Speaker 1: When fifteen year old Annie casper Zak vanished from her
Speaker 1: home in Riverton, Utah, her parents hoped she had simply
Speaker 1: run away, but the next day a jogger discovered a
Speaker 1: bloody scene by the Jordan River, and hours later Annie's
Speaker 1: battered body surfaced upstream. What followed was a deeply flawed investigation,
Speaker 1: derailed by lies, false suspects, and a mysterious boyfriend named
Speaker 1: l J. This is the heartbreaking and twisted story of
Speaker 1: a teenage girl search for love and how she was
Speaker 1: silenced forever. My name's Ben, I'm.
Speaker 2: Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked Ingram, a true crime podcast.
Speaker 1: The following material intended for your audience. Listen, my sleep
Speaker 1: score isn't as good as it usually is.
Speaker 2: Oh, mine actually is pretty good. It's okay. Sleep scores
Speaker 2: are annoying though, because you can wake up and be like,
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, i'd such a good sleep, and then
Speaker 2: look at your sleep score and shit, and you're like, oh, I.
Speaker 1: Guess I didn't, And then you feel shitty about yourself
Speaker 1: and you feel terrible because you looked at those numbers.
Speaker 2: This is from wearing like a what is it? I
Speaker 2: guess it's a smart smart watch. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I accurately feel like what my sleep
Speaker 1: score is depicting, Like I woke up feeling like that.
Speaker 1: I go to seventy three. It's still decent. But my
Speaker 1: coffee is extra strong this morning, for sure.
Speaker 2: Oh, I actually beat your sleep score. But you got
Speaker 2: up and I stayed in bed and fell back to
Speaker 2: sleep accidentally.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was up at quarter to seven. You gotta
Speaker 1: at eight thirty.
Speaker 2: No, it was not eight thirty. It was like right
Speaker 2: before eight.
Speaker 1: It was after eight, for sure.
Speaker 2: No, it was not.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: I am one hundred percent certain.
Speaker 1: Nicole is clearly still groggy. She can't even remember the time.
Speaker 2: I just like love sleeping. It's like my favorite thing
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 1: It's good. Honestly, if you can sleep in, why not?
Speaker 1: And also if you can join Patreon, why not? So
Speaker 1: shout out to Doc Trancy, Laura Hopper, and Jacqueline Harris
Speaker 1: who joined up on our Patreon and are supporting our
Speaker 1: soul and great they're supporting us talking about our sleep
Speaker 1: scores at the beginning of episodes, you.
Speaker 2: Know, and yeah, we keep recording in the mornings so
Speaker 2: we don't have like a well beveraged open of sorts.
Speaker 1: You know, but we still have beverages. Like I got
Speaker 1: my extra strong coffee this morning. Yeah, it's not that,
Speaker 1: it's just you know, time of day. And trust me,
Speaker 1: there's some mornings where a breakfast beer is warranted.
Speaker 2: What makes it extra strong exactly?
Speaker 1: I put more coffee in it. I made it strong.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, like more grounds in there. Yeah, okay, I see, yeah,
Speaker 2: I see, okay. I'm not a coffee.
Speaker 1: Drinker, so I'm just like, I wanted a strong coffee
Speaker 1: this morning, so I put like double the grounds.
Speaker 2: Usually do shit. I feel like that make it taste
Speaker 2: like poop.
Speaker 1: It's definitely a lot more bitter. Okay, Yeah, it's still good.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, anyway, it sounds like you got a doozy,
Speaker 2: of course, Yeah for us.
Speaker 1: This morning, I do. And I think we are going
Speaker 1: to go back to not quite so much of a
Speaker 1: doozy in the next episode. I got a little bit,
Speaker 1: are you sure about that? I got a little bit
Speaker 1: of a fun one for next time. I was going
Speaker 1: to do it this time, but then I came across
Speaker 1: this case. I'm like, you know what, one more before
Speaker 1: we get to the funny, goofy hilarious case that is
Speaker 1: the next. I don't want to give it away, so
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna say anymore.
Speaker 2: More fun one on a Friday is kind of better.
Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, it'll be a fuck it Friday is what
Speaker 1: I used to call it when I was working nine
Speaker 1: to five's.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, I forgot about that.
Speaker 1: It's not just me. That's what me and coworkers used
Speaker 1: to call it the fuck it Friday because hey, the mentality.
Speaker 2: Of just fuck it the weekends here, like exactly, all
Speaker 2: this shit will be there for you next week.
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly. That's Monday's problem. That's a Monday bend problem,
Speaker 1: sort of, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: Okay, but I had the worst Monday. I think it
Speaker 2: was last week because I did that and then my
Speaker 2: Monday was just bonkers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sometimes you got to watch out for that because
Speaker 1: you can wreck you Monday's. Yeah, it's got to be a.
Speaker 2: Balance, Yeah, yeah, it does.
Speaker 1: Anyways, let's get to this case. You ready, I am
Speaker 1: okay so Born on January tenth, nineteen ninety seven, and
Speaker 1: Grace Casperzek, affectionately known as Annie, entered the world under
Speaker 1: circumstances that would shape nearly every part of her life.
Speaker 1: From the beginning she faced the kind of instability no
Speaker 1: child should have to ever endure. Her biological home was
Speaker 1: filled with abuse and neglect, and by the time she
Speaker 1: was just a tod child, Protective Services had intervened, removing
Speaker 1: her from the care of her birth parents. But instead
Speaker 1: of landing into a safe and stable home, Annie's journey
Speaker 1: through the foster system became a revolving door, a story
Speaker 1: unfortunately all too familiar for many in the foster system.
Speaker 1: Over the span of just a few years, she was
Speaker 1: placed with and returned by nine different foster families.
Speaker 2: Oh no, she went.
Speaker 1: Through nine different foster families before she even turned nine herself.
Speaker 2: Oh that's heartbreaking.
Speaker 1: Hey, So to understand who Annie was, you have to
Speaker 1: start there with that aching sense of impermanence, you know,
Speaker 1: the kind of emotional whiplash that leaves a child feeling
Speaker 1: basically just disposable. Right, So, at an age when most
Speaker 1: kids were learning their multiplication tables and getting bedtime stories,
Speaker 1: Annie was learning that love could be conditional and that
Speaker 1: home could disappear overnight.
Speaker 2: Oh that is so heartbreaking because that's just like, I
Speaker 2: don't know, You're just your survival needs are not being met.
Speaker 1: Yeah, basically, and yeah, you don't have what many of
Speaker 1: us take for granted every day.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: However, in two thousand and seven, everything changed for Annie.
Speaker 1: That year, her life intersected with Veronica casper Zak, a
Speaker 1: dedicated case manager with Utah's Division of Child and Family Services.
Speaker 1: Now Veronica wasn't just doing a job. She saw Annie
Speaker 1: not as a case file, not as a broken child,
Speaker 1: but someone who really deserved a real shot at life. Now.
