Speaker 1: Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is
not intended for all audiences.
Speaker 2: Listener discretion is advice.
Speaker 3: I thought that maybe he just had an injury, or
maybe had fallen or something like that. I wasn't expecting
to see what I had seen when I got there.
Speaker 1: Hello, folks, this is a little something I like to
call Sword and Scale the show that reveals that the
worst monsters.
Speaker 4: Are real.
Speaker 1: Hey, I don't know if you know, but we have
a TV show. It's called Sword and Scale, and if
you like this you might like that. You can find
it at swordscale dot com. We just put up our
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see all of the interesting stories we've covered on Sword
and Scale Television. It's it's something I'll tell you, ladies.
I have a question, and I know a lot of
you listen to this show. Do you remember what it
was like to be a teenage girl? I grew up
around a bunch of teenage girls cousins, and they always
had some kind of drama or trauma in their life.
It's probably where I get my flair for the dramatic.
But I've heard that being a teenage girl is well
hell at times, much worse than boys. Teenage girls hormones
are raging, they are irritable, testy, and reactive. They're like
a live wire. Everything is annoying to a teenage girl,
especially her parents. So when you think back to those
days were you were you difficult? Were there things that
you look back and regret on? Maybe things that you
said to your parents when they wouldn't let you get
your way, anything still haunt you to this day. How
many times did you scream I want to kill my
dad when he told you no? How many times did
you wish your parents would disappear forever so you could
just get on with your life free from the burden.
Of course, you never really meant it, did you, But
have you.
Speaker 5: Ever thought about what would have happened if that wish
had actually come true?
Speaker 1: On October one, twenty twenty one, sixty four year old
Conrad and Mirowitz found himself at the hospital in Grand Blanc, Michigan. Yes, yes, yes,
I know it's Grand Blanc or some shit. Nobody really cares.
Just pay attention to the story, Okay. Anyway, Conrad was
in rough shape when he arrived at the emergency room.
He had severe chemical burns all over his head, torso, arms,
and legs. Conrad's fingers were so burned that the skin
had peeled off, exposing the fleshy, raw red tissue underneath. Yup,
his legs were turning green. He was hanging on by
a threat. Conrad was also confused and drunk, very drunk.
Let's just say he blew almost four times the legal
limit when he was admitted into the emergency room. So
Conrad wasn't totally sure what had happened, and everyone at
the hospital was equally as confused as to what had
caused his burns. Here's one of the nurses in the
er who dealt with him that night.
Speaker 2: And even before Girland brought the patient in, the paramats
approached me and be like, hey, we should probably take
a look at this guy because we don't know what's
the cause of these burns, and we were concerned about
the possible chemical or some type of chemical exposures to
the physician at the time said that we should decon
this patient being we don't know what the offending Asian is.
So we put him into our decontamination room and started
rinsing the patient down for any type of chemical materials
or anything like that.
Speaker 6: Done other bore No, actually ahead fifteen years your first
time correct.
Speaker 1: In the emergency room, Conrad was cleaned to remove any
potential hazardous chemicals. He ached and moaned, but with the
alcohol in his system and the severity of his burns,
he was floating through the pain. Most of his nerve
endings had been damaged by the chemicals, so he was
falling into comfortable numbness.
Speaker 2: I was a paramedic as well, and so I've seen
like house fire burns that weren't that bad.
Speaker 1: As the nurses tended to Conrad, he tried to ask
them what happened.
Speaker 2: I started asking him what was going on, What's what happened?
And he stated that he's like, oh, I did bomb
my house used like an a stect beside bomb a
couple of days ago. He's like, maybe that's what caused this.
Speaker 1: So the nurse called poison control to get more information.
Speaker 2: He said what I was describing was more like an
alcoholitic type burn. After I got off the phone Points
Control I reported my findings what I spoke with fun
Points Controls to the physicians, and I received no further
orders at that time.
Speaker 7: Were you able to stabilize him?
Speaker 2: I didn't get another IVY like I wanted to, but
his vitals were stable at the time.
Speaker 1: Conrad seemed to sober up, and as the pain medication
kicked in and the treatment soothed his skin, he was
able to collect himself. Soon two of his sons arrived
at the hospital, and the nurse overheard them talking with Conrad.
Speaker 2: They were trying to discuss their like most of us like,
what had happened at this point that the patient did
seem slightly more responsive than when he first came in.
Disgusting with that that he remembered his daughter throwing a
white powder on him when he was on the couch.
Speaker 1: Conrad remembered that he'd gotten into a fight with his
teenage daughter, Megan in Merrowitz. That's the last thing that
he recalled. She threw something at him. The concerned nurse
who heard this called the police and reported the assault
as soon as they showed up, they wanted to talk
to Conrad.
Speaker 8: She wondered, Yeah, he would be placed earlier for whatever reason.
So there was at an hotel she wanted to hear colored.
Speaker 1: Conrad said something had pissed Megan off. He wasn't sure.
He remember she had a hair appointment or something. His
memory was foggy, but Conrad's memory was often foggy. He
was kind of a big drinker.
Speaker 8: Yes, last night, you know, she threw a bunch of
stuff at me, got mad.
Speaker 7: What do you what stuff meaning?
Speaker 9: But there's a.
Speaker 8: She rearranged her bedroom so there was a mattress on
the wall.
Speaker 7: He dad went crazy on that stuff.
Speaker 8: You know, if I Baskedard take out the gardens several times,
his dad hasn't been working.
Speaker 7: But is this is this kind of I'm trying to
gauge this.
Speaker 10: Is this a normal behavior that she would throw stuff
on you to burn you.
Speaker 7: No, you know she usually is an argument.
Speaker 8: No, I get mad at her, she gets mad at me,
bad around with each other. It's normal, okay, right, But
this is this is very very good.
