Speaker 1: This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI
Speaker 1: AM six forty, the Gary and Shannon Show on demand
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2: What else is going on? Time for what's happening? Wow?
Speaker 3: Well, the story that's been followed internationally is the health
Speaker 3: of Pope Francis. According to the Vatican, he continues his
Speaker 3: recovery from pneumonia. The Vatican set in motion a nightly
Speaker 3: marathon of prayers from his house. Allies have been cheering
Speaker 3: him on and hopes that he might recover. He might
Speaker 3: recover and get back to leading the Catholic Church. The
Speaker 3: typical morning briefing was very brief. All it said was
Speaker 3: the Pope slept well all night.
Speaker 2: That's awful. Yeah, that's awful.
Speaker 1: A fresh search for the Malaysia flight Malaysia Airlines Flight
Speaker 1: three seventy. Remember, a fresh search has been launched. More
Speaker 1: than a decade after that plane went missing. The exploration
Speaker 1: firm Ocean Infinity of resume the hunt for the missing plane.
Speaker 1: There have been so many conspiracy theories about this one
Speaker 1: the Malaysia. The country says that it welcomes the proactiveness
Speaker 1: of the firm to deploy their ships to begin the search.
Speaker 1: They don't know how long this is going to last.
Speaker 1: They don't know why or when they decided to kick
Speaker 1: off this latest hunt. But this was the Boeing Triple
Speaker 1: seven carrying two hundred and thirty nine people that just
Speaker 1: vanished from radar screens. It was March twenty fourteen. It
Speaker 1: was en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Speaker 4: Margin in aviation history.
Speaker 2: They a couple of different things.
Speaker 3: Obviously, one of the theories was that the pilot himself went
Speaker 3: rogue and put this thing in the ocean pretty quickly.
Speaker 2: Others had suggested.
Speaker 3: That it landed somewhere and all of the people were
Speaker 3: absconded to March. I don't know whatever their plane, whatever
Speaker 3: their crazy series where Occham's razor comes into play. It's
Speaker 3: probably just an airplane that crashed into the ocean. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: it crashed into a place on the Earth that is
Speaker 3: not covered by airplane radar the way it exists now.
Speaker 3: One of the things that you weren't here last week,
Speaker 3: but I talked with with Jay Ratlif, the iHeartRadio aviation analyst.
Speaker 3: We were talking about upgrades to the FAA system air
Speaker 3: traffic control, et cetera. And he actually pointed to this
Speaker 3: Malaysia Airlines three seventy as one of the arguments in
Speaker 3: favor of doing satellite tracking on airplanes, on all airliners,
Speaker 3: because obviously you'd be able to cover the globe. We
Speaker 3: would have a much better indication as to where this
Speaker 3: airplane went. But it's a lot easier and a lot
Speaker 3: more technologically feasible to be able to put airplane GPS
Speaker 3: locators in each airplane and have it, you know, bouncing
Speaker 3: off different satellites throughout the core of the world every
Speaker 3: single day.
Speaker 2: It's just a better way to do it.
Speaker 3: I don't know what changes in the world of these
Speaker 3: searchers where they think now is the time to go
Speaker 3: back out and find it, except that it would simply
Speaker 3: be on a no find, no fee principle, which means
Speaker 3: if they don't find the airplane, they don't get paid
Speaker 3: for it. Apparently the Indianesia, sorry, the Malaysian government said
Speaker 3: that they would write a check for seventy million dollars
Speaker 3: if the company finds the airplane.
Speaker 1: Yeahvin Newsom has launched a new state website. This is
Speaker 1: kind of taking a page from Elon Musk's book. This
Speaker 1: is something Newsome will trot out when he tries to
Speaker 1: appeal to the moderates in this country when he runs
Speaker 1: for president. It's kind of like a transparent way to
Speaker 1: see how your money's being spent when it comes to homelessness.