Speaker 1: At the time, Veronica was pregnant and navigating her own
Speaker 1: family changes, but that didn't stop her from making a
Speaker 1: life altering decision. She and her husband, Dennis Casperzak decided
Speaker 1: to adopt Annie.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, okay, this is hopefully good here.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It was a rare storybook moment in a life
Speaker 1: that honestly had known so few of these, like fairy
Speaker 1: tale type moments, and many people, unfortunately in these positions,
Speaker 1: don't get the lucky break that she finally got herself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but in this moment, Annie finally had a real family.
Speaker 1: She gained two younger brothers. In the process, she gained
Speaker 1: a structured home, and perhaps most importantly, people who didn't
Speaker 1: give up on her.
Speaker 2: Oh Man.
Speaker 1: Veronica would later describe how hard it was for Annie
Speaker 1: to trust anyone in the house at first, which it's
Speaker 1: totally expected a response from a child who's you know,
Speaker 1: lived through so much chaos. But over time that trust
Speaker 1: began to grow. Even when Veronica and Dennis eventually divorced,
Speaker 1: they continued to co parent the children in a healthy,
Speaker 1: cooperative way. Any sense of safety wasn't disrupted by more
Speaker 1: family drama. Instead, the love didn't leave just because the
Speaker 1: marriage did, right, It still was there now. The Casperzak
Speaker 1: family eventually moved to Riverton, Utah, a quiet suburb of
Speaker 1: Salt Lake City, and began to build something Annie had
Speaker 1: never really had before, which was consistency as well. Veronica
Speaker 1: remarried a man named James Brader, who became a father
Speaker 1: figure to Annie. He later recalled that Annie had him
Speaker 1: wrapped around his little finger and that she could convince
Speaker 1: him to do just about anything with a smile or
Speaker 1: a heart film place.
Speaker 2: Oh man, okay, she deserves that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But at this same time, though, too, she now
Speaker 1: has you know, James as his father figure. She still
Speaker 1: has Dennis as well. Okay, so Dennis would also you know,
Speaker 1: get a significant other, So she now basically had two caring,
Speaker 1: loving families. Okay, so this was a co parenting, co
Speaker 1: existing relationship, and yeah, there was two loving homes that
Speaker 1: she was a part of. For the first time, Annie
Speaker 1: had what many kids would take granted for home, a
Speaker 1: support system, people who would fight for her, in a
Speaker 1: future that seemed you know fully possible, but the top.
Speaker 1: By the time she hit her teens, Annie was finally
Speaker 1: living what most kids would consider just ordinary, and for
Speaker 1: her though, it felt extraordinary. She had a room of
Speaker 1: her own, she had two little brothers who adored her,
Speaker 1: a mom who understood her trauma more than most probably could. Yep, Veronica,
Speaker 1: after all had walked beside her, not just as a parent,
Speaker 1: but as someone who had once advocated for her when
Speaker 1: she was just another case file, right when people looked
Speaker 1: at her and she was just another folder sitting on
Speaker 1: a desk. So she had transformed from that to all this.
Speaker 1: It was quite the dramatic change. Now, life in Riverton,
Speaker 1: Utah bra Annie a sense of stability. She never knew
Speaker 1: that stability I already mentioned. She enrolled in some academy,
Speaker 1: a public charter school, where she tried to carve out
Speaker 1: her place in the world. People knew her and described
Speaker 1: her as funny, passionate, warm hearted, and deeply emotional. She
Speaker 1: was a kind of girl who loved big. She cried
Speaker 1: hard and wanted things in her life to have meaning,
Speaker 1: especially with relationships. But like many kids who grew up
Speaker 1: in the shadow of early trauma, Annie sometimes carried her
Speaker 1: heart too openly, too urgently. She longed for connections, deep,
Speaker 1: unconditional ones, the kind that would fill the gaps by
Speaker 1: the years of abandonment that she had felt in her
Speaker 1: early childhood. But it's not unusual for teens who've endured
Speaker 1: instability to seek grounding relationships to have their heart on
Speaker 1: their sleeve per se, and for Annie, that desire found
Speaker 1: its outlet in romantic attachments. In twenty ten, she started
Speaker 1: dating a classmate named Darwin Christopher Bagshawe, who went by Chris.
Speaker 1: They were both still so young, Annie just thirteen and
Speaker 1: Chris just a year younger, but their relationship quickly became intense.
Speaker 1: To Annie, Chris just wasn't another boyfriend or anything. He
Speaker 1: was a symbol of everything she wanted, love, permanence, and
Speaker 1: a future. Friends later recalled that she even wrote about
Speaker 1: him constantly in their journals as their relationship progressed, describing
Speaker 1: her hopes, dreams, and even planning their life together. One
Speaker 1: entry expressed that all she wanted for her birthday was
Speaker 1: to be pregnant and to start a family of her.
Speaker 2: Own at thirteen.
Speaker 1: Well, probably not thirteen, because thirteen is when she met Chris,
Speaker 1: when he was twelve, Okay, so it's probably closer to
Speaker 1: about the age of fifteen when this entry was in
Speaker 1: the journal.
Speaker 2: They've been together like already a little while.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so a therapist might say that Annie was trying
Speaker 1: to rewrite her own past, you know, to give a
Speaker 1: child the kind of love and security that she was
Speaker 1: denied when she was a kid. But now, at fifteen
Speaker 1: years old, that kind of emotional weight was hard to manage,
Speaker 1: let alone communicate, and Chris, who by most accounts was
Speaker 1: more reserved, didn't always know how to respond to Annie's intensities.
Speaker 1: Their relationship became an on again, off again, sometimes warm,
Speaker 1: sometimes tense sort of situation, but never really entirely over.
Speaker 1: It's also worth noting Annie wasn't reckless or out of control,
Speaker 1: though with these sort of ideals or ideologies, I should
Speaker 1: say she was thoughtful and sensitive. She dreamed of becoming
Speaker 1: a therapist one day, even hoping to one day help
Speaker 1: kids who had lived through the pain like she did
Speaker 1: when she was younger. She had insights, maturity, and emotional
Speaker 1: depths far beyond her years, but that doesn't always protect
Speaker 1: you from making teenage mistakes. Her friends loved her for
Speaker 1: her loyalty, teachers remembered her as a bright student with
Speaker 1: big potential, and to her family, she was still the
Speaker 1: same little girl who had always been through more than
Speaker 1: most adults could ever imagine, still trying to find her
Speaker 1: place in the world sort of situation right, a world
Speaker 1: that never really felt quite safe. But in twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: as the pressures of adolescence had piled up, something started
Speaker 1: to shift. Annie's romantic fixation on Chris deepened, and with
Speaker 1: it came the start of a fantasy, one that would
Speaker 1: spiral far beyond anything she could get control, one that
Speaker 1: we kind of already talked about a little bit in
Speaker 1: the ideas of wanting to start a family room right,
Speaker 1: her world revolved around two things, her love for Chris
Speaker 1: and her dream of building that family. Now, to the
Speaker 1: outside world, they were just another high school couple, Annie
Speaker 1: fifteen and Chris fourteen, and they'd been together for about
Speaker 1: a year and a half, practically a lifetime in teenage years.
