Speaker 1: Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is
not intended for all audiences.
Speaker 2: Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 3: A man man should never be count when it comes
to a Female's never.
Speaker 2: Been a man.
Speaker 1: Come take a load off, put your feet up, and
listen to some murder. What a stupid thing to say.
This is season thirteen, episode three, and thirty eight of
Sword and Scales show that reveals it the worst monsters
are real. If you're a fan of true crime, I
invite you to check out our brand new YouTube channel
where you could subscribe and the opposite way you can
on our website. See on our website you can subscribe
for ten bucks for audio and then add video for
another ten bucks. On top of that. On YouTube you
can start with video and add audio, so you know,
take your pick. This is just going to complicate things,
isn't it. Oh well, fuck my life. It's just after
midnight in twenty nineteen, during the summer solstice, the longest
day of the year. This isn't some mumbo jumbo New
age crap. It's when the sun is furthest from the equator,
and it's a time when some say the veil between
this dimension and the others is the thinnest. Okay, so
maybe there is a little quote unquote New age wisdom.
The most important point, though, is that it's Ohio, the
state that's becoming quite popular around here for some reason.
So it's June twenty first in East Cleveland. Believe it
or not, there are posh areas in Cleveland so that
some of you savages can pretend to be people. This
isn't one of them. It's not a picturesque skyline by
the lake or the downtown area lit up with nightlife.
It's colin Wood, a working class neighborhood that feels like
it's part of a bygone era, part of the Rust Belt.
The houses are small and modest, but nice enough, and
the lawns are mote. There's just enough space in the
backyard for a barbecue. Ah Americana, a small white Cape
cod style home bases a narrow street called Chickasaw Avenue.
It's a mild but humid evening. No wind is blowing,
and it's dark. Windows stay open in most homes and
the people inside are asleep, the fans humming in the background.
But on this street, as June twenty first turns to
the twenty second. Something bad is happening than I.
Speaker 4: Want one to special shoopini police fire ems.
Speaker 5: Oh we just got stabbed more chickensaw as.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, I said, we just got sad?
Speaker 6: Who just got that?
Speaker 1: The call almost sounded like a hoax. The child calling
in was so calm and said she lived on chicken
and Saw Avenue. But this was no joke.
Speaker 6: What's your address? Where you are?
Speaker 7: What? What's the address?
Speaker 6: The complete address?
Speaker 5: You don't know you're on? What street?
Speaker 4: Chickens about?
Speaker 6: Are you a yuquid?
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 5: Cleveland, Ohio.
Speaker 1: You may not have caught it, but the little girl
said she was about to pass out. She was trying
her hardest to stay alert and get the street names right.
In this part of Cleveland, the streets seem to have
Native American names.
Speaker 6: And you're on Chickasaw Yeah. Do you know another street nearby?
Speaker 9: Oh?
Speaker 5: No, I'm living Site one Trocky, You're own turkey?
Speaker 6: What trophy?
Speaker 1: What she was trying to say was Cherokee. No to parents,
make sure that your kids know where they live and
how to pronounce the street names. That's a small safety
tip that rivals all of the can goods and toilet
paper you hoard in your Cape cod summer home. Yeah,
I know my audience.
Speaker 6: Okay, who got stabbed? Honey?
Speaker 5: Like by who don't be here?
Speaker 6: Okay, I'm gonna get you over to EMS. Okay, yeah,
don't hang up. How old are you?
Speaker 4: Okay, don't hang up?
Speaker 5: Okay, Okay.
Speaker 1: The dispatch operator told the EMS responder she had a
ten year old who had a knife for me. It
was hard to tell if his response was disbelief or
mere frustration. I mean, this is Cleveland. Sadly, it's probably
not the first time a kid called in about being stabbed.
This place truly is a shithole.
Speaker 6: Okay are you still.
Speaker 10: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I'm not to back out.
Speaker 6: Okay, Okay, she doesn't.
Speaker 4: She says she's on a.
Speaker 11: Street claws.
Speaker 4: The corner whip.
Speaker 12: She is not.
Speaker 7: She just says she's on a street cause sugar, she
met her and her cousin got that.
Speaker 2: Say.
Speaker 11: Was her cousin older than her?
Speaker 1: By this time, the polite little girl who was stabbed
and trying not to pass out was getting frustrated. You
can hear her in the background, desperately pleading for help.
She was probably wondering when the questions would stop and
an ambulance would arrive. The victims were two ten year
old cousins who managed to escape outside. They were making
their way to a neighbor's house, but all the time
struggling just to stay alive. Thank god, some kind people
in the next street over were still up and looking
out their window when they heard crying.
Speaker 7: Number one, that's just the st.
Speaker 13: It's a brother theater.
Speaker 6: What's what's your address?
Speaker 14: Address?
Speaker 12: One night?
Speaker 5: Once you cheared and she really bad, she's coming in
my house.
Speaker 11: Sole, but.
Speaker 7: Cut the door.
Speaker 1: Imagine that you're minding your own business, and suddenly you
hear little kids crying outside. You're like, what's that? You
get up to see two blood soaked girls staggering towards
your house? These days? Would you even let them in?
I mean, be honest, that's some the shining bullshit right there.
Some of you would probably slam the door shut, no doubt.
Speaker 5: She knocked on my door and say that she's still
the bleeding to death over the clothes full of blood?
Speaker 6: Who's bleeding in that?
Speaker 7: The two little girls?
Speaker 6: Okay?
Speaker 5: And then you grow can girly talk?
Speaker 11: Yes?
Speaker 4: Okay, So let I ask you to my question. Answer
that I can tell you what to do these questions.
Speaker 6: They're gonna help me help them?
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 5: How old are okay? You look like they're about moving.
Speaker 7: Twelve threele than.
Speaker 10: Twelve years old.
Speaker 4: I'm as a move. And are they in wait?
Speaker 7: Yeah, they're covered in blood?
Speaker 4: Okay, and litten careful. I want to tell you how
to stop the bleeding. Let'ten careful to make sure we
do it correct?
Speaker 1: Okay, sounds like a plan, right, But what do you
do if you can't tell where the blood's coming from?