Speaker 1: It's going to be a website that tracks county progress
Speaker 1: on homeless county by county snapshots of spending on behavioral health, homelessness,
Speaker 1: and how it provides information on spending in all fifty
Speaker 1: eight counties across the state. So that when people can
Speaker 1: say the Gavenusom, look at your stated some mess, look
Speaker 1: at the homelessness, he can say, look, I met the
Speaker 1: moment in real time. I put together a website that
Speaker 1: tracks the spending of the money that voters have approved to.
Speaker 2: Fix this problem.
Speaker 3: However, the California State Association of Counties said that this
Speaker 3: website is just a spin without substance to back exactly.
Speaker 1: There's gonna be no substance, There's gonna be no transparency.
Speaker 1: This is just Gaven Newsom saying he's done a thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's no The emperor has no clothes. When it comes
Speaker 1: to this transparency website, I'll tell you that there's gonna
Speaker 1: be very scant information release to there.
Speaker 3: There is a bunch of hand ringing going on about
Speaker 3: a homeless guy who finally had his homeless encampment torn down. Finally,
Speaker 3: the man was positioned just off the one ten Freeway,
Speaker 3: said he'd been there for five years and never been
Speaker 3: bothered until Friday, received note that that day while he
Speaker 3: was at work, never got any follow up afterwards, and
Speaker 3: when he woke up morning Monday morning, crews were already
Speaker 3: there and they took almost everything, leaving behind some of
Speaker 3: the tools that he actually needs for his job. He
Speaker 3: said he's not sure what caused them to suddenly evict
Speaker 3: them from the area, and he had no idea where
Speaker 3: he can go.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 2: If you've seen this, by the way.
Speaker 3: It looked like it was made, it looked like the
Speaker 3: side of a house because of everything that he had
Speaker 3: done there. There were piles of precisely placed rocks that
Speaker 3: separated his finger quotes property from the embankment of the royo.
Speaker 3: Seko said he had a bathtub, said he had a
Speaker 3: working kitchen. Trust me, you didn't. And they can't figure
Speaker 3: out why. Gosh, I don't know why. After five years,
Speaker 3: this guy finally be guess he shouldn't have been there.
Speaker 2: In the first place. He should not have.
Speaker 3: Been allowed to post a makeshift home in the first place.
Speaker 3: This reminds me of remember those abandoned towers. I think
Speaker 3: there was supposed to be condo towers in downtown LA
Speaker 3: where graffiti tower. Yes, every floor was covered with graffiti. Well,
Speaker 3: there's a new one in it's either going to be
Speaker 3: Studio City somewhere. It's just south of the one thirty
Speaker 3: four freeway as you're driving through the valley here. And
Speaker 3: it used to be a big bank building, used to
Speaker 3: be a big Washington Mutual when Washington Mutuals the thing
Speaker 3: was taken over by another bank. Now since they've taken
Speaker 3: the name plate off of it, it's an abandoned building.
Speaker 3: And if you look closely, it's covered with graffiti on
Speaker 3: the inside of the windows. So if you're looking at
Speaker 3: it from a distance, you can't really tell. You get
Speaker 3: closer and you slow down on the freeway, Please don't
Speaker 3: slow down on the freeway.
Speaker 2: That's part of my way home.
Speaker 3: But you can tell it's destroyed on the inside, one
Speaker 3: hundred percent covered by graffiti. And people who would argue
Speaker 3: something like, well that's just the way Los Angeles is.
Speaker 3: It's like an art form out of the that's what's wrong.
Speaker 3: That's what's wrong with this place.
Speaker 4: Now, that's just where you go to do drugs for
Speaker 4: three weeks and no one will find you.
Speaker 2: I don't want to.
Speaker 4: It's not for you. It's not what those places are
Speaker 4: built for.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: An online content creator has been charged with criminal mischief
Speaker 1: for I usually don't like to shed light on online
Speaker 1: content creators, but this is a good story.
Speaker 2: Well just don't say what the name is. That way,
Speaker 2: there you go.