Speaker 1: Conrad and Meghan lived alone in a split level home.
He drank a lot, and she was your typical eighteen
year old girl, always on her phone and often irritated
with her father. They bickered a lot, but they also
loved each other.
Speaker 8: We had a half to suit her off. Yeah, it's
a bottle down. It's a quarters, a little.
Speaker 10: One off party calling ice.
Speaker 7: Oh a beer like the beer fest. Yeah, like the
Seltzer drink. Loving me so to have to move wife's
of movies.
Speaker 11: Set it off my phone.
Speaker 9: It's falling at night, and it was pretty early this morning.
Speaker 8: Gun it up, says by smear off surrests of the movie.
Speaker 7: Way back to that, okay, they said, Oh, I got
all kinds of people in the house.
Speaker 3: It's still.
Speaker 6: You are you Were you sleeping when this happened.
Speaker 9: Or were you conscious?
Speaker 12: No sleeping.
Speaker 1: I didn't have anything drink.
Speaker 10: I won't bother you that much.
Speaker 7: All I need if you don't remember, you don't remember all.
Speaker 13: I just want to know.
Speaker 7: If you go in your house to insay.
Speaker 13: What happened, go ahead, okay.
Speaker 1: Another nurse on the scene gave her two cents to
the cops.
Speaker 12: I'm trying to he said, sit down on a couch.
Speaker 13: He doesn't know when it happened.
Speaker 9: And then his family friends family with you.
Speaker 14: So he was.
Speaker 15: He was super lucky. If you have a husband, all
three hundred al would be a point free kind.
Speaker 9: So he doesn't have a red laving it from the restaurant.
Speaker 7: Okay, So.
Speaker 16: All right, well we're going to go talk with the daughter.
Speaker 7: Understand Yep.
Speaker 13: I appreciate it, and I guess it's really all I need.
Speaker 7: Okay, So I appreciate tea green hine away.
Speaker 1: To be clear, if you're blowing a point three blood
alcohol level, you're almost dead. We're talking like ten to
fifteen drinks. Although that was me or nothing for an
immortal like myself back in my heydays of drinking. To
the average person, that would kill you. Most people would
black out or end up with their stomachs pumped. But
not Conrad. He was a seasoned drinker, a real vet.
Soon the police found Megan at a hotel where she
was partying with her friends. She was nonchalant as they
quizzed her.
Speaker 7: Do you know why we're here?
Speaker 13: I know that they told me that he had some
kind of burned behind.
Speaker 7: So when was the last time you were at those around?
Speaker 4: Telling me.
Speaker 17: I left around.
Speaker 10: Thirty okay, okay, and right now you're not in trouble.
You're not under arrest. I'm just seeing what you know,
what happened. Okay, we heard there was a little stuff up.
Speaker 13: Okay, I left, but.
Speaker 12: And I realized that it was my hair appointment.
Speaker 14: Obviously I had to give one take me you dron't
have money.
Speaker 13: And I walked over to him and I woke him up.
Speaker 12: But I could tell he was a little drunk, so
I got.
Speaker 7: I was upset.
Speaker 14: Obviously that's fine, but he kept saying, like I can
I'm drunk, can't take the car, and I like, I
can't take it, and he just keeps telling me that.
I started yelling at him to find because obviously that's
like a start thing.
Speaker 12: You know, he drinking.
Speaker 7: He breaks my heart, totally stop. I totally understand.
Speaker 1: Conrad was too drunk to drive Megan to her hair appointment,
so she got mad. But this wasn't just danny hair appointment.
This was Megan's eighteenth birthday and she had big plans
to party with her girlfriends at a hotel and now
her stupid father was drunk again and he was screwing
it up like he did everything.
Speaker 13: I just kind of got mad.
Speaker 14: And I'm like all I threw in him was a
vagabriad and I know that didn't hurt him because it's
a vagabrit.
Speaker 1: As mad as she was. Megan swore that all she
threw at Conrad was a bag of bread. That's it.
Speaker 7: So I'm gonna be honest with you. Your dad's in bad shape.
So there's there's a lot of burning on your dad, Okay,
consistent with what come on? Hot right? You said you
were fighting with your dad.
Speaker 10: That's fine, you know, I totally understand if he's drinking,
that's absolutely not how he should be running his household.
Totally understand that, you know, but it's just not it's
not I'm not understanding. Did he is this self inflicted?
Like if you I mean, make sure put you and
you own my shoes. You two are the only people
in that house and you leave it two o'clock and
he's perfectly fine, right and all of a sudden, you
know what I mean?
Speaker 7: So how did he get these? You know?
Speaker 9: I mean he had stuff over there. You have pats
and dogs over all the time.
Speaker 13: It could have been I don't know.
Speaker 14: If I knew that there was temples over there, I
wouldn't sing up.
Speaker 1: The a Mirrowitz house was a mess, a complete pig
sty Alcoholism isn't just deadly, it's gross. Maybe one of
their many cats accidentally knocked something on him. Well, he
was passed out on the couch. Megan said she didn't
throw anything harmful at her father.
Speaker 13: Maybe think like I do.
Speaker 1: But when the police searched the Mirrowitz home they found
what had burned Conrad so badly. Lie, Yes, Lie, we
all saw that movie Fight Club right. The alkali chemical
is found in everything from soap to silver polish and
drain cleaner. Depending on its form, Lie, can be very dangerous.
The entire couch was covered in the white powdery substance,
and the bottle of drain cleaner had been left on
the cushion. There was no bread to be found. By
the way, the whole story was messy, and the only
two witnesses were not very credible. The man who was
so intoxicated he blew nearly four times the legal limit,
and a hormonally fueled teenager late for her birthday party
who was kind of the main suspect. It was going
to take a lot of digging to find out exactly
what happened, but luckily for the police, others had shown
up at the house after Conrad had been burned. Sixty
four year old Conrad and Merowitz had ended up in
the hospital after waking up on his couch covered in
chemical burns. He was drunk when he showed up at
the er and confused as to what had happened, but
as he sobered up, he remembered a fight with his
teenage daughter Megan, and that she threw stuff at him
as she left the house on the day he was burned.
