Speaker 1: Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is not.
Speaker 2: Intended for all audiences.
Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 3: He had no regard for him in life.
Speaker 4: If he wanted to watch it being taken from somebody.
He wanted to see what it was like to kill
someone and see the life taken from their eyes.
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to Season twelve, episode two hundred and
eighty of Sword and Scale, a show that reveals that
the worst monsters are real. Well, I'm gonna ask you once,
did you see it? You see the latest episode of
Sword and Scale Television, because I'll tell you what I
got it. Chill, I got it?
Speaker 4: Chill?
Speaker 1: Did you get a chill? If you don't know what
I'm talking about, that's fine because not everybody can be
part of the cool kids club. Not everybody gets to
sit at the cool kids table. You know, some of
you are just out of at dorks that are not
going to subscribe to Sword Scale Television at Swordanscale dot Com.
You ever look at someone and think, damn, they must
have all the luck in the world, of course you do.
You have insta in the age of social media, where
celebrities and super successful people can share their daily lifestyles.
It could seem like some people are just hogging up
all the good luck that exists in the universe. And
maybe it's true, Maybe some people do have all the luck.
Maybe we spend a little too much time and a
little too much energy thinking about and worrying about it
was very fortunate and privileged people. But how much mental energy,
how much thought have you put into those people on
the opposite side of that spectrum? What about the very,
very unlucky. You can tell who they are because they're
usually buying lottery tickets. Anyway, we're about to delve into
the unlucky side of the universe and tell you a
story about a person who seemed to have some serious
bad luck. Follow them everywhere. Roughly seventy five miles south
of Cleveland and near the edge of the Ohio Pennsylvania border,
there's a large apartment complex named Compass West Apartments. This
Austin Town, Ohio complex offers low income housing for those
that may be struggling financially, and unfortunately, just as many
places like it, it's known for being a haven of
illegal drug use. At least that seemed to be the
case in twenty fourteen that year, a middle aged mother
was living at Compass West Apartments with her two teenage daughters.
That mother was forty six year old Jackie Botcher.
Speaker 5: I had made IC a couple of days around. They
were talking it down like crazy, and she is really
light at the way I made it. She said, I
never had IC like this before. There was a lot
of things that child it Now I would make and
she like.
Speaker 6: Really loved and I said, we'll go out, ladies.
Speaker 5: She call me teabacks. I'll make another picture.
Speaker 1: On the evening of June twenty third, twenty fourteen, one
of Jackie's daughters complimented Jackie's homemade iced tea. Jackie offered
to make more, but the family was out of tea bag,
so Jackie suggested that her daughter should go ask the
neighbor if they had any tea bags that they might
be willing to part with.
Speaker 5: And then when she.
Speaker 7: Had come right back up, I really didn't take it
back by us.
Speaker 5: My life thought it was was that because that was
not unusual. But even then I was the longer, And
then I started thinking about it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, she always she would have learned for a walk.
Speaker 5: So it came back up as the long lady said, no, Mom,
lady's home. I'm an overwalk. Would the part who who
was out? She had never did. She was a big
ship like that.
Speaker 7: She was a disobediate child that wouldn't come tell you,
So he didn't worry.
Speaker 1: Jackie's daughter left the apartment in search of tea bags,
and Jackie expected that task would only take a few minutes.
But an hour went by and her daughter didn't return.
Then another hour went by and Jackie's daughter still hadn't
come home. Jackie became concerned, and that concern only grew
when she realized it was pouring rain outside and her
daughter had left the apartment with no shoes.
Speaker 5: She wo never realized she didn't have su walk mhm.
Speaker 7: It took me all that time to realize that she.
Speaker 5: Didn't have it, because the right there store.
Speaker 1: Jackie's daughter was missing, and at around ten pm that night,
she phoned no one one to report the missing teenager.
The prosecutor who was eventually assigned to the case is
an Ohio attorney named Don Kentalamesa.
Speaker 4: My name is John Camplamesa, and in twenty eighteen, as
Chief Trial Council for the Mahoning County Prosecutor's Office in Ohio.
Speaker 1: In prosecuting this case, Don came to learn about all
the people involved, starting first with Jackie's missing teenager. She
was sixteen year old Gina Berger.
Speaker 4: In twenty fourteen, Gina Berger was sixteen years old and
living with her biological mother after having lived in Texas
with her adoptive mother.
Speaker 3: There was something going on in.
Speaker 4: Texas which caused her to go back to living with
her biological mother in Austin Town, and there was a
civil protection order against the person who had committed some
crime against Tina down in Texas, so she was wanting
to get away and live with her biological mother in
Austin Town.
Speaker 1: Gina Berger was born on June tenth, nineteen ninety eight,
to Kevin and Jackie Boucher, and by age sixteen, she
had endured quite a few hardships As a child. Gina
lived in Florida and her parents had some really bad habits.
Kevin and Jackie Boucher were addicted to heroin, and that
addiction resulted in Gina and her three other siblings not
getting the care that they needed.
Speaker 5: When we used to pick those kids up to take
them the churches that they were so dusty.
Speaker 7: You couldn't even claim her feet were so black. I mean,
this is just probably stuff you don't need to hear.
Speaker 1: But before long people began to notice the constant lack
of care that Gina and her siblings were getting, and
eventually the government stepped in.
Speaker 8: The kids were taken away by the courts. Wife were
terminated by people.
Speaker 5: Do you know what. They were living.