Speaker 1: This person has been charged with criminal mischief a female
Speaker 1: I will add because it adds to the story, for
Speaker 1: allegedly making disturbing videos of her contaminating store products by
Speaker 1: urinating on them. This is an investigation and a product
Speaker 1: recall that dates back to four years ago. There was
Speaker 1: an anonymous tip regarding a woman twenty three years old
Speaker 1: who had posted disturbing videos to her Internet site of
Speaker 1: her peeing on items in a local business.
Speaker 3: Let's get this, monad Knock Food co Op has you
Speaker 3: shoot a voluntary recall for their red Kinwa, white Kinwa, Tricolor, Quenoa, cornmeal, polenta,
Speaker 3: coconut shreds, and raw walnuts.
Speaker 2: How much urine nebra tebra.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, this is like your ale of the store.
Speaker 1: Do you ever think about who's been urinating?
Speaker 2: Noo?
Speaker 4: I no, I don't want.
Speaker 2: To think of that.
Speaker 1: I mean that polenta may come with a side of urine,
Speaker 1: the raw walnuts you put on your salad urine walnuts?
Speaker 2: E god?
Speaker 4: I mean, why would you pee on the keen wah?
Speaker 6: I don't understand what does quenua do to you? I mean,
Speaker 6: we have somebody pissed off at keenwak.
Speaker 4: Question? There you go. I have a question.
Speaker 1: In these vegan markets, it's the keen wa just exposed.
Speaker 1: It's not like in a box. It could be like
Speaker 1: in a bin.
Speaker 6: I don't go to vegan markets, but the keen wa
Speaker 6: that I buy is usually a in a bag.
Speaker 2: I don't think I've ever seen it in an open somewhere.
Speaker 1: And well, you haven't been to the Mono Doc food
Speaker 1: co Op, which sounds pretty exposed, doesn't It sounds like
Speaker 1: you what would be out and open for everyone to
Speaker 1: see and feel and touch and pee on.
Speaker 4: I guess it's a vegan hater.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe yeah, maybe she does look like she has
Speaker 1: color in her cheeks when I'm looking at this mug shot.
Speaker 2: She may eat meat. Color of my you do?
Speaker 5: You do?
Speaker 4: I'm sorry that was a low shot, all right, I
Speaker 4: didn't mean it about you.
Speaker 7: There are some vegan zebra. You have to agree that
Speaker 7: you lack color. Absolutely, they they yes. It's almost like
Speaker 7: some people who are on some of those weight loss
Speaker 7: you know, drugs, and how they look very gaunt.
Speaker 4: Right, there are some vegans that look that way.
Speaker 1: Right, you have a beautiful color and glow to you
Speaker 1: when we come back our philosophical question of the day, Gary.
Speaker 4: Gerry looks more like the vegan Why wait?
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 4: Because you have a lighter skin.
Speaker 2: I spent all weekend in Arizona in the sunshine.
Speaker 4: I haven't seen you. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm pasty white, you're alway.
Speaker 4: I've never seen you in a tan. It's either pasty
Speaker 4: white or sunburn.
Speaker 2: It's it's pretty good gas. Actually, Oh, Gary Shennon.
Speaker 8: Well in the coast of Asia here, I listen to
Speaker 8: you talking about the touring you know, Sharia and the
Speaker 8: other torture countries where they take you to bombed out
Speaker 8: tourist attractions and whatever. What if you wanted to go
Speaker 8: like Auschwitz or bad the tour there is that like
Speaker 8: in the same scale as you guys were talking about morning.
Speaker 5: Gary Shennon, Yeah, I agree, it is kind of sick
Speaker 5: to go through that place. But what is it the
Speaker 5: difference of going to the Holocaust over in Germany to
Speaker 5: those camps where they killed a lot of people?
Speaker 2: What about that?
Speaker 5: What's explained the difference between Because I'm kind of confused him,
Speaker 5: though I do agree with you though.
Speaker 2: HI have a good day. That's your philosophical question for
Speaker 2: the day.