Speaker 1: But for Annie, the relationship wasn't just about romance. It
Speaker 1: was about her anchor, a way to finally feel like
Speaker 1: she belonged somewhere. And then came the rumor. Somewhere along
Speaker 1: the line, Annie herself started telling people that she was
Speaker 1: in fact pregnant with Chris's child. The story, of course,
Speaker 1: spread fast around school like wildfire it would, and while
Speaker 1: teenage gossip is nothing new, this time it stuck. Friends, classmates,
Speaker 1: and even Chris's own family hurt it all, and had
Speaker 1: even written about the pregnancy in her personal journals, including
Speaker 1: one entry on her birthday where she wished for a
Speaker 1: happy boy or girl, healthy boy or girl.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is interesting to me that she does want
Speaker 2: to have a kid so early.
Speaker 1: I mean, some people know what they want, and when
Speaker 1: you're someone who's been through that sort of turmoil when
Speaker 1: you're young, you're forced to mature quite early, right.
Speaker 2: So she could be seeming a lot like you did
Speaker 2: mention that actually more mature, yeah, for her age.
Speaker 1: While other people her age are probably you know, worried
Speaker 1: about soccer practice and the math test. She's so entranced
Speaker 1: in family and values and you know, so that.
Speaker 2: And she's like, I found my man, Let's do this
Speaker 2: the right thing exactly.
Speaker 1: So she had this longing for somewhere to belong and
Speaker 1: she learned when she was adopted that you know, a
Speaker 1: family is actually a loving and it's a healthy situation
Speaker 1: when you actually have that. So she's now actively searching
Speaker 1: for one of her own. Because I mean, even at
Speaker 1: fifteen years old, whether you want a family or not,
Speaker 1: you understand that. You know, that's what people typically do.
Speaker 1: They grow up, they have a family, they get a
Speaker 1: place together, or have kids. Right, that's the typical sort
Speaker 1: of like North American at least, like everyone does it,
Speaker 1: why don't you. Yeah, So that picture is there and
Speaker 1: she understands it and that's what she wants.
Speaker 2: Well, actually that was you, wasn't it.
Speaker 1: I mean kind of yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. We met when I was fifteen and you were
Speaker 2: when we were I think we were about fifteen, yeah,
Speaker 2: and Ben was like I didn't know this at the time,
Speaker 2: but you were like, I'm going to marry her? Did
Speaker 2: you think that right? Or something to that kind of.
Speaker 1: I mean in high school, I wasn't looking for a girlfriend.
Speaker 1: I was looking for a future with a person.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I was just and then you asked me
Speaker 2: to go on a date or whatever and I was
Speaker 2: like sure, yeah, and that's how it started.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So there you go. So maybe you.
Speaker 2: Understand that more than most I'm.
Speaker 1: Very much so emotionally mature, but every other way I'm
Speaker 1: definitely immature. So I can relate to her in that
Speaker 1: value for sure. Now, Chris later told police he didn't
Speaker 1: believe the rumors of her being pregnant. He said Annie
Speaker 1: had told people that she was pregnant after allegedly sleeping
Speaker 1: with a different boy, someone who is named l J. Now,
Speaker 1: that name would come up over and over again through
Speaker 1: the situation, LJ, this older mystery guy. But the fact
Speaker 1: was Annie was not pregnant. It was in fact a
Speaker 1: rumor that she started on her own. Her parents, in fact,
Speaker 1: took her to do a pregnancy test, which came back negative.
Speaker 1: They even helped her get onto birth control, not out
Speaker 1: of like a form of punishment or anything, but out
Speaker 1: of love and the realism of the situation, the possibility
Speaker 1: of her getting pregnant young. Right, the understood she's growing up.
Speaker 1: They didn't expect perfection, just you know, open and honesty.
Speaker 1: And here's a form of staying, you know, keeping yourself
Speaker 1: safe and maybe your future safe. And when the time
Speaker 1: is ready and you're ready, maybe you can wean off
Speaker 1: it and there you go, you have a kid. Then right,
Speaker 1: totally over the situation was That's where they were at.
Speaker 1: But this begs a question, why did Annie lie about
Speaker 1: being pregnant in the first place. Now, this is where
Speaker 1: the story gets harder and sadder. Annie didn't lie because
Speaker 1: she was trying to manipulate people or stirrup drama. She
Speaker 1: lied because deep down she wanted to be pregnant for real.
Speaker 1: That's what she wanted and that's what she dreamed of.
Speaker 1: Now Veronica, Annie's adoptive mother, later explained in a heartbreaking
Speaker 1: term sort of situation, how she felt about it. She said,
Speaker 1: Annie wanted to create a family that she never had.
Speaker 1: You know, a child, in her mind meant an unconditional love.
Speaker 1: At meant stability, It meant never being alone again.
Speaker 2: Oh jeez.
Speaker 1: She had spent her early years in foster care, shuffled
Speaker 1: from home to home, rarely feeling like she would was
Speaker 1: anyone's priority, and that kind of trauma leaves very deep
Speaker 1: scars on an individual. Mm hmm, and sometimes it makes
Speaker 1: kids desperate for something permanent. Annie thought being a mom
Speaker 1: would give her that. In her mind, a baby meant love,
Speaker 1: a baby meant control, a baby meant she mattered.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, I mean yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, the lie she told would spiral far beyond
Speaker 1: her control, though. Chris, whether confused, angry, or scared, began
Speaker 1: distancing himself from her. He told others that she'd cheated,
Speaker 1: that she made up the pregnancy to trap him, and
Speaker 1: that this LJ, whoever he was, was the real father
Speaker 1: if there was a pregnancy, and all of it, though,
Speaker 1: was hearsay with no proof. To Annie, the love she
Speaker 1: had for Chris, it was still very much so real.
Speaker 1: She still wanted to be with him, and she still
Speaker 1: believed in some way that they could run away together
Speaker 1: and build a new life, and that dream became so big,
Speaker 1: so urgent, that she left her house in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night one night, Saturday, March tenth, twenty twelve.
Speaker 1: It started like any other day in the Kasperzac household.
Speaker 1: Veronica and her husband, James Bratton, had plans to go
Speaker 1: out for the evening, go have and Annie, now fifteen
Speaker 1: years old, stayed home to babysit her two younger younger brothers.
Speaker 1: It wasn't an unusual situation, just a normal Saturday night
Speaker 1: in Riverton, Utah, really, But behind the quiet domestic routine,
Speaker 1: something was brewing. Earlier that day, Annie had been texting
Speaker 1: and calling her boyfriend Chris. She had this idea in
Speaker 1: her mind that they were going to run away together,
Speaker 1: maybe California, maybe somewhere else far away, who knows, Somewhere
Speaker 1: they could start fresh, away from the judgment and pressure
Speaker 1: that had been building ever since she started telling people
Speaker 1: that she was pregnant. At around seven forty five pm,
Speaker 1: Veronica and James left for dinner. Before they walked out
Speaker 1: the door, Annie had changed her clothes into jeans and
Speaker 1: a T shirt that stood out to Veronica, but unfortunately
Speaker 1: only in hindsight. Annie usually dressed down when she was
Speaker 1: staying in like we many of us, do, you know,
Speaker 1: put on some shorts or PJ pants, sweats, comfy clothes, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: so why change into something you'd wear out if you
Speaker 1: weren't going anywhere at all? Now? The couple returned home
Speaker 1: at around nine PM. James went to help get the
Speaker 1: boys ready for bed, while Veronica walked down the hallway
Speaker 1: towards Annie's room. When she got to the door, he
Speaker 1: was left open and inside the lights were off, but
Speaker 1: in the bedroom there was no Annie. She was gone.