Speaker 8: In an hotel, going out scoring drugs and leading the
kids by themselves all the time, and someone eventually turned
in there and they had an opportunity to rehabilitate themselves
through the court system. They never shoot up for hearings
things like that, so their crient rights were forced to
attorney by the courts.
Speaker 1: Gina's parents lost their parental rights, and Gina was eventually
adopted by a young married couple, the Burgers.
Speaker 8: We were looking to half children's time.
Speaker 5: It is that he was going.
Speaker 8: To happen naturally, Russo we got involved, began fostering them.
That was ready before nine to eleven, and then he
thought she was probably final sometime in two thousand and two.
Speaker 1: Interestingly, Gina's adoptive mom knew Gina's biological mom before she
fostered Gina. In other words, this wasn't a closed adoption,
and the line of communication between Gina and her biological
parents was open should anyone choose to use it.
Speaker 4: Gina Berger's adopted mother she was actually Jackie Launcher's sister
in law at some point, but I think that she
had divorced the relation to Jackie at some point, but
she still had adopted Gina.
Speaker 1: A few years after Gina was adopted, the marriage between
her adoptive parents began to fall apart and they decided
to divorce. Gina's adoptive mom later moved to Texas and
she took Gina with her.
Speaker 8: She had her own place, moved the kids out, and
I was trying to think when she knew.
Speaker 5: Probably four she knew.
Speaker 8: She told me she was moving to Carrollton, Texas. I
said had around two thousand and four.
Speaker 1: And I heard before his final By twenty ten, Gina
was living in Texas with her adoptive mom and her
adoptive mom his new husband. Around this time, Gina, who
was now a teenager, began acting up. She was having
difficulty with school and began skipping her classes. This created
some tension between her and her adoptive mom. So Gina
began looking for an escape.
Speaker 8: I know this that and Ten came out and wanted
to stay with me. She said that's wanted to stay
to day on her visit.
Speaker 5: I had tried to do that.
Speaker 8: It was a violation of the cororder. So I sucided
that effort, and that only kind of became a bit
of strange because she was I'm going to stay, and
her mom turned her fane off on her handy things
on her new phone, and after that, you know, some
threats from a lawyer down there that she hired. I
think it was December the same year.
Speaker 5: I just couldn't do it anymore.
Speaker 1: Gina hoped to leaves and move in with her adoptive father,
who was willing to take her in, but her plan
never came to fruition. So Gina continued looking for other
ways to leave Texas.
Speaker 8: And she was raised, and I knew she was cutting result,
I guess at that point because she was raised, and
I was very concerned about taking custody of her at
that point, and I'm actually never really offered it.
Speaker 1: You going to claim that her adoptive mom's new husband
sexually assaulted her, which has never been proven and remains
a point of contention between Gina's adoptive parents and they.
Speaker 8: Sat he the er and had it is in some
sort of antal intrusion and its further corrob raced the
story about.
Speaker 5: Nis and the rape and death.
Speaker 6: Has been arrested and.
Speaker 8: Charged for that crime and bailed out, but I never
heard from them again.
Speaker 1: At this point, the communication between Gina and her adoptive
dad began to die off, and Gina began reaching out
to her biological mother, Jackie Boucher. It was twenty thirteen
and Jackie was now a widow, as Gina's biological father
had died from a drug overdose in two thousand and seven.
When Gina and Jackie spoke, the alleged sexual assault came up.
So Jackie told Gina to visit her in Austin Town, Ohio,
and then.
Speaker 8: Because of the assault, she wanted to come up here.
Speaker 5: Now when did she come up here again?
Speaker 1: Christ Is say After years of being passed around from
parent to parent, Gina ended up in Austin Town, Ohio
with her biological mother, Jackie Boucher. During the months that
Gina stayed with Jackie, it was a lot of friction
between the families, a lot of uncertainty as to where
Gina would ultimately end up.
Speaker 9: I've been trying to get a hold of her, and
they wouldn't let me talk to her, they said.
Speaker 5: Dude to the investigation. I was not allowed to talk
to her. And she actually let me talk to her, like.
Speaker 10: Three weeks ago, four weeks ago, and you could tell
somebody stand right there beside if she would not.
Speaker 5: Conversation was really really short, and I said, are you
happy over there? And she just said real quietly, yeah,
it was yes and no answers.
Speaker 9: I said to her, I'm concerned for your well being
over there.
Speaker 5: If she needed to tell me anything, please do concern
for your well being. When she first went up to younger.
Speaker 6: Son, there's a thing on Facebook, I wrote.
Speaker 5: You or in danger. You were taken away from your
real mother for a reason.
Speaker 1: Needless to say, the adoptive side of Gina's family was concerned,
and they doubted that live being in a low income,
bad reputation apartment complex with Jackie Boucher was Gina's best option.
But you know, what are you gonna do? Gina claimed
she was happy there and now she didn't want to
return to Texas. Eventually, Gina also reconnected with her adoptive father,
who was living only a few towns away from Austin Town.
Speaker 5: Went over there to how well where they were living there?
Speaker 8: Yeah, I've seen what the same A partner?
Speaker 5: Nay, we're lucky, hey or not? Was the last time
he had a name. We were there, but she'd happy.
Speaker 8: Seen the Shenacs scream.
Speaker 5: Give me a.
Speaker 8: Sorry, sorry any one Citians and their state house.
