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: He's not all there, and he doesn't He never thinks,
thinks through, and he doesn't care about repercussions. He's always
been that way.
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome. This is season eleven, episode two hundred
and seventy one of Sword and Scale, a show that
reveals that the worst monsters are real. So we have
a store that's loaded with all sorts of summer goodies.
Head on over there. You can find it at Swordandscale
dot com. Top of the page. Click the store link
and you'll see all kinds of cool, cool summer a gear.
It was just after midnight on October first, twenty twenty
in Champagne County, Ohio, and police received a strange nine
to one one call. The young man on the other
end of the line didn't want to disclose what was
going on over the phone. Instead, he asked an officer
to meet him in person. Officer Daniel Fisher headed out
to the parking lot of the Sheriff's office to find
a young man waiting for him. The guy stood nervously
beside his car. He extended his hand and introduced himself
as Randy Rider. Randy told the officer that he wanted
to file a missing person's report for his girlfriend, Whitney Hostler.
He hadn't seen her in over twelve hours. He said
that he lived at his parents' house with Whitney and
their young daughter, but a lot of fighting had been
going on between Whitney, Randy's mother, Valerie Rider, and his father,
Rodney Senior. Now Whitney was missing and he didn't know.
Speaker 2: What to do.
Speaker 1: Officer Fisher decided to file a missing person since report
and news of Whitney's disappearance spread through the small farming community,
the police soon got ahold of Whitney's mother, Kim Long. Kim,
of course, was distraught. Whitney had been living with the
Writer family for about a year as Valerie and Rodney
were helping the young couple raise their baby, but now
Kim was being ghosted by the Writers. After Whitney's disappearance.
Speaker 4: How strange come out to his parents house and no
one answer on the door on you out their home,
but normally they would answer it. I'd call her her mom,
his mom three times. You would think that I'm going
to call her a bitch? Would I would call me back,
knowing I'm worried? You know, why did the compact to
come and tell me.
Speaker 5: My daughter's missing?
Speaker 6: You said you called her three times?
Speaker 7: Three times.
Speaker 1: Kim was beside herself, her daughter was missing, and now
the writers were ignoring her.
Speaker 8: If I were you, I wouldn't try to make contact
with them.
Speaker 6: Okay, I know.
Speaker 8: You want answers. I do, and rightfully so. I mean,
you know, with you being mom, you you one hundred
percent deserve answers.
Speaker 6: But with that being said.
Speaker 8: Unfortunately, I would not go out there. And the only
reason why I'm saying that is because you know, I
don't want her to be an incident out there where
you know, you say something to her, she says something
to you, and the next thing you know, we're involved.
Speaker 3: Right. I wasn't going to call you to come out here,
I really was.
Speaker 7: I'm just so worried.
Speaker 3: I'm thinking of Myay.
Speaker 6: I can only.
Speaker 1: Imagine Whitney was twenty five years old and now a
mother herself, but that didn't matter to Kim. She was
still her baby girl, and she was worried, sick.
Speaker 3: No at all.
Speaker 8: Have you tried to call her again, I.
Speaker 4: Did text her, but she never and I tried to
pay primates she never did.
Speaker 6: Was fun.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you kind of weird.
Speaker 8: Yeah, you text her in the afternoon, correct, and then
you called her around.
Speaker 4: Nine about ten, about ten, it was about ten ten
thirty from the hospital.
Speaker 7: I tried to video chatter and stuff, and she never answered.
I just thought it was kind of weird.
Speaker 1: Kim had been reaching out to Whitney over and over.
Speaker 7: Close your eyes when.
Speaker 9: I can't imagine what you're going through. But like I said,
we were investigating this as thoroughly as we possibly can.
And you know, we've we've had we've had people on
this since the very beginning, and like I said, we're
going to continue to investigate this, you know, one hundred
percent as.
Speaker 8: Thoroughly as possible.
Speaker 9: We want her home safe just as much as you do.
Speaker 1: Still, Kim couldn't let go of the fact that the
Writer family was being so cold to her. It didn't
make sense that she wanted to talk to them.
Speaker 4: Are you able to even have contact with them to
get some answers.
Speaker 7: I mean, I don't know exactly where he worked at.
I'm not for sure.
Speaker 3: I guess the day game.
Speaker 8: Yeah, we have spoken with everybody.
Speaker 1: The police had spoken with everybody in the household, Randy, Ryder,
Rodney Senior, and Valerie. Rodney and Valerie insisted that Whitney
had been picked up by a friend the other day,
but Randy said he wasn't so sure. Something was going on.