Speaker 2: This is so sad because she finally has this like
Speaker 2: home that's just perfect for her. I feel like and
Speaker 2: shit's about to go down now.
Speaker 1: At first, Veronica thought maybe Annie had just stepped outside
Speaker 1: for a minute, but upon further investigation, her phone was
Speaker 1: missing and many of her things were missing too, And
Speaker 1: then they found the note on her bed. Oh no,
Speaker 1: it was short and rather haunting quote. My only way
Speaker 1: out is to run away. Please don't try to look
Speaker 1: for me. I don't want to be found. Oh jeez,
Speaker 1: customach sank. This wasn't just a rebellion. Annie had been
Speaker 1: emotionally unstable lately. Let's put it, I mean, not necessarily unstable.
Speaker 1: She's just been emotional. Let's really put it that way.
Speaker 1: She'd been emotional lately. She's been emotional. Sure, but it
Speaker 1: felt too final, this sort of situation too serious, so
Speaker 1: they of course called police right away m h now.
Speaker 1: Officers arrived and began treating case as a runaway situation.
Speaker 1: Annie's family and friends were contacted, hoping someone might know
Speaker 1: where she'd gone. Veronica also called Chris Bagshawe, Annie's boyfriend
Speaker 1: and someone she believed might have answers. Right, yeah, now,
Speaker 1: Chris didn't hesitate. He said he didn't know where Annie
Speaker 1: had gone, but he did offer one unexpected detail that
Speaker 1: she planned to run away with someone named.
Speaker 2: LJ Okay, I thought that she would plan to run
Speaker 2: away with Chris.
Speaker 1: Well, according to Chris, LJ was this seventeen year old boy,
Speaker 1: someone who Annie had allegedly been seeing behind his back. Okay,
Speaker 1: so Chris said ljd snuck into Annie's house months earlier,
Speaker 1: and that she lied about this pregnancy to cover up
Speaker 1: for their little fling. So she's all like, I'm pregnant
Speaker 1: with Chris's baby, when really it may have actually been Lj's. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but as we know, there was no pregnancy anyways. Right now,
Speaker 1: to Veronica, this must have come to a complete shocking situation.
Speaker 2: She had no idea about this LJ.
Speaker 1: Nice she didn't, So who is this guy and why
Speaker 1: would Annie keep that a secret from her? And more urgently,
Speaker 1: if she was really on the run with this older boy,
Speaker 1: was she safe? So police now had a lead and
Speaker 1: they started building a case around this mysterious name LJ.
Speaker 1: It was the following morning on Sunday, March eleventh, twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: when a jogger was running along the Jordan River Parkway trail,
Speaker 1: just a few miles from Annie's home in River to Utah.
Speaker 1: It was still early, quiet, peaceful, but then the jogger
Speaker 1: came across something that made their stomach turn. Blood, lot
Speaker 1: of it. It was pooled on the rocks near the
Speaker 1: water and splattered across surrounding areas. Then there was a
Speaker 1: single red shoe laying near the edge of the trail,
Speaker 1: a kid's shoe or a teenager shoe.
Speaker 2: Oh frig see, Because I was just like, oh, I
Speaker 2: don't even know if I would have thought much of that,
Speaker 2: But then I guess when you see the shoe, that
Speaker 2: kind of amplifies it A man, Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: Now, the jogger immediately called police, and officers respond quickly
Speaker 1: and they confirmed it was in fact human blood. Now,
Speaker 1: when the jogger called, they were like, I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's animal human what there is the shoe too,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of blood pools everywhere sort of thing.
Speaker 1: But they confirmed it was human blood. And it was
Speaker 1: also obvious that this was no minor injury that would
Speaker 1: have occurred. Someone had been either badly hurt or worse
Speaker 1: or killed.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: A search of the surrounding area began immediately. Officers walked
Speaker 1: the trails, they combed the river banks, and called in
Speaker 1: a helicopter for aerial view, and it didn't take a
Speaker 1: lot before they found something more. Roughly a mile upstream,
Speaker 1: the helicopter spotted something floating in the water. It was
Speaker 1: a body. When investigators pulled it from the river, it
Speaker 1: was clear this was no accident. The body was that
Speaker 1: of a young girl, and her face had been beaten
Speaker 1: so badly. She was so disfigured that there was no
Speaker 1: immediate way to identify her.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, I hate that her features were unrecognizable.
Speaker 1: Her skull had multiple fractures and was caved in in
Speaker 1: the front. This had been an extremely violent and deliberate
Speaker 1: personal attack.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it sounds so.
Speaker 1: Back at the police station, the call went out they
Speaker 1: needed help identifying the victim. The press release was issued.
Speaker 1: A local news picked it up, picked the story up
Speaker 1: almost immediately, and that's when Veronica saw the coverage on
Speaker 1: the news called the police hotline.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness her Okay, I can only imagine her
Speaker 2: heart just must have like just burst really, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I couldn't even imagine that feeling of seeing that when
Speaker 2: you know, like your daughter basically is missing him. Then
Speaker 2: oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: Now she gave them all the details she could think of,
Speaker 1: you know, Annie's height, weight, hair, all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: But the news it didn't get everything right. It said
Speaker 1: that the victim was likely.
Speaker 2: Asian Asian, Okay.
Speaker 1: While you know Annie's Caucasian, right, Yeah, So there was
Speaker 1: that like little flutter of hope sitting in Veronica's chest, right, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this may not be her, you know, putting into contact
Speaker 1: authorities anyways, but.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is a lot of I would be like
Speaker 2: just grasping at that. That's too much hope.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But there was one last detail that kind of
Speaker 1: seemed to shatter that hope for Veronica. The operator on
Speaker 1: the line speaking with Veronica asked her did she wear braces?
Speaker 1: And Veronica choked up, yes, you wear braces. Later that day,
Speaker 1: the police confirmed the worst the body in the Jordan
Speaker 1: River was that of fifteen year old Annie Casperzak. Dental
Speaker 1: records and DNA testing confirmed it officially, But that shoe
Speaker 1: that was found was a thing that told Veronica everything
Speaker 1: she needed to know. That red shoe that was found,
Speaker 1: the one on the trail, It had been a gift James,
Speaker 1: Annie's stepfather had given it to her for Valentine's Day,
Speaker 1: a pair of red shoes.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, that's the sweetest thing ever.
Speaker 1: And she wore those shoes all the time. As soon
Speaker 1: as she saw the shoe, she.
Speaker 2: Knew, Okay, this is just devastating. This poor girl, fifteen
Speaker 2: years old, just her life is just I don't even
Speaker 2: know how to just heartbreaking, devastating. Yeah, to be that
Speaker 2: young and have gone through what she's have gone through
Speaker 2: her whole life, like the foster situation and now getting
Speaker 2: freaking obviously murdered so young, Like, holy shit, this better
Speaker 2: be solved. I'm just gonna say, I'm gonna be pissed
Speaker 2: if we don't know who did this fair enough.