Speaker 1: I think it's because people who go see the places
Speaker 1: involved with the Holocaust feel a sense of connection to
Speaker 1: them because of their relatives were there or on either uh,
Speaker 1: their relatives were involved.
Speaker 3: I also think it's because I don't want to say
Speaker 3: it was a happy ending, but the good guys won.
Speaker 1: I don't think it comes any part in going to
Speaker 1: see the Holocaust places, but I mean that there is
Speaker 1: that it's not going to happen again, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: we hopefully don't.
Speaker 4: Go there close.
Speaker 1: No people go there to sit in the sorrow and
Speaker 1: realize the hell that people went through.
Speaker 3: But it's only available to them because it ended the
Speaker 3: way it did. I mean, if I.
Speaker 1: Just don't think that that gets to be put in
Speaker 1: the conversation. If you're going to go to a concentration camp,
Speaker 1: nobody's thinking like, Oh, we're so lucky that we get
Speaker 1: to be here because of the good guys winning, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like it's just to go there
Speaker 1: and feel like hell, and feel the pain and realize
Speaker 1: that you had ancestors that died there or people that
Speaker 1: survived that and everything that went.
Speaker 4: I think it's just a heavy place.
Speaker 1: I think people feel like it's kind of like going
Speaker 1: to Pearl Harbor. It's the same thing of just going
Speaker 1: there and just there's no silver lining.
Speaker 4: To going to those places.
Speaker 1: I don't think, at least when I went to the
Speaker 1: Pearl Harbor Memorial, there was no silver lining, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like you're standing there and you're just
Speaker 1: thinking about everything that happened that day and subsequently.
Speaker 4: And I think.
Speaker 1: That we're more connected to that than going to a
Speaker 1: village in Syria or Ukraine, because that's our American history.
Speaker 4: Are those things?
Speaker 3: But the other thing, well, I mean American history and
Speaker 3: that we helped liberate those those concentration camps.
Speaker 1: Right No, But I mean like as opposed to going
Speaker 1: to Ukraine and going to right, yeah, you know, the
Speaker 1: village where.
Speaker 3: The other aspect of it is it's a safe place
Speaker 3: to go, and I mean just physically right now. You
Speaker 3: went in twenty twenty five to Booken Vault or something
Speaker 3: like that. It's a safe place to go. There's no
Speaker 3: threat to your life.
Speaker 2: And there is.
Speaker 3: An again I'm using the wrong words, there's a luxury
Speaker 3: to be able to go to that place right now
Speaker 3: and sit in the sorrow of what happened there. You're
Speaker 3: not going to go to a concentration camp that exists
Speaker 3: in Siberia today to sit in the sorrow of because
Speaker 3: you can't get there. You're not allowed to go there.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's a bunch of stuff that goes into it,
Speaker 3: but it is also because it was eighty years ago.
Speaker 1: To me, it's one of those it goes under the
Speaker 1: umbrella of ridiculously rich, sick entitled people luxuries to say
Speaker 1: I'm going to go to Syria and take pictures of
Speaker 1: me at the village where two hundreds pavillions were slaughtered
Speaker 1: because I could afford the weird travel accommodations, you know,
Speaker 1: And it's just who you have to have crazy amounts
Speaker 1: of money to make able to be able to make
Speaker 1: that trip. Happen, and then who are you showing those
Speaker 1: pictures to somebody with your urinated walnuts?
Speaker 4: Like you know, I went to see. I don't know,
Speaker 4: what are you trying to do there?
Speaker 1: I feel like when I looked at the pictures of
Speaker 1: that article in the Telegraph on danger tourism, it was
Speaker 1: like all these well to do people buy in large
Speaker 1: white who are just like, look at us, We're here
Speaker 1: in a beanie in Syria, Like aren't we interesting.
Speaker 2: Kind of thing?
Speaker 3: Well as opposed to this is me and Bimini or
Speaker 3: Bali or something like that, exactly right.
Speaker 4: This is an awful story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, God, I like I because we were.
Speaker 1: Keana gave us a story earlier in the week, which
Speaker 1: was yesterday.