Definitely nobody knew exactly what it was. Whitney would never
leave her daughter behind, especially since the girl was still
a toddler. Whitney and Randy had been together for a
few years, but their relationship was on and off. When
they found out they were expecting a daughter, they decided
that the best thing to do would be to move
into Randy's parents' house. Rodney and Valerie were retired but
still young and vibrant for grandparents, and they wanted to
help the couple raise their baby girl. Randy had two brothers,
David and Rodney Junior, but Randy was the only one
still living at home. Rodney Junior was a bit of
a screw up, and David was the golden child who
now lived in Virginia Beach on his military base with
his wife and two kids. He was willing to talk
to police.
Speaker 3: I joined the military to get away from my family.
Speaker 8: Why is that, If you don't mind me asking.
Speaker 3: Him, I just they were nothing, nothing bad. It was
just like I you could ask my other two siblings.
I am considered the golden towel.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So like my parents, I always, I guess, depended on
me a lot to help out with things around the house, vehicles.
I've got a background in mechanics work, and it's because
of that, because I was constantly worked on my parents' vehicles,
both of my brothers. I mean, I'm not gonna I
can't say I am a man I am today because
my parents, and you know, I learned a lot from
my dad. But I say it was kind of getting
I've got my wife and maybe watch just had our
second born, so it was like I felt like they
were taking up too much of my time.
Speaker 8: I guess I just felt like you needed a change
for you and your family.
Speaker 1: Yeah, David was the favorite. Well, Randy the baby. It
was a little more let's say, entitled.
Speaker 3: At the same time, I know Randy's history, Uh, I
know how Randy is.
Speaker 8: When you say you know Randy's history and you know
how Randy is, what do you mean by that?
Speaker 3: He's always been violent, just flat out says he's always
had anger issues. He's always blamed a lot of stuff.
I say, Randy always felt less privileged, I guess than
myself or my older brother. Yeah, as far as like
he never got a car for his sixteenth birthday, and
Miss Matt well, it's also because he never earned it
and he never saw things that way. He did a lot,
Miss Matt. He he sees things differently from other people.
Him and Whitney have always I've always been.
Speaker 5: Back and forth.
Speaker 3: There's been multiple times that my parents called me and said, hey, Randy,
Whitney is trying to fight, and he started out the door,
took off. I can go find him. So I'd have
to go driving down the back roads in Saint Paris.
Speaker 6: And he just walking and walked.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just be walking.
Speaker 1: Randy and Whitney began fighting a lot, and because they
were under his parents roof, there was no hiding the
inner pain of their relationship. Their business was out in
the open.
Speaker 3: She was planning on leaving already and taking my niece.
And then she found out that he was seeing another girl.
Which this girl, out of all the girls he could
have picked, he picked the worst one. To Whitney, it's
like her arch nemesis, because Randy always had a thing
with her when they were younger, and she found out
Rainy was with her and Randy got her knocked up.
Speaker 1: Randy had been cheating on Whitney with a girl named Eliza,
whom Whitney despised. When Whitney found this out, it was
a huge blow. Then Eliza became pregnant and Whitney was livid.
Speaker 3: So she was just lit. She was pissed off and
from minors saying they weren't at the house at the
same time. If she was at the house and Randy
would be gone and Randy was at the house here
to go on.
Speaker 1: Whitney and Randy were passing like two ships in the night,
avoiding one another.
Speaker 3: Randy was avoiding her, and when he finally came home
on Wednesday, Yeah, Wednesday, he finally came home. She is
when she had found out everything about Eliza, and she
was waiting for him, and he said him and Whitney
got into a fight since he got home.
Speaker 5: She was.
Speaker 3: Going off on him, straying, hiring, cussing and saying she
was leaving and taking the baby. And I said to
me that that would have smacked something for Randy.
Speaker 1: Whitney was distraught and planning on leaving. Maybe she had
just taken off and decided she wasn't going to let
Randy know where she was going. But then why would
her mother, Kim not be aware. The whole town was
on high alert looking for Whitney. Everyone was worried missing.
Posters of her were sent all over the news and
tagged up in every store. Whitney was unique with her
bleached blonde hair, permanent cat eyeliner, and multiple lip piercings.
She wasn't the kind of girl who would blend into
a crowd. Then a few days later, the Sheriff's department
received a frantic nine one one call.
Speaker 5: Hemergency.
Speaker 10: I'm at Kaiser Lakes State Park right after you come
down the kais of Lake Road and turn in. Just
found a body laying down here at the bottom of
the ravine.
Speaker 11: Right the road.
Speaker 5: Okay, you found a body at the bottom of the ravine.