Speaker 1: And you're kind of stumbling your words. I think what
Speaker 1: you're trying to say is she went through so much
Speaker 1: only to be fucking killed by some A.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it, well, it's hard to describe. I
Speaker 2: feel so terrible for her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And rightfully. So there was one final thing I
Speaker 1: was going to say about the shoe, but then you
Speaker 1: had to spill your heart out, so I let you.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so the one shoe was sitting there on
Speaker 1: the river bank and the other shoe was still on
Speaker 1: Annie's foot when her body was recovered.
Speaker 2: That is probably the sweetest gift I've ever heard of
Speaker 2: a father giving their daughter for Valentine's Day? Are you
Speaker 2: kidding me?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Now, with Annie's death confirmed, investigators immediately shifted their
Speaker 1: focus to one question, who killed her, And the person
Speaker 1: at the top of that list was LJ, someone who,
Speaker 1: according to Chris, was about seventeen years old, snuck into
Speaker 1: Annie's house already months earlier, and apparently might even be
Speaker 1: part of a gang as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, who the hell is this LJ guy?
Speaker 1: Well, that's the big question, right. The story police got
Speaker 1: about LJ was murky and strange. But if Annie had
Speaker 1: planned to meet this guy the night that she disappeared,
Speaker 1: he could obviously be the killer. The problem was, no
Speaker 1: one actually seemed to really know who LJ was. Detectives
Speaker 1: began interviewing Annie's friends, classmates, and anyone close to her,
Speaker 1: and a few of them had heard Annie mentioned LJ before,
Speaker 1: but none of them had ever met him. Some believed
Speaker 1: he was real, others weren't quite so sure. One friend
Speaker 1: mentioned that LJ had supposedly hacked Annie's email account. Even
Speaker 1: another thought he was just a guy from the internet. Still,
Speaker 1: no one could provide a full name and address, or
Speaker 1: even solid description of him, but he his name had
Speaker 1: been heard around.
Speaker 2: He doesn't. At first to me, he didn't even seem real,
Speaker 2: But then now he almost seems like he could be
Speaker 2: a stalker of sorts.
Speaker 1: No, you think, I don't know, it's an interesting angle.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna say any more than that. That's interesting angle.
Speaker 2: I'm aware you just like closed up there now.
Speaker 1: His police were scratching their heads trying to, you know,
Speaker 1: piece together the information. A breakthrough actually came in from
Speaker 1: a tip. A woman named Joanna Franklin contacted the police
Speaker 1: and said that she had information, major information in fact,
Speaker 1: about Annie's murder. But there was a catch. Joanna had
Speaker 1: pending charges for fraud drug offenses, and she wanted a
Speaker 1: deal in exchange for what she knew. If the cops
Speaker 1: could promise her immunity, she said that she would tell
Speaker 1: them everything.
Speaker 2: That just seems far fetched. Just freaking go ahead and help, right,
Speaker 2: my gosh.
Speaker 1: Now, Joanna claimed that she had witnessed Annie's murder at
Speaker 1: a house party.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, that already doesn't seem quite right.
Speaker 1: According to her story, Annie had been with l J
Speaker 1: and two other men, Daniel Ferry and Vienna Vitt. She
Speaker 1: said that there had been a violent altercation after one
Speaker 1: of the men made a move on Annie and she
Speaker 1: rejected him, laughing at him in front of everyone. The rejection,
Speaker 1: Joanna said, enraged this guy. She described how Annie was beaten, unconscious,
Speaker 1: bleeding from her nose and ears and mouth before the
Speaker 1: men put her into the car drove off, and when
Speaker 1: they returned they were covered in blood and said she
Speaker 1: went swimming.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, yeah, I guess that actually does kind of
Speaker 2: make sense a bit. Then, yeah, she wasn't fully dead
Speaker 2: at the house party, and they finished the job at
Speaker 2: like the riverside.
Speaker 1: So she says. It was a graphic and detailed account,
Speaker 1: and the police wasted no time pursuing this lead. They
Speaker 1: raided Daniel Ferry's house and found exactly what they were
Speaker 1: expecting to see, signs of a cleanup.
Speaker 2: Oh no, okay, okay, alls.
Speaker 1: Were freshly painted carpet was torn up and traces of
Speaker 1: blood were found inside. But when the DNA results came back,
Speaker 1: it wasn't Annie's blood.
Speaker 2: Oh shit, that's scary. Whose was it? Then?
Speaker 1: Now, this Daniel fairy guy, he had a rock solid
Speaker 1: alibi too. He'd been committing an entirely unrelated crime of
Speaker 1: kidnapping at the time of Annie's murder, an awful thing
Speaker 1: to be involved in, yes, but it ruled him out
Speaker 1: of this case completely. So yes, he's a piece of shit,
Speaker 1: just not the piece of shit were after.
Speaker 2: So it's sounding to me too like Annie just became
Speaker 2: part of the wrong crowd you think, so well, kind
Speaker 2: of like these people whoever she was hanging out with,
Speaker 2: don't seem like, you know, they're real winners.
Speaker 1: These people at this this house party are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if she was actually there, well, And that's.
Speaker 1: The thing with this revelation of this Daniel not being involved,
Speaker 1: Joanna's entire story unraveled, and under pressure, she finally confessed
Speaker 1: that she made the whole thing up.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: She hadn't, in fact witnessed anything. She had seen the
Speaker 1: news reports about Annie's death and spun a convincing story
Speaker 1: using publicly available details. But the question is why, Well,
Speaker 1: because she was mad at Daniel for cutting her off
Speaker 1: from drug supply, and she wanted to get back at
Speaker 1: him and get her own charges dropped at the same time. Wow,
Speaker 1: So her hopes was she can clear her name and
Speaker 1: get him falsely accused of killing Annie. What a terrible person,
Speaker 1: all because he cut her off of drugs.
Speaker 2: Well, and yeah, she was trying to benefit herself too. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because I even was thinking, why the hell didn't she
Speaker 2: call this in earlier, right like after they apparently showed
Speaker 2: back up covered in blood.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, in doing this lie, spinning this whole web
Speaker 1: of lies, she wasted months of police time, she pulled
Speaker 1: the investmentation in the entire wrong direction, and most tragically,
Speaker 1: delayed justice for Annie. By early twenty fourteen, a year
Speaker 1: after Annie's death, the Wild Goose Chase, sparked by Joanna's
Speaker 1: her for non nonsense it is a good way of
Speaker 1: putting it, investigators finally were able to turn their attention
Speaker 1: back to where it all began. Annie's inner circle, specifically
Speaker 1: her boyfriend Chris. Now. Initially, Chris had an airtight alibi
Speaker 1: which took him off the suspect list almost entirely doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that police weren't still keeping their options open an
Speaker 1: eye on him, but he wasn't really considered much of
Speaker 1: a suspect. He told detectives that on the night of
Speaker 1: March tenth, twenty twelve, he had stayed at his grandmother
Speaker 1: Wilma's house after his dad, Darwin Leeroy Bagshawe, went out
Speaker 1: to a bar. Chris said he played video games at home,
Speaker 1: walked to his grandma's house, dropped off his things, then
Speaker 1: left to go visit a friend named Spencer, But when
Speaker 1: Spencer wasn't home, he said he returned to his grandmother's
Speaker 1: and spent the night there. His father backed the story up,
Speaker 1: saying he saw asleep at Wilma's house at around eleven
Speaker 1: thirty PM, and his grandma Wilma also backed it up too.