Speaker 4: It's been a long one and.
Speaker 1: I was just kind of like just reading through the
Speaker 1: beginning parts of it about this couple in Toronto and
Speaker 1: they sound lovely and a normal couple that you'd be
Speaker 1: friends with, and the kids and the careers and everything,
Speaker 1: and okay, it ends in murder, and it's it's so
Speaker 1: interesting when you know what the details are, but when
Speaker 1: you dig in to the specific details of the details,
Speaker 1: how sad and dark it gets.
Speaker 2: This is one of those things.
Speaker 3: My god, there's an aspect of these stories when we
Speaker 3: do our true Crime Tuesday stories, there's an aspect of
Speaker 3: it that is the worst of humanity.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's a there's a darkness to some of
Speaker 2: these stories.
Speaker 1: It's just it's scary because you look at these people
Speaker 1: and you hear about them, and they seem normal.
Speaker 4: And like we said, class, why do we murder? Love
Speaker 4: and money? Usually?
Speaker 1: Right, this one's got both of those things. But it's
Speaker 1: not just psychopaths that murder people ordinary.
Speaker 4: That's what it is.
Speaker 1: And I think that's what fascinates us about true crime,
Speaker 1: as you've got ordinary people living ordinary lives, and sometimes
Speaker 1: they're the victim of a horrendous murder and sometimes they're
Speaker 1: the perpetrator, and you're thinking, in both cases, how could
Speaker 1: this person carry this out? Or how could this person
Speaker 1: fall prey to this?
Speaker 3: Well, and they point out in this and I think
Speaker 3: this is kind of your point, is that we like
Speaker 3: to say that anybody who kills is crazy, right, you
Speaker 3: have to be a certain level of crazy to take
Speaker 3: another person's life. But there are studies that show that
Speaker 3: a lot of us, a lot of ninety one percent
Speaker 3: of men eighty four percent of women say that they've
Speaker 3: had a vivid fantasy of killing someone, and that many
Speaker 3: people have confessed that they would actually that they even
Speaker 3: played out specific scenarios in their heads, imagine themselves stabbing
Speaker 3: or shooting or strangler or whatever.
Speaker 2: But here's where the difference is.
Speaker 3: The cutoff is that the vast majority of us, if
Speaker 3: we ever have those thoughts, then think to ourselves, I
Speaker 3: could never do that.
Speaker 2: That would be crazy. Not only I mean.
Speaker 1: I say that, I probably say that every day I'm
Speaker 1: gonna kill somebody, or I'm gonna kill I'm gonna kill
Speaker 1: this person, and it changes from day to day, moment
Speaker 1: to moment, but I never actually think practically I'm gonna
Speaker 1: kill them.
Speaker 4: Is that what you're saying that? What is it? Ninety percent?
Speaker 4: Eighty four percent?
Speaker 7: What was that?
Speaker 3: Ninety one percent of men, eighty four percent of women
Speaker 3: said that they've actually.
Speaker 4: Think about the manner in which they'd kill somebody.
Speaker 3: Again, not that I think that's a step too far,
Speaker 3: it's just the they've had a vivid moment of fantasy
Speaker 3: of killing someone. But then the vast majority of us go,
Speaker 3: I could never do that. And that's where it ends
Speaker 3: for most people. Is that I've never thought.
Speaker 4: About how to kill somebody.
Speaker 1: I've never thought about like, am I gonna strangle them
Speaker 1: or stab them?
Speaker 4: Like? That's that's the next level, isn't it.
Speaker 2: But you haven't thought about how to get away with it?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: I have not. Oh you haven't.
Speaker 8: No.
Speaker 3: Oh maybe I took step two and then I decided
Speaker 3: that that would be crazy.
Speaker 2: Now this couple.
Speaker 3: In fact, Jacob, just so you know, we're not even
Speaker 3: gonna play the thing just because I don't want to.
Speaker 3: I don't want to make fun of this story because
Speaker 3: it is there are some pretty dark elements to it.