Speaker 11: Yes, it looks like it's a female. She's laying face down. Okay,
lost on in pajama.
Speaker 5: Okay, all right, I'm gonna paint your fun so I
can find out exactly where you are.
Speaker 11: Okay, Okay, just just just live just about a mile
from here.
Speaker 5: Okay, is she in the water or.
Speaker 12: Is she wood?
Speaker 11: She's laying, She's laying on the ground.
Speaker 1: The woman's body was lying face down in the leaves
and brush. Her skinny legs were twisted, and her hair
was matted. She wasn't moving.
Speaker 5: Are you near the roadway there? I think, I think
on my map age? Yeah? Yeah, Okay, are you with
a vehicle? Where are you on play?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 11: I'm on foot. I'm walking with my dog.
Speaker 5: Okay, all right, if you want to step out towards
the road, I'm going to send someone out there. Do
you think that she's alive and breathing?
Speaker 10: No, I don't like it.
Speaker 11: All looks like she's been there for a while.
Speaker 1: Maybe the caller wasn't sure, but judging by her position
and the leaves and the elements, she looked dead.
Speaker 11: No, I do not believe she's like looks like she
might be in pajamas. She didn't have any shoes on,
and she's got like a sweater, but looks like she
has pajama bottoms.
Speaker 5: One. Okay, and you think she's been there for a while.
Speaker 11: Well, I went down and I didn't touch her. I
went down, looking at her hands for kind of bruised looking.
Speaker 5: Okay, could you tell anything else about her? You know?
Speaker 11: Okay, No, she's laying she's straight down.
Speaker 5: She tasted down.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I mean, I don't.
Speaker 3: Know how it's okay, it's all right, tab.
Speaker 5: All right, I'm gonna update my unit's okay, they're on
their way.
Speaker 11: Okay, I'll wait here.
Speaker 1: The caller waited nervously for the police to arrive. The
girl in the ravine was lifeless as the breeze picked
up and the leaves swirled around her. When the police
finally arrived on scene, they carefully turned her over. It
was Whitney. She had been strangled and her hands were
turning purple. Her once beautiful, pale face was vacant. Whitney
was gone. As the news of Whitney's body being found
swirled around their small town, Randy's brother David had a theory.
Speaker 3: And I said, got under real pregnant. She was not
happy about it, and see wade a friend to come
home to start a fight, And I think that's what happened.
They started a fight and it got out of hand.
That's just my own personal opinion. I think Randy did
it he's not all there, and he doesn't He never thinks,
thinks through, and he doesn't care about repercussions. He's always
been that way.
Speaker 1: Rumors began swirling around the small town, and Randy was
at the crux of it all. Twenty five year old
old Whitney Hostler had been reported missing by her boyfriend
Randy Ryder. Less than twenty four hours later, her body
was found at the bottom of a ravine a few
miles from the home the couple shared with Randy's parents.
Whitney's mother, Kim, was a wreck. She wanted to see
her daughter's remains.
Speaker 7: Do you know of anything of anything that the body?
Speaker 3: What I can kid a kid.
Speaker 1: More painful? The Writer family was still ignoring Kim, and
she wanted Whitney's things back so she could dress her
for the funeral. Those things were trapped in the Writer
family home.
Speaker 7: And another thing I want to ask is very important.
How do I go about because she's got clothes and
she got distresses up.
Speaker 5: In herself there at that house that she looked be appointed.
Speaker 7: And that's what I want to put her in. I
want to know when I can go get her.
Speaker 3: Thought, I mean, I ken't go in that house obviously.
Speaker 7: Yeah, okay, I want to know when I can think
better not touch her stuff.
Speaker 3: I'm telling you they better not touch her stuff that's mine.
Speaker 6: And I was just.
Speaker 7: Wondering when I can go up here or someone could
I detex you you can meet me out there.
Speaker 3: Have you had any conversation or anything with Randy?
Speaker 7: No, I haven't talk with Randy.
Speaker 5: Okay, but my daughter Ina always.
Speaker 7: Tell me that they made an arrest in Springfield. And
I'm not excluding Randy because I've got a date. I'd
easy to hear who.
Speaker 8: Made an arrest in Springfield on.
Speaker 6: What I don't know.
Speaker 7: That's why you know, I don't believe anything. You don't
have rumors fly around because everything's so high right now
and out how a character. I don't know if it's
even true. I'm not believing nothing.
Speaker 3: As far as the leading you, I am only going
by your information.
Speaker 13: Yeah.
Speaker 9: As far as anybody else being arrested in connection or
having anything to do with this case, that that's false.
Speaker 7: Did you know that Randy was in the house when
that happened? Did you know he was in the house.
