Speaker 1: Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is
Speaker 1: not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2: I heard screaming and stuff, so I just love I
Speaker 2: couldn't say the little lead from that lady's house.
Speaker 1: Hello, and thank you for joining us. This is season thirteen,
Speaker 1: episode three hundred and forty what three hundred and forty
Speaker 1: seven of Sword and Scale show that reveals that the
Speaker 1: worst monsters are real. It's March first, twenty fifteen in Niles, Ohio, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Ohio again. Niles is an aging steel town in Trumbull County.
Speaker 1: The narrow streets are lined with ranch and cape cod
Speaker 1: homes where families have lived for generations. On Lafayette Avenue.
Speaker 1: The houses sit close together, with alleys running between them
Speaker 1: and neighbors that notice when something is out of place.
Speaker 1: Just before dinner, a teenage boy stumbles home and into
Speaker 1: the front door. He's not hungry, and he's not thirsty either.
Speaker 1: In fact, he's already had too much to drink and
Speaker 1: he's a drunken mess.
Speaker 3: Nine one how much emergency?
Speaker 4: Hi?
Speaker 5: My trin came home and said he got jumped by
Speaker 5: several people and he's not actingly okay.
Speaker 3: Where did the sthroom? I'm not five or two off yet,
Speaker 3: He says he was at Feeder Park, okay, and he
Speaker 3: has blood on his hands and stuff.
Speaker 1: Her voice echoes through the house as she speaks to
Speaker 1: the dispatcher. She's not in panic. He doesn't look injured,
Speaker 1: but he has blood all over him and he's not
Speaker 1: wearing pants. He's been staggering through the neighborhood in his
Speaker 1: underwear and a T shirt.
Speaker 3: He has blood on his hands, yeah, and on his shirt.
Speaker 5: And he's like coming in and out of it.
Speaker 3: How old is it he's fifty? Well, he's fifteen. Fifteen?
Speaker 5: Yeah, he's not.
Speaker 3: Okay, so you need an ambulance?
Speaker 5: Yeah, all right.
Speaker 3: I want you to come down to the station when
Speaker 3: he's done, okay, and file a report. Okay, not stay
Speaker 3: on the line.
Speaker 1: So far, his mom doesn't seem to notice somehow that
Speaker 1: his breath also wreaks of alcohol, or at least she
Speaker 1: doesn't report this.
Speaker 5: How is done? He's fifteen? He said he was jumpy
Speaker 5: when he said he's not acting right?
Speaker 3: What do you mean?
Speaker 5: He's like playing on the bathrooms floor, and he tried
Speaker 5: to lift up his head and his eyes rolled back
Speaker 5: and he throws himself back down and Kayley goes to
Speaker 5: talk to you. He mumbled, and he has blood on
Speaker 5: his hands and his shirt.
Speaker 1: Her son, Jacob LaRosa, tells her he's been attacked by
Speaker 1: some other teenagers.
Speaker 3: That's a Nile that will call on the line. At
Speaker 3: five oh two, Lafayette, fifteen year old fun was it
Speaker 3: a fight and came home and she said he's not
Speaker 3: acting right.
Speaker 1: The Niles squad car pulls up quickly. It's only a
Speaker 1: short drive to the station. The Lafayette houses are cluttered
Speaker 1: tightly in a neighborhood where officers can cross yards and
Speaker 1: alleys in seconds. Inside, he finds Jacob on the bathroom floor.
Speaker 1: An ambulance gets there in just minutes, and they whisked
Speaker 1: Jacob away to the hospital, where he's interviewed.
Speaker 6: Wond if I come in? No, no, sir, Come.
Speaker 7: Sir, Jacob. How are you good? Sir good? My name
Speaker 7: is Lieutenant Atkins.
Speaker 8: Don't conquer move yet, okay, yeah, you could still finish
Speaker 8: young lady first though.
Speaker 7: Okay, I'm don't you're moving, so you're gonna screw up
Speaker 7: your test, buddy, don't.
Speaker 6: Talk, don't move.
Speaker 1: That nurse wasn't playing games and didn't have the time
Speaker 1: for her drunk patient.
Speaker 6: Normal, my mom, she's on the waiting room. These guys
Speaker 6: came up, game up. They meant they got it.
Speaker 7: Happens.
Speaker 1: The streets can be violent, especially in Ohio.
Speaker 7: Tell me, tell me how did you end up here tonight?
Speaker 2: Well, this this kid dere Gaius and Vonte Jackson, they
Speaker 2: play a gun.
Speaker 6: They gone to my end.
Speaker 7: Reason what was the other guys?
Speaker 6: Sa Ry Davis and Vonte.
Speaker 7: Yeah Jackson.
Speaker 6: They believe going into my head. They were making me
Speaker 6: a drink.
Speaker 2: I got a card.
Speaker 6: I told him I was just scared.
Speaker 7: Where were you with these guys?
Speaker 2: I was on the street of lost. Yeah. I told
Speaker 2: him I want to go oh. I was just scared.
Speaker 2: My mom wanted me. I wanted to make up excuse.
Speaker 2: So they believed me that I needed to be okay.
Speaker 2: I wanted I told him so why they let me
Speaker 2: also block, I told him all the time to go
Speaker 2: get I was gonna steal something.
Speaker 6: So I told him I was to steal something, but
Speaker 6: I lied to them. I went straight to my house
Speaker 6: and they told me to get the cars.
Speaker 1: So I went to anyone in the room listening, it
Speaker 1: sounds like he was being held at gunpoint and told
Speaker 1: to rob somebody or something. So, according to Jacob, he
Speaker 1: lied just so he could go home where his mom
Speaker 1: was expecting him. The officers have more questions, but all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, Jacob passes out.
Speaker 6: You all right, still, there would be Jacob Jacob.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hey, Jacob, need to talk to the lieutenant here.
Speaker 6: Oh how you doing today? Good?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 6: Well, this kid he made me get a car.
Speaker 3: He had a gun.
Speaker 7: Which kid had the gun?
Speaker 6: Derek Davies, Who kind of gun was it? It was
Speaker 6: not even one?
Speaker 7: Me here, okay, we'll color black black black.
Speaker 2: Wife had a grip on it the bottom where we
Speaker 2: have it.
Speaker 6: In your hand. What kind of car were they in?
Speaker 6: They're in a great car. You know what kind it was?
Speaker 6: It was like it was it was a jeep. Yes,
Speaker 6: it was a jeep. Jeep. It was a jeep. Okay,
Speaker 6: it was a great jeep. And wait wait wait, you
Speaker 6: had l a bald egel on top of it. I
Speaker 6: want to on the hood on the hood on the hood.
Speaker 1: Got that. Jacob's account of what happened was only getting
Speaker 1: more interesting.
Speaker 7: Okay, so they made you get in the car, They
Speaker 7: made me drink what do you make you drink.