Speaker 1: Gina's adoptive dad claimed that the last last time he
saw Gina was when he visited her at Jackie's apartment,
and the reason that he was questioned by police was
because Gina was missing. On the evening of June twenty third,
twenty fourteen, Gina left her mom's apartment in hopes of
getting some tea bags from a neighbor, but Gina never
came back.
Speaker 4: Jackie realized her daughter was missing pretty soon on when
she was late to come home that night by two hours.
She started calling the police and.
Speaker 3: I need the auction com police department.
Speaker 4: What's the problem my.
Speaker 3: Sixteen year old daughter.
Speaker 4: She went down to my neighbor.
Speaker 3: After teabags.
Speaker 6: I went down there.
Speaker 8: The neighbor wasn't home.
Speaker 7: They made the answer the doors.
Speaker 5: There was nobody there.
Speaker 7: So from a stay when she went, there was nobody there.
And she's been gone for several.
Speaker 3: Hours or riding around looking for her, and I can't
find her. She's gone. Daughter's name Gina Berger. He said,
how old did she sixty? She's not like her. She
would have come back up and told me she went
for a long I don't know what's going on. I
can't find her.
Speaker 1: When Jackie made this nine one one call, Gina had
only been missing for two hours. Tragically, two whole days
would go by before Gina would be located, and when
she was found, it was not in a good place.
Sixteen year old Gina Berger was found fifteen miles away
from her mother's apartment in another state. Her lifeless body
was discovered among trash in a landfill on the evening
of June twenty third, twenty fourteen. Sixteen year old Gina
Burger went missing after leaving her mom's apartment in Austin Town, Ohio.
Two days later, Gina's dead body was found fifty miles
away from home at a waste management dump in Pine Township, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 11: The mother of a young woman whose body was found
in a western Pennsylvania landfill is speaking out tonight, desperate
for answers about her daughter's death.
Speaker 7: How many days did she lay in a landfill with garbage?
Speaker 2: She says.
Speaker 11: Gina left their apartment to borrow tea bags from a
neighbor and never came home. Burger's body was found at
Tri County Industries Wednesday. Investigators used markings on the body
to identify her Friday.
Speaker 2: She wasn't the piece of trust. Just to disregard, Jacqueline says.
Speaker 11: She just wants Gina's killer found.
Speaker 2: There are consequences for this. You'll just disregard somebody's life.
Speaker 4: And throw them in a trash bin and that's it.
Speaker 1: After Gina's body was found, one of the first things
that investigators set out to do was to figure out
how Gina ended up at a garbage dump site that
was considerably far from her home.
Speaker 4: A couple of days later, Gina's body was found at
a dumb site across the state line in Pennsylvania and
not too far from Austintown. But we learned when they
found the body hit the driver's route had included that complex.
That apartment complex from Austin Town.
Speaker 1: Investigators concluded that Gina was likely murdered at the Compass
West apartment complex where she lived, and that her body
must have been placed into a dumpster at that location
and before garbage truck unknowingly carried her to a landfill
in Pennsylvania. Investigators eventually spoke with Gina's mother, Jackie Botcher,
and explained all this to her.
Speaker 5: Why am I here to hear me? Guys?
Speaker 10: We wanted to talk to you about everything that is
going on and get up to speaking new information, maybe
new questions.
Speaker 5: You want to ask what I don't know? She died,
okay when new station said it was a stablom when
new station said was multiple.
Speaker 1: When she was interviewed, Jackie asked how her daughter was killed.
A corner later determined the answer to this question.
Speaker 4: So the autopsy was done on Gina's body a few
days later in the Erie County Corner's office, and she
died from a stablom to her chest cavity. So they
had some superficial marks on her face where maybe some
of the trash had, you know, kind of injured her
face and other parts of her body, but they could
tell that was post mortemar after death that her official
cause of death was from.
Speaker 3: A stabbling to the chest.
Speaker 1: Investigators determined that Gina Berger had been stabbed to death
and her killer or someone else through her body in
a dumpster at the Compass West apartment complex. The next
obvious question was who did this.
Speaker 10: Kansas department complex?
Speaker 2: No one really saw anything.
Speaker 5: Have you over there?
Speaker 10: I can carry that death in the bag and we yeah,
Kaan was the part of the complex. So right now
we're just trying to get background or she'd been. Who
she's with, Uh, trying any friends if we can of hers,
But since she recently moved in the area, she didn't
seem to have too many friends that she.
Speaker 1: Got on the school and Gina moved into her mom's
apartment about six months before she was killed, and she
had not yet been enrolled in school. Gina didn't have
many local friends, or really any friends at all. Everyone
in the area who knew her was only an acquaintance. Also,
Gina didn't have any money or valuables on her when
she was killed, and the autopsy came back negative for
signs of sexual assault. In other words, it was a
struggle for investigators to determine a motive in this case,
Why would someone stab a sixteen year old girl to
death for no reason?
Speaker 10: Kell's West is a big part of complex she had.
Speaker 6: Did she associate with anyone?
Speaker 5: She even absolutely that he knew of you. Yes, the
day before I was talking to one neighbor. I wasnaking
for a ride.
Speaker 7: And she said, she's on the step and every time
she would see her, or what her head phone as
she always would say, or she said she was such
a slight girl.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, Gina's mom couldn't provide much in the way of information,
so investigators turned their attention to other tenants at Compass
West apartments, and they started with the neighbor that Gina
was supposedly going to go pay a visit to to
ask for tea bags. That neighbor was a young mother
named Rhonesia Johnson.
Speaker 4: Rhonesia Johnson was a neighbor of Gina and her family,
and she knew her from the being around the apartment complex.