It was determined that Conrad had been burned with LYE,
which contains sodium hydroxide when in its pure powder form,
which is what it was when it was thrown at Conrad.
Lie burns are extremely painful and severe. It was no
different with Conrad. He had been dowsed in lye while
he was sleeping on the couch, and by the time
he was found his skin was peeling off. In fact,
it was a friend and neighbor of Megan's named Kayla
Basquet who first found Conrad that day. Kayla was also
planning to go to Megan's hotel party later that afternoon
when she received a strange message from her friend on Snapchat.
Megan sent Kayla a photo of herself crying.
Speaker 7: So he said, she got.
Speaker 13: A photo of her crime.
Speaker 7: Yeah, okay, and then you talked to her that yeah, okay.
Speaker 13: How did you.
Speaker 7: Converse with her?
Speaker 9: I said that you know what's wrong?
Speaker 13: Well, let me ask you.
Speaker 7: Did you send her a message?
Speaker 17: Oh?
Speaker 9: Yeah, I tested her on snapshot.
Speaker 7: Okay, and you said what's wrong?
Speaker 13: Yes?
Speaker 7: And then she said that.
Speaker 16: She said that her jah got drunk and she he
didn't care because she had stuff to do today and
she threw.
Speaker 14: Stuff at him.
Speaker 7: Okay. Do you know what was special about that day?
Speaker 9: It was her birthday?
Speaker 17: Okay.
Speaker 7: She was like a party that night, is that right?
Speaker 14: Yeah?
Speaker 7: All right, So she was crying when she in that photo.
Speaker 13: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Did she contact you again?
Speaker 9: Yes?
Speaker 13: When was that?
Speaker 9: A few hours later?
Speaker 17: She asked me to drive her to her party over
the hotel.
Speaker 1: But Kayla didn't pick up Megan for the hotel party.
She got a ride with someone else. But Megan did
call Kayla later again that afternoon.
Speaker 7: And you were talked around the sunny Yes.
Speaker 17: How did she seem?
Speaker 9: I don't know, just normal?
Speaker 7: Okay. She wasn't crying there, no, all right? So this
was three forty seven walks over first Yes, what did
she ask.
Speaker 4: You to do?
Speaker 16: She asked me to go over to the house and
get the credit card information from her.
Speaker 9: Dad because it wasn't working when she was at the hotel.
Speaker 1: Kayla was familiar with the amir Wake's house. She lived
only a two minute drive away, so she said she
would stop by to get the card information from Conrad.
Speaker 6: And you said you've noticed family for a while, right, Yeah,
even over the house n eighty times. Yeah, the house
was pretty messy, wasn't it.
Speaker 7: Yeah, in fact, it was.
Speaker 6: Let's uscriv it is dirty, yeah, and gross.
Speaker 1: Dirty and gross is a bit of an understatement. Conrad's
house was a wreck, a sliver away from a garbage dump.
Here's Conrad's ex wife and Megan's mother, Julie, describing the house.
Speaker 12: A lot of trash. You could not walk into the kitchen.
There was trash bags, ye, various trash all over.
Speaker 13: It's the couch.
Speaker 12: There's just a little like one foot wide trail to
the couch.
Speaker 1: Let's just say that Conrad sat and drank on his
leather couch all day every day. He didn't clean very much,
he didn't cook very much. He just he just sat
there and drank. He often drank so much that he
would relieve himself in plastic bags instead of getting up
to use the bathroom. Yeah, it was that bad. These
bags were often strewn around the living room. What a picture, huh.
Speaker 12: The bathroom, it needed a good clean. And the downstairs,
the lower levels, the bi level, the basement, not a
lot with cat urine pieces. The lower level bathroom. I
gagged and as a was fall all the theses brutal.
Speaker 1: So the house was utter squalor. But Kayla arrived and
let herself inside like she usually did. She walked up
the stairs and found Conrad in the living room.
Speaker 7: Can you tell us about how he was on the couch?
Speaker 9: He was kind of leaned.
Speaker 16: I don't remember which way he was leaned, but he
had like one leg crossed over the other. He wasn't clothed,
but there was a blanket across his torso.
Speaker 7: Okay, yeah, all right. When you got up the stairs,
you saw him on the couch.
Speaker 17: How did he look? I he looked very bad. He
looks very out of it.
Speaker 16: He had I didn't know what it was at the time,
but it was like burns or blood or bruises or
something on him. It looked like it was on his head,
on his chest, on his hands, on his stomach.
Speaker 9: His legs were very green.
Speaker 7: Okay, it green?
Speaker 9: Yeah?
Speaker 7: How did that make you feel? When you saw in
that way?
Speaker 9: Very ill?
Speaker 16: I started to panic because I had never seen anyone
in a state like that before.
Speaker 7: Did you know what happened at that point?
Speaker 11: Yeah?
Speaker 7: Okay, did you say anything to him? But he saw
in that way?
Speaker 9: Yeah? I said, what's wrong?
Speaker 16: And then he told me his hand hurt, and then
that's when he reached it out said all five of
his fingertips were the red purple color, and his fingernails.
Speaker 9: I curled up.
Speaker 1: Kayla was in shock. She'd never seen an adult man
that injured and vulnerable before. As she helped Conrad look
for his cell phone, her own phone started ringing.
Speaker 9: And then I got a call from Megan.
Speaker 7: Okay, so making call to you at this point?
Speaker 14: Yeah?
Speaker 7: All right? How long had an instance you talked to her?