Speaker 6: It made me drink would keep for loco. I did
Speaker 6: not want to do it. I wanted to be happy.
Speaker 6: I wanted to be roll over.
Speaker 7: Okay, when you said they made you smoke the smoke
Speaker 7: cigarettes or maybe it's a little.
Speaker 6: They made men. We didn't make me drink.
Speaker 7: You said they made you smoke weed.
Speaker 6: No, they made but they made me drink. I told
Speaker 6: I want to. I want to.
Speaker 2: They made They forced me to sunk the weed. But
Speaker 2: I didn't. Again, I say shaw like our probation officers
Speaker 2: said to me to do Okay, I call away, callaway kid.
Speaker 2: With these guys, I was, I was down. I look
Speaker 2: way that they track me. They to me, they tracked me.
Speaker 1: Peer pressure. You've been there, right, just trying to do
Speaker 1: the right thing, mind your own business, follow all the rules.
Speaker 1: And then some kids your age pull guns, pour vodka
Speaker 1: down your throat, and shove weed at you. You try it,
Speaker 1: but like Bill Clinton once famously claimed, you don't inhale
Speaker 1: no one.
Speaker 6: There's no way I go to leave. I was trying
Speaker 6: to ram, but they got me.
Speaker 7: They got me.
Speaker 6: Okay, I'm sorry, please right.
Speaker 7: Jacob, I'm just talking to you right now, Thank you. Okay,
Speaker 7: so they make you get in the car. Where do
Speaker 7: you guys go?
Speaker 6: We go do Dollar in General?
Speaker 7: Okay? On Avenue?
Speaker 2: Yeah, the way up there? Wait, way down there. You
Speaker 2: know where you're going to?
Speaker 9: Uh?
Speaker 6: What is it called? Johnny Eagle? You where's at? You
Speaker 6: know how?
Speaker 2: You go down to donag and you go across, you go,
Speaker 2: we turn, you turn right and you go all the
Speaker 2: way up to Robbins. Yeah, we're going all the way
Speaker 2: up to Robbins. And they're having a car and they're
Speaker 2: saying that they're gonna be beat me up.
Speaker 6: I was scared. I always wanted to call him mom.
Speaker 6: I want to make sure my mom's safe.
Speaker 7: How old are these guys.
Speaker 6: Like seventeen, eighteen years old? Nineteen? Yeah, I didn't want
Speaker 6: my mom. I didn't want to go to the school there.
Speaker 1: The more questions the officer asked, the harder it was
Speaker 1: for Jacob to spit out his version of what happened.
Speaker 1: His words turned into sobs, his sentences trailed off, and
Speaker 1: what little sense he did make only raised more questions.
Speaker 6: They're going to go to the littler General.
Speaker 7: Where do you guys go?
Speaker 8: They're all making me either conser tree, maybe.
Speaker 6: Buy a bottle off.
Speaker 2: I get a little dollar so they can have they
Speaker 2: can buy a bottle of loco.
Speaker 6: All is a dune and he.
Speaker 2: Wants to sparko And now I was a Sparko and
Speaker 2: my freaking I want a fad.
Speaker 6: I want to be a good kid. I want to
Speaker 6: be a good kid.
Speaker 1: He wanted to be a good kid, a great kid.
Speaker 1: But that wasn't how the first fifteen years of his
Speaker 1: life had gone. He wasn't going to be nominated for
Speaker 1: Altar Boy of the Year anytime soon. Good kids don't
Speaker 1: come home drunk and coherent and covered in somebody else's blood.
Speaker 1: After all, good kids don't spin stories to get out
Speaker 1: of serious crime, and great kids don't leave a dead
Speaker 1: body in their wake. On March thirty, first, twenty fifteen,
Speaker 1: fifteen year old Jacob LaRosa Dagger's home in a Niles,
Speaker 1: Ohio neighborhood. He's half dressed, bleeding, and wreaking of alcohol.
Speaker 1: His mother calls nine to one one, convinced her son's
Speaker 1: been attacked. At the hospital, Jacob claims that teenagers with
Speaker 1: guns trapped him, but his slurred lies can't hide the truth.
Speaker 1: Something way more gruesome happened that afternoon. And just across
Speaker 1: the street, the evidence was waiting. Marie bel Castro was
Speaker 1: a ninety four year old widow with kids, grandkids, and
Speaker 1: great grandkids. Her great granddaughter Lena called her Gigi.
Speaker 9: Gigi is like a really sweet person. She was very
Speaker 9: spiritually in tune with herself and religious to the degree
Speaker 9: of one to be just like Jesus, and she always
Speaker 9: gave back. She was very kind hearted, and I think,
Speaker 9: you know a lot of people the state kind is
Speaker 9: for weakness, and I think what happened to her was
Speaker 9: kind of tragic in the sense that the expression kind
Speaker 9: of came true to itself with what had happened to her.
Speaker 9: And I think it kind of proves that no matter
Speaker 9: how good your intentions are, no matter how kind you are,
Speaker 9: there's always gonna be some jerk that's going and try
Speaker 9: and effect that destroy that.
Speaker 1: Marie was born in nineteen twenty to immigrant parents from Italy.
Speaker 1: Her dad was a carpenter who came to the US
Speaker 1: at the age of eleven. Marie herself married Fred Belcastro,
Speaker 1: a member of the Army Corps. In World War Two.
Speaker 1: Marie also helped with the war effort, working at Packard
Speaker 1: Electric making tanks and military equipment. She was like Rosie
Speaker 1: the Riveter, but in real life this is her grandson,
Speaker 1: Brian Kirk.
Speaker 4: She was her housewife and the Italian American community at
Speaker 4: Niles was very close knit. In fact, I've heard wonderful
Speaker 4: stories about the Italians banding together with other minorities.
Speaker 1: It was a very different time in American history. Back then,
Speaker 1: just getting into the United States was a different process
Speaker 1: than it is today. Irish, Italian and Jewish families traveled
Speaker 1: weeks by ship and cramped spaces, hoping they didn't die
Speaker 1: along the way. They came to Ellis Island with nothing
Speaker 1: more than the clothes on their backs. They stood in
Speaker 1: long lines, went through humiliating medical inspections, bought language barriers,
Speaker 1: and hoped they wouldn't be turned away. No jobs were waiting,
Speaker 1: no handouts, no safety nets, certainly no welfare. All they
Speaker 1: had was each other and in Niles, Ohio, the Italian
Speaker 1: families banded together with other newcomers to find their way
Speaker 1: in a city that didn't always welcome them. They faced
Speaker 1: suspicion and prejudice, but they worked long hours in the mills,
Speaker 1: raised families, and built communities of faith and tradition. That
Speaker 1: held them together.
Speaker 4: My grandfather suffered a stroke in the seventies, and my
Speaker 4: grandmother became a bus aide and then a school bus driver.