She would go over to her house. Ronisha Johnson had
a young child, and so Gina would go over and
visit Ronesia and play with the baby. When they first
attempted to go to Ronesha's apartment to find out what
happened at her apartment where Gena ever showed us to
her apartment when Jackie reported her, they didn't find her there.
Speaker 1: When the police attempted to interview Rnesha, they ran into
a little problem if she never seemed to be home
and nobody knew where to find her, Runesha and her
baby seemed to be missing. After several attempts to make contact,
the police eventually decided to force their way into Ronesha's apartment.
Speaker 4: I believe it's a couple of days later. They get
into Roniesha Johnson's apartment and they start looking around and
they need one of those lights that you can see blood,
and they find an area on the carpet and on
the floor that looks like it's been clean, that has
evidence of.
Speaker 3: Blood on it.
Speaker 1: Investigators found that a large amount of blood may have
recently been cleaned up from Ronesha's living room, and they
quickly determined that Gina's murder likely occurred inside of Ronesha's apartment.
Of course, an important question remained, you may be asking
yourself that question right now, where the hell is Ronesha
and her baby. Eventually, and pretty much out of the blue,
Rnesha made contact with the police.
Speaker 4: There's a point in the investigation where they Austin Town
Township police departments finally talked to Ronesha Johnson, who lived
in the apartment where Gina was last suspected to go,
and after speaking with her, the suspect became a Ricky Williams.
Speaker 1: Before when Ronesha finally spoke with investigators, she told them
a harrowing story. She named Gina Berger's killer Rnsia claimed
that she witnessed Gina being stabbed to death by a
nineteen year old man named Ricky Williams.
Speaker 4: Ricky Williams had been in and out of the justice system.
He has a long juvenile record. Some of his siblings,
which are all named Ricky Williams as.
Speaker 3: Well, also have records both adult and juvenile records.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure about what his family life was, but
the police were very familiar.
Speaker 3: With Ricky Williams at the time for having so many
different police contacts with him.
Speaker 1: There doesn't seem to be much information available about the
upbringing that Ricky Williams had, but given the fact that
his siblings were also named Ricky Williams, as if their
mother couldn't be bothered to come up with a different name.
All of these Ricky's had criminal records. It's probably safe
to assume that this particular Ricky Williams didn't get the
very best guidance when he was growing up. Nonetheless, the
local police knew who Ricky was, and so did the
tenants and management staff at Compass West Apartments. You see,
Ricky didn't live at the complex, but he was there
quite often and known for causing a lot of trouble.
In fact, Ricky was eventually barred from being on the property.
Speaker 4: But it is known that he had been dating another person,
another woman inside Compass West Apartments, but they had been
on the out and she had actually got evicted because
of what happened between her and Ricky Williams at the time,
so he was trespassed from the apartment complex and he
wasn't supposed.
Speaker 3: To be on the ground.
Speaker 1: As for Gina Berger and her mom, they also knew
Ricky Williams. They frequently saw him around their apartment complex
and assumed he lived there. They thought of him as
a neighbor, although he technically wasn't. Ricky had even been
invited inside Jackie and Gina's apartment on at least one occasion,
how do.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: Orha does she know? Ricky? She now him from him?
Hang now on the back set. He was locked out.
Speaker 6: Of his apartment, I affirmed, see the one he was
down there as the vacant when out He said he
lived there with his sister and then she was.
Speaker 7: At work and he walked out and locked himself out,
and she asked if he could sit in the apartment
because she got help. And they sat at the table
and playing cards.
Speaker 5: Family were all sitting in the living room. I mean
there were no harm I.
Speaker 7: Thought her sitting there playing cards, laughing jokay played cards,
and that his sister.
Speaker 5: Came home and.
Speaker 3: Where was that?
Speaker 1: After Rhonesia named Ricky as Gina's killer, Ricky was quickly
picked up by police. When questioned, Ricky freely admitted that
he was currently dealing with several other criminal charges. What
a surprise must be that systemic racism or something.
Speaker 6: I don't know.
Speaker 5: That I had you beat.
Speaker 1: When police began questioning Ricky, the pending criminal charges he
was facing were pretty much the only admission they could
get out of him. When the topic of Gina Burger
came up, Ricky claimed that he had nothing to do
with her murder.
Speaker 5: I was how.
Speaker 9: Go on what happened on twenty third in Compass West
and apartment out of ninety said, I went to Compass
West to get.
Speaker 6: My clothes and I'm not an out out there held
up start time Rushie though, I'm tyger Rushy and go
and I know out out there?
Speaker 9: After he said, I was kicking out.
Speaker 5: I've been here one time? Did he all my dead
and outdated?
Speaker 1: Again? Ricky had been trespassing yet Compass West apartments, but
as coincidence would have it, Ricky was on the property
on the day that Gina was reported missing. Ricky claimed
that the only reason he was there was to pick
up the remainder of the belongings that he left behind.
Ricky admitted that he knew Gina and her mom, and,
perhaps in an attempt to direct the police elsewhere, Ricky
claimed that he had introduced Gina to some random guy
that Gina began dating.
Speaker 10: Did you ever see a new friends and that after
that day and real close a wood girl.
Speaker 6: That's how I thought of the work.
Speaker 5: That's only think I know where a no, I don't
know person.
Speaker 6: But I introduced her there.
Speaker 1: Ricky couldn't recall the name of Gina's supposed boyfriend, you know,
the one he just made up, which seemed a bit
odd given the fact that Ricky supposedly introduced Gina to him.