Speaker 9: Last?
Speaker 16: So maybe ten or twenty minutes. It was like the
last time was when I was about to leave my house. Yeah,
she asked me for the credit card number because it's
like that's what she wanted, and so he started saying
the credit card numbers, and she said that they weren't working,
and then she hung up.
Speaker 7: Okay, so had you been able to speak through it all?
Speaker 11: Really?
Speaker 9: Not really?
Speaker 7: Okay, so you weren't able to tell her what happened
to her dad at not really.
Speaker 17: I didn't know what to say at the moment.
Speaker 1: Kayla was panicking, so she excused herself and went out
into the front lawn to call her mom for help.
That's when Megan called again.
Speaker 17: I said, Meghan, something's wrong with your dad?
Speaker 7: And what did she say?
Speaker 9: She says, oh, he used to just drunk.
Speaker 6: And then last she laughed, yeah, Okay, did you tell
her anything else?
Speaker 9: I was like, no, something is wrong. And then what
she told me? To call Austin? She said, Paul Austin, Yeah,
who was awesome? Her brother?
Speaker 1: Okay, Austin and Merrill. Wicks picked up his phone promptly,
and unlike Meghan, he was actually concerned when Cayla told
him what was going on with his phone. He got
a ride over to the house from his friend and
asked Kayla to call nine one one.
Speaker 3: I thought that maybe he had just had an injury,
or maybe had fallen or something like that. I wasn't
expecting to see what I had seen.
Speaker 1: When I got there, Kayla and Austin went to the
hospital behind the ambulance. Meanwhile, Megan was still at the hotel,
struggling to pay for her party room. She kept calling Austin.
Speaker 6: So while you're at the hospital, you talked to Megan
on the phone.
Speaker 7: Yep, do you recall who called who?
Speaker 9: She had called me? Okay, she called you? What did
she say she called?
Speaker 3: She had called me and it had gone that she
was asking about to find new Dad's pain or whatever.
Speaker 9: I told her, no, why because he's at the hospital.
And that's when she was like, oh, and I just hung.
Speaker 13: Off and that was it.
Speaker 1: Megan was frustrated. She needed Daddy's card to work, God
damn it. So she tried calling Kayla again.
Speaker 17: And I told her we were at the hospital and
she hung up on me.
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a little pause here. How much
do you hate Megan right now? Are you just seething
with rage at this entitled little brat or do you
have any kind of glimmer of sympathy at all? After all,
Megan was living in filth and chaos with an alcoholic father,
and there is nothing easy about that. But to hear
your dad is greatly injured in the hospital and have
this kind of reaction. It's kind of despicable. No, and
what about the bread story? Are you buying it? You
got a lot of breadline around the house and little
individual baggies. The house was a total mess, and Conrad
blew a point three when he arrived at the emergency room.
It is possible, I guess that he accidentally knocked over
the lie onto himself. It's not likely, but I mean,
anything's possible. You also have to know that Megan and
Conrad's relationship was complicated when they were married. Conrad and
Julie had a mix of biological and adopted children, Austin
and Megan. The older two of the four kids were
adopted and ended up with Conrad after their parents' messy
divorce and custody battle.
Speaker 12: The end product was that he had custody of the
older to Meghan and Austin one percent of the time
physical custody. I had physical custody of the younger to
Morgan and Ian one percent of the time. Now the
children could decide when or even if they wanted to
see the other parents. It was up to them. With
one accepts and being new for Christmas Eve, they had
to be with their dad and sons day they had to.
Speaker 11: Be with me.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, at the hospital, more family members arrived to check
in on Conrad, including Julie, who pressed him to find
out what had happened.
Speaker 12: He just SPT, I don't know. I don't know, and
he said he actually showed me many of his friends
and I was feeding up ice chips.
Speaker 1: Conrad's condition worsened over the next twenty four hours, and
he was soon taken to a new hospital to further
treat his injuries. While Conrad was being transported, the police
found Megan at the hotel. First, she gave the whole
bread story. We know that one. It's a riot, but
then the lines started to change.
Speaker 7: Really, does you remember what it was that you were
Do you remember?
Speaker 18: Do you not remember?
Speaker 1: Remember?
Speaker 10: Okay?
Speaker 7: Is it possible that you do do some other things
with typing road?
Speaker 12: I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 7: Okay.
Speaker 13: So there was this this canister.
Speaker 1: Stuffs called lie Okay, so.
Speaker 4: It looks like it could have been throwing over his
head and it landed over Okay.
Speaker 11: Is there any reason why.
Speaker 8: You're finger printing beyond that?
Speaker 15: I mean, that's my job Okay, well.
Speaker 4: You remember throwing anything at him that caused like this
white power of laying on not intentionally try we're going
about this landing.
Speaker 13: I don't think so.
Speaker 7: I mean it was like way where what.
Speaker 16: Kind of like.
Speaker 10: Probably like water.
Speaker 12: I don't like.
Speaker 7: A water bottel or water.
Speaker 19: It was at the bottle.
Speaker 1: When lie is mixed with water, it creates an extremely
potent exothermic reaction. In other words, it fucking burns like
a motherfucker. You don't want to experience it. Just take
my word for it. Weirdo. It burns your skin right off.
So if you're into that sort of thing, hey, knock
yourself out. Start with your face. Anyway. Megan admitted that
she got mad and just started throwing a bunch of stuff,
but she wasn't sure what she was throwing. She was
in that kind of possessed teenage girl rage, the kind
that cancels people for posting a meme when.
Speaker 10: You were throwing stuff, right, you're unintentionally throwing, so I'm
not you know, I understand, it's totally get it.
Speaker 7: They're right, that's fine when you threw anything. Because we
need to help out here.