Speaker 4: She was quite short, about four foot nine, and so
Speaker 4: the idea of her driving a big bus was pretty
Speaker 4: funny to us. But she did what she had to
Speaker 4: do to thrive and survive, and she was a product
Speaker 4: of that Great Depression era. She had a hip side
Speaker 4: to her, and by that I mean she was plugged
Speaker 4: into the culture. She loved stand up comedy. She liked
Speaker 4: comics like Ron White and Lewis Black. When I was
Speaker 4: six years old, I remember watching Saturday Night Live on
Speaker 4: her living room floor, something that my parents would never
Speaker 4: let me do.
Speaker 1: Brian says that even though his grandmother was a devout Catholic,
Speaker 1: she didn't push her beliefs on anyone and didn't get
Speaker 1: stuck in the dogma. When Brian and a friend visited
Speaker 1: her on their first college break, the first thing she
Speaker 1: did was offer them twenty bucks to go buy some beer.
Speaker 4: She gave me the freedom to make mistakes, and she
Speaker 4: was just a very funny woman with a very advanced
Speaker 4: sense of humor. In a different era, she could have
Speaker 4: been a college professor. But in nineteen twenties, Ohio, you know,
Speaker 4: the child of immigrants and relatively poor, she didn't have
Speaker 4: the same opportunities that young women have today. But a
Speaker 4: learned woman, a smart woman, and.
Speaker 1: A really good Italian cook, I might add, Who wouldn't
Speaker 1: want a grandma like her? The thing Brian remembers most
Speaker 1: is her humor and her laugh, things she inherited. He
Speaker 1: went on to become a comedian.
Speaker 4: I remember doing Howard Cosell impersonations at age six for
Speaker 4: her friends and neighbors on the sidewalk in Niles. So
Speaker 4: she was my first audience and her laugh was wonderful
Speaker 4: and infectious. And the last conversation I ever had with
Speaker 4: her was on an iPad, and she asked me if
Speaker 4: I had any new impressions, and I gave her one.
Speaker 4: I told her about a new character that I was learning,
Speaker 4: and she was up to the end, always looking to laugh.
Speaker 1: Ninety four years old, and according to her family and doctor,
Speaker 1: she would have easily lived another ten years. But on
Speaker 1: March thirty first, twenty fifteen, her laugh was silenced. That afternoon,
Speaker 1: Marie's daughter walked into the house on Cherry Avenue, the
Speaker 1: one that Marie's father had built for her with his
Speaker 1: own hands and found what the killer or killers had
Speaker 1: left behind.
Speaker 3: Nine.
Speaker 10: Well on what you Emerjacay, I'm at five on nine
Speaker 10: Cherry Street, Niles. I'm Marie Belcast's daughter. I just walked
Speaker 10: into her house and I finally found her. She looks
Speaker 10: like she's all smashed and there's lead in every room.
Speaker 10: House was ransacked.
Speaker 3: How old is sheha?
Speaker 10: How old? Yeah, she was ninety four. I think she's dead.
Speaker 10: She looks she's been twisted.
Speaker 6: She's twisted in.
Speaker 10: Here in the bedroom. And I saw an ambulance when
Speaker 10: I walked in and saw kind of stuff I saw
Speaker 10: on the amblys one walk above. So I ran up
Speaker 10: there and I said, I need someone. I thought maybe
Speaker 10: they went to the wrong place and maybe she called them,
Speaker 10: But I think somebody came in. I know somebody came
Speaker 10: in here.
Speaker 1: The ambulance she saw just across the street was for Jacob.
Speaker 7: Did it any time you go to a house or
Speaker 7: on Cherry Street the old lady who.
Speaker 6: Lives behind you A ry guy.
Speaker 7: Okay, I just got an answer. The house behind you
Speaker 7: on Cherry Street, the old lady that loves back there,
Speaker 7: did you go to her?
Speaker 6: House, No, ma'am, no, sir. Okay.
Speaker 7: Did any of those guys go to that house?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 6: But I told him I'm not going in there. They left,
Speaker 6: they started.
Speaker 2: I heard screaming and stuff, so I just left. I
Speaker 2: couldn't the old lady's house.
Speaker 7: Were you inside and left or no?
Speaker 2: I left, I couldn't. I just heard screaming, so I left.
Speaker 2: Where do you hear screaming from the old lady's house?
Speaker 6: Okay?
Speaker 7: But were you outside?
Speaker 6: Were you in the car? Where were you?
Speaker 2: No? I was in an alley, but I ran. I
Speaker 2: ran home that one on my what's it called the
Speaker 2: swing thing? The swing swing thing, the swing set, the
Speaker 2: swing set? Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: Jacob said he ran home as the boys who held
Speaker 1: him at gunpoint went inside Marie's house. He said he
Speaker 1: only heard the screams whether he was inside the house
Speaker 1: or not. Marie was indeed screaming, and what her daughter
Speaker 1: found was the end of a struggle. No one should
Speaker 1: ever have to fight, especially a sweet old woman. Back
Speaker 1: at the scene, an officer steps through the side entrance
Speaker 1: at five o nine Cherry. The door frame is splintered,
Speaker 1: the lock has been forced. Evidence of violence is pervasive
Speaker 1: in multiple rooms in the living room, the floor is
Speaker 1: stained with blood, especially in front of a recliner where
Speaker 1: the struggle started. It's not a single pool. It's smeared,
Speaker 1: soaked into the carpet, streaked a cross furniture, and spattered
Speaker 1: on walls. On the couch more stains. He sees fragments
Speaker 1: of bone sections of Marie bel Castro's skull lying on
Speaker 1: the floor among the blood. We interviewed Chris Becker, the
Speaker 1: lead prosecutor on the case.
Speaker 11: The corner indicated that she had been beaten so brutally
Speaker 11: that he could not determine how many blows had rained
Speaker 11: down on her head.
Speaker 1: A trail of bloody drag marts leads into the dining room.
Speaker 1: More blood on the floor, another fragment of skull. Shards
Speaker 1: of her hearing aids lay in various places, and one
Speaker 1: is broken and lodged inside her ear canal, a detail
Speaker 1: the coroner would later say he had never seen before
Speaker 1: in over eight thousand autopsies. The officer follows drag marks,
Speaker 1: smeared lines of blood leading away from the front rooms,
Speaker 1: through the kitchen, down the hallway. Along the baseboard of
Speaker 1: one wall, there are more fragments of skull and brain tissue.
Speaker 1: In the guest bedroom, he finds the body. Marie Belcastro,
Speaker 1: lies twisted on the floor at the foot of her bed.
Speaker 1: She is faced down. Her pajama pants are gone, her
Speaker 1: shirt is soaked in blood. Her arms are contorted, with
Speaker 1: one pinned under her and the other bent Unnaturally. Blood
Speaker 1: has pooled beneath her and saturated deep into the carpet.