I've got it on recording, and I need you to
hear this. I need somehow to figure out how to
say this to you.
Speaker 1: No arrest had been made, but rumors, of course, were
flying as they do. Kim had also received a recording
from someone that implicated Randy. Randy's brother David, had also
received this mysterious video.
Speaker 3: You yeah, you you know about these videos?
Speaker 6: What videos with there?
Speaker 3: So I was, I've got one of them.
Speaker 7: I have a video.
Speaker 3: I don't know what's going on is recording them, but
I got it from uh, one of my cousins. Her
boyfriend was some girl or some thing that's been hanging
around with Randy and Eliza and she's been recording randy conversations,
you know, talking about everything. And the one I got
was it was taken before Whitney's body was found, because
you can hear in the video Eliza. It's a video
of Eliza on the phone with Randy and I believe
Whitney's mom. I believe Randy's was Whitney's mom at the time,
and she is so Eliza is asking have you heard
from her anything? Blah blah blah, and she's like, no,
I haven't heard from her. So this this this point
in time, Whitney is still missing. And then Randy goes
on to say that she will be found in Kyler.
Speaker 11: Not it's not.
Speaker 3: Saying that they're going to find her dad, not like
unless he is. He's talking about Kyler like thing, that
she they're going to find her in Kaiser.
Speaker 6: That to me was just weird.
Speaker 3: How did he know they were going to find her
in Kaiser.
Speaker 1: Whitney's body was found at the bottom of a ravine
near Kaiser Lake. According to this secret video footage, Randy
knew exactly where she was before the guy walking his
dog came across her.
Speaker 6: Remember, the girl.
Speaker 1: Who Randy had been sleeping with behind Whitney's back, who
was now pregnant with his child, was named Eliza. She
had been talking all over town. Eliza was young, and
with that she was stupid, and she clearly didn't understand
how badly she was implicating the man she claimed to
love so dearly. The police were also informed by a
random citizen that he had been the suspicious man at
Kaiser Lake around the time that Whitney was found there. There,
he took the cops to the exact spot and described
what he saw.
Speaker 14: With you guys, where exactly did you see this male subject?
Debt with the crossbow down here, okay.
Speaker 6: So when you saw him in the wooded area, where
did you seem? Well, I only see him coming out
of the wood area.
Speaker 15: I just kind of seen him coming this way, like okay,
so why walk from here all all the way around
up this hill?
Speaker 5: Okay?
Speaker 6: So you walked from the beach area and.
Speaker 5: Then I turn around.
Speaker 6: But when I was coming back, he was probably like.
Speaker 15: Five hundred feet behind me back that way.
Speaker 5: It's like he just came out of nowhere.
Speaker 6: So where did you see him?
Speaker 3: So?
Speaker 6: I seen him down here to the bomb in the hill.
So at the curve he stopped at the curve, okay,
and then I just kept walking. I just thought it
was just some redneck man. He ate cameo on he
ad the You don't know which side of the woods
he came from. I didn't see that, okay. So down here, yeah,
down there okay. And then uh, and where did you
see the vehicle? The vehicle was touched in the in
front of that sign.
Speaker 14: They were like, okay, and you're talking about when you
go down to the curve there there's a pole off
on on the site.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but they had it tucked in. They're good Okay,
it was a red car. Okay, you don't know what
kind of a vehicle.
Speaker 15: Was a little compact look like like a Okay, but
when around the corner he was standing in the middle
of the.
Speaker 6: Road at what area on the Okay, this is when
you mean mugs the hell out of me? Okay.
Speaker 15: And I almost yelled hiro ound the window, like you
asked whole or or somebody like why you know, he's
like but it looked like he had a crossbow or something.
And this was at what time of the morning, between
ten thirty and eleven o'clock?
Speaker 6: Okay, and I got him. I didn't really try to
look at him.
Speaker 15: Too much because, like you know, I'm like, this is
just some redneck guy that's you know, just angry at
the road or something.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 6: I didn't think much of it.
Speaker 1: The man in camo with a crossbow was acting super
weird and freaked out the civilian like a lot. What
was this guy doing and why was he mean mugging him?
Speaker 6: I didn't get that much. I tried to look at him,
honest and he was alone. He was alone. Okay. So
you didn't see any other vehicles in the area except Ford,
and where was it at. It seemed like there was
a dispute in the.
Speaker 15: Campground earlier that morning and that escalat come flying out
of that campground.
Speaker 6: Okay, so it was all all the activity you saw
is on this side. I don't know if it's helpful
for you guys.