Speaker 4: So I need you to get a good mood.
Speaker 5: All over?
Speaker 4: Okay, it's all over? Okay. Is a burger's done there
by the one.
Speaker 6: I stabbed him?
Speaker 15: No?
Speaker 5: No, no, I'll paying.
Speaker 4: And is there any serious bleeding yet?
Speaker 5: That's curious bleeding?
Speaker 4: Okay? Are they completely in there? Are they going out
of it unconscious?
Speaker 7: Yes?
Speaker 4: The sea of curd yes, okay, I'm giving this information
to the dispatch. Stand in line. Don't hang up? Okay,
And you said there is more than one won't correct?
Speaker 11: Yes, we're still over.
Speaker 5: They got good and they're living in my house in
my four year and they're bleeding.
Speaker 6: Okay.
Speaker 4: Health is on the way.
Speaker 1: It always seems to take forever for an ambulance to arrive,
and the questions from nine one one operators are never ending.
The truth is that the response time varies obviously depending
on where you live, but in urban areas the average
time is only about five to eight minutes, but those
few minutes can feel like forever.
Speaker 5: All right, shut the door, you see Okay?
Speaker 6: Rights you okay, you're living? Were talking.
Speaker 4: My one is going to take them to give years.
They're coming right now, the fire apartment and the paramedics
get there on the way.
Speaker 1: The excitement was almost too much for this lady. She
started having her own issues.
Speaker 5: I got asthma.
Speaker 16: My bleeding is beauty.
Speaker 4: Okay, do you have a haler?
Speaker 6: She can take?
Speaker 1: Despite her own problems, this woman wasn't going to let
two little girls slip into unconsciousness. I mean, if I
needed somebody to bring me back, I'd want this lady.
Speaker 7: She goes hard, hi way a bright.
Speaker 1: As the woman in the house is on the phone
with nine one one, her boyfriend comes back. He sees
the kids bleeding and crying.
Speaker 6: On Hello, get the honey.
Speaker 11: Hello, you guys, are we are right?
Speaker 12: We own Cherokee one nine six one two Cherokee On
when these kids have been stabbed up.
Speaker 11: Okay, give me give me that address again, one nine
six one two Cherokee.
Speaker 15: Who am I speaking to? Mister mn and police?
Speaker 12: Hurry up, please, these these girls has been stabbed bad.
Come back your babies, I think doesn't find that.
Speaker 15: Ain't nobody gonna mess with y'all. Oh my goodness, come on,
Oh my goodness, come on, baby, come on.
Speaker 5: Can't get up.
Speaker 1: The little girls confirmed that it was a cousin who
stabbed them, and she's afraid he'll find them that when
this guy's around, I mean, would you fuck with them?
I wouldn't. Weekly. She tells him she can't get up.
Speaker 15: Open that door.
Speaker 5: This girl's been stabbed up bad.
Speaker 11: Okay, that's the address where they're gonna be. The one
nine six twelve. That one took one to dare to
hurry up. Oh my fucking goodness.
Speaker 15: Okay, you got your front pay? Yeah, but he all said,
right there, Oh my fucking goodness, this girl is tabbed
a real.
Speaker 6: Bad guess you know where to park the way?
Speaker 17: Yeah?
Speaker 15: They were uness where.
Speaker 11: What a person going to tab?
Speaker 15: They said, they're looking for him.
Speaker 11: Let me do this please, he said.
Speaker 15: They were the persons looking for me.
Speaker 1: The person job they said they looking for them. Oh boy,
these gentlemen seem ready to carry out their own investigation,
but police wanted a name. The little girls were scared
and going in and out of awareness. It was hard
to get the needed information, and confusion was getting in
the way.
Speaker 15: They don't know you, y'all know staff y'all like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, both of them chat, Yeah you can't somebody. We
got people on the way.
Speaker 11: I'm trying to get information from you.
Speaker 15: So yeah they are. You can kid them stabbed up
fat They two little girls.
Speaker 12: Oh my puppy, big man, I find this dude.
Speaker 8: Who is this guy?
Speaker 11: Okay, I got who is this guy? Of sab y'all?
Speaker 15: God, I got thirteen year old Chad stop y'all chart
young and Plumber.
Speaker 1: It was eighteen year old Jalen Plumber, their cousin, who
was supposed to be staying with an aunt in a
different part of the neighborhood, but decided to go on
a killing spread his grandma's house instead, and the grandma
was still back at the house.
Speaker 15: Man, y'all, please hurry up since somebody kids, he killed
your grandmother.
Speaker 1: So much was going on as the couple in the
house learned more information, the panic escalated. Some people are
good in crisis and some aren't.
Speaker 12: Don't do what you should?
Speaker 15: Do what you say?
Speaker 6: Do they know where they live?
Speaker 2: Do I know where they live?
Speaker 6: Do they know? Then?
Speaker 1: As the address they called from Chickasaw Avenue, where their grandmother,
Diane Madison lived. The two cousins escaped but left their
grandmother behind. Then there was the cousin Jalen, who caused
the bloodbath. No one knew his whereabouts yet, but you'd
better hope he didn't cross paths with his neighbors.
Speaker 15: Come out, man.
Speaker 12: Talking to me, Sam, stop calling me, please, I'm not
hitting the ship.
Speaker 15: I would this mother wood tree, the gass over hes.
Speaker 6: Okay, wish he's pulling up their Do you see them
out there?
Speaker 15: Oh yeah, they're pulling up right now.
Speaker 1: And the immortal words of this Ohioan. Oh my fucking goodness.
This was Cleveland, But even our seasoned veteran here hadn't
seen anything like this before. You could tell this was
some fucked up shit that would stick with him. After
talking with the two little girls and the couple taking
care of them, officers realized they needed to go to
the crime scene. As soon as possible while the girls
were on their way to the hospital. What they didn't
know yet was that there was still another child in
that house on Chickasaw Justin Madison, a twelve year old
boy with autism. This was Jalen's brother, and Jalen was
still in that house too.
Speaker 18: So this house, yeah, okay, so we you guys have
a crime stee long or anything. Yeah, what happened? I
was gonn get the address that came over here.