Speaker 1: She said he was there all night and that should
Speaker 1: have been the end of it, but it wasn't.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, I am going to be so devastated
Speaker 2: if this. If Chris did this.
Speaker 1: As I mentioned, Chris was not at the top of
Speaker 1: the suspect list, but police still kept an eye on him,
Speaker 1: like just in case, right, They kept their options open,
Speaker 1: and they quietly pulled the phone records of everyone involved
Speaker 1: in a case early on, and as they were visited
Speaker 1: the evidence, a troubling detail surfaced. Wilma Chris's grandmother had
Speaker 1: called him multiple times that night, including after midnight. So
Speaker 1: why would a grandmother call someone repeatedly if that person
Speaker 1: was already sleeping on her living room couch.
Speaker 2: Makes no sense.
Speaker 1: The contradiction couldn't be ignored, and when detectives confronted Wilma
Speaker 1: about it, she insisted she only made one call, but
Speaker 1: the phone log said that's a lie. Now. At one
Speaker 1: point in the investigation, Annie's blood was actually found on
Speaker 1: Chris's shoe. He said that Annie had gotten a nose
Speaker 1: bleed at Spencer's house and that's how some of the
Speaker 1: blood must have ended up on his shoe. But when
Speaker 1: police tested the floor in the surface of Spencer's home,
Speaker 1: they found nothing, no blood, no traces of anything, and
Speaker 1: when Spencer was interviewed, the story changed. Initially, he said
Speaker 1: that the nosebleed happened at his house, but he admitted
Speaker 1: eventually that he had never actually seen Annie get a
Speaker 1: nose bleed. In fact, he had only mentioned it because
Speaker 1: Chris told him to police. Then pulled up messages between
Speaker 1: the two boys. One of them from Chris, reads this quote,
Speaker 1: the cops might come to your house. I need you
Speaker 1: to tell them Annie got a bloody nose.
Speaker 2: No, no, no.
Speaker 1: Another one says, quote, they took my shoes for testing.
Speaker 1: I need you to tell them that so I don't
Speaker 1: get blamed.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, okay, this is taking a turn that I'm
Speaker 2: not liking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was no longer just weird coincidences. Chris was
Speaker 1: actively planting a sort of cover up story and getting
Speaker 1: others to help.
Speaker 2: YEP.
Speaker 1: The deeper investigator's doug the more Chris's narratives started to
Speaker 1: fall apart, and they began reanalyzing Annie's journals looking for
Speaker 1: any clues. In the entries where Annie mentioned this LJ,
Speaker 1: she described him in emotional, familiar terms, not as a stranger,
Speaker 1: not as someone knew. It was someone that she was
Speaker 1: very personal with. Then someone close to her revealed something
Speaker 1: that changed everything. They told police that Annie sometimes called
Speaker 1: Chris LJ. Really that meant the mysterious LJ, the violent
Speaker 1: gang affiliated teenager Chris blamed for Annie's disappearance, may never
Speaker 1: have existed at all, and that Chris himself might be Alja,
Speaker 1: and if that was the case, it meant the only
Speaker 1: person who had motive, opportunity and proximity to Annie that
Speaker 1: night was Chris. The final piece of the puzzle that
Speaker 1: came together was the call between Chris and Annie's mother
Speaker 1: that night when Annie went missing, Veronica and her Veronica
Speaker 1: and Chris, sorry, had a call. As I already mentioned,
Speaker 1: right when Annie's missing, she called Chris right yeah. Investigators
Speaker 1: obtained cell phone tower records and trace the location of
Speaker 1: every ping from Chris's phone on the night she went missing,
Speaker 1: March tenth, twenty twelve, At exactly nine oh one pm,
Speaker 1: Chris's phone was pinged near the Jordan River, the very
Speaker 1: place where Annie's beaten body was discovered the next morning.
Speaker 1: It was the same time Annie had stopped responding to
Speaker 1: calls and messages, the same time she was believed to
Speaker 1: have died. Even more chilling, Chris answered the phone call
Speaker 1: from Annie's mother, Veronica, just minutes after they believe Annie
Speaker 1: had died, who was, of course, frantically calling to see
Speaker 1: if he knew where Annie had gone. The location data
Speaker 1: showed that he took the call from the same area
Speaker 1: near the river bank, likely standing not far from Annie's
Speaker 1: now deceased body, and he spoke to her mother calmly
Speaker 1: told her he had no idea where Annie was lied
Speaker 1: through his teeth while she was still warm laying on
Speaker 1: the cold ground. But there was more. During a search
Speaker 1: of Chris's home, police found something strange in the trash,
Speaker 1: a handwritten note. It was a timeline, a detailed breakdown
Speaker 1: of Annie's movements the night she disappeared, including what she
Speaker 1: was wearing. There was only one way Chris could have
Speaker 1: known the level of detail that was on this list,
Speaker 1: because he was with her, He saw her, and he
Speaker 1: killed her. They also analyzed the Facebook post Chris had
Speaker 1: made after Annie's death, and it took much more of
Speaker 1: a sinister tone in hindsight. Quote everyone wear red tomorrow
Speaker 1: it was her favorite color. Quote the world is filled
Speaker 1: with hate and no one understands the pain of losing
Speaker 1: someone they care about until it's too late. Quote. I
Speaker 1: don't know why anyone would do this to her. She
Speaker 1: was awesome and we all loved her very much. To
Speaker 1: his classmates and community, it looked like a grieving ex
Speaker 1: boyfriend morning a tragedy. But now to detectives, it looked
Speaker 1: like a manipulator trying to cement his innocence. However, Chris
Speaker 1: wasn't just a grieving boyfriend. He was in fact Annie's murderer.
Speaker 2: Oh you know, I didn't see that coming, I really didn't.
Speaker 2: But he, obviously, I feel like, wanted a weigh out.
Speaker 2: I guess of what she was dreaming of their future,
Speaker 2: and he decided this was the way to do it.
Speaker 1: Well, we'll get to that, don't worry, Okay. Now, there
Speaker 1: was one final break in the case that came when
Speaker 1: police traced the blocked numbers that had repeatedly called Annie
Speaker 1: the night she vanished. For years, everyone believed that these
Speaker 1: calls that came to her phone was from this mysterious
Speaker 1: l JA and they were placed from a different phone,
Speaker 1: a prepaid device that was not registered to anyone or
Speaker 1: a household right. But tech experts working with law enforcement
Speaker 1: confirmed the calls had actually come from the phone owned
Speaker 1: by Chris Bagshawe. He was in fact al jail along,
Speaker 1: and they were able to prove it through those the
Speaker 1: story he fed police, lies about gang members, the threats,
Speaker 1: the red herrings. It was all a smoke screen, a
Speaker 1: way to delay, a way to confuse, and a way
Speaker 1: to get away with murder. But the truth had finally
Speaker 1: caught up with Chris, and by the time investigators tracked
Speaker 1: Chris Bagshaw down in twenty fourteen, he had moved on,
Speaker 1: at least on the surface. Now living in Colorado, he
Speaker 1: was attending school like any other teenager, but back in
Speaker 1: Utah he was well. The net was tightening. Let's put
Speaker 1: it that way. The evidence was undeniable, and in October
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, Chris was arrested and charged with first degree
Speaker 1: murder and obstruction of justice in the death of Annie Casperzak.