Speaker 1: So let's just get into who these people are. James
Speaker 1: Schwamm born into a great family. Grandparents devout Christians. They
Speaker 1: ran a nice foundation, they were very into education, they
Speaker 1: ran hospice care, addiction recovery treatment. Just just a really
Speaker 1: great family. And he was a firefighter. He had been
Speaker 1: promoted by the early twenty tens to acting captain.
Speaker 4: He was an effective leader, they say.
Speaker 1: The people that worked with him, quick, decisive when responding
Speaker 1: to calls on his watch. The workplace was jovial, supportive.
Speaker 1: He was the guy that would grow out mustache for November.
Speaker 1: He was just that guy, you know, he was the
Speaker 1: firehouse guy, and he was great at what he did
Speaker 1: and he was good for the community.
Speaker 3: Ashley, on the other hand, she grew up in Toronto.
Speaker 3: It's not that she didn't have money, it was just
Speaker 3: a different kind of family. She was an avid hiker,
Speaker 3: very athletic tennis player, piakers fan, a warm young woman
Speaker 3: with an electric smile. Her mom died of cancer when
Speaker 3: she was younger, when Ashley was younger, in two thousand
Speaker 3: and four. But they said Ashley was the glue that
Speaker 3: kind of held the family together. She had a reputation
Speaker 3: for lending support, but without the sugar coating. So her
Speaker 3: three siblings, the cousins, and all these friends would come
Speaker 3: to her in the event that they had ever had
Speaker 3: a fight within the family. She was the one that
Speaker 3: would would smooth everything over. She would dole out wisdom.
Speaker 3: Friend said that Ashley was someone you could talk to
Speaker 3: about what was going on in your life. She would
Speaker 3: sing and dance around the house. She talked about buying
Speaker 3: a farm. She wanted to start an animal sanctuary.
Speaker 4: We lit up the room when she walked in.
Speaker 3: She was a good, good person and that that laugh
Speaker 3: is kind of what originally caught Jamie's attention. He and
Speaker 3: Ashley were skiing together. They would grab drinks in the
Speaker 3: city of Toronto, and they started doing the thing that
Speaker 3: you do when you're young and you're serious, and you go,
Speaker 3: what would it be like to be married?
Speaker 4: So they dream of having kids.
Speaker 1: They end up buying the first house together, a new
Speaker 1: building Collingwood.
Speaker 4: They got engaged.
Speaker 1: They had this beautiful wedding, Ashley saying that she felt
Speaker 1: like a princess was picturesque. She arrived in a horse
Speaker 1: drawn carriage to the wedding.
Speaker 2: The whole bit.
Speaker 1: The next several years went as they planned. James promoted
Speaker 1: full time to fire captain. She designed homes. They got
Speaker 1: a dog, Rocco. They started a family vers a son
Speaker 1: and a daughter. Moved into a bigger house that backed
Speaker 1: into a hiking trail, which they enjoyed. Everything that they
Speaker 1: had planned in those early dates that you spoke of.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's not always sunshine and puppy dogs, because
Speaker 3: life can be a grind sometimes and they found that out.
Speaker 3: The managing of the household, expenses, the kids and their
Speaker 3: extra curriculars, the long commutes, the long hours firefighters are
Speaker 3: doing twenty four hours on, maybe seventy two off, and
Speaker 3: that can take a toll as well. And every once
Speaker 3: in a while, kind of as a hobby, he would
Speaker 3: take a job at a small engine shop and kind
Speaker 3: of keep himself busy.
Speaker 4: Well, Ashley kept herself busy.
Speaker 1: She took a new job at a company that constructs
Speaker 1: custom homes cottages Gichalaise, and she started hanging out with
Speaker 1: her boss and hooking up with her boss. Yeah, about
Speaker 1: six months after she started working there, they began an affair.