Speaker 10: His little brother has like a mental disability.
Speaker 18: He came up to that window.
Speaker 9: This person right here at those windows, she's laying in
the south east corner of the room behind the door
faced on.
Speaker 1: Justin was terrified and didn't completely understand what was going on.
His sister had fled the scene with her cousin. Well
more like escape. Justin was trapped in an upstairs bedroom
and I didn't even know he was injured. The police
were about to wade into a blood soaked house, but
first needed to convince her grandson Justin, to unlock the
door and come outside.
Speaker 18: Come here, open the window. Hey, what's your name?
Speaker 8: I'm in.
Speaker 18: What's now? Where's your brother? Okay, Hey, I'm the house Hey,
I'm going to cover the bat.
Speaker 1: Justin was risking his life letting the officers in because
the killer was still there. In the bathroom, the water
was running. Jalen Plumber was fully clothed, standing under the shower.
The blood from his own knife wounds swirled into the
drain stereo moment.
Speaker 18: You're okay, you're okod what's it? You can get my
clothes to me?
Speaker 11: I can't?
Speaker 18: Are you okay? Yeah?
Speaker 6: Wait?
Speaker 11: My letter, my.
Speaker 19: Dish?
Speaker 18: Okay, you're fine, you're fine. Man told you though? Yees,
I mean my my mom would not my mom and
not at that? Where's your mom? At shit work? Yes?
Speaker 1: This was a mad house. When asked for his mother's name,
he was able to give it to the officer, but
he couldn't spell it, saying that she never told him.
Speaker 20: How, okay, we'll call her. Okay, you're okay though, you're
not hurt, right, you're not bleeding at all?
Speaker 12: Oh?
Speaker 18: You you got stabbed? Huh? I got that?
Speaker 15: Yeah?
Speaker 18: You got you got some Look what I got lucky?
Speaker 15: Yeah?
Speaker 18: I thought the knife in there?
Speaker 15: You did?
Speaker 18: Where do you think the niset? And I tell you
this and I cleaned it up? Did you clean it up. Yeah, okay,
it didn't a thing.
Speaker 10: It is a thing.
Speaker 6: It is a thing right now.
Speaker 20: It's in the sink. He's saying, the noise in the sink.
This guy, this victim, Yeah, he's got a little laceration of.
Speaker 18: The back right now.
Speaker 1: The discovery of the murder weapon was good news and
bad news. Good news that this unlikely and lucky victim
found it, but possibly bad news that he cleaned it up.
Speaker 18: What's gonna happened to me?
Speaker 8: Now?
Speaker 20: You're you're gonna get checked up by ums because you're
you got stabbed. I'm gonna try to getting hold of
your mouth.
Speaker 1: For your Justin naturally had a lot of questions about himself,
his grandma, Diane, and his brother, who had been led
away in handcuffs.
Speaker 18: Why did you make butt and out? We got him.
He's not gonna hurt. Anyone's gonna be okay. Yeah, they're
working on it right now. They're hoping her. Okay, not
that you saw a little dog a little dog.
Speaker 19: I did not.
Speaker 18: I did not go in the house. I saw you outside.
I came and grabbed you.
Speaker 1: What Justin didn't know was that his grandmother died almost
immediately after being stabbed. By his brother. In her bedroom,
they found Diane Madison dead of multiple stab wounds, including
one that completely severed her carottid artery, and the little
dog he was referring to was sitting on the bed
in the same spot where he'd been sleeping peacefully next
to his owner, now with a look of bewilderment. The
dog wasn't alone. Almost everyone who knew Jalen Plumber was bewildered.
No one could yet explain why college bound teenager, quiet,
smart and planning to study pharmacology had suddenly turned into
a violent killer. But there were cracks long before that night.
This wasn't just one terrible night. It was the unveiling
of a legacy that had been building long before Jalen
had ever picked up a knife. On June twenty second,
twenty nineteen, in East Cleveland's South Collinwood neighbor police responded
to a bloody scene on Chickasaw Avenue. Two ten year
old girls escaped their home, reporting they'd been stabbed in
their sleep. When officers got to the house, they found
a third victim, a twelve year old autistic boy who
confirmed that his brother was the killer. Eighteen year old
Jalen Plumber was in the shower rinsing off blood after
stabbing the entire household in a bedroom. His grandmother, Diane Madison,
lay dead from multiple stab wounds, and her little dog
also laid nearby. Jalen offered only a chilling explanation, the
mental healthcare system failed me, so I tried to kill
my family. Signs of mental illness seemed obvious when Jalen
was taken to the hospital and questioned. Nurses bandaged the
deep cuts on his hands, but it was as if
his voice was bound as tightly. His muffled words barely escaped.
He spoke in vague, detached terms, referring to his siblings
as child number one and child number two. He claimed
he didn't know the names of his mother and grandmother
and said he just called them mommy or grandma, his
mother to neo. Plumber would later tell detectives that Jalen
had no official diagnosis, but his behavior had drastically changed
between the ages of twelve and fifteen. He'd been drinking, smoking,
shutting down, and fixating on dark things. She had just
decided to get him into therapy. But here's what Jalen's
mother didn't want to say. She remembered that his behavior
had started to change around the time of another arrest.
Police already knew the name that would leave her lips.
This was a man from the same city, a serial
killer that had haunted Cleveland and was arrested and convicted
during Jalen's crucial adolescent years. It seemed possible this disturbed
Jalen so much that he became fascinated with killing and
ultimately exploded in a murderous fit that night, leaving his
grandmother Deaddanne.
Speaker 21: Was a loving, kind person, and I think sometimes that
gets lost. Almost all of us who worked with her
remained friends with her afterwards. That's the kind of person
she was.
Speaker 1: She was the kind of person others felt comfortable with
because they knew she'd been through it. They knew she
was the first to sympathize. She was always open to
hearing about everybody's hard times because God knows, she'd had
enough of her own.
Speaker 13: And I just want them to remember her smile and
remember how much laughter and joy she brought to people's lives.
Speaker 21: She was someone who was compassionate, who cared about her family,
who cared about her grandkids, who cared a her kids
even when they couldn't reciprocate.