I mean, he's supposed to know him, right right. Nonetheless,
the main takeaway was that Ricky denied any involvement with
Gina's murder. He played stupid, which is, you know, not
hard of an acting feat. But slowly and surely, detectives
did what detectives do. They began poking holes in the
claims that Ricky was making, and boy were they big ones.
Speaker 5: He acted me.
Speaker 9: He questions on like, I don't know why that I
know him all to him in law, but I don't
know her Pissippi, he told me, said that he asked
about his goods.
Speaker 5: Well that I him when I know that.
Speaker 6: I told him everything I know, and I have to say.
Speaker 5: The same thing I told them all. Tell me.
Speaker 6: He asked me whether that times.
Speaker 5: Are quote was the answer?
Speaker 6: Oh well I am, I said, twenty.
Speaker 9: Six, turns up twenty eight one of summer around that,
so you kind of cheet around twenty twenty six or
twenty seven.
Speaker 5: Because you did.
Speaker 6: I gotta say, I don't know lego bitch, and I
can't tell.
Speaker 5: You all what I know.
Speaker 1: Here's a small tip for anyone who might be interested.
If you ever find yourself being questioned by a homicide
detective about a murder that they clearly suspect you committed,
probably not a great look, you know, to call the
murder victim a quote little bitch. It's just you know,
it's tacked, you know. Ricky Williams was questioned by police
for several hours, and throughout that time he made a
lot of really really dumb state for detectives, though perhaps
the most important thing Ricky gave them was a confession.
After hours of breaking down his denials, his lies, his bullshit,
detectives finally got Ricky to admit that he had plunged
a knife into Gina's chest and killed her. In June
of twenty fourteen, the dead body of sixteen year old
Gina Burger was found amongst the trash at a waste
management station in Pine Township, Pennsylvania. An exhaustive investigation led
police to conclude that Gina had been murdered inside her
neighbor's apartment in Austin Town, Ohio. Gina's killer had thrown
Gina's body into a dumpster, and Garbageman unknowingly transported Gina
fifty miles away from home to the dump site. As
for suspects, the police narrowed their list of potential killers
to just one person, nineteen year old Ricky Williams. According
to Gina's neighbor Rhnesha Johnson, she had witnessed Ricky stabbed
Gina in the chest inside her apartment, Yet when Ricky
was questioned, he denied this accusation. In fact, Ricky denied
that he was ever inside Ronesia's apartment at all.
Speaker 6: I had had that what happened when you were in
the apartment with her?
Speaker 5: Or never apartment? This talking about? Okay, I was in
a partner.
Speaker 6: Everything you say some com later gonna come out.
Speaker 2: You know, this is what he pulled me.
Speaker 5: It's already been proven. What happened?
Speaker 4: You have you want to share?
Speaker 5: What kind of happened? You said? We have ship? You
are a sham. Okay.
Speaker 6: The that thing you need to do right now is
just help yourself. I just do this ship promise you
want our soul?
Speaker 8: Hop up your poms.
Speaker 9: I'm trying to get me a bout this exerance to
the truth.
Speaker 6: And I told you the TECHNI dagged.
Speaker 5: On the fall.
Speaker 6: Everything got built every day we had we had a.
Speaker 2: Poor villain ereything continue on.
Speaker 5: I don't buy it for a little bit.
Speaker 6: Okay, you want, you want to be truthful.
Speaker 5: And talk, We'll talk about what happened. The truth not
so whole ship made us up another truth.
Speaker 1: After several hours of interrogation, Ricky finally admitted that he
was inside Rhonesia Johnson's apartment on the day of the murder,
and that he spent the night there.
Speaker 5: This is techn I know that he's uh, but I think.
Speaker 1: Ronesia told police that Ricky Williams had brought Gina into
Ronese's apartment and held both her and Gina hostage. Ricky
threatened them with a knife, and Gina pleaded with Ricky,
begging him to let her go home. Tragically, Ricky did
not let that happen. Instead, he stabbed Gina in the
chest and she died in Ronesha's apartment. Then Ricky forced
Ronesia to help him clean up the murder scene. It
took days for police to get this information because after
the murder, Ronesha fled and feared that Ricky Williams was
going to murder her and her child if she said
anything and.
Speaker 4: Told the police that she took her son and when
she got away from Ricky and went to either her
mom's house or some relative house to kind of hide
out because she was afraid that Ricky Williams.
Speaker 3: Was going to come back to her apartment.
Speaker 1: During his interrogation, Ricky eventually corroborated portions of the story
that Rhonesia told the police. He admitted that he was
inside the apartment with Rhonesia and that he had forced
Gina into the apartment with him.
Speaker 5: Where did you meet her at.
Speaker 6: In all of What on the third floor, on the
first floor or what?
Speaker 5: Yes, you met her on all day in the first floor.
Speaker 6: You just had a walk in the same.
Speaker 5: The same looking a walk in. She was down here,
she'd come up, So you met her on the first
morn he meught her up to the department.
Speaker 1: As for what happened when they were in the apartment,
Ricky put his own spin on things. He claimed that
Rhneshia committed the and that he was just an unwilling
participant in Runesha's insane plot to murder Gina for absolutely
no reason.
Speaker 6: They should praise Bichous you know all crazy john omar, my,
I'm over she's me.
Speaker 3: She might sit.
Speaker 5: That night, don't. I don't kill her. She's pretty, Road,
She's pretty.