Speaker 1: And now, as you can imagine, with the custom home market,
Speaker 1: they're on the road a lot. They're visiting projects, plenty
Speaker 1: of time for their extra curriculars. For a few months,
Speaker 1: James and this guy's wife, Alexandra had no idea, but
Speaker 1: then they found out Alexandra files for divorce. James and
Speaker 1: Ashley think they're gonna work things out. She finds a
Speaker 1: new job, thank god. They start going to couples counseling,
Speaker 1: individual therapy, but James. It's taking a toll on James,
Speaker 1: and then his temperament at work begins to show cracks.
Speaker 1: He starts treating people with condescension. He's drinking more than usual,
Speaker 1: he's distant, he's self involved, but they're like, you know what,
Speaker 1: We're gonna give him some slack. The rigors of the
Speaker 1: job and everything. It's just a lot. Maybe he'll come around.
Speaker 1: He's just going through a phase. But then it gets worse.
Speaker 1: He tells his mom in twenty twenty two, around Christmas,
Speaker 1: he doesn't think he and Ashley are going to make it. She,
Speaker 1: at the same time, is telling her family that she's
Speaker 1: thinking about leaving James.
Speaker 3: Well, that's roughly the time that James started hooking up
Speaker 3: with the original guy's wife. Remember when Ashley started an
Speaker 3: affair with her boss. The boss's wife filed for divorce.
Speaker 3: James kept her and con kept in contact with her,
Speaker 3: and they wanted to start a little something. His marriage
Speaker 3: wasn't working. He said that he was going to make
Speaker 3: a decision. He's going to do what would make him happy.
Speaker 1: James is weighing his options. He's thinking staying with Ashley,
Speaker 1: this is an untenable situation, but divorce. I don't want
Speaker 1: to untangle myself financially, custody of the kids, all of
Speaker 1: that stuff. So he started desperately thinking to find another
Speaker 1: way out.
Speaker 3: Telling a story of James Schwam firefighter from a good
Speaker 3: family up in the Toronto area and the Blue Mountains
Speaker 3: in Ontario. His wife of several years, Ashley Milns, ends
Speaker 3: up having an affair with her boss. They decide to
Speaker 3: stick it out and actually try to get try to
Speaker 3: get things back on track, but after about a year
Speaker 3: or so, they decide that they're going to go their
Speaker 3: separate ways. She has confided to her family she's thinking
Speaker 3: about leaving him. He and up starting an affair with
Speaker 3: the boss's ex wife at the time, and doesn't want
Speaker 3: to get a divorce. Told a friend that a divorce
Speaker 3: was unimaginable. Well, he's set in motion a very strange plan.
Speaker 3: Among other things, he walked over to his mom's house
Speaker 3: at one point she lived nearby, and decided to take
Speaker 3: mom's car and park it at the elementary school.
Speaker 2: That's weird.
Speaker 3: Well, the morning of January twenty fifth, everything's normal, kids
Speaker 3: get ready for school, Ashley goes to work, She goes out,
Speaker 3: walks the dog. Sorry, he goes to work, She goes out,
Speaker 3: walks the dog. Several hours later, at nighttime, they're arguing
Speaker 3: and one of the kids wakes up. Who's then he's
Speaker 3: then nine, sees mom and Dad, Ashley asks him to
Speaker 3: go into her bedroom and fetch her phone so she
Speaker 3: could call the police. Ashley never got the chance to
Speaker 3: call nine one one, the sun goes back to the bedroom,
Speaker 3: James grabs her and strangles her to death. At one point,
Speaker 3: one of the kids hears Dad say what time is it, Alexa,
Speaker 3: And as he remembers it, the speaker said three am.
Speaker 3: And sometime in the next two hours, James had dressed
Speaker 3: Ashley in hiking clothes, put her in her car, and
Speaker 3: taken her out to a trailhead.
Speaker 1: Now imagine that just all the work, I mean horrific
Speaker 1: murder in this all happening in front of the children,
Speaker 1: and all of that aside, all of the work and
Speaker 1: the orchestration that goes into this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the planning, even if you did it in a
Speaker 3: moment of passion, and then to have the wherewithal to
Speaker 3: do all of this. He was sending text messages using
Speaker 3: her phone to him, Hey, I'm leaving Alcia soon. I'm
Speaker 3: gonna zip out. I think the kids are fine sleeping.