Speaker 1: Maybe Diane Madison wasn't just a grandmother. She was a
mother of one of the most notorious killers in Cleveland's history.
Her son, Michael Madison, grew up in that same house
on Chickasaw Avenue. As an adult, he returned to raise
a family there with his girlfriend, Tania Plummer. They had
two children, including a disabled son. Eventually Michael left them behind,
not before Jalen witnessed it all though, the growing suspicion,
the arrest, the conviction of a killer, someone who had
once called that house home.
Speaker 6: Conversation recorded on July nineteenth, two thousand and thirteenth, at
eight fifty.
Speaker 8: Four religious specificatis.
Speaker 15: So just need to see you all the tents somebody
over here. We can just goe to row. So what's
going on?
Speaker 2: You wanna sell?
Speaker 15: Because that we can't get a garage thor open bus.
It's a smell. I know when the dead animals smelled.
I know what gopic snails, but apply coming out of
the wall from the one side of the garage. I mean,
the smell so freaking calls you could throw up. I mean,
we just want to make sure ain't nobody in the
other side or something. I mean, it's so bad enough, man,
you will throw up the card even take the smell.
Speaker 7: So what's the address?
Speaker 19: Thirteen ninety five hate, So what's the name?
Speaker 15: My straight.
Speaker 8: I say, Chile.
Speaker 15: Number to eight seven zero eighty nine fifty six. Okay,
yeah we are. I'm out here now, so we're waiting.
Nobody ain't come up. Yeah, we can't call. That's crazy,
okay saying you all right?
Speaker 1: That smell in the garage if you've never had the pleasure,
it's a mixture of rotting fish, dead animal, skunk and
ross sewage. How's that lunch treating you? You're welcome. This
call came in six years before Diane's murder, and it
wasn't just the first sign of something horrific. It was
the past catching up.
Speaker 14: It was a call to police from a cable company
worker in this building that eventually led to the arrest
of Michael Madison on murder charges. He lived there in
an apartment and one employee saw flies swarming in a
nearby garage.
Speaker 22: So I went in there and when I smelled the smell,
I was like, oh my god, we need to call
the police.
Speaker 14: East Cleveland police found the decomposing body of a female
victim on Friday. The ideed Madison as a suspect, arrested
him at his mother's home and began questioning.
Speaker 1: The garage wasn't behind Diane's house. It was on Haydene,
near a small upstairs apartment Michael had been renting just
a few miles away. Because by twenty thirteen, he wasn't
living under his mother's roof anymore, and he wasn't the
same cute, cuddly little boy she'd raised. He had turned cold.
Michael Madison, Diane's son, was no stranger to trouble. He
was quiet and withdrawn. He's always been that way. He'd
been drifting for years, through dead end jobs, short tempers,
and the kind of isolation that makes neighbors nervous.
Speaker 15: He had anger issues.
Speaker 22: Sometime. I would see him upset, yelling, and I just
told him to calm down.
Speaker 23: And he was okay, And you know, he spoke to everybody.
Speaker 1: When the garage door finally opened and the truth finally
came spilling out, literally, it wasn't just the neighborhood that changed.
It was the entire Madison household, especially his step son Jalen.
The man he had once called stepdad would now be
called something else, entirely a killer. Michael wasn't exactly a copycat,
but his crimes bore chilling similarities to those of another
Cleveland serial killer he reportedly admired, Anthony Sowell, infamously known
as the Cleveland Strangler. Sowell was convicted in twenty eleven
after the remains of eleven women were found at his home.
Years later, Jalen Plummer, who lived with his stepfather Michael
in the same house, appeared to develop a disturbing interest
in the same notorious figure.
Speaker 14: The coroner in Cleveland, Ohio, says six bodies found in
the home of a convicted rapist were female. All were
homicide victims. Police arrested fifty year old Anthony Sowell Saturday.
Speaker 1: Thank you Jesus, Thank you Heavy Father.
Speaker 22: I am so glad they got him, because I wasn't
gonna risk you know, until they did.
Speaker 12: Before. I had to put my frize against the door
and locked myself in before I could even go to sleep.
Speaker 1: Just two years after the Cleveland Strangler was put away,
Michael Madison emerged onto the crime scene. Michael was born
in East Cleveland in nineteen seventy seven. Former classmates barely
remembered him because he had no real friends. He was,
I guess what you would call forgettable. He didn't graduate
from high school, but he was far from stupid. He
had a lot going on in his head, but no
one ever bothered to ask what that was, and he
never saw a therapist. But he needed one because he
hated women, specifically black women. The women who fell into
his nightmare weren't prostitutes or drugged out street women, not
that they would deserve his faith. Instead, they were women
with families, full lives and plans, and for a brief,
fateful moment, each of them crossed paths with Michael Madison.
The first body found was eighteen year old Shireald to Terry.
She had just graduated from high school with plans for
good life. That summer, she worked at an elementary school
in East Cleveland, helping run youth programs and earning respect
from teachers and neighbors. She was last seen alive on
July tenth, twenty thirteen, leaving school after her shift, but
she never made it home. They met somewhere in the
previous weeks and started texting. Michael lied, saying he was
twenty five with no children. When they opened the garage door,
thousands of flies swarmed in the putrid air. Officers moved
the bags containing her remains, and a trail of decomposition
fluid left them mind of brown, gray, red, and yellow,
flowing like a dirty river on the concrete in front
of it. It was one of the most gruesome crime
scenes they'd ever laid their eyes on. She died from
ligature strangulation, and investigators also noted a severe vaginal laceration
consistent with sexual assault while she was still alive.
Speaker 24: Sirelda's my angel. Well, everybody called her Sirella. I called
her heaven. That's good, I called I called my kids.
According how to act, I mean, that's my heaven. So
to me, he took mine. She's a praise dancer, she's
she's a holy person. She's heavy into the church, and
she's she's my reader, my bookworm.
Speaker 1: It didn't take long for Michael to be arrested and
brought in for questioning, but it came after a standoff
at his mother's house. DNA and circumstantial evidence were strong,
but during questioning, Detective Hope to get some answers as
to why Michael had the spotlight.