Speaker 1: They will later discover there's so much blood that it
Speaker 1: is dripping through the floorboards into her finished basement. He
Speaker 1: gets down on his knees, careful not to disturb the scene,
Speaker 1: and sees her crushed face. The injury measures almost five
Speaker 1: by one and a half inches. It's not a fracture.
Speaker 1: The bone and tissue are completely carved in. Nearby, he
Speaker 1: spots the murder weapon, a maglite flashlight, stained with blood.
Speaker 1: There are also bloody shoe prints marking the carpet. The
Speaker 1: house shrieks of iron. Every room he passes through has
Speaker 1: signs of a violent struggle. A veteran with decades on
Speaker 1: the force, he freezes for a moment. In twenty four
Speaker 1: years of law enforcement, he has never seen any thing
Speaker 1: like this, and this could have been his grandmother. He
Speaker 1: thinks to himself. Meanwhile, Jacob is still in the hospital
Speaker 1: being questioned. His drunken version is starting to crack. It
Speaker 1: already blamed the murder on two other young men or
Speaker 1: kids who held him at gunpoint and then decided to
Speaker 1: let him go. So he's running through all the alleys
Speaker 1: with no pants and ends up at a playground.
Speaker 6: And what did you do there? I hung out? So
Speaker 6: he came back.
Speaker 2: I seen blood all over him, the blood all Oh
Speaker 2: my blood, Oh my god?
Speaker 6: Did you see blood all over Davonte Jackson?
Speaker 7: Davante Jackson, has Davante white or black?
Speaker 6: He's black? Okay? How about this other guy with his
Speaker 6: name again, Davy?
Speaker 7: He is white.
Speaker 2: Middald mid donald's. Every assume the morning he would be
Speaker 2: hanging out mc donald's.
Speaker 6: Oh my god. No, in a car, black car. It's
Speaker 6: the right license place on far looks like a race car. Okay.
Speaker 7: So you weren't in the house at any time with them. No,
Speaker 7: So I won't find anything of yours in that house
Speaker 7: because they guys up there right now looking for stuff
Speaker 7: in that house. Nothing in there is gonna come back
Speaker 7: that's yours, right, no, sir, And you're not gonna have
Speaker 7: any blood in there. You're not gonna have anything in there, noir, Okay,
Speaker 7: because I want you're being honest with me right now.
Speaker 2: I'm completely august. Thank you, Aunt the same my life
Speaker 2: took you.
Speaker 6: Thank you, God blessed you.
Speaker 1: In the hospital, Jacob was safe, he only had minor injuries,
Speaker 1: and he was grateful, even thanking and blessing the officer
Speaker 1: and the nurse who were helping him. He'd make it
Speaker 1: home after all. But across the street, Marie belt Castro
Speaker 1: was lying dead in a heap of blood, while Jacob
Speaker 1: blamed two boys with guns. Investigators canvas the neighborhood. They
Speaker 1: questioned everyone who might have seen somebody, anybody really going
Speaker 1: into or out of Marie's house that afternoon. No one had.
Speaker 7: Why are the neighbors saying that they didn't see anybody
Speaker 7: over there but you?
Speaker 6: Oh huh, Well.
Speaker 7: A couple of the neighbors over there said they saw
Speaker 7: you coming out of the house. Why would they say that?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 7: Why would the neighbors say they only saw you come
Speaker 7: out of the house.
Speaker 6: Ah, there was first act over there.
Speaker 1: They were saying that because it was true. But Jacob's
Speaker 1: lies kept coming, along with new names.
Speaker 7: Jackson when did he come on scene? I thought it
Speaker 7: was DeVante and the other guy, the white guy.
Speaker 6: No, it is t I think Jacob.
Speaker 7: Let me explain something to you. You watch TV a lot,
Speaker 7: You watched TV all.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Have you ever watched CSI or any of that where
Speaker 7: they do crime scene stuff?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 7: Yeah, Well I got my crime scene guys up right now.
Speaker 7: And your story isn't adding up to what you're telling me.
Speaker 7: And see, I'm up here trying to help you out
Speaker 7: and get you in front of this so that you
Speaker 7: don't end up with a bigger mess than it could
Speaker 7: be already. And I don't think you're telling me the
Speaker 7: truth because your story keeps changing a lot, and I've
Speaker 7: got witnesses up there.
Speaker 1: Jacob's story kept shifting, full of names and details that
Speaker 1: led nowhere. By then, investigators already knew this wasn't some
Speaker 1: random encounter. Jacob had been in and out of detention
Speaker 1: for years, with probation officers and judges trying and failing
Speaker 1: to rain him in.
Speaker 11: He had been just been released from the Juvenile Justice
Speaker 11: Center about five hours earlier. He had been literally in
Speaker 11: jail till about he was released. I think we found
Speaker 11: out about eleven o'clock. We had video of at eleven
Speaker 11: in the morning, and of course Marie was murdered sometime
Speaker 11: between four o'clock, between like three o'clock and four o'clock,
Speaker 11: because we had people that had been to her house
Speaker 11: and seen her after the lunch hour during the lunch hour,
Speaker 11: so we know she was alive at least during say
Speaker 11: one or two o'clock. And Jacob what he did was
Speaker 11: he broke into her house. There was video of him
Speaker 11: in the alley. Ob security from the neighbor actually showed
Speaker 11: him in the alleyway. He broke into the house. He
Speaker 11: obviously committed the murder of Marie, beat her in three
Speaker 11: different locations and at that point then he rifled through
Speaker 11: her purse. He went down to the basement where this
Speaker 11: was an older, kind of nineteen fifties built house. There
Speaker 11: was an old little bar dout there. I don't think
Speaker 11: Marie Bilcaster had used that bar for a number of years.
Speaker 11: But there were some liquor bottles that he ended up taking,
Speaker 11: and he was seen on the video in the alleyway
Speaker 11: with those bottles. They actually were recovered and a couple
Speaker 11: of those bottles of alcohol had his DNA on the bottle.
Speaker 1: That wasn't the only place they found DNA evidence. When
Speaker 1: Jacob was in the hospital, nurses noticed blood in his underwear.
Speaker 1: When they took him to the restroom to urinate, they
Speaker 1: discovered that his penis and groin area had blood and
Speaker 1: it was Marie. Later the police would confirm this by
Speaker 1: recovering the washcloth the nurse had used to wipe him.
Speaker 11: He eventually drug her to a bedroom where he attempted
Speaker 11: to rape her. She was still bleeding at that point,
Speaker 11: but you know, for all intents and purposes, she was
Speaker 11: brain dead. We know for a fact that he had
Speaker 11: her blood on his penis because we were able to
Speaker 11: swab that and get that information, or you know, get
Speaker 11: that evidence.