Speaker 3: Sorry about yelling at you. My hikes are important.
Speaker 1: So even if you had premeditated all that and doing
Speaker 1: all that, actually doing it, you would think would paralyze you.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 3: He drives her car to a parking lot, cracks open
Speaker 3: the window, douses it with gasoline, ends up pushing it
Speaker 3: or driving it off of a road, walks down the road.
Speaker 3: Remember this is Toronto in January, so there's snow all
Speaker 3: over the place, leaving footprints. Throws a lighter inside the truck,
Speaker 3: burns the whole thing up. She's inside, crumpled in a
Speaker 3: ball in the footwell on the passenger side. When they
Speaker 3: find it, that's mysterious. They also find his initials on
Speaker 3: the lighter that was used to start the fire. He meanwhile,
Speaker 3: had gone back to the elementary school, picked up mom's car,
Speaker 3: grabbed the kids, Hey kids, everybody's having fun, good breakfast,
Speaker 3: and then takes them to school. It was work that
Speaker 3: originally reported that she hadn't shown up, and he had
Speaker 3: gone to work as well, And that's kind of where
Speaker 3: they caught up with him.
Speaker 1: Him calling her parents and faking tears, saying that the
Speaker 1: daughter had died in a plane run, the fact a
Speaker 1: car wreck, the fact that he didn't think that the
Speaker 1: police could do the forensic investigation of his phone and everything,
Speaker 1: and realizing that he had a motive in all this,
Speaker 1: and it being relatively small town where everybody knew everyone's business,
Speaker 1: and everyone knew what was going on with Ashley and
Speaker 1: with this marriage and everything, you thought.
Speaker 4: That you'd hide it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, just even if and the cell.
Speaker 1: Phone tracking that exists these days, knowing where those text
Speaker 1: messages came from and the time of day they were sent,
Speaker 1: and everything.
Speaker 3: And everybody, the ubiquity of doorbell cameras. I mean, there
Speaker 3: were people that saw him literally walking away from the
Speaker 3: flaming vehicle early that morning, I mean, running out there
Speaker 3: in the wilderness when no one should have been out there.
Speaker 3: It would have been way too cold anyway. And friends
Speaker 3: who said there's no way that she would go hiking
Speaker 3: pre dawn. That's not what she did. She would always
Speaker 3: wait until after the kids were at school. She would
Speaker 3: wait until a daytime because she knew that that was
Speaker 3: the safe way to do it.
Speaker 4: What a mess all the way around.
Speaker 1: He, by the way, has been in custody now since
Speaker 1: February of twenty twenty three, attempted suicide multiple times.
Speaker 3: Oh which, by the way, the attorneys that are representing
Speaker 3: him have said that that is proof that he's remorseful.
Speaker 2: And shouldn't stay in prison for very long.
Speaker 4: Well, lawyers will say anything, right, good lord.
Speaker 3: In Canada, they don't have the death penalty, so the
Speaker 3: judge decided that he should be in prison, eligible four
Speaker 3: parole after twenty one years.
Speaker 2: What an awful person.
Speaker 4: Just get a divorce. Just get a divorce. You know
Speaker 4: what's cheaper divorce than living murder?
Speaker 2: A divorce. Yeah.
Speaker 3: The kids, by the way, are living with her younger brother,
Speaker 3: apparently a young couple that had gotten married, so now
Speaker 3: they have kids.
Speaker 4: How old are the kids now?
Speaker 3: They would only be like ten and seven according to
Speaker 3: the mask.
Speaker 1: That's horrific. Well, see, Canadians aren't all good guys. That's
Speaker 1: the moral of the story.
Speaker 2: You've been listening to The Gary and Shannon Show.
Speaker 3: You can always hear us live on KFI AM six
Speaker 3: forty nine am to one pm every Monday through Friday,
Speaker 3: and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio ap