Speaker 14: For once.
Speaker 1: He talked a lot, but not about what mattered, and
he wasn't a loud, bragging type. Instead, he gave metaphors, quietly, parables,
detached theories about the human condition. It was as if
the man accused of stuffing women into trash bags thought
he was there to give a philosophical lecture. And while
detectives paused for timelines and names, Michael offered riddles and speculations.
Speaker 3: You know, it's my first time realized just how different
Walsh life are land.
Speaker 2: He said, on the west side, and we say included.
Speaker 19: We go to school on the west side, the West
High School.
Speaker 17: Rabbite you know, Warge his wife and that's pretty good
minister that move here.
Speaker 2: And it was going pretty much you know, back in
my life, I've always you know, I told him myself.
I told myself, I would like to stay up in
the country. He was on cent grade four or a
couple of cows. And see, you know what I'm saying
for Ram so go, I would like to see the
Rams like you did. I think they had like the
most epot wrong the King Adam.
Speaker 16: The Ram thing you were going at it one time,
Mike banging lingon gooding up in the million.
Speaker 10: Now like.
Speaker 2: Like the Ram swagger?
Speaker 1: Yeah, he really did just say, I like the Ram swagger.
The conversation shifted for a minute to the day police
picked him up. It was a sweltering day when police
moved to arrest him on July nineteenth, twenty thirteen. He
happened to be at his mom's house on Chickasaw and
barricaded himself side for hours. Swat was called, and the
standoff ended only when officers used tear gas and broke
the door down to force him out. They asked him
what he was thinking at the time. If it sounds garbled,
it's probably because of the cheeseburger he was eating.
Speaker 2: Not really just running into my head. That's been really
happy and pretty much this way out the wheel and
from a a cause, I've got to know it's my
looking wheel from me.
Speaker 1: This guy's maybe the chillest killer they've ever interviewed. He
went on to say that while police car sirens blared
and lights flashed while voices boomed over the megaphone yelling
for him to come out, he was listening to his
mother's wind chimes, smoking cigarette butts from the ash tray
and thinking about his childhood.
Speaker 25: Always friends, family, no, finally every one who has done
me gone worse than mom. Like you know, like thinking
hart it Man, Like do you think if I really,
like if I really just just all out guide of
you my mother and her opinion.
Speaker 2: And how she could feel. But you think I really
came out the door before that, you know what I'm saying,
before that door got hit like that kept up that
door up.
Speaker 16: Yeah, I'm saying like, and I'm not saying I that
that's the reason that I didn't come out with like
I said, and the family and her friends would do
the worst.
Speaker 2: And you know I love her mother, but you know
she's when I her got to a point where I was,
you know, really pretty much didn't care to see her again.
But you know, during a certain times when life, she
was there for me. You know what I'm saying. You
know the whole thing was done for sex, appearance and
or before it. Don't hold it on it this donna
hold on to day.
Speaker 8: You know we talking.
Speaker 2: I put it all of that behind me.
Speaker 1: But if I really at several points throughout the more
than eight hours of interrogation, Michael alluded to a loveless
childhood of neglect. According to him, his mother prioritized appearance
and money over him. As much as detectives wanted to
make him comfortable and hear about his past. They still
had a job to do, and it wasn't to be
a therapist for a killer.
Speaker 8: We start at the beginning, when I was born, Start
at the beginning. Whenever you want to start this is
this is your opportunity kill me.
Speaker 2: Okay, what is good? Came got before? Yeah? Well, when
I called a saying that they wanted the body in
the garage, a play.
Speaker 10: On so on.
Speaker 19: Hey mm hmm.
Speaker 2: People have called me to say they know me to
be around here, and that where you live.
Speaker 15: Aft.
Speaker 1: Let's answer that, yes, that's it. That's where Michael lived.
But all of a sudden it was not really his place.
His baby mama's name was on the lease, and people
just sort of came and went all helping pay the
bills together somehow in some sort of weird collective. You know,
anybody could have been there, anybody could have had access
to that garage.
Speaker 26: Michael, I don't know if you had conversation with the
commander about I was the last the last sha. However,
has I been over in your spot with an organization
called BCA. I don't know you know what BCA has done.
You never watch any of the CSI shows.
Speaker 27: Whatever something happens, you leave intentionally or and intentionally, you
leave stuff behind, whether it be DNA evidence, fingerprints, blood.
Speaker 8: We'll give you the opportunity to tell you said the story.
Speaker 27: Man, Okay, but please don't don't sit here.
Speaker 10: And sell me. All right.
Speaker 27: I've been spend the least seven hours process in your apartment.
Speaker 19: I know the evidence in your apartment. I know the
evidence in your garage. I mean, please, please, please juve
me the courtesy of.
Speaker 2: Listen.
Speaker 19: I understand that people make mistakes. I told you before.
Speaker 2: I'm not here to judge you.
Speaker 19: Well, please give me the courtesy of being an honest man.
Speaker 2: All know me, though, but that you like you all
know me.
Speaker 10: I know my.
Speaker 8: Rides my mind is because it's running to you know.
Everybody says that you've lived there, and.
Speaker 25: The repute over the information is report because we got
people that saw you.
Speaker 18: In the apartment.
Speaker 1: Man, He argued that he was in and out of
the apartment and been in the garage for weeks. The
body was put in the garage less than a week before.
All the detectives wanted was for him to fess up
and tell them what he did, and they weren't getting anywhere.
It was time to bring God into it.
Speaker 19: For you.
Speaker 1: With God very an little did they know that they
had just made a massive overreach. This was the perfect
opportunity for the suspect to.
Speaker 2: Preach all I want, That's all I got for you,
That's all I ever had a guy. So then you
believe in an annoyed and role right, and I also
believe in the chest gang here on earth where you
met at Dublin and you have died, Hill is right
here on earth like you, like you, no.
Speaker 16: Marrier who was a reverend, a past or, a deacon
like you are not without seeing like you saying he's
and like no one, whether it be police, pastor, no
one can tell me that without saying no one can
tell me that they have never committed a sin, never
broken the law, whether they be misdemeanor.