Speaker 1: This wasn't the story of a troubled kid who just
Speaker 1: needed another chance. Prosecutors said Jacob had already burned through
Speaker 1: every chance he'd ever been given, and what he did
Speaker 1: to Marie bel Castro proved he was beyond redemption. Sorry
Speaker 1: to say, but sometimes it's just time to give up
Speaker 1: and put a bullet in their head for a couple
Speaker 1: thousand vaults through their body. I mean, what do we
Speaker 1: need these people for anyway?
Speaker 11: But Jacob had a long history of behavioral problems, and
Speaker 11: he had bombed out of a number of programs that
Speaker 11: were designed to help him. He didn't respond well to
Speaker 11: any treatment. He was in a treatment facility called the
Speaker 11: smith House Quest for about three months in late twenty fourteen,
Speaker 11: and if you recall, this murder happened in March thirty
Speaker 11: first of twenty fifteen, and while he was there, he
Speaker 11: made threats against residents, was caught masturbating. He'd punched another
Speaker 11: juvenile there. He was found to be in the computer
Speaker 11: room and admitted that he liked to look at women
Speaker 11: and masturbate to them. He used another inmates computer there
Speaker 11: to send sexually explicit emails to a teacher. So he
Speaker 11: had a long history of behavioral problems and sexual deviation
Speaker 11: and violence.
Speaker 1: Even his own parents were afraid of them.
Speaker 11: Now he had a little bit of a difficult start.
Speaker 11: His parents were divorced, but by all accounts, his mother
Speaker 11: was pretty good to him. His other siblings were pretty
Speaker 11: decent kids. They didn't commit these type of crimes and
Speaker 11: didn't even come close to committing any types of crimes.
Speaker 11: At one point was committed or sentence actually for a
Speaker 11: domestic violence when he threw a Mason jar candle at
Speaker 11: his seven year old sister and a hit her in
Speaker 11: the eye, and she required eighteen stitches. At one point,
Speaker 11: the stepfather said, we had to put padlocks on all
Speaker 11: the other children's bedrooms doors because Jacob would steal anything
Speaker 11: and everything and then sell it for drugs. So all
Speaker 11: the children had padlocks on their bedroom door so Jacob
Speaker 11: could not get in there and steal anything from them
Speaker 11: that he could use to sell. The father also told
Speaker 11: us in a written statement and a recorded statement, I
Speaker 11: believe that he was so afraid of Jacob and his
Speaker 11: violence that he was sleeping with a gun under his pillow.
Speaker 11: That's how bad Jacob was.
Speaker 1: Even with that history, what drove Jacob on March thirty
Speaker 1: first to still unclear. He had been released from juvenile
Speaker 1: detention only hours earlier, full of restlessness and agitation. Maybe
Speaker 1: he was simply looking for a dopamine hit. He'd been
Speaker 1: diagnosed with ADHD as a child, but of course most
Speaker 1: people with ADHD aren't violent, most people in general aren't violent.
Speaker 1: Maybe he was looking for money or alcohol. Things he
Speaker 1: knew Marie kept in her home, offered him meals and
Speaker 1: snacks before and even gave him loose change, but her
Speaker 1: daughter was clear those small acts of kindness happened only
Speaker 1: on the porch. Marie never let them inside.
Speaker 11: I have no idea what Jacob's motive was. He never
Speaker 11: stayed in it. He never gave the police any information.
Speaker 11: Of course, he deflected and lied, and you know, even
Speaker 11: lied about where he got the blood on his clothes
Speaker 11: from to his own parents. But it's clear that he
Speaker 11: was sexually deviant. There's a long track record of him
Speaker 11: having sexual fantasies and deviations and masturbating and looking at pornography.
Speaker 11: And the other thing was he's clearly as a violent
Speaker 11: track record. He is just one of those individuals that
Speaker 11: if you were beside him, he didn't care for his
Speaker 11: broad daylight, because Marie was killed in the middle of
Speaker 11: the afternoon. If he wanted something, which maybe he wanted
Speaker 11: the liquor in this case, or maybe just you know,
Speaker 11: had sexual fans and wanted to, you know, have some
Speaker 11: kind of sexual fantasy with a woman. He knew Marie
Speaker 11: was ninety four years old and lived basically in his backyard,
Speaker 11: and he could take advantage and enter her home. And
Speaker 11: you know though that could be part of the motivation too.
Speaker 1: Whatever Jacob's reasons. The evidence left little doubt. His bloody
Speaker 1: shoe prints tracked through Marie's home, a mag light, flashlight
Speaker 1: stained with her blood, DNA all over the scene and
Speaker 1: on Marie. Neighbors saw him wandering half naked and drunk,
Speaker 1: his body smeared with Marie's blood. By the time investigators
Speaker 1: finished collecting evidence, there was no question who had been
Speaker 1: inside five h nine Cherry that afternoon and who had not.
Speaker 1: Jacob left the hospital that evening after being treated for
Speaker 1: minor injuries. They went back home, hoping he had somehow
Speaker 1: convinced the police that not only was he innocent, but
Speaker 1: that he was also a victim. By this time, his
Speaker 1: family was beyond suspicious. They already knew what life with
Speaker 1: him was like.
Speaker 11: His siblings are you know, normal human beings, are normal people,
Speaker 11: and he just put this whole family, including his mother
Speaker 11: and his siblings obviously by you know, causing the injuries
Speaker 11: to the sister. He just put him through hell. You know,
Speaker 11: the fact that they had the padlock the bedroom doors,
Speaker 11: the fact that the stepfather had to sleep with a gun.
Speaker 11: I mean, this kid was just just the devil incarnated
Speaker 11: inside this house and in this whole neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Just after midnight, deputies surround his house after hearing from
Speaker 1: dispatch that he's threatening suicide by cop. Spotlights flood the house.
Speaker 1: A PA system booms his name, ordering him out. Jacob hesitates.
Speaker 1: He tells officers on the phone he's worried about his dogs,
Speaker 1: and then he's quiet. Minutes drag on, as Jacob's parents
Speaker 1: coach him. Finally, Jacob steps into the doorway. He edges forward,
Speaker 1: but then backs up. The officers keep calling him. At last,
Speaker 1: he walks into the open. He doesn't fight, He just says,
Speaker 1: I'm going to jail, Well Dave.
Speaker 12: After spending all day yesterday trying to sit a jury
Speaker 12: in this case, Jacob LaRosa himself pleaded no contest to
Speaker 12: charges named in an amended indictment. This morning, Now Judge
Speaker 12: Wyatt McKay found LaRosa guilty of the charges, including aggravated murder,
Speaker 12: aggravated robbery, aggravated burglary, and attempted rape. The charges stem
Speaker 12: from the brutal attack on ninety four year old Marie
Speaker 12: Belcastro inside her Niles home back in March of twenty fifteen.
Speaker 12: Now LaRosa was arrested shortly after the crime and has
Speaker 12: been held on three million dollars bond at the Juvenile
Speaker 12: Detention Center ever since. But now that he's eighteen and
Speaker 12: convicted of the crime, he'll be more moved over to
Speaker 12: the Trumbull County Jail.