Speaker 15: Yeah, And the ranger told me it was like you
probably should tell it. That's what I'm telling I just okay, Well,
we're going to help out, you know, be a good citizen.
Speaker 6: No, you're fine. I will document the information that you've
given me and put it in as or not. Well,
any information that I gather is helpful.
Speaker 1: Between the campground fight, the escalade that went screeching out
of the parking lot, and the mysterious man in Camo,
this was looking odd for the sleepy nature park of
Kaiser Lake. But did it have anything to do with
Whitney's murder. The police had to take every tip they could.
Randy was at the center of all the rumors, and
even his own brother thought he did it. Then his
other brother, Rodney, came to the police after his ex
wife told him that he had admitted to finding bloody
items at the house. Rodney wasn't so excited to be
talking to the cops. Neither should you ever.
Speaker 6: I do have one other thing that I like to
talk to you about.
Speaker 16: I guess some information in regard to some items at
the house. Okay, and uh, we received a contact indicating
that you have an ex wife.
Speaker 5: What's her name?
Speaker 16: We got information that there's.
Speaker 13: Potentially some items inside the house that pertain to the case.
Speaker 6: What can you tell me about that?
Speaker 8: Uh, there's.
Speaker 5: Dumbbows in our room?
Speaker 13: Okay, there's a metal stool.
Speaker 16: What makes the metal stool significant? Looks like there's blood
on Okay, did you call in that at all? You
say her room. You're talking about Whitney's room. I can't
tell if it's blood or if it's pop What is
this metal stool?
Speaker 17: Steps?
Speaker 5: What color? Is it?
Speaker 1: Yellow?
Speaker 5: And rusty?
Speaker 1: The step stool was hard metal and looked like it
had blood on it. Rodney Jr. Also found another potentially
bloody item.
Speaker 2: Was a white castle cup that has the same brown
stuff on top of it.
Speaker 13: M And when did you find that?
Speaker 5: Saturday?
Speaker 16: This past Saturday? Where is it now?
Speaker 5: Did you do anything with it?
Speaker 13: Put it for safety in the safe?
Speaker 6: What kind of a safe?
Speaker 1: But the most important thing that he found was under
Whitney's bed.
Speaker 16: So there's also another item. What about the handwritten? How
many pages was that Warner boy who altered that? Do
you have a clue who wrote it?
Speaker 3: As far as I know, Whitneys recursive?
Speaker 16: What did it say that I cannot tell you?
Speaker 5: I can't recursive?
Speaker 1: Man, the school system is really failing us. Cursive is
a lost art.
Speaker 5: Guys.
Speaker 1: Instead, learn how to type on a really tiny keyboard.
Also learn Mandarin. Anyway, the letter was one page in
Whitney's cute cursive handwriting. It was a list of Randy's
suspicious actions that she'd been keeping track of. Things like
Randy had been sleeping on the couch, he wouldn't cuddle
or say he loved the Whitney anymore. And she found
out that Randy had been leaving his GPS location on
so his new girlfriend would know where he was and
they could meet up when he wasn't at home with
his family. Well that's one use I hadn't thought of
for those tracking apps. But above all else, Randy's brother
David was also super concerned because Randy was trying to
now leave the state.
Speaker 3: Said, I tried talking to the dead. I can't remember
his name but that's what blows me away about Randy
not being looked at the way I said, we just
kind of feel he should be, and him being allowed
to leave the state and stuff like that has been
kind of bothering us the most.
Speaker 8: When he say he's leaving the state, where's he going?
Speaker 3: He was trying to go to Kentucky yesterday. He was
trying to get one of our friends that we used
to work with that lives in Kentucky. Now he's got
a little border that lives in Ohio though, and he
was coming up to seem for the day or the weekend,
and Randy contacted him and was like, Hey, can he
take me back out of Tunky with you?
Speaker 1: So Randy was trying to skip down and these mysterious
videos kept coming back into play.
Speaker 3: Well, there's several of these videos, and she even said
some of them. Randy states on the idea that he
did and then I'm on Randy states in the video
videos that mom and dad did it. My parents are
not bad people. They're not they They're the type of
people to give you the shirt off the back.
Speaker 7: They've taken in.
Speaker 3: Friends of my brother, my older brother's, friends of mine.
I'm pretty sure they've taken in. Weren't you Randy's friends
at one point? They are nice people and it's just
just one of those things I don't I can't believe,
and I won't believe I was Randy, and I'm not
the only one. Even even besides our immediate family, like
my grandfather, grandparents, my older brother and sister. There are
people on the Champagne County Facebook page.
Speaker 5: Where no.
Speaker 3: Post was put. There are people in the comment session
that no Rainbe that I don't know, but no Rainby
and are saying Rainby did it.