Speaker 25: Or suddenly somebody, like everybody had a frown type of
skeleton they call cause.
Speaker 2: And whether it be.
Speaker 19: Pastor or chief of police, like you know, throw a name.
Speaker 2: On me skeletons.
Speaker 19: Skeletons can be as big as the name, like chief
of police and his skeletons can be just as big
as say Anthony so.
Speaker 2: Will, all the way down to the little girls just
leaving their care like.
Speaker 19: No one like, yeah, no, it's to God, and I
know you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: It's I know it's good and I know it's bad.
Speaker 1: They just let them keep talking. They let them draft
through the vague philosophies and half baked sermons in his
little cabasa. According to him, no one wanted to hear
his story, the real story, quote unquote again, you'll never
convince a retard. They're not a genius. He was fine
talking about literally everything except the murders.
Speaker 2: Good, listen to your story. The bingo dingo, we're here.
I don't want to hear this.
Speaker 19: And we're the ones there ammunications.
Speaker 2: Here that's doing your job job. They all disagree with you,
like man, I you know, hate to seem like.
Speaker 3: I'm litening to town or anything, but you know this
is like like I told you earlier, I might have
to begin in line.
Speaker 16: Of so sick that you don't want to go through
you don't want to go through and probably you'll probably
wouldn't wish on y'all worst enemy and I.
Speaker 2: Have just starting line up.
Speaker 10: It's not like.
Speaker 2: It's not like we're giving you one of the if
you are going to make it any.
Speaker 8: Easier for you know what I want to do. I
want to do the hardest thing that the police officer
ever has to do.
Speaker 10: Do you know what that is?
Speaker 2: Go to work?
Speaker 8: No, that's easy, going out there when people are doing
bad things and catching them, chasing on them, playing with them, whatever, tas.
Speaker 2: That's easy.
Speaker 8: I want to do the hardest job when I have
to go to somebody and say I'm sorry to tell
you this with your loved oness no longer with us,
they're dead.
Speaker 1: This didn't face Michael. He just kept talking until everyone
in the room was No. It's a cool parlor trick
if you could do it, politicians are great at it.
It's a shame though he didn't talk until he was numb,
because you would have already been there a long time ago.
Speaker 2: I'm no, surely no, surely not, surely. I'm not expecting
to be heard. You know some uh what you say,
prepared for the worst, hope for the best prepared for
the worst, like whatever the worst.
Speaker 19: He is, Like, I know, it's still like it's not
like I'm about to go to war.
Speaker 2: How I'm about to be shooting and shit going to war.
I'm about to get in front of him, Jill. It's
around other criminals. That's what I'm saying, is man, like,
I don't I feel. I feel nothing. I feel. It's
not a damn thing, Like I'm sort of heroine.
Speaker 19: It's like I said, man, this shit like it's this
this this world.
Speaker 25: That we live in, like from generals in the army
to tennis comaratus, Like how you.
Speaker 2: Think some of these wars is one of 'em?
Speaker 19: He just send somebody yat on the front line, knowing.
Speaker 16: That these dudes ain't gonna come back, ain't even supposed
to even come back.
Speaker 1: For the record, Michael was never in the military. He
was just pulling out all the stops to make his case,
even by stealing valor, even though he hadn't admitted to
anything yet. He knew they had him, so he would
just hint at the motive, which was I was neglected.
Nobody ever listened to me. My baby Mama nags me
all the time because I don't have a job. Why
she makes me feel less than a mad women all
want one thing?
Speaker 15: Why?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 15: Why?
Speaker 1: Holy shit? What an insufferable asshole.
Speaker 25: I hope it serves as a way could be females
stop trying them up.
Speaker 2: Guys over you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 8: That wasnake fuck to go oh, I mean, other than
the regular unnecessarily, But it's gonna it's gonna serve at
some point.
Speaker 19: It's gonna tan. It's gonna be some type of sake
of small love.
Speaker 2: Just only what is about. I don't know what the about.
Speaker 25: I don't know, but you know, good percentage of us
see good wives running self for rid.
Speaker 1: Then, out of the blue, probably because they were so
numb from the talking, the cops flipped the switch and
asked him point blank.
Speaker 8: First time you were killed?
Speaker 19: Anybody hear the parson that wout? I answer your questions?
Speaker 2: Why a request.
Speaker 19: Kill me?
Speaker 2: A couple of bugs? Somebody ain't there? Killed nobody?
Speaker 1: But that was a lie. In an obscured part of
the interview that's barely audible, unfortunately, he admits to strangling
one of the women. He was annoyed that she wouldn't
leave and felt like she was trying to take advantage
of him in some way. He was drunk, and all
he remembered was putting his hand around her neck. He
never said she died, but he never said her name.
Later he claimed he found a body in a garbage
bag and carried it down to the garage, but he
never put it in there. It was a mirage of pieces,
but the pieces corroborated the evidence, and it didn't take
a genius to fill in the missing pieces.
Speaker 8: You could be the man right now, let's do it, Mike.
I know, I know you've got power. Now, what do
you think I mean, Mike?
Speaker 2: No, he's never really being clear with you.
Speaker 19: You kind of.
Speaker 8: You know what we found yesterday?
Speaker 10: Right?
Speaker 8: Think about what I found today, Mike. What were you
talking about here today? He said they're gonna.
Speaker 2: Learn, We're to teach.
Speaker 19: They deserve it.
Speaker 2: I just talk about the start that the learys.
Speaker 8: No, I'm Mike, you aren't. And I was sitting there
trying to put it all together. And after you, we
took you back downstairs yesterday started Ruth and I and
started Gardener. We sat down in my office and we
talked for a long time and we just were trying
to figure out what.
Speaker 2: You were tryna tell us.
Speaker 8: And the eye in certain Ruth know now which exactly.
Speaker 2: What you were saying?
Speaker 8: Bro, Mike, I know now we jumped right in like
we found it. I found out you're you're the man?
Speaker 2: Do you want bullshitting?
Speaker 19: You know?
Speaker 2: I was h you know for the Englis You're not
really telling you what? Mike? What is he saying? I got?