Speaker 13: At some point very.
Speaker 1: Shortly, Jacob pleaded no contest but would be sentenced as
Speaker 1: an adult. This meant that for the charges of aggravated murder,
Speaker 1: the court could impose the maximum penalty of life in
Speaker 1: prison without the possibility of parole. The death penalty was
Speaker 1: off the table because he was a juvenile when he
Speaker 1: committed the crime.
Speaker 4: When they were trying to see the jury, they couldn't
Speaker 4: get people to have any sense of fairness or impartiality
Speaker 4: on the question of Jacob LaRosa because they had all
Speaker 4: heard about the murder and they all had a very
Speaker 4: strong opinion about what should happen to LaRosa. And it
Speaker 4: just shows you the goodness of the man on the
Speaker 4: street who when presented with something very black and white
Speaker 4: and clear cut, like the murder of a helpless old lady,
Speaker 4: they know what to do.
Speaker 1: And this is part of what Chris Becker had to
Speaker 1: say in his closing arguments at Jacob's sentencing He.
Speaker 11: Had beaten her in the living room and in the
Speaker 11: dining room, and parts of her skull were found in
Speaker 11: both places. Her hearing aids had been basically beat out
Speaker 11: of her head. That's why I refer to Jacob Leosa
Speaker 11: as just an animal. Is he is? He should be
Speaker 11: locked up forever.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 11: My grandfather used to say all the time, if you
Speaker 11: act like an animal, you should be treated like an animal.
Speaker 11: And Jacob Rosa is clearly an animal.
Speaker 1: Of course, the defense team didn't see it that way.
Speaker 1: They saw him as a child of fifteen with his
Speaker 1: whole life ahead of him, just a little baby boy,
Speaker 1: just ready to go out into the world, you know,
Speaker 1: such a bright future ahead And that was exactly the problem.
Speaker 1: What other heinous crimes would he commit with an entire
Speaker 1: life ahead of him? Remember, in the hospital, Jacob was
Speaker 1: grateful his life had been saved, but only hours earlier
Speaker 1: he had snuffed out the life of a sweet old
Speaker 1: lady and then lied about it.
Speaker 7: God bless me, Why would I do?
Speaker 6: We saved him on life? You got me hearing you
Speaker 6: guys sayed my life.
Speaker 7: Okay.
Speaker 1: It's hard to believe that Jacob would be capable of
Speaker 1: believing in God. It does take a certain amount of
Speaker 1: humility to admit there's a higher power, and it's even
Speaker 1: hard to believe that he was truly grateful for anything
Speaker 1: except himself. His life.
Speaker 11: Jacob, for whatever reason, whatever wires were crossed in his brain,
Speaker 11: whatever happened to him, something got into him and made
Speaker 11: him this animal that ended up taking the life of
Speaker 11: a wonderful by all accounts, ninety four year old woman.
Speaker 6: Oh, she was a very nice lady.
Speaker 1: She'd do anything for you.
Speaker 5: I can't understand anybody would want to hurt her, really,
Speaker 5: because she'd do anything for you.
Speaker 6: She'd go out of her way for you.
Speaker 1: Jacob's life had been spared once already, or at least
Speaker 1: he pretended to see it that way. But now it
Speaker 1: was really on the line, like for real, real. He
Speaker 1: couldn't be given a death penalty because he was a minor,
Speaker 1: but he would be eligible for life without parole, and
Speaker 1: that's exactly what Marie's family was hoping for. Would the
Speaker 1: justice system spare him or would a judge know what
Speaker 1: to do? As Marie's grandson Brian pointed out, fortunately, Attorney
Speaker 1: Becker didn't have to prove motive. Some people on this
Speaker 1: earth are just sociopaths and that's all they'll ever be.
Speaker 11: The good news is I don't have to prove motive,
Speaker 11: and thank goodness, he never told us what his motive was,
Speaker 11: because I don't think there's any real reason. You know,
Speaker 11: you can always understand why maybe someone who's homeless or
Speaker 11: a drug addict may steal something because you know, I'm
Speaker 11: hungry or I have a drug addiction, But this is
Speaker 11: a case where you're just dealing with a psychopath who's
Speaker 11: a violent sexual predator, and he's like, I say, you know,
Speaker 11: I still believe this day he's one of the one
Speaker 11: of the people that I have prosecuted, and there's a
Speaker 11: number of them, but he is definitely one of the
Speaker 11: people that probably should have got the death batalty, but
Speaker 11: because he was under eighteen that the US Supreme Court
Speaker 11: has prohibited that. But he certainly should be dying in prison.
Speaker 1: At the sentencing hearing, Marie's daughter spoke, wanting to remind
Speaker 1: the judge exactly what she found the day she walked
Speaker 1: in on what Jacob had left behind.
Speaker 14: I'm seeing splattered on the wall and mom's curse dumped.
Speaker 14: So I go into the first bedroom and there she
Speaker 14: was on the floor, and I knew, and I put
Speaker 14: my hand on her head, and I put my hand
Speaker 14: on her back, and her back was still wet.
Speaker 6: It was wet with blood.
Speaker 1: Jacob tried to seem remorseful, but some things you just
Speaker 1: can't fake.
Speaker 15: I'm sorry for what I did, and I hope pray
Speaker 15: Mary Lekasho's family everyone else can reach down deep in
Speaker 15: their hearts and forgive me. I am sorry to the
Speaker 15: people I hurt and let down. I am sorry to
Speaker 15: my family that I heard for so long. I'm sorry
Speaker 15: to the people I bullied, disrespecting, stolen from. And I'm
Speaker 15: sorry to the court system for everything I've done. I'm
Speaker 15: sorry to the staff I disrespected in the past.
Speaker 1: The thing is her name was Marie, not Mary, but
Speaker 1: he was either too stupid to remember it or he
Speaker 1: just didn't give a shit, and the list of people
Speaker 1: he disrespected kept rolling out of his mouth more like
Speaker 1: a fifth step from a chronic double, a regular making
Speaker 1: amends because they have to, rather than anything resembling real remorse.
Speaker 1: Even more damning than his robotic apology was what he
Speaker 1: said to a jail inmate while awaiting trial. This quite
Speaker 1: possibly explains his motive According to him, Jacob said that
Speaker 1: he was at a party with friends and they were drinking.
Speaker 1: They ran out of alcohol, so he said he was
Speaker 1: going to go find some more, and he knew that
Speaker 1: this old lady had alcohol at her house, so he
Speaker 1: went there to take it, but he couldn't find it.
Speaker 1: He said he saw her sitting in the living room
Speaker 1: and he just grabbed the flashlight from the table and
Speaker 1: hit her with it. He said she fell over and
Speaker 1: started to scream, so he kept hitting her until she stopped.
Speaker 1: Then he dragged her to the bedroom. He was going
Speaker 1: to try to rape her, but he couldn't get it up,
Speaker 1: so he just left her there on the floor.