Speaker 10: They're trying to figure out what's going on, because, like
I said, he's in a rough shape day. Was there
any substance that blew out of something when you threw
something at them or anything?
Speaker 7: We're trying to help your dad out here, I think
so yeah.
Speaker 4: Okay, So where on the body did you see that
white stuff.
Speaker 15: Who mostly went on the couch a little like on
his like lower legs.
Speaker 4: Okay, mostly covered with the blanket?
Speaker 7: Okay, you know what that I was?
Speaker 13: It looks like like teather something.
Speaker 1: And there it was a confession.
Speaker 7: I mean, we're both for both smart individuals.
Speaker 13: I didn't think like a powder alone can do that.
Speaker 7: Well, you said you threw water to right, you see
how the water.
Speaker 13: And the drain open next.
Speaker 10: Okay, so you know at this point, I'm gonna have
you turn around on her arrest.
Speaker 7: Okay, all right, so.
Speaker 10: Turn around place. Okay, we'll try not to make it speak. See,
I always want you what's going on?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 13: You're a bad person?
Speaker 7: But yea.
Speaker 1: So they're in the parking lot of her own eighteenth
birthday party. Megan was arrested. After a week in jail,
she sent this video to a friend, who later shared
it with police.
Speaker 13: Really, so here see.
Speaker 4: And everyone saying everyone who.
Speaker 16: Was there, because what and they.
Speaker 11: Didn't know what happened? Did know?
Speaker 9: So?
Speaker 11: Received?
Speaker 12: So why?
Speaker 1: Megan went on about how now she has to live
with her mom and at least she can be the
girl she's destined to be a teenagers. What a pain
in the ass right the whole school everyone, But everything
would not turn out so good. Conrad was soon transported
from one hospital to a burn unit specialist at another hospital.
He spent one hundred and fifty one days in that
burn unit, being treated for wounds on forty one percent
of his body. He was put on dialysis because his
kidneys were shot. His burns became infected over and over again,
to the point where both of his legs had to
be amputated. He had a tracheotomy. Then, after five months,
he decided he wanted to be taken off life support
and go home on hospice. Conrad only made it three days.
He died in March of twenty twenty two, and everything
changed all of a sudden. Megan was not just a
little brat who may or may not have burned her
father in a hissy fit. She would soon be on
trial for his death. When Conrad Amerowicks was taken to
the emergency room for severe chemical burns caused by a
bottle of lye. No one expected that his teenage daughter,
Megan would be responsible. It was Megan's eighteenth birthday and
she had a hair appointment before her party, but when
Conrad got too drunk to drive her to the salon,
she had a fit and threw a bottle of lye
at her father. Conrad's injuries got worse over the course
of five months in the hospital, and then he died.
Megan was now facing murder charges. The Ameerick's family had
become even more broken than they already were. Conrad's eldest son, Austin,
became super protective of his father before he died, not
allowing his mother to visit Conrad in the hospital.
Speaker 12: And I ended up calling Austin, and he told me
that a plan was put in place where no one
could come up there except for himself and one other
and you had to have the tast code or the
tast words in order to get any information or to visit.
And he told me I'd better not ever try to
go around that he was I know you're good at
talking your way into things, and not to ever come
up there or do anything, or you're done for.
Speaker 1: At first, Megan was looking at murder charges, but the
prosecution put it down to domestic violence and the unlawful
possession of harmful devices or irritants causing death. The state
had a tough case to prove. No one saw Megan
throw the lie at her father. Her confession was half
baked at best. In June of twenty twenty three, Megan
showed up in court to face the consequences of her
alleged actions. She remained quiet beside her lawyers, wearing a
paisley blue sun dress and little makeup on her round face.
She didn't smile. She barely opened her mouth as the
prosecution began their opening arguments and the media turned on
their cameras.
Speaker 6: Criminal cases are always about choices and consequences. A person
will make a choice to do something and the consequences,
and so in our society we hold people accountable for
the choices are the consequences of their choices, and that
is why we are here today. Because on October first,
twenty twenty one, Megan Amroits made a choice to act,
and the action left the death of her father Conrad
of MROs.
Speaker 7: Megan turned eighteen on September.
Speaker 6: Twenty ninth, twenty twenty one.
Speaker 7: She was supposed to have a birthday party on the
night of October first.
Speaker 11: Twenty twenty one.
Speaker 6: She'd also made a hair appointment that day, so she
was going to go go and get her hair done
and then go to his birthday party. So she woke
up at home on October first, at the home she
shares with her father, Conrad, and that was in Ortonville,
Michigan pre in Open County. Now, Megan does not drive,
so she needed Covondrad to take her to the hair appointment.
So she goes to get it and she finds what
do I think you're gonna hear as a familiar site,
which is that Conrad, even at ten o'clock in the
morning or so, was drunk, and he was actually so
drunk key was effectively passed out.
Speaker 7: And this made her enriched.
Speaker 1: Megan scowled and hung her head as the price Secutor
Jason DeSantis continued telling the jury her story, and she.
Speaker 6: Starts throwing things at him, just everything that's lying around,
and you're gonna see in the photos there was a
lot of stuff lying around. But one of the things
that you're going to find out that she admitted if
throwing at him was water. And another thing that she's
going to admit to throwing at him is you're going
to see on a police interview video is a white
powder cleaning in patients that she's going to say got
you know, miss gotting around his legs.
Speaker 7: The product, of course, would lie.
Speaker 6: And I think you're going to find that statement that
there was a little bit of white powder was probably
an understatement that she made have to herself because it
was not just a.
Speaker 7: Little bit of white powder.
Speaker 6: Live of course is a common product. It's an alkali
be using tons of things soaked fertilizer, but.
Speaker 7: It's also a household cema.
Speaker 6: It's available at pretty much any store by the ASR ware,
and she used very commonly for drive people for dream cleaning.