Speaker 19: I got, I got another body.
Speaker 8: I thought you were kind of blown to smoke up
my ass yesterday me and Gardner and Ruth were talking
about it, and I thought you were blowing smoke up
my ass yesterday.
Speaker 19: I said, I don't know.
Speaker 10: I said, said, wait, I think I think he's telling
me just by his body language, just by a demeanor,
some of the things you were saying.
Speaker 8: You say, you're talking outside of your mouth. I think
that that was that we should want to tell your story.
And I'm giving you an opportunity now to do it.
And I'm telling you I believe you now. I got
a half assed believed you yesterday, and I'm believing you
one hundred percent now.
Speaker 2: So you ain't. We ain't even how his one body
he combo something totally different now.
Speaker 8: Whichever one you want to talk about, MIKEE. It ain't one,
it ain't two.
Speaker 14: Let's do us all away run.
Speaker 1: Michael barely flinched. He had admitted to having dates to
his apartment and getting so shitfaced that he didn't remember
them leaving. He confessed to putting his hands around one
of the women's necks and awakening to find a body
in a garbage pack. That's bad. But even now, when
confronted with more evidence and yet another body, he deflected.
The detectives were running out of patience, and now they
didn't just want to know why he killed. They wanted
to know how many more dead women would be found
and where they were located. When they found the first
body in East Cleveland in twenty thirteen, it was a
trash bag in a garage. The neighbors had smelt something.
By the time the police arrived, the case was already strange.
The suspect, Michael Madison, was calm. He denied everything and
admitted only enough to seem helpful. One woman, and he said,
was dead, but he hadn't killed her. He found her
in a bag. He just moved her, That's all he claimed.
But the evidence was there. They still didn't have a
clear motive, though, only a suspect who talked in metaphors
and acted like a victim all the time. This victim
was also a father of two and a stepfather to
one quiet teenager named Jalen, who years later would erupt
into his own kind of violence in the same house
on Chickasaw Avenue. The violence from both men was directed
only at women, the women who raised Michael and her grandson, Jalen,
and three other innocent women who just happened to cross
the wrong path.
Speaker 10: Might you get the power? Obviously she disrespected you. Obviously
she puts you into a position. Something happened, Bro, she
made you have to show her. And now all I
want you to do is to show me. We'll talk
about whatever you wanna talk about. You wanna talk about
the most recent only first, or you wanna talk about no,
whatever one you want.
Speaker 8: Bro.
Speaker 1: In this tiny blue interrogation room that resembled the prison cell,
detectives and Michael sat for hours on end, eating cheeseburgers
from McDonald's as the questions came one after another. Well
the barred window raised, Michael smoked black and mild cigars.
The smoke mixing with the scent of sweat and making
its way out the window to the sweltering streets of Cleveland.
They were finally coming to understand this killer.
Speaker 17: And I guess even before you before here just you know,
pretty much all light then at thirty five, with no
real background in school and no career, no four oh one.
Speaker 2: Kay, kids a.
Speaker 3: Big mom as far as even as they come. You know,
I'm a real like, I'm a real compassionate do and
kind of certain things, what kind of things, just know,
people people.
Speaker 2: But somewhere along the way, I just lost like I
love like, I like, I love female. Nay, but a man,
A man's a man's a man's man.
Speaker 17: Who should never be compromised when it comes to a
female who's never been a man.
Speaker 1: It was a simple but disturbing statement. In that one sentence,
Michael revealed a cracked mirror of identity, pride, and resentment
against women. In twenty twenty five, especially, it's not unusual
to hear the voices of frustration from men who feel
diminished in relationships in society at large. Still, his words,
the rapped in philosophical language, reveal a specific grievance. This
was a man whose sense of self had been shaped
and maybe shattered by the women around him. Still nothing
could justify the brutality that followed. He never offered a
formal confession, not in so many words, but he did
give what experts call a functional confession. That's when a
suspect doesn't technically admit guilt, but their behavior shows him.
They lead police to evidence only the killer would know.
They describe crime scenes in detail. They helped close the loop.
Think of Ted Bundy, who helped investigators find remains even
years after denying some of his murders, or Israel Keys,
who mapped out the burial site of one of his
victims despite refusing to name all of his crimes. It's
not in what they say, it's in what they do.
Michael finally took detectives to the bodies. The first was
Shirelda Terry, the body found in the garage, the young
girl just starting her life. Next was twenty eight year
old Shatisha Sheili, who had a daughter. Her body was
discovered in a brush pile near the garage behind Michael's apartment.
It was found in layers of heavy trash backs, the
same method used for the other victims. Forensic examination was
limited due to decomposition, but there were signs of trauma
and possible strangulation. Shatisha had bruises on her face and
her clothing had ligature marks. Last to be found was
thirty eight year old Angela descons. She was discovered days
after the first body, in a musty basement of an
abandoned house near Michael's apartment. Angelo was a quiet woman
with a soft voice, trying to piece her life back together.
She had once worked as a hairdresser, someone who brought
beauty to others, but she struggled to get by and
pull her own life together. Someone introduced her to Michael.
He seemed somewhat safe enough and had a calm personality.
That was all it took.
Speaker 28: June seventh, they tell us, that's when they last saw Angela,
and since then, they say they have been frantically searching
for her. But this week police confirmed their worst fear
that cops had found her body, that thirty eight year
olds of body. Investigators right now aren't saying how she died.
Cops discovered her remains in a backyard Saturday near Shaw Avenue.
Now Knew this morning. A statement from the family quote
Angela Daskins was a beautiful, sweet, kind hearted woman. She
was raised in Novelty, Ohio, by her father, Robert Daskins,
and her stepmother, mother Linda Skins. Everyone who knew her
loved her. She was a wonderful daughter, sister, and anne
who truly cared about her family and friends. She has
loved so much and will be missed by everyone who
knew her.
Speaker 1: In the days after Michael's arrest, neighbors were quick to
share their memories, not about him, but about his mother,
Diane Madison, and what she'd been through. Everyone spoke highly
of her.
Speaker 13: I want her to be remembered as someone who cared
deeply for her children, someone who cared passionately about her community.