Speaker 11: The prison term of life without parole in the State
Speaker 11: Peen Institution.
Speaker 13: Showing no remorse, The now nineteen year old Jacob LaRosa
Speaker 13: was given the maximum sentence allowed by law for the
Speaker 13: aggravated murder of ninety four year old Marie Belcastro, and
Speaker 13: on top of that, thirty additional years for charges of
Speaker 13: aggravated burglary, aggravated robbery and attempted rape, all stemming from
Speaker 13: what happened inside bel Castro's Chair Avenue home back in
Speaker 13: March of twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1: But this is Ohio, and in Ohio, sometimes up is
Speaker 1: down and down is up, and sometimes even a sentence
Speaker 1: of life without parole doesn't really mean life without parole.
Speaker 1: Jacob Loosso was fifteen years old living with his mother
Speaker 1: on Lafayette Avenue in Niles, Ohio. On March thirty first,
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, just out of juvie, he came home drunk, barefoot,
Speaker 1: and covered in blood. Across the street, his ninety four
Speaker 1: year old neighbor, Marie bel Castro, was found beaten to
Speaker 1: death inside her home. The evidence was overwhelming, Jacob's bloody shoe, prince,
Speaker 1: the maglite flashlight, Marie's DNA in his underwear. He was
Speaker 1: arrested within hours, charged as an adult, and in twenty
Speaker 1: eighteen sentenced to life without parole. But this is Ohio,
Speaker 1: and that sentence wouldn't hold.
Speaker 11: The Ohio legislature then passed Senate Bill two fifty six,
Speaker 11: which retroactively gave defendants such as Jacob that were serving
Speaker 11: life sentences with no parole eligibility after serving twenty five years.
Speaker 11: It was an absolute I can't even put a proper
Speaker 11: adjective on how awful this legislation was. Not only for
Speaker 11: the victims, but for the state of Ohio, and it
Speaker 11: was done for political purposes.
Speaker 1: Isn't that always the case? Is there really any justice
Speaker 1: when lawmakers negotiate, make deals and set themselves up to
Speaker 1: win the next election by sabotaging the rest of us
Speaker 1: am I a little jaded, maybe, or maybe I'm just
Speaker 1: spitting some truth.
Speaker 11: Matt Dolan, who his family owns the Cleveland Guardians, is
Speaker 11: a horrible, horrible legislature and everyone that voted for this
Speaker 11: did a horrible job of looking at the facts. And
Speaker 11: anytime you retroactively let monsters like Jacob l Rosa give
Speaker 11: them a benefit, it's just horrible. And our Ohio legislature
Speaker 11: did a horrible job on the passage of Senate Bill
Speaker 11: to fifty six.
Speaker 1: This was a law that basically said anyone who committed
Speaker 1: a crime while under the age of eighteen and was
Speaker 1: given life without parole was given a get out of
Speaker 1: jail free card. Maybe not quite free, but they are
Speaker 1: now allowed to see parole after twenty five years. Some
Speaker 1: idiot thought that'd be a good idea to just set
Speaker 1: an upper limit, no matter how horrendous the crime. Ah,
Speaker 1: why because you're just a little baby just a little baby,
Speaker 1: just your little tiny baby, just in you. No baby, Sorry,
Speaker 1: let's get back to it. In Jacob's case, he would
Speaker 1: be in his early forties if led out, plenty of
Speaker 1: time to commit. Who knows what I mean. He killed me,
Speaker 1: a rebel castro over alcohol, within eight hours of being
Speaker 1: released from juvenile detention. Do you really think he's going
Speaker 1: to be reformed somehow?
Speaker 4: Not to sound dramatic, but that hit me harder than
Speaker 4: the murder, to be honest, Because not to minimize it,
Speaker 4: but she was ninety four years old. I knew that
Speaker 4: that call would come someday soon, ish, I didn't realize
Speaker 4: the manner of death. It was hard, but it was
Speaker 4: also People lift you up in prayer. When someone in
Speaker 4: your family gets murdered. I think there's a combination of
Speaker 4: shock and prayer and the Holy Spirit that just enveloped
Speaker 4: our family for weeks and still does. But when the
Speaker 4: Ohio legislature retroactively changes a law given your loved ones
Speaker 4: killer rights that he didn't previously have, there's no hallmark
Speaker 4: card for that, there's no prayer chain for that. There
Speaker 4: is the shock that the party that you supported all
Speaker 4: your life. I'm a lifelong Republican and it was my
Speaker 4: old Republican buddies in Ohio. I used to work for
Speaker 4: the Ohio Republican Party. I raised money for Governor Mike DeLine.
Speaker 4: When your own political family betrays you and basically says,
Speaker 4: which is what SB. Two five six did, it said,
Speaker 4: you have to go to parole hearings every five years your.
Speaker 1: Own political family. Let's be clear, there's no such thing
Speaker 1: as a political family. There's nothing familial about politics.
Speaker 11: Well, it happened because a lot of these Republicans are
Speaker 11: the typical rhinos. They you know, they want to save
Speaker 11: money at the at the state penitentiary system. They you know,
Speaker 11: they pander to a lot of special interests. And in
Speaker 11: this particular case, like I said, it was led by
Speaker 11: some very wayward legislators that you know, took the bait
Speaker 11: of this poor little kid. He's going to have to
Speaker 11: spend the rest of his life in prison. It wasn't
Speaker 11: just Jacob, it was a number of individuals that were
Speaker 11: serving life sentences, but every one of them deserved it.
Speaker 1: The law doesn't guarantee Jacob's release, but it guarantees something else.
Speaker 1: Marie's family will have to keep showing up every time
Speaker 1: he asks for parole, to remind the board of what
Speaker 1: he actually did, and they'll have to do this reliving
Speaker 1: the murder for the rest of their lives or until
Speaker 1: he finally gets released. Talk about punishing victims.
Speaker 4: It was such a betrayal, such a punch in that
Speaker 4: got such a hard thing to fathom, and you contrast
Speaker 4: that with the security of a life without parole sentence,
Speaker 4: and it's night and day. We have been fighting ever
Speaker 4: since we learned about it. We had one victory a
Speaker 4: couple of years ago. They changed that time from five
Speaker 4: years to ten years, so it's parole hearings every ten years,
Speaker 4: which is certainly more manageable than every five years, but
Speaker 4: at the same time, to force a family to defend
Speaker 4: their safety against their loved one's killer, when prior to
Speaker 4: that you don't have to, is I think cool.
Speaker 1: Imagine losing someone you love the murder, then being told
Speaker 1: you're going to have to stand in front of a
Speaker 1: parole board every few years to explain why their killer
Speaker 1: should stay in prison. That's the reality Maurice's family now faces,
Speaker 1: and they're not alone because when lawmakers decide to water
Speaker 1: down sentences and add upper limits, it's a gift to
Speaker 1: all those hardcore criminals out there, and it's a punishment
Speaker 1: to all the families of victims. Brian has a message
Speaker 1: if you want to understand just how big this problem really.