Speaker 1: At the time of Annie's murder, Chris was just fourteen
Speaker 1: years old. That created a legal dilemma. Should he be
Speaker 1: tried as a juvenile or should he be tried as
Speaker 1: an adult.
Speaker 2: Well, it's also shocking to me that a fourteen year
Speaker 2: old could get away with this. He seems I don't
Speaker 2: know how he went about this, Like he didn't really
Speaker 2: make well, he made airs, but it just seems like
Speaker 2: he was an older person would have done this, like
Speaker 2: he was too smart.
Speaker 1: I don't miss something. I don't think he was too smart.
Speaker 1: I think luck was on his side. Oh okay, he
Speaker 1: didn't make up LJ and he made up LJ and
Speaker 1: he used it to his advantage. I guess, yeah, and
Speaker 1: that that's what delayed police for so long.
Speaker 2: Well, even just talking to the mom though after this
Speaker 2: and being calm and stuff like, yeah, this guy literally
Speaker 2: like a freaking serial killer in the making, or what
Speaker 2: the hell's going on here?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean kind of what he fucking just did?
Speaker 2: I guess, I guess because I don't know. I just
Speaker 2: I can't imagine a fourteen year old killing his girlfriend
Speaker 2: and acting like this afterwards.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I already told you we're going to get
Speaker 1: to why. Yeah, just wait to hear why.
Speaker 2: Yeah, clearly I have no patience because this is just
Speaker 2: driving me nuts.
Speaker 1: So let's take a step back back to the should
Speaker 1: he be tried as a juvenile or an adult. If
Speaker 1: prosecuted in the jew juvenile system, he could be released
Speaker 1: at only twenty one years old. Yeah, no, meaning he'd
Speaker 1: serve only about three years for a brutal premiud killing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he did a grown up crime, so he needs
Speaker 2: to be tried as a grown up.
Speaker 1: Prosecutors and Annie's family couldn't stomach this possibility of being
Speaker 1: released only three years after being incarcerated, and so the
Speaker 1: state began gathering every piece of evidence that they could
Speaker 1: to help them argue Chris should face the adult charges,
Speaker 1: and then they got an unexpected break in that while
Speaker 1: Chris was in juvenile detention center, he began talking, confiding,
Speaker 1: not with detectives, but in other inmates. What he didn't
Speaker 1: know was that this inmate that he was specifically confiding
Speaker 1: in would come forward to police. The inmate told authorities
Speaker 1: that Chris had confessed in chilling detail how he had
Speaker 1: killed Annie. According to this witness, Chris said he believed
Speaker 1: Annie was pregnant with his child and he didn't want
Speaker 1: a baby. He was afraid what that would mean for
Speaker 1: his life, so he told the inmate he planned it out,
Speaker 1: suggested to Annie that they run away together, and arranged
Speaker 1: to meet by the Jordan River on the night of
Speaker 1: March tenth, twenty twelve. Once she arrived, he attacked her
Speaker 1: with a shovel, now once, not twice, but repeatedly. He
Speaker 1: beat her face until it was unrecognizable. At one point,
Speaker 1: he told the inmate that he placed the shovel on
Speaker 1: Annie's forehead, then stomped on it over and over again
Speaker 1: until she stopped moving. Holy shit, Annie's skull had been crushed,
Speaker 1: her facial bones shattered. She was found floating in the
Speaker 1: water the next day, so mutilated that even her mother
Speaker 1: couldn't recognize her except for one detail, a dimple on
Speaker 1: her chin.
Speaker 2: Ah. So he is just a complete monster in the making.
Speaker 1: Really, Yes, The confession matched the autopsy exactly, including the
Speaker 1: injuries to her forehead where he stomped on the shovel
Speaker 1: which long baffled the corner and he couldn't exp planet.
Speaker 1: But now that matched. Ugh. This was no spontaneous outburst,
Speaker 1: no momentary lapse of judgment. Chris had lured Annie there
Speaker 1: under false pretenses, armed with a weapon, and carried out
Speaker 1: a gruesome plan to kill her. With the confession now
Speaker 1: added to the mounting pile of physical and digital evidence,
Speaker 1: prosecutors were confident this case didn't belong in juvenile court.
Speaker 1: This was a cold blooded, premeditated murder.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: By early twenty sixteen, nearly four years after Annie's murder,
Speaker 1: the case was finally heading to trial. Now seventeen years old,
Speaker 1: Chris Bagshawe was being charged as an adult for first
Speaker 1: degree murder of his girlfriend and as well obstruction of justice.
Speaker 1: The prosecution had built a damning case. All the evidence
Speaker 1: we've gone over right, they have like it's a slam dunk, obviously.
Speaker 1: But a month before the trial was set to begin
Speaker 1: in February of twenty sixteen, Chris changed his plea. He
Speaker 1: pled guilty to the charge of first degree murder. There
Speaker 1: was no plea deal, no reduction in sentence offered in
Speaker 1: exchange for confession. He simply admitted to killing Annie.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, didn't expect that.
Speaker 1: At his sentencing hearing, held on April twenty fifth, twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: the courtroom was filled with pain and the raw weight
Speaker 1: of what had been lost. Annie's father, Dennis Casperzak, gave
Speaker 1: a devastating account of what it was like to see
Speaker 1: his daughter's body after she was recovered from the river. Quote,
Speaker 1: it was something you would see being hit by a train.
Speaker 1: The only identifiable part of my daughter was a small
Speaker 1: dimple on her chin. Chris sat quietly throughout the hearing.
Speaker 1: He spoke only once, offering a short apology to Annie's family,
Speaker 1: his own family, and the court quote, I'm very sorry
Speaker 1: for everything that's happened. He didn't even say I'm sorry
Speaker 1: for what I did.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 1: He said, I'm sorry for what had happened.
Speaker 2: That's his freakin' apology.
Speaker 1: The judge, James Blanche did not mince his words, quote,
Speaker 1: this is a terrible crime, about the worst crime that
Speaker 1: one can possibly imagine. It deserves a terrible sentence. Chris
Speaker 1: Bagshawe was sentenced to the maximum allowed under the law
Speaker 1: given his age at the time of the murder. And
Speaker 1: he was sentenced to fifteen years to life in prison.
Speaker 2: Oh that's still not enough at all.
Speaker 1: He will be eligible for parole in twenty thirty four,
Speaker 1: when he will be thirty six years old.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. Okay, that's a piss off. Yeah, that
Speaker 2: is like so much life still to live, I know.