Speaker 6: She's pretty Rod. That's that's the way she had. That's
the way she's need to fuck now Ida.
Speaker 5: I helped her.
Speaker 4: And Ricky Williams told the police that it was actually
Ronesia Johnson who killed Gina, and he simply held Runesha's
hands around the knight whole Rhnesia stabbed Gina.
Speaker 6: Did you really want to do this?
Speaker 7: Ship?
Speaker 5: She is this and that and that, so remember for it?
So she she pushed it for. I didn't have a
nice man.
Speaker 6: I didn't have no person in that, but.
Speaker 5: I participated. I hold her head.
Speaker 6: She's pushing bad.
Speaker 1: Ricky also claimed that the murder of Gina Burger was
something that Rhneshia had been planning to do for some time,
so Ricky couldn't specify why Rhnesha wanted to commit this
crime beyond the suggestion that Runesha simply didn't like Gina.
Speaker 4: He made a statement that says Rnesha essentially had it
out for Gina and that he was simply helping Rnesha
complete the job.
Speaker 3: He wouldn't really take any of the blame himself. He
wanted to.
Speaker 4: It just seemed like rhnesia was had planned this and
laid out this plan and and rope in him into
helping her.
Speaker 6: And why did she wanted to stroll man? Well, personally
they had mobi g about what.
Speaker 5: Is she or would she be with all him? You know?
Speaker 6: And she didn't watch she want stop stop, She.
Speaker 1: Did not nutted naturally. The police didn't believe Ricky's version
of events because it didn't make any sense whatsoever. But
for the remainder of his interrogation, Ricky maintained that Rhodesia
was the killers advantage.
Speaker 5: It was part of that was part of the play.
Speaker 6: But that was part of that, part of just saying
you wanted to do this.
Speaker 5: She wanted to do this for a long time.
Speaker 6: She wanted to do that, well a long time back.
Speaker 5: If you want, I don't know, but I told you
I wanted to do ship you do.
Speaker 6: She did on her own other buck.
Speaker 1: Much like the police, the prosecutor who oversaw this case
didn't believe Ricky's story, and they had plenty of reasons
to doubt what he claimed happened.
Speaker 4: We talked to Ronesha and Ronesha's version of the events
and Ricky's history led us to believe Rahnesha and that
he was very violent and manipulative, and that she was
afraid not only for herself but for her child who
was in the apartment, and the way the physical evidence
was laid out where they had been sitting prior to
this happening, the photos Ricky was taking, I believe they
were on Romisha's phone of her and Gina sitting there
against the wall of the couch crying. It looked and
followed Romish's version of events that they were both being
held against their will by Ricky in that apartment and
that they were.
Speaker 3: Both afraid during this time. So all of the physical
evidence and that those photographs corroborated Ronesia's version.
Speaker 1: Based on Rhonesia's statements and the physical evidence, which included
photographs that Ricky himself had taken while the crime was
being committed, the police and prosecutors had a pretty good
understanding of exactly what happened to Gina Berger and who
was responsible for her death.
Speaker 4: Ricky Williams followed Gina into Rhnesia Johnson's apartment and it
started this long drawn out process of Ricky kind of
tormenting both Ronesia and Gina and eventually leading to the
stabbing death that Gina Berger. That day, he was saying
things to them and talking about hurting them and threatening
to hurt Rhonesia, threatening to kill Gina Berger's mother if
he didn't if they didn't do what he wanted. He
used a knife and stabbed Gina. Berger then engaged Rhnesha
Johnson to help him wrap up the body, put it
in this pack and pray and had Rohmeesha Johnson help
him carry it out to the dumpster and put it.
Speaker 7: In the dumpster.
Speaker 1: After Gina was dead, her body was placed into a
large baby crate and carried outside to a nearby dumpster.
At this point, Gina's mom, Jackie Potcher, had already called
nine one one and was sitting in a car outside
her apartment in hopes of finding Gina. Instead, she found
Ricky Williams.
Speaker 5: On Monday night.
Speaker 6: When you were waiting for the police to come to
follow that initial report, and you saw Ricky, you said,
you're sitting in your aunt's cart.
Speaker 5: Did she see Ricky? Yes, So he walked up.
Speaker 6: Through her car.
Speaker 5: Yes, he was coming out of the building. Out of
that fact words. We've seen him coming out and he
could tell somebody was struggling with domb and and that
thing was kind of bad. They can't whatever it was
and a way he would call it. And did he
come out to the car the part way over like
we had the cart was home made or he put
it down and he had put it down on the sidewalk.
We look like Ricky had. I didn't pay attention to
what he actually had. He said it was a baby,
a baby statement, that's what he called it.
Speaker 7: But then the next morning I seen a baby thing
upside down to the dumpster.
Speaker 5: I never really thought anything about that, and the dumpster
was totally full.
Speaker 4: Jackie Walcher actually described to the police that she had
seen Ricky Williams when she had made the missing person report.
She had seen Ricky Williams putting something in the dumpster
during the time frame, and he actually came up to
her car with her sister in it and said, do
you want to buy a plate, a pack and play
or a playpen for any of your kids? Because I
have one more time to get rid of And Jackie
said she had.
Speaker 3: Told him no.
Speaker 1: After Ricky brazenly and heartlessly offered to sell Jackie the
baby crate that contained Jackie's missing and murdered daughter. He
threw the baby crate and Gina into a dumpster, then
he headed back to Ronesia's apartment.
