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