Speaker 21: She was just a fine person. I am a better
person for having known her.
Speaker 1: Michael loved his mother. He admitted this openly, but he
also alluded to neglect. What he didn't do in the
interrogation was throw her under the bus, but the defense
did that for him at the trial. The trial formerly
started in April of twenty sixteen. By early May, Madison
had been convicted on all counts, three counts of aggravated murder,
three counts of kidnapping, three counts of gross abuse of
a corpse, three counts of rape, and one count of
possession of criminal tools. The following week, the court turned
to mitigation evidence, opening the door for a glimpse into
Michael's upbringing. Underneath the calm exterior of the woman next door,
the community activist and loving mother and grandmother, the defense
painted an entirely different portrait. They described Diane as cruel, neglectful,
and violently abusive. Michael's attorneys revealed years of torment that
started in childhood, documented by an expert clinical psychologist who
evaluated Michael and examined his records. They said Diane beat
him regularly, locked him in closets, and even forced him
to eat feces. It didn't stop there, the defense told
the court, he was also sexually abused and emotionally abandoned.
They argued that Diane's abuse left scars so deep that
they helped shape the monster he would later become. During
the victim impacts statement given by Shilda's father, chaos broke
out in the courtroom when, for some reason he stopped
mid sentence and lunged across tables towards Michael. He started
attacking him and had to be pulled off. His sister
later clarified what happened at that moment.
Speaker 23: They're the sentency. You have the families there, and they're
pouring out their hearts and saying how they're going to
miss their families and what their families meant to him,
And he sent over there smiling, which caused my brother
to launch at him. To him, he heard, fucked the door,
excuse me, okay, the life of my daughter, the life
of my niece, the life of our baby whom we
caught heaven.
Speaker 14: Okay.
Speaker 23: So it was horrible to be that close, to have
to breathe his air, to be in the same room
with a person that is so horrible and don't even care.
He don't care. He was laughing, which he gave him
the death penalty.
Speaker 1: You heard it at the end of the trial. No
mitigating circumstances were going to stand in the way of justice.
Michael Madison has now spent nearly a decade on Ohio's
death row. He was sentenced on June second, twenty sixteen,
and was scheduled to die by lethal injection on May twentieth,
twenty twenty one, but an unofficial moratorium on executions installed
all lethal injections in Ohio since twenty twenty. Want to
know why, Well, they're waiting for an alternative execution method
in place of lethal injection. You see, they can't get
their hands on the right drugs to make the deadly cocktail.
They could put dogs and cats to sleep all day long,
all the strays, put them all to sleep in a
humane way, we're told, But they can't get the cocktail
right for humans. Isn't that strange. It's almost as if
they don't want to and are just hiding behind some
bullshit regulation in order to not do it, despite what
the populace might have voted for already. Doesn't sound very democratic,
does it anyway. For now, this asshole is still alive,
as the system that condemned him sits frozen in time,
almost by design.
Speaker 29: I am struck by the sheer inhumanity of what one
human being could do to that one but three human beings.
It is incomprehensible.
Speaker 30: You cajoled Lord and deceased Satisha Shieling, Angela Deskins, and
child Terry to your apartment for your depraved purposes. You
went on to abuse the corpses of these three victims.
Speaker 29: You stripped them from the waist down.
Speaker 31: You folded them in half, finding them so that their
feet were up by their ears. You wrapped them in
multiple layers of trash bags, and you discarded them.
Speaker 1: This killer didn't just kill out of nowhere. His crimes
were monstrous, but they happened after unresolved festering thoughts from
a long, entangled legacy of suffering. Then you add the
alcohol and possibly drugs, and poof, you get a certain
scale episode lucky you. Decades later, in a cramped Cleveland apartment,
a young Michael was beaten, locked in closets, humiliated, and
allegedly forced to eat feces by the very person who
was supposed to protect him, his mother, Diane Madison, a
woman the public celebrated after her death. Later, he was
allegedly sexually abused by one of her boyfriends. Michael felt
emotionally discarded and shot through the cracks of a system
that barely noticed he was falling. Then came to Nea Plummer,
the mother of his child, who, according to Michael, belittled
him and called him less than a man. A man's manhood,
he said, should never be compromised by a female who's
never been a man. That quote me sound absurd on
the surface, but beneath it lies a cold bit of truth,
one that points to a deeper identity crisis, especially among
men raised in trauma by women who are in trauma themselves.
It's a warped belief, born in pain and shaped by powerlessness.
It's an endless sloop. I don't know how the fuck
we get out of Do you have any ideas?
Speaker 8: Now?
Speaker 1: Then came Jalen, Diane's grandson, the quiet boy who watched
all of this unfold, who once lived under the same
roof as Michael. In twenty nineteen, Jalen, just eighteen years old,
would creep into Diane Madison's home and stab her to
death in her own bed. He didn't just kill her,
he nearly decapitated her. He pleaded guilty in twenty twenty
one and is serving a life sentence with eligibility for
parole in thirty years. His brother, sister, cousin, and sad
little dog all survived the incident and remained in the
care of their mother to Nia plumber. So here is
the question. Did Jalen inherit the same demons that haunted
Michael was this demonic possession some sort of poltergeist in
this house of horror? Or do we accept a more
rational explanation. Did Jalen learn violence by watching his uncle
in and out of his life, bringing stories of abuse
and death with him. Did Diane really change into the
person neighbors claimed, or did the darkness inside that house
simply go unnoticed until it exploded again? Did the systems
America has in place fail both of these men, or
did society simply stop asking the hard questions and stop
doing the hard things once the bodies were found In
the end, does it all really matter anyway? It should?
We all have this feeling in the back of our
mind that it should. We should do better at raising
all of our children. We should have a safer and
happier and more mentally sound civilization. It started with the
allegations of abuse at the hands of one woman. Two
men carried it forward, and three innocent women, in addition
to Diane herself, paid the ultimate price. Not one of
them deserved to die. That's going to do it this week.
Thank you for joining us. I invite you to go
check out our latest episode of Sword Scale Television entitled
Home Easily one of the most fucked up things you'll
ever see.
Speaker 2: I promise