Speaker 7: It is dangerous to humans.
Speaker 6: So she puts this on him and it gets everywhere,
and it's all over his skin because unfortunately Conrad was
asleep on the couch and he was effectively naked at
the time, so all this got in direct contact with
his skin. Now Megan has a trend and to come
and pick her up and she leaves to go to
her hair appointment. Conrad is still passed out, so this
stuff is just sitting on him.
Speaker 7: Eating away of his flesh. For a very long time.
Speaker 1: The state was very strategic in its charges. They wanted
to hold Megan responsible for her father's death. But this
wasn't an intentional murder. This wasn't even a crime of passion.
In fact, they couldn't even use the word murder or manslaughter.
Speaker 6: So the elements of the offense of the things I
have to prove, so are the only things I have
to prove. Now, you probably heard of words like motives.
I don't have to prove motives. I think we will,
but I don't think I have to. What I do
have to prove is that honor about October first, twenty
twenty one in Open County, Michigan, that the defindant place
used or released a substance, that that substance then was
that she possess, placed, use, or release, was a chemical irritant.
The law defines that as a solid, liquid or gas
that there it's chemical or physical properties, alone or in
combination with one or more other substances, can be used
to produce an irritant. Effect in humans, animals, or plants. Third,
that the defendant possessed, place, used, or released the chemical
irritant to frighten, terrorize, intimidate, threatened, harass, injure, assault, batter,
or kill conrade murrods.
Speaker 7: Fourth, the possession in place and re.
Speaker 6: Use or release of the chemical urritent resulted in the
death of Conrad Ammerins. You do not have to all
agree upon which intent of the list that you have
there that it is. One of you may think it
was to scarem, one of you may think it was
to hurt him. One of you may think it was
to kill him. You don't have to agree on that part.
A verdict has to be unanicus. But your rationale for
getting there here does not. You only throw things at
someone when you want to hit him with it. You
only do that when you're angry. And you only throw
things or put things on people when you want to
hurt them or scare them, or do any one of
those things that you want to do, And that's a
negative action towards them because you're upset and angry. And
I would say this, I think you only put drain
clear on someone when you want to hurt them. So
with the industry, I'll ask you for a verty of
the holds are responsible for her choices, and that will
be a vertist of.
Speaker 15: Guilty at charge.
Speaker 1: Megan's defense was what you might expect, and it involved
a lot of blame on Conrad's problem with alcohol. Apparently
alcohol makes you throw things around the room that yourself.
Speaker 20: Now, what happened on that day was tragic, no question,
but there's some more facts.
Speaker 12: You need to know.
Speaker 20: His son when he went to the hospital talk to him.
His statements were, I don't remember what happened, mister andrwith happened.
Blood alcohol ever was very high. And his son said,
look what he told me. Him and Meghan had a fight. Okay,
they had a fight. They had an argument, submitted he
threw some bread at him in a couple other things.
But that doesn't mean that he's through this stuff at him.
This is a tragic situation. Throughout all the medical records,
and I think we're going to have meant to medical records,
there's and total probably twenty thousand pages. Never once does
he say I remember what happened. Never once does he
say Megan did it. Never once does he say or
blame anyone for this. Now he went through a horrific experience,
but he was also an extreme alcoholic. So this is
a bad situation. You're gonna have to look at all
the facts, all the situation, listen to all the testimony,
and make up your mind.
Speaker 1: Megan's trial was long and highly publicized. Her brother Austin
and former friend Kayla both testified for the state, whereas
her mother Julie got up to support her daughter. In fact,
Julie was one of the only people who was on
Megan's side. A little bit of that cluster b you know, we.
Speaker 21: Don't know what happened that day. There's no few French
from the bottle. When I returned with Meghan on the
Wednesday after this happened for her retrieve for stuff, when
we were escorted by a state trooper, the bottle.
Speaker 12: Was sitting on the couch. It was still there. Anyone
could have touched it. While why was a more thorough
investigation not done it? These are my questions of how
you know the two plus two with all the facts
that are known, the actual facts, not the hearsay or
the testimony, but the physical facts. Tuplus two has just
not aboke for.
Speaker 1: This trial wasn't just about whether or not Megan through
the lie on her dad, but her behavior afterwards. Both
Austin and Kyla testified after they told Megan and Conrad
was in the hospital, she just huffed and continued to
harass them for his credit card pin. All she cared
about was her birthday party. The selfish teenager? Isn't that
a oxymoron? Now, let's do a put yourself in Megan's
shoes for a second. Would you react like this if
you found out that your dad was in the emergency room?
What if he was just a drunk piece of shit? Nah,
that changes things, doesn't it? Or maybe not? Maybe you
drop everything and just rush to go see him. Maybe
that's the kind of person you are. What if your
dad hit you? Ooh, I'm not saying that this dad did,
but what if he did? What about then? Would you
change your behavior at all? What if he hurt you emotionally?
Speaker 12: What?
Speaker 1: Now? It's not so black and white sometimes, but it
didn't take long for the jury to decide Megan's fate.
Speaker 9: May do you have morn?
Speaker 19: You can be seated, sous and gentlemen, the jury.
Speaker 9: I understand that you haven't heard.
Speaker 13: It is it correct.
Speaker 9: Family, you're my poor person.
Speaker 19: I'm gonna ask that you hand the end holp to
my clerknstars. I mean if you could please stand and
read the verse to the courtroom.
Speaker 9: Guilty of chemical irrisis. Unlawful youth called it this.
Speaker 1: Megan hung her head and clutched her coat to her chest.
As the guilty verdict was announced, the state asked to
remove her bond, and Megan's lawyer began scrolling through his
phone trying to figure out what dates were best for sentencing.
Megan began to sob, and the camera zeroed in on
her face, but it just looked like forced tears, like
she knew the world was watching, and they sure were.