Speaker 4: Is, the best resource I could recommend is a mouthful.
Speaker 4: It's the National Organization for Victims of Juvenile Murderers NVJM
Speaker 4: dot org. They're going to find state by state status
Speaker 4: on bills that might impact innocent people. They're going to
Speaker 4: find studies and links to books, and they're going to
Speaker 4: find stories, and they're going to find an article that
Speaker 4: I wrote when my grandmother was killed. And when you're
Speaker 4: a legislator, I understand you have a lot of bills
Speaker 4: to read and digest and understand, but I think a
Speaker 4: simple litmus test ought to be does this strengthen the
Speaker 4: innocent and punish criminals or does it do the opposite.
Speaker 4: And if you're a believer in goodness and you're doing
Speaker 4: the people's work, you want to help victims and not criminals.
Speaker 4: So that's a nice little litmus test for any legislator
Speaker 4: that is confused. As far as Ohio goes, I have
Speaker 4: a feeling that the next governor, Vivek Ramaswami will be
Speaker 4: receptive to overturning or doing what he can. The problem is,
Speaker 4: I guess once you give a class of people new rights,
Speaker 4: it's very hard to then take them away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, think about that for a second. The bigger the
Speaker 1: government and the more money it spends on stupid ideas
Speaker 1: or programs that aren't working, the harder it is to
Speaker 1: undo the mess they create. It becomes one big, tangled,
Speaker 1: bureaucratic mess, and instead of fixing it, the next guy
Speaker 1: comes and spends more of your money, adding another layer
Speaker 1: of laws on top of it. But Brian and his
Speaker 1: family have actually taken action because for them it's personal.
Speaker 4: Well, twenty twenty one, our family did sort of an
Speaker 4: RV tour of Ohio. We visited thirteen county courthouses and
Speaker 4: did interviews with the press and just sort of raised
Speaker 4: awareness about Senate Bill two fifty six. It was really nice.
Speaker 4: We met all kinds of regular folks, some riff wrath
Speaker 4: everybody talked to, from homeless people to clearly people who
Speaker 4: are showing up for probation drug tests. You know, when
Speaker 4: you're at a courthouse, you see all kinds of folks.
Speaker 4: Right you're filing we're here to file documents. Oh, I'm
Speaker 4: here to file urine sample. I met a guy who
Speaker 4: was in prison with La Rosa who was out, and
Speaker 4: when I explained to him what we were doing, he said, oh,
Speaker 4: my gosh, Like I've never met anybody who thinks it's
Speaker 4: a great idea to undo the sentence of a judge,
Speaker 4: to give killers a second, third, eighth chance.
Speaker 1: Brian's daughter, Lena, Murray's great granddaughter, is a very young adult,
Speaker 1: but has a surprising amount of common sense and wisdom
Speaker 1: that many of us don't have. Here's what she said
Speaker 1: about the changing law and what her family has gone through.
Speaker 16: Just how hope in a time of darkness and conflict,
Speaker 16: Because I think having hope and unity with every community
Speaker 16: there is, I think that is the strongest form of expression.
Speaker 16: That is the perfect way to fight in the face
Speaker 16: of the very ones who control us, which is the government.
Speaker 9: We need to really wake up and realize, like we're
Speaker 9: not divided on either party.
Speaker 16: We're divided because of the people trying to divide us.
Speaker 16: We need to stay focused, not let us just like
Speaker 16: not let them distract us. I just feel like it's
Speaker 16: humanity versus insanity, and it's not even about party versus party.
Speaker 16: I think it's both parties versus the government. That's what
Speaker 16: I feel.
Speaker 1: But this is really about Marie Belcastro, a sweet grandma
Speaker 1: who didn't deserve to die in such a monstrous way.
Speaker 1: No one does. We asked Brian and Lena what Jigi
Speaker 1: would have said today if she were still alive.
Speaker 16: You find yourself in a position to fight for something,
Speaker 16: don't stop fighting for that. So that's what I'm getting
Speaker 16: in her, and I think she would say that would
Speaker 16: like love and you know, with all the kindness in
Speaker 16: her heart and lust from her head, you know, because
Speaker 16: she was the kind to me with her heart, not
Speaker 16: her mind.
Speaker 1: Murray lived for ninety four years in Niles, Ohio. She
Speaker 1: was a mother, a grandmother, and a great grandmother. She
Speaker 1: was the kind of neighbor who baked cookies, who gave
Speaker 1: kids a few coins for their help, and made people
Speaker 1: laugh with her humor. She had seen hard times, she
Speaker 1: had raised a family, and she had outlived so many
Speaker 1: of her peers. Only for this to happen to her.
Speaker 1: She deserved to live out the rest of her years
Speaker 1: in peace in the home her dad built for her
Speaker 1: and her family. Instead, her life was cut short in
Speaker 1: the most brutal way imaginable by a snot nosed kid
Speaker 1: hew bent on ruining lives, including his own. Still, while
Speaker 1: parents were putting padlocks on their bedroom doors and neighbors
Speaker 1: were placing surveillance cameras, Marie was giving him cookies and
Speaker 1: love on her front porch. She was a woman defined
Speaker 1: by her laughter, her love, and the simple good things
Speaker 1: she left behind. At her ninetieth birthday party, she told
Speaker 1: us herself how she wanted to be remembered.
Speaker 4: You love my.
Speaker 6: Son, Shine, my only son. Shine.
Speaker 2: You make me.
Speaker 16: When skuys are great?
Speaker 6: What would you like to be remembered for?
Speaker 16: Were all the good things that I might have done,
Speaker 16: which I don't know too my name were not bad things?
Speaker 1: Marie, though Castro, will live on the minds of those
Speaker 1: who knew her for all the good things she did.
Speaker 1: Jacob LaRosa, however, will never achieve anything. This is a
Speaker 1: waste of human flesh, a waste of space, a waste
Speaker 1: of oxygen. The fact we have a criminal justice system
Speaker 1: that pities, feel sorry for, and even defends him instead
Speaker 1: of the real victim is what the actual crime is here.
Speaker 1: Why are we gonna fucking wake up out of this
Speaker 1: haze of suicidal empathy for literal monsters. I got nothing
Speaker 1: else to say about it. I'm disgusted, literally disgusted by
Speaker 1: how we treat actual victims for the sake of appearances.
Speaker 1: Fuck this shit. I've been doing this for thirteen years
Speaker 1: for you. Can you do me a quick favor and
Speaker 1: head on over to YouTube dot com Slash Sword and
Speaker 1: Scale TV and subscribe. Would you mind? Would it kill you?
Speaker 1: Could you just? Could you just please kindly? Thank you?
Speaker 1: See you next week. Stay safet,