Speaker 4: He then made Rhonesia go back into the apartment and
clean the blood up while he watched and essentially cleaned
up every portion of the apartment that he could think
of that they either touched or had Tina touched, and
got rid of any evidence that Gina was there at all.
Speaker 1: By now, you're probably thinking that Ricky Williams is a
complete psychopath. And if you do think that, you're right.
The murder of Gina Berger wasn't a crime of passion.
There was no passion whatsoever. There was no anger, there
was no greed, there was no emotion associated with her
death whatsoever. This was a completely senseless thrill killing.
Speaker 4: I think Ricky committed this crime just because he wanted to.
He wanted to see what it was like to kill
someone and see the life taken from there, you know,
just taken from their eyes.
Speaker 3: I think he was he's just kind of.
Speaker 4: I don't want to be mental, but I think he
just he has no regard for him in life, and
he wanted to watch it being taken from somebody.
Speaker 1: Ricky Williams is a heartless monster, a true sociopath. He
just wanted to kill someone. In fact, one day before
he stabbed Gina, Ricky assaulted two other women and likely
would have killed them as well had they not been
able to escape his attack.
Speaker 5: When I opened the door, when I went over there,
it was like chairs and stuff on the floor, and
Ricky was walking. There was a tussle and okay, and
at that point it was on the like on the ground.
I guess he had gotten done beaten her beating owner.
And he comes out of nowhere and then starts choking me.
So there from there on he finds me on my
face about five times. Because at that point I couldn't
even you know what I'm saying. I was just pretty
much like shot because I come to believe that he
was kidding.
Speaker 10: Okay, the first that would fight I've ever been in
so Jojia, and Sir punished me about they had his
body my final six times.
Speaker 5: Okay, then he pulled a knife out on this. When
you end up getting.
Speaker 12: Out of here, yeah, I end up getting out to
go get help.
Speaker 5: How did you get away from him? Like brave free
and run out? Yeah, help pretty much going out because
it seemed like he was like trying to chase after
from me.
Speaker 1: After that, this assault victim was able to flee, and
after she did, Ricky turned his attention and as violent
intentions towards another woman.
Speaker 5: And I grabbed my.
Speaker 6: Phone because I was ready to call my daughter's dad
and the cops, like my friends. Mind said I'm trying
to call somebody.
Speaker 4: So he was like, he was like, oh, we're calling
the cost bitch.
Speaker 5: I'll kill you.
Speaker 6: So then after I was like no, and I just
just jumped down the whole bunch of steps.
Speaker 7: I didn't missed all the steps because at that point
he coming at me with a knife.
Speaker 6: But I just jumped down on the steps.
Speaker 12: And then we ended up.
Speaker 5: Going to i knowe, to my apartment because my daughter's dad.
He was there with my daughter, and I told him
him like this boy, just try to dad, and and
he like, ooh, like who's going around.
Speaker 8: I'm like, listen, I didn't even know who's going over there.
Speaker 5: This boy he's trying to stab He's like woodie, I'm
like Ricky.
Speaker 1: William notably when Ricky attacked these women. It wasn't out
of anger. Ricky was calm and calculating. Again, he just
wanted to kill someone for the hell of it. That's
the kind of criminal we're dealing with in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 12: And when he started coming at us with the knights,
he started laughing like he wasn't even like it wasn't
even like he was mad.
Speaker 5: He was laughing by her. How did you want something too?
And I'm like, crazy, wait, movie, we're here, That's why
I'm like you.
Speaker 12: But I was smiling, So I gave her because at
that point I'm thinking he really am trying.
Speaker 1: To stab but either we.
Speaker 5: Got a chance that jump in him, maybe he'd come
at us with a knife or run. My herdsmim was
to run.
Speaker 1: Thankfully, these women were able to flee and they survived
their encounter with Ricky. Unfortunately, though, they didn't go to
police and tell their story until after Gina Burger was dead.
Speaker 6: I kept saying it.
Speaker 12: I kept telling them it would be all called because
if he is not out, he's.
Speaker 5: Not allowed he or he'll get.
Speaker 6: Charged with dress back and he'll get.
Speaker 5: Charged with assaulting her trying to stab us.
Speaker 12: He'll get into trouble. I kept telling everybody, I kept
saying it. Sheara wonders, She'll oh, I don't want to
call the cop, and I'm like, okay, we'll.
Speaker 1: Just tell her to call on cops.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 5: Hause he had her car, so she's at work, so
he's not gonna.
Speaker 7: He's not there to tell her, know that that, you know,
to stop her from calling him.
Speaker 1: Hop out of fear that Ricky would seek violent revenge
on them, these women decided not to report Ricky to
the police. Less than twenty four hours later, Gina Berger
was dead. Ricky stabbed Gina to death and threw her
body into a dumpster. After the police pieced this all together,
Ricky was charged with murder and arrested, but this case
was not scheduled for trial for nearly four years.
Speaker 4: It takes four years for this to get to the
trial stage because it's a capital case or a death
penalty case, because he's been appointed two lawyers who then
file all these motions to essentially start doing their investigation
of Ricky Williams.
Speaker 3: So a lot of time has spent on death penalty
cases doing what's called.
Speaker 4: Mitigation because they're trying to come up with reasons to
tell the jury why the death penalty should not be imposed.
Speaker 3: So they do psychological tests on the defendant.
Speaker 4: They look into any prior psychological tests that he's already had,
maybe in juvenile court, any counseling he's ever done.