Speaker 1: The videos were going to be a bombshell, and the
police had to know what was said and how much
truth they held. Finally, they got a copy of one
of the recordings of Randy confessing to his friends what
he knew, and it was a much different story than
the rumors.
Speaker 13: So, dude, like what, you just walked into your fucking
house that morning and everybody was.
Speaker 18: Already arguing.
Speaker 13: I wasn't home by sixteen minutes.
Speaker 5: She probably did.
Speaker 17: Before I told her.
Speaker 18: I'm not ready to go home, that I'm not ready
for this work for words, this is life changing. Not
even twenty minutes later, she started popping off one minutes.
Speaker 13: After that, she probably did.
Speaker 1: Randy said that he came home after Eliza dropped him
off on September thirtieth and he heard his parents fighting
with Whitney in the other room. Twenty minutes later, Whitney
was dead.
Speaker 6: Hmm.
Speaker 1: Interesting.
Speaker 18: I was going to let her leave with my daughter go.
Our mutual friend of ours has taken her to her
mom's house in Media. But she's been getting this Section
eight house for like the last six months, maybe one year, right,
And because of COVID, they have green light they Texas.
They texted me last week saying she got the green light.
Speaker 5: She took.
Speaker 18: The day after the day after they killed her. She
was supposed to be event to her apartment. That friend
that was going to pick her up gave her a
brand new furniture that time, and not even months old.
She had a whole house. But what it was was
her step I find that wouldn he raped her well,
doing shit and all that, And that's what proves.
Speaker 13: Me about faith.
Speaker 18: Basically told me when we got on Tall, you know,
my mom's talking to her saying you love her, leave
that baby.
Speaker 13: That baby's gonna.
Speaker 18: Get snatched and rape and blah blah, blah, and I'm like,
you don't get in my life ever. And then when
it's convenient.
Speaker 8: For you, you know, come right.
Speaker 18: And I was like, look at you. He's sitting there
sucking in my face.
Speaker 13: Talking.
Speaker 18: You didn't think about hers face lager. I told him
I shouldn't dropped. I was one half breath away and
planting my following.
Speaker 1: Randy said that he was going to let Whitney leave
with their daughter. She had an apartment set up and
he was willing to go with her, but then his mother, Valerie,
got involved. Valerie was concerned because Whitney had sexual abuse
in her family, and she was convinced that if Randy
and Whitney's daughter left the writer House, she too would
be abused. According to Randy's story, Valerie wanted to stop
Whitney from leaving just based on face value. What a
concoction that is?
Speaker 18: I feel like I could love Tom. I started to
push a lot time. My dad got me to the
front door. I think right before he came out of
the room, I think she's as he went back to
pissed off from my little argument right there, and I
was sitting in a litter room with my daughter, not
even bought say that he came back out for a
different question to look on his face that I either
just did something I never thought i'd have to do,
or I have seen something I.
Speaker 13: Thought i'd never seen.
Speaker 1: Randy said that Whitney Valerie and Rodney Senor were fighting
in another room while he sat on the couch with
his daughter. Picture it see if if it makes any sense.
Speaker 3: And you're noodle.
Speaker 1: When his dad came out, he had a look on
his face that scared the hell out of Randy.
Speaker 18: I broke my hands out of my Das's hands, I
grabbed his and I said, what the fuck did you do?
Speaker 13: He looked me down in my eye, And.
Speaker 18: That's the only reason I believe is probably my.
Speaker 13: Mom is he said I didn't do anything, but he
said you need to leave, be gone for a few days.
Speaker 1: Randy said that Rodney Senior pushed him out the door
and told him to get lost for a few days.
He left his daughter there and split some guy. Randy is,
I mean, what a dad father of the fucking year?
I would say, if any of this is true, that
is also why would you make up a lie that
makes you look worse?
Speaker 18: What the fuck?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 18: It's a pretty simple answer. Right, So is her family
like not gonna let.
Speaker 13: You see a kid anymore?
Speaker 18: They have no control over it, says right now. I
called him, the detective called me yesterday. That's only I
don't want her family to have her. I don't want
her family to have her.
Speaker 1: Randy requested that his toddler be placed under the care
of CPS, an odd decision, but not if he was
planning on leaving the state, and not if he truly
knew that his parents were the ones who committed Whitney's murder. Still,
why not give her to Whitney's mother? Why the lack
of communication? Something was definitely not right. But Eliza's stepsister
and Eliza's ex boyfriend and father of her son had
come forward with some information that made Randy's story seem
like it actually might hold some truth.