When it came time for sentencing, Megan chose to read
a statement.
Speaker 15: Sometimes in life we are face to trouble those we
don't wish for, and most start up for a minute.
It's true, yet we face the many ways. Nineteen years
ago I was faced.
Speaker 13: Into the arms of the first mans ever loved me,
the man are lucky enough to call my dad. Growing up,
he became so much more.
Speaker 9: He was a storyteller or to a fairy.
Speaker 13: A friend and perro. But do it all the one
thing that never changed was that he was mine. One
of the biggest things overlooked in this case is that
me and my siblings lost our dad too. That loss
has severely broken us. My little brother was diagnosed with
severe depression, and at his age that will probably take
over most of his life. He wasn't allowed to say
goodbye to my dad. He's fifteen and not only has
to live with that car at the same time has
to watch and thanks sisters thanks to come home. My
little sister is still traumatized from having her car surrounded
and her sister taken away and works the phone until
the police blurted out, our dad has gone. We had
no idea. She always kept from saying goodbye, and it's
also struggling as she watches me go through this. My
mom lost him too. Nobody sees that, but that's true.
They were in loved ones. She mothered his kids and
she loves him.
Speaker 22: And then there's me.
Speaker 13: It's almost been two years and I have been able
to moorn. I refused to think he's gone because no
part of me can handle me.
Speaker 1: Megan sobbed through her entire statement. It was hard not
to feel a little bit bad for the girl. She was,
after all, a child by law. She was eighteen, but
we all know that doesn't make you mature, not mature
enough to understand the real world, the harsh cruelty of it,
the fact that things aren't always fair and stay that way,
and there's not a goddamn thing you can do about it.
Megan barely lived in the adult world, and now here
she was in a courtroom, begging a judge to see
how she too lost her father, even if the state
did believe it was all her.
Speaker 13: Faults, taken every belief of Louvo and happiness to destroyed it.
I am the best.
Speaker 22: Parts of him.
Speaker 13: I'm his daughter. What would have him? I don't know
who I aim anymore. He was my reason, you know,
every day I battled.
Speaker 11: With so far.
Speaker 13: When I was younger, I had count the names until
I could live with my dad full time. And when
that day finally came, the first time in my life
I could find me exhal. He was my best friend
and the person I talked to about boy is the
one who know every single thing about me. And my
favorite person alive is my dad, who's always been the
one const in my life. Is that alone, and that
created an unbreakable bond maintunas, and no one, not especially
mister DeSantis, can take that away from me. I never
got to say goodbye, and that the scar I'll never
be able to lose. I get so scared that he
thinks I didn't love y because I wasn't allowed to be
there and hold the sands. If all the peason land,
that shouldn't be one of them. Nobody even wants to
talk about him, like we're just supposed.
Speaker 6: To have on.
Speaker 13: But I can't.
Speaker 1: To close her tearful statement, Megan turned her focus on
the female judge presiding over her case and turned up
the water works.
Speaker 22: Once upon a time, you dreamed of being a judge,
and part of me believes it's because some people deserve
another change. You've accomplished your dream, and I guess now
I'm asking for you to help me accomplishm in a
world full of wrongful judgment. I'm asking going to be
the change to believe you.
Speaker 13: Need the way my dad did. I'm gonna ask for
the lower into my guidelines, but even lower impossible. I'm
not a spread society, but an asset for the future.
Speaker 1: Megan begged for freedom. She needed to finish high school.
She had big dreams of becoming a marine biologist. Don't
all girls dream of that? She was so young. She
made a mistake, and she didn't want to be locked
away forever. She didn't want consequences to her action.
Speaker 23: Miss Ameriwitz Case number twenty twenty two to eight one
five one nine FC harmful devices iritants unlawful possession or
use causing death And with regard to this matter, the
Court has reviewed the PSI. It has reviewed your compass
score and your prior criminal history. The circumstances that you
have endured during your adolescent life are somewhat detailed in
the PSR. The report indicates physical abuse and attempted sexual
assault by a friend of a sibling, which was not
addressed by your parents. Your adoptive parents separated when you
were eight and a half years old. You endured both
physical abuse and While you indicate that you were raised
by both of your parents, the court does recognize that
your father was a severe alcoholic. His disease could not
make him a fit parent, and he always puts you
in harm's way. Your childhoods would aligned with abuse. The
inability to grow mentally as a child Your only criminal
history was driving offense that your father was unable to
drive you. The PSI indicates that he would pick you
up all intoxicated and that you had to quit your
job to care for your father. Your father described you
as an angel, making it clear that you do not
have malice. It is clear that your father's addiction and
the denial of his addiction alienated his family. Your parents
divorced when you were approximately eight and a half years old.
Your younger siblings could not endure visiting your father anymore.
Speaker 3: Father.
Speaker 23: Your younger sister testified that the last time that she
was at the house, she shared a bathroom with your father,
and that there was vomit in the shower, in the sink,
and toilet paper all over the bathroom. The first responders
could not attend to your father because of the filth
inside the house, that it was not fit for habitation.
Garbage bagged and unbagged garbage filled the home. The home
was infested with visible fleas and bugs, and the PSI
describes plastic bas eggs filled with urine near the couch.
Your mother testified about human feces around the couch as well.
Your mother, your younger siblings and your other older brother
all left the home, leaving you with the daunting task
of caring for your father. The denial of the disease
from your father and your brother's believed that your father
was not an alcoholic weight on your shoulders. You did
not have the luxury of being a child, as you
indicated that you had to be an adult in the house.
This is a serious crime that you have been found
guilty of. The Court does not believe that a child
your age new or understood the consequences of throwing the
items at your father or the damage that it would
cause him. At the time of the incident, you were
barely eighteen years old. You were three days past your birthday.