Speaker 3: They look into his.
Speaker 4: Schooling records or prison They want to see what he's
done in those places. So they want to see those records,
and they're trying to present put together their best case
to present to a jury why the death penalty should
not be imposed.
Speaker 1: The state sought the death penalty, and throughout the many
court hearings that were held for this case, Ricky Williams
maintained a heartless and just all around disgusting demeanor.
Speaker 3: During the pre draw hearings. Whenever we would have a
hearing emotion.
Speaker 4: To suppress, whether we would have witnesses, we would present evidence,
Ricky would be smiling and staring at the victim's family,
kind of smirking during the evidence, like he enjoyed listening
to all the evidence.
Speaker 1: Eventually, in twenty eighteen, Ricky and his defense team accepted
a plea from prosecutors. Ricky pled guilty to killing Gina Berger,
and in exchange the death penalty was taken off the table.
Speaker 4: Yeah, despite all of that behavior by our defendant, the
family was still okay with accepting a plea. I think
everyone got the feeling that because he seemed to be
enjoying listening to all the evidence, that if we didn't
let him listen again during the trial, it was going
to be more punishment for him. So if we got
him to admit and take a life with our pole
and not be able to have to sit through him
smirking during all the trial, that you know, that would
benefit the victims.
Speaker 3: More than having to watch him.
Speaker 1: In twenty eighteen, Ricky Williams was scheduled to be sentenced
for the killing of Gina Berger. Tragically, Gina's mom, Jackie Boucher,
was not able to attend the sentencing. Just four months
after Gina was killed, Jackie also died. While the cause
of death was never officially confirmed. Jackie liked began using
heroin again after Gina died and overdosed. Still, many of
Gina's other family members did attend the sentencing for Ricky Williams,
including Gina's adoptive mom.
Speaker 4: You do not win.
Speaker 12: We accepted you a pathetic plead because we wanted you
to live in hell for the rest of your life.
We love the fact that you'll never see the outside
world again. You will never be able to hurt another
person again. Ever, I don't want to hear your lawyers
stand up and speak to this jury or the judge
about how hard you had it as a child.
Speaker 8: You look at these people sitting.
Speaker 12: On January's side of the poor room, and you'll find
people who were in much dier situations than you. Cancer, teenage, pregnancy,
death and the father, divorced, single parents, foster homes, drug addition, suicide.
Speaker 5: You name it.
Speaker 12: These people with sacrifice. So don't give us your sad,
pathetic story, because we've seen done at all more than
you could ever imagine. We don't care what you did
is an excuse them. No matter what type of life
you you've lived, no one else's term has ever come
in a murder except for you, a goof mother of
a murdered child, and you had no right to take
away from me, her father, and our family. You are
evil masquerrated as a human being. Words cannot express the
pain and anguish our family and friends of Endurance's for murder.
Your decision to take the life of my daughter, with
no regard for the effect it may have on others
as unimaginable. I think of my daughter Jena every single day.
I wonder how many people actually think of you every day,
and as the years go by, I hope they forget
about your pisthetic life.
Speaker 1: After Gina's surviving family members gave their impact statements, it
was time for Ricky to make a statement as well,
and for a judge to impose a sentence.
Speaker 2: When it was his turn to speak, Williams told the
judge he only agreed to the plea bargain to avoid
risking the possible death sentence if he'd gone to trial.
Speaker 1: I didn't feel that errors.
Speaker 5: I want to put that in a record.
Speaker 2: I didn't do it. No, I'm sticking with it. But
the judge said the evidence proves Williams committed the crimes,
sentencing him to sixty two years to life in prison.
Speaker 1: Thankfully, and to the benefit of society, Ricky Williams will
never see the outside of a prison facility. Admittedly, there
really isn't much to learn from this case. I know,
we do this little thing where we sum it up
with a little bow and send you on your way
with a little bit of a positive spin in terms
of at least we can learn something from this story.
But we can't really learn anything from this story, a
story with a murder, which has a motive that is
so absurd, so unnecessary. I'm left with no words after
eleven years of doing this. Gina was just a young
girl who wanted some iced tea. She went looking for
tea bags. She went to go ask a neighbor, someone
she knew, someone she saw every day, and she had
the horrible misfortune of crossing paths with a monster, a
monster that killed her just for the sake of doing it.
Gina's short life was riddled with misfortune. Gina's biological parents
were heroin addicts, and as a result, she was placed
into foster care. After being adopted, her new parents got divorced,
and then Gina was allegedly raped by her adoptive mom's
new husband. At least that's what she claimed. If that
allegation is true, obviously it's horrible. But if it isn't,
for Gina to make such a serious accusation, she must
have been dealing with some overwhelming issues or a teenager. Then,
on a rainy night in June of twenty fourteen, Gina
was abducted from her apartment complex. She was terrorized, threatened
at knife point, and stabbed at death. Then Gina was
just thrown away like garbage. But Gina wasn't garbage. She
was a young girl who wanted to overcome and rise
above all of the bullshit, all the past hardships, all
the disappointments in life, so many in just sixteen years
on this planet. Sadly she never got the chance. Maybe
it is true, maybe some people have all the luck.
So as you look around the room see the faces
of your family, your kids, your parents, As you look
at their faces and their smiles and feel their love
coming back to you, take a moment to realize that
you are one of those lucky ones. Although it's true
that sometimes it feels like some people have all the luck,
it certainly seems like some people have none of it.
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until next time, trying not to get killed, stay safe,