Speaker 19: So yesterday, right after my aunt's funeral, we all went
back to my grandma's house and my stepsister, Eliza, went
with us, and then she just left.
Speaker 13: I didn't even know she left.
Speaker 19: And then after that, it was around two thirty three o'clock,
she messaged me and said, try to call Whitney.
Speaker 12: And I don't know Whitney personally, I just know that
my sister was missing over my hot.
Speaker 13: The Whitney's boyfriend.
Speaker 19: So I told Whitney at one point, but she said,
try to call Whitney. And I was like why, blah
blah blah.
Speaker 5: She was like, just try to call her.
Speaker 13: So I tried to call her off Facebook and it
just rang.
Speaker 5: No one picked up, It just rang, And I told her.
Speaker 19: She texted me and said any answer, and I said nope, and.
Speaker 7: Then I let it go.
Speaker 1: Eliza's stepsister said that all this happened before they found
Whitney's body, so why was Eliza asking her to randomly
call Whitney. It was really weird. Then Eliza and Randy
called and started talking.
Speaker 19: And she said Randy and her both said we think
that my mom did it, and I said, your mom
did what? We think that my mom killed her and.
Speaker 11: I was like what.
Speaker 1: So that's when Eliza's stepsister called Eliza's ex boyfriend, a
father of her children. She was creeped out and concerned
about this strange confession from Randy and Eliza.
Speaker 5: Oh.
Speaker 19: We sat down and I was like, I'm gonna call
I was gonna get more information to see what she
knows and I told him the video, and he has
a recording of them giving up every thing.
Speaker 3: Well, not necessarily giving, but there acts an awful calm
for what's going on, you know what I mean, Like, right,
laughing about the mother's.
Speaker 13: Child's missing, and he's in a laughing matter.
Speaker 3: What right?
Speaker 5: Me?
Speaker 13: Me and Eliza an't together.
Speaker 18: I don't care about her.
Speaker 20: If she's to be missing, I'd be worried, sick just
for my daughter's sake in general.
Speaker 13: Right, he don't seem worried at all. That's what just
confuses me, because, Okay.
Speaker 12: Another thing, like Whitney and Randy were together, living in
the same househole and Randy was messing with Eliza, and
Eliza is like crazy obsessed with this.
Speaker 13: Guy for some weird, uoply reason.
Speaker 12: Okay, when I was on the phone with them, before
we got any type of recording or anything, Randy said
that his mom looked him dead in the eyes and said, Randy,
go and hire.
Speaker 1: The police were bogged down with rumors and secret video recordings.
The whole investigation was hinged on small town gossip. But
when Randy came down to the police station, he told
the same story that he had told his friends. He
came home from his girlfriend's house and heard his mother
and Whitney fighting in the bedroom. Then his father, Rodney,
came out with a terrified look on his face and
told him he had to go.
Speaker 13: Okaid, where was mom talking in our room? Okay?
Speaker 21: So when I was sitting in the living room with airline,
you can look through like the little three.
Speaker 22: Steps, you can look down into the dining room and
you can basically see the falls the door in front
of their room. Okay, And I feel like i'd seen
my dad come out from my our room, and that's when.
Speaker 13: I watched him walk into I lost him walk all
the way up.
Speaker 22: To me and from the dining room.
Speaker 17: The first thing he did.
Speaker 22: I was sitting on the floor there and just talking.
Speaker 13: To her, and he grabbed me on my wrist, pulled
me up.
Speaker 17: He said, you need to go home now.
Speaker 2: He's like, you need to go now.
Speaker 21: And I'm like, why, what's going on?
Speaker 17: You guys just can't tell me.
Speaker 13: He said, you just need to fucking me dress me.
Speaker 18: He's like, you just need to go now.
Speaker 22: By this time, he probably got me all the way
up to the door to get my shoes on, and
I rarely got my shoes on.
Speaker 13: He was so panicked he just kept repeating himself.
Speaker 1: Whitney was supposed to be picked up by a friend
that morning so she could start moving into her new apartment.
When Valerie emerged from the bedroom, she was holding Whitney's
phone and asking her son to help her text Whitney's friend.
Speaker 23: And then my mom come out with Whitney's phone and
I was like, I'm locked, and I knew she had
a lot of okay, even though I don't know the
past it, but she was already a large.
Speaker 5: How do you know that? But I don't.
Speaker 13: I didn't I know it was unlocked.
Speaker 6: Did you see it?
Speaker 13: Yeah, Mom showed it to me. She said that.
Speaker 21: When he had told her it's a message Eligen to
say not to come and pick them up, that she
didn't want to hear me tall, But I know from
where we were standing, and I kept trying to go
back and see what was going on because they there's
the way they switched their attitudes.