It is clear that your brain is not developed. The
United States Supreme Court, in Roper versus Simon in two
thousand and five case recognize that juveniles have less culpability
and are less deserving of the harshest punishment due to
the inherent immaturity and vulnerability. The Court recognizes that you
have indicated that you have professional goals of becoming a
marine biologist and that you plan to open a rescue
from marine life after completion of high school and college,
and that you would like to start a charity to
help recovering alcoholics. Regards to this matter, the court is
going to sentence you to one year in jail with
five hundred and six States credit.
Speaker 1: That was it. One year in jail. She spent longer
in jail waiting for trial than she did for her
actual punishment. What's that old saying slap on the wrist, Well,
Megan barely got touched on the rest. She barely got
a tap. She sure was lucky with the sympathetic judge
there wasn't she. I wonder if she'd be just as
sympathetic if she was a seven foot, two hundred and
fifty pound black man. Makes you wonder. Not everything's fair
Sometimes it just stays that way.
Speaker 23: I want you to understand that with regard to this opportunity,
that if you are not successful with regard to probation,
the prison term of five to twenty five years is
on the table.
Speaker 1: Megan served her year in jail and didn't waste a
moment of it. In fact, she became good friends with
Jennifer Crumbly, and the media went crazy. For those of
you who don't know Jennifer Crumbly, is the mother of
Ethan Crumbly, the Oxford High school shooter who murdered four
students and injured seven while on a rampage in November
of twenty twenty one. Ethan's mother, Jennifer, was charged with
involuntary manslaughter for purchasing the handgun that her son used
to kill his classmates. Anyway, Megan and Jennifer really hit
it off in the Slammer. Not sure why, but they
just did. Here's Megan.
Speaker 18: I had no idea who she was when I first
got there, but she had sent down a little care
package for me, and that was the first time she's
ever done anything like that, so I thought it was
really kind of her. Well, when I moved in with her,
we were, you know, together twenty three hours a day,
and when I moved out every day for my hour,
I would just stand at her door and talk to
her and we talked through the event, like when I
was in my phone. We would yell and talk to
each other like that, and we'd always find a way
to talk to each other every single day.
Speaker 1: In all the interviews she did, whether it was on
some YouTube channel or some major news network, Megan said
the same thing. She only threw bread at her dad.
She was innocent. All that stuff she told cops, she
was just she was coerced.
Speaker 9: I was really scared.
Speaker 18: I had thought that my dad had hurt himself again,
and I didn't want him to get in trouble for anything,
because they would have taken him away, put him in
a mental hospital. And I was just really freaked out.
I didn't know I could stop talking.
Speaker 13: I didn't know that I didn't have to talk to them.
I was I just wanted to get over with do
what they wanted me to do.
Speaker 1: Megan also thinks maybe her dad put the lie on
himself as a suicide attempt. Weird way to commit suicide,
but drunks have done weirder things, you know.
Speaker 18: Part of me thinks that he could have done it
to himself. I know that he has always been released suicidal,
but he also does get hurt a lot on accident,
sometimes on purpose, and that's where most of his hospital
visits come from. Is us finding him hurt and he
has to go to the hospital. So I guess that's
one of my theories. I know my truth, and I
know what happened, and so does my dad, and that's
what matters.
Speaker 1: Megan knows her truth, but we will never know the truth.
There were no witnesses, but a part of me thinks
Megan did throw the lie. I think she knows deep
down that she did. I don't think she really expected
it to burn him that badly, and I don't think
she expected it to lead to his death. But she
threw it, and she knows she threw it. That part
I'm pretty sure about could be wrong, and it's just
my opinion, but that's how I see it. Be curious
to hear how you see it. Leave a comment sortinscale
dot com. Megan was frustrated. She was angry. I mean,
why wouldn't she be. She was living with a bumbling
drunk in a filthy, disgusting house. She must have finally
just snapped. She didn't deserve to live like this. She
didn't deserve to have this be her life. She didn't
deserve this drunk in her life. But there he was,
ruining her eighteenth birthday party. I don't blame her for that. Actually,
I blame her mother for allowing Megan to live in
such squalor with someone she knew had a severe alcohol problem.
Julie's kind of a shitty mother, and Megan didn't really
deserve that either. This whole family could have been saved
if they had just attended a couple of meetings.
Speaker 12: I still think about it a lot.
Speaker 18: I know that now I have to listen.
Speaker 11: To my dad.
Speaker 1: As the judge said, Megan A. Merriwick's was just a
kid when she lost her father because of her unhinged actions.
But Megan was living in a highly stressful situation that
no kid her age should have to be in. Taking
care of a drunk all day, day in and day
out is just too much for most grown adults to bear,
let alone a kid. An eighteen year old, she was
tasked with the impossible and did not understand what a
burden her father's alcoholism was on her mental well being
until it was too late. But Megan, believe it or not,
was lucky. She got a sympathetic judge who looked at
her horrible upbringing and also felt kind of bad. I
don't know if a year in jail was enough for
Megan to really fully understand the consequences of her actions.
Only she knows if she threw the lie on her
dad or not, whether she intended to or not, that's
all something she's got to struggle with for the rest
of her life. She has to come to terms with
that somehow in her brain, or maybe it'll just self
destruct like her father's did. The thought of what she
may have done intentionally, well, you'd away at her like
the lie did on her father's skin for eternity, and
that's probably just about the worst punishment a daughter can have.
It's amazing how shitty humans can be.
Speaker 11: Huh.
Speaker 1: Well, that does it for another episode of Sword and Scale.
Thank you so much once again for joining us. Remember,
Sword and Scale Television is available right now at Sword
and Scale dot com. There's seven episodes available right now
and plenty more coming. You can go watch it twenty
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Oh yeah, stay safe.
Speaker 11: Uh uh uh uh uh at all too.
Speaker 9: M