woods, where the man she'd been married to
Speaker 5: for twelve years stood over her and forced her to
Speaker 5: cut off John's head. Just imagine that for a moment,
Speaker 5: the isolation, the fear. If Brittany had screamed, no one
Speaker 5: would have hurt her, no one would have come. In fact,
Speaker 5: it's a miracle that Fish and Game even found her.
Speaker 5: Armando made the mistake of taking them to what he
Speaker 5: thought was public hunting area, but it wasn't. The landowner
Speaker 5: saw them and contacted Fish and Game. And look, Sure
Speaker 5: she could have gotten away multiple times. Sure she could
Speaker 5: have pointed the loaded gun she was given by Armando
Speaker 5: too Armando and ordered him to stop doing what he
Speaker 5: was doing. But that would have meant she would have
Speaker 5: had to have been capable of pulling the trigger, and
Speaker 5: she just wasn't. I mean, she could cut off a
Speaker 5: human head, but she couldn't squeeze a trigger. I still
Speaker 5: don't fully understand why. Maybe I never will. Maybe I
Speaker 5: am lucky to never have to know, I asked the audience. Though,
Speaker 5: what do you think is Brittany a victim or does
Speaker 5: she hold some culpability here? Brittany's lawyer started working on
Speaker 5: a deal. In exchange for her testimony against Armando, who
Speaker 5: we all know is really the bad guy, she would
Speaker 5: be granted parole until his trial. Jonathan's family was adamant
Speaker 5: that this was unacceptable, and the prosecution fought hard for
Speaker 5: Brittany to remain locked up. Brittany was put before the
Speaker 5: parole board to make her case.
Speaker 13: Baron's parole was vehemently opposed by Amerol's parents. They wrote
Speaker 13: a letter that was read by the victim's advocate urging
Speaker 13: the parole board to keep Britney in custody until after
Speaker 13: she has testified against her husband.
Speaker 4: So if you think chances are low that someone capable
Speaker 4: of doing all that wouldn't simply just run before testifying
Speaker 4: next month, or simply go back on her word at
Speaker 4: his trial.
Speaker 1: Please think again.
Speaker 13: In granting parole, the board made it clear that Baron
Speaker 13: must fulfill her obligation to testify truthfully at her husband's trial.
Speaker 13: Brittany told the board she understands and that her actions
Speaker 13: over those days continue to haunt her.
Speaker 4: Something that I continue to struggle with is forgiving yourself
Speaker 4: for the choices that you.
Speaker 1: Make and.
Speaker 4: Being able to own, like, just really accept that it happened.
Speaker 5: Should Brittany forgive herself as a religious woman? Is that
Speaker 5: even her place? Or is that something that only God cangrant?
Speaker 5: Maybe self forgiveness is necessary just to survive, just to
Speaker 5: get out of bed in the morning, to eat, to
Speaker 5: face the courtroom. Maybe it's just something she has to
Speaker 5: say out loud to keep going. But could you ever
Speaker 5: truly believe it? Could you ever forgive yourself for something
Speaker 5: like this? Because I don't think I could. I think
Speaker 5: I'd be begging God and the universe and everyone in
Speaker 5: it for forgiveness every single minute of every single day
Speaker 5: until I didn't have a breath in me anymore. Brittany
Speaker 5: was a victim of Armando that night, but John was
Speaker 5: the victim. The only thing anyone could possibly fault him
Speaker 5: for was getting involved with a married woman. But John's
Speaker 5: presence lit something in Britain. It gave her the confidence
Speaker 5: to finally tell her cheating, deadbeat husband that she was
Speaker 5: done trying to fix their marriage. And that shift is
Speaker 5: what set everything in motion, that push for her empowerment,
Speaker 5: her independence. It's what triggered Armando's suspicion and his need
Speaker 5: to start digging into his wife's phone. The plea deal
Speaker 5: allowed Brittany to skip straight to sentencing in exchange for
Speaker 5: her testimony. In twenty twenty one, she pleaded guilty to
Speaker 5: falsifying evidence, which included removing John's head and putting it
Speaker 5: into a hole that Armando duck, but she was granted
Speaker 5: parole in April of twenty twenty two. Armando's trial took
Speaker 5: place a month later. His team argued that Brittany was
Speaker 5: a liar. She had participated much more in Jonathan's murder
Speaker 5: than she led on. Armando slumped in and out of
Speaker 5: the courtroom every day with his scraggly prison beard pot
Speaker 5: belly and snarling face. He was vile. No one felt
Speaker 5: a drop of sympathy for him, except maybe his own mother.