Speaker 1: After years of grief, false leads, and painful court proceedings,
Speaker 1: Annie Casperzak's family finally had answers and a sentence for
Speaker 1: the boy who took her life. Closure. Well, that's something
Speaker 1: different entirely. Annie's mom, Veronica, stood in the court after
Speaker 1: Chris Bagshawe was sentenced and looked directly at him. Her
Speaker 1: voice didn't shake. Her words weren't filled with rage. They
Speaker 1: were filled with something heavier, the truth of living with
Speaker 1: irreversible loss. And she said this quote mayor conscience never clear. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Annie's ashes were spread in the ocean. Veronica said it
Speaker 1: was because Annie had always loved the sea, but also
Speaker 1: because she didn't want her daughter to be confined to
Speaker 1: just one place. She said she belonged to the world,
Speaker 1: not a riverbank, not a court room, not a case file.
Speaker 1: In the years since Annie's murder, Veronica and her husband
Speaker 1: James have adopted five more children, giving love and stability
Speaker 1: to kids who, like Annie, needed someone to believe in them.
Speaker 1: The family has tried to honor her memory in ways
Speaker 1: that reflect Annie's spirit. She had wanted to be a
Speaker 1: therapist to help kids with stories like her own. Veronica
Speaker 1: has spoken publicly about trauma, youth violence, and the long
Speaker 1: term impact of child instability, trying to turn their pain
Speaker 1: into something that helps others. But questions still linger. How
Speaker 1: did a child with so much promise and a child
Speaker 1: who claimed to love her end up in a story
Speaker 1: this dark? What drives a fourteen year old boy to
Speaker 1: murder someone over a lie? Was Chris a monster in disguise?
Speaker 1: Or is scared deeply broken kid who made an irreversible choice.
Speaker 1: The answer might be a mix of both. We don't know,
Speaker 1: but what's not in question is this Annie was failed
Speaker 1: at multiple turns by systems that couldn't protect her all
Speaker 1: through her life, by friends who believed a fictional Ljay existed,
Speaker 1: and by the boy who should have loved her but
Speaker 1: insisted instead to silen her forever, and for two years
Speaker 1: while he lived free and posted morning messages online, her
Speaker 1: family lived every single day with a hole that only
Speaker 1: truth could begin to fill. That truth finally did come,
Speaker 1: but justice in a case like this always just feels
Speaker 1: too late and never quite enough. And that's the story
Speaker 1: of Annie Caspersak.
Speaker 2: Huh, that's freaking heartbreaking. Yeah, I do have to say
Speaker 2: I'm like pretty shocked that well, obviously, Annie's adoptive mom
Speaker 2: is like freaking incredible that she went on even after
Speaker 2: like experienced such loss with Annie, that she went on
Speaker 2: to still help more kids. Yeah, that's pretty incredible. I
Speaker 2: feel like I agree, because she's you know, opening her
Speaker 2: heart to more potential loss, but also I guess more
Speaker 2: potential love, right.
Speaker 1: So yeah, definitely, I mean, she gave Annie a chance
Speaker 1: in the world and love that she deserved, and unfortunately
Speaker 1: Annie was taken away. But that doesn't mean that there
Speaker 1: aren't other people out there that deserve the same chance.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, for sure. Wow, that is unbelievable, that story.
Speaker 2: It's just shocking almost that that Chris guy could have
Speaker 2: so much anger really in there.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was even anger.
Speaker 2: Well, it was sort of seeming like it was a
Speaker 2: hate you know, like he hated, like a hate crime
Speaker 2: to the extent that what he did to her body.
Speaker 1: I mean sure, I guess. Yeah, you're right, there was
Speaker 1: emotion in them and what he did. But the reason,
Speaker 1: so he claimed to confess to this inmate, the reason
Speaker 1: he killed her was he didn't want to be a dad.
Speaker 1: My gosh, So think about that for a minute. He
Speaker 1: thought he was killing a pregnant woman. Yeah, a pregnant
Speaker 1: fifteen year old woman, his girlfriend who's pregnant, that's who
Speaker 1: he thought he was killing.
Speaker 2: I just I know, when someone is that evil, I
Speaker 2: just can't imagine them ever later or not being a
Speaker 2: complete psychope.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, Oh, because.
Speaker 2: It's kind of scary. He'll get out and he could
Speaker 2: meet someone and he could, like you could literally just
Speaker 2: lie and not tell them your whole past quite easily.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh and then okay, yeah, I don't want to think
Speaker 2: about that actually.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's fucked up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 1: Chris is fucked up and he did some fucked up shit.
Speaker 1: In my mind, absolute monster period.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, I mean yeah, there's like rehabilitation, YadA YadA.
Speaker 1: But oh man, don't get me wrong. I hope every
Speaker 1: single one of these people who who commit violent acts
Speaker 1: like this, I hope every single one of them get rehabilitated.
Speaker 1: But that does not mean that I do not hope
Speaker 1: they still rot for what they did. Well, you still
Speaker 1: did something fucking horrible and deserve to serve the sentence.
Speaker 2: Annie doesn't get to just start living again at thirty
Speaker 2: six exactly. So I just like it's hard to comprehend
Speaker 2: that he can just get up of jail and like
Speaker 2: live his life. Like I'm thirty six, You're not, huh.
Speaker 1: I'm thirty seven. You're gonna be thirty six and thirty
Speaker 1: seven in a few months.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I'm just like, that's still like a life
Speaker 2: to live.
Speaker 1: You could do a lot of shit, Yeah you can.
Speaker 2: So, oh man, that's scary. Okay, Well what yeah, this
Speaker 2: case is just shit.
Speaker 1: It tugs at the heart strengths, yes, sure does. But
Speaker 1: thank you for being here, Like I said, next, episode.
Speaker 1: We got a little bit more of a lighthearted case.
Speaker 1: It's a funny, fun one. I don't know if there's
Speaker 1: gonna be a whole lot to it, so it might
Speaker 1: be a bit of a shorter case, but trust me,
Speaker 1: it'll get you laughing for sure. It'll take us out
Speaker 1: of this heavy stuff we've been doing lately. If you
Speaker 1: want to check out more from our pod, we have
Speaker 1: social media website, all that good stuff. In the description
Speaker 1: of this podcast, we are hosted, produced, researched, all by ourselves.
Speaker 1: It's us. We're an independent podcast, no big corporation pulling
Speaker 1: those puppet strings. We just do what we want, when
Speaker 1: we want, how we want, and because of you supporting us,
Speaker 1: we get to do it that way. So thank you
Speaker 1: so much. We appreciate you. If you want to give
Speaker 1: us a review, join Patreon, We could appreciate it. It
Speaker 1: really helps us keep going.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you for being here. Yeah, at the bottom
Speaker 2: of our hearts.
Speaker 1: And until next time.
Speaker 2: No, I think you got to say it this time.
Speaker 2: I'm always saying it, So until next time.
Speaker 1: Then you got to like.
Speaker 2: I was going to, but you were already there and
Speaker 2: I was like, I'm doing this.
Speaker 1: Did you just me what the shit.
Speaker 2: So until next time, stay wicked.