Speaker 5: In the end, Armando was found guilty and the judge
Speaker 5: spared him no mercy.
Speaker 14: The depravity of your actions and single handedly causing the
Speaker 14: immense suffering and the death of Jonathan Emerald show an
Speaker 14: extreme indifference to the value of human life. Your actions
Speaker 14: were brutal, they were absolutely horrific, They were selfish, and
Speaker 14: they were completely senseless. The abject cruelty, the pain and
Speaker 14: suffering and all that you inflicted on Jonathan that night
Speaker 14: is unfathomable. As his parents just said, he did not
Speaker 14: deserve to die in that manner. One of the hardest
Speaker 14: parts of my job is often sentencing in cases and
Speaker 14: finding the appropriate balance to strike and imposing the fair sentence. However,
Speaker 14: I have absolutely known hesitation or reservation imposing the sentences
Speaker 14: that I'm about to impose on you, given your actions
Speaker 14: and the crimes that you committed and that you were
Speaker 14: convicted for.
Speaker 5: In this case, the judge gave Armando life with no
Speaker 5: possibility of parole for Jonathan's murder. She tossed on even
Speaker 5: more years for the kidnapping and domestic violence, but in essence,
Speaker 5: he was never leaving prison unless he was in a
Speaker 5: body pack. The judge also instructed that he received counseling
Speaker 5: in prison. Maybe they could beat morality into him somehow,
Speaker 5: not that it mattered anymore.
Speaker 14: So that is the sentence. You will be spending a
Speaker 14: very long time at the state prison for these heinous crimes.
Speaker 5: Instead of taking the punishment he deserved, Armando spent the
Speaker 5: next three years filing appeal after appeal after appeal, all
Speaker 5: of which were denied. Now that he's exhausted all of
Speaker 5: them and spent all of our taxpayer money, he will
Speaker 5: sit quiet in prison, waiting to die. No one will
Speaker 5: ever hear about him again. Jonathan, on the other hand,
Speaker 5: continues to be remembered for the incredible young man that
Speaker 5: he was. After the Barons were arrested, eighteen of his
Speaker 5: friends honored him in a way he would have wanted
Speaker 5: by hiking. They took a six and a half mile
Speaker 5: climb up one of his favorite trails in New Hampshire
Speaker 5: and built a small altar for his worn trail shoes.
Speaker 5: By the end, their legs were shot jelly. They told
Speaker 5: the local news reporters, but it was a release of
Speaker 5: grief and a path towards healing. Out there, surrounded by
Speaker 5: the elements, John loved so much. They shared stories, they laughed, cried,
Speaker 5: They set their prayers out into the mountains, hoping somehow
Speaker 5: they'd reach him, And now every time they returned to
Speaker 5: those trails, they carry him with them. John loved life.
Speaker 5: He chased it into the unknown, down unmarked trails, with
Speaker 5: nothing but a paper map and the confidence that he'd
Speaker 5: find his way. He was smart, driven, and unafraid of
Speaker 5: what might be ahead. Then he met Brittany Baron. What
Speaker 5: started as a flirtation a few messages and a couple
Speaker 5: of kisses in a parking lot grew into something much more.
Speaker 5: John saw something in her, something worth caring about, and
Speaker 5: he couldn't quite pull himself away. John was a kind man.
Speaker 5: Brittany had never known that kind of kindness before. She'd
Speaker 5: spent her adult life with someone who cheated on her,
Speaker 5: who failed her, who just was one disappointment after another,
Speaker 5: and ultimately showed just how dangerous he truly was. John
Speaker 5: didn't see a situation to avoid. He saw a person
Speaker 5: in Brittany, and tragically, that was what put him in
Speaker 5: Armando's path. You know, we've got a lot of feedback
Speaker 5: on our new animated true crime history thing called Tails.
Speaker 15: Go check it out Sword and Scale dot com.
Speaker 2: The S S S.
Speaker 16: Side against stambout Boot.
Speaker 3: Said, the side in the
Speaker 16: Book sees ssssssssssssss