Speaker 17: My dad went really angry at me.
Speaker 21: They really concerned, not really concerned for me.
Speaker 13: But he looks like he just walked in and seen.
Speaker 21: Something that he probably never thought he'd ever seen, which
is what initially worried me that something happened.
Speaker 13: So Mom was gonna message Elgin and tell him to
not come and.
Speaker 11: Pick them up.
Speaker 1: Randy said that he knew something was up. He couldn't
hear Whitney anymore, and the color had drained from both
of his parents' faces. Still, Randy left as he was told.
He didn't take his daughter, he didn't check on Whitney.
He just grabbed his work stuff and left. Twenty five
year old Whitney Hostler had been found strangled and then
dumped at the bottom of a ravine in the small
town of Urbana, Ohio. Whitney had been living with her boyfriend,
Randy Ryder, two year old daughter, and Randy's parents. It was,
after all, their house, but Randy had been cheating on
Whitney with another girl and had gotten her pregnant. Whitney
was devastated and subsequently had found an apartment to move into.
She told the writer family she was leaving, and that's
when things unraveled. Randy had been the one to alert
the police when Whitney was missing, but multiple people, including
his own brother, said that Randy was violent and entitled,
and they wouldn't be surprised if he had murdered Whitney anyway.
Randy's father, Rodney Sr. Spoke to the police as well.
He didn't have exactly the best things to say about
his son or the dead mother of his grandchildren Whitney
for that matter.
Speaker 2: Whitney, in my opinion, loves that little girl as much
as anyway.
Speaker 17: Yeah, but she I know for a fact that she
told Randy before they had her that if they were
going to try and have a baby, that he was
going to have to take care of her because she
wasn't doing it on her own.
Speaker 2: Randy can go to work and.
Speaker 17: Work all night on friendship, Yeah, he can come.
Speaker 2: Home and Whitney expects him to come in and stay
up and take care of the baby all day long.
Speaker 13: Yeah, while she goes to bed because she was up
all night off.
Speaker 2: Sitting outside easing one of the broken down cars out front,
or in one of the yard chairs out back, smoking
cigarettes and smoking marijuana.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 24: So one appearing you can say is Whitney may have
loved that little girl, Whitney probably.
Speaker 13: It sounds to me he wouldn't be in the goddom
mother that Whitney needed to be to that.
Speaker 24: Little girl would that be a fair statement, because I
don't want the words in your mouth.
Speaker 13: YEA a fair statement.
Speaker 1: But he did have a soft spot for Whitney despite
her maternal shortcomings. In twenty nineteen, Rodney Senior had gotten
sick and lost his job. Then Valerie had lost her job.
The family went from living in a six bedroom house
near town to a three bedroom house living on half
their previous income. Plus Rodney was sick. He had to
take daily shots for his condition, and Whitney acted as
his nurse when no one else could or would.
Speaker 13: So Whitney give me Mark Covid my load loaden shots.
So what you're saying, there's some good times with Whitney too.
Speaker 25: I've had a lot of good time in the wedding
wh Whitney come to our house blaem and said that
Randy's been telling her for years and years, which was zneian.
Valerie hated her, good stand her, didn't want her around
him and everything else.
Speaker 17: That's never better the truth.
Speaker 1: Rodney also had a major soft spot for his granddaughter,
whom he and Valerie had basically raised from an infant,
since Whitney and Randy were young, incapable parents.
Speaker 13: I mean she's two years old, and you give her
a so phone and still say here and play with
that so phone.
Speaker 17: Until she gives YouTube videos on and watches certain videos.
Speaker 26: She's learned all her colors, she's learned times of ten,
all these YouTube videos, she's learning her shapes. So you're
scared for Oh, I'm scared to death for her because I.
Speaker 11: Know she's she's she's not.
Speaker 5: One. She's not she, she's the meaning.
Speaker 26: She's gonna be traumatized when she can't go to bed
without pop out.
Speaker 1: Valerie was also angry by the way Whitney and Randy
were pairing, and told police that they had raised their granddaughter.
Speaker 6: We take care of her. What is that you have
to ask them?
Speaker 25: Really?
Speaker 13: I mean we've always taken care of her. Okay, things
she sleeps, or smokes or leaves or whatever. He does
the same thing.
Speaker 1: Valerie was adamant that she was the true mother to
her granddaughter. Nothing like a grandparent brawl. Just picture it
Jerry Springer style with walkers being hurled across the room.
That didn't happen, But it's still fun to think about
me or I.
Speaker 27: Need to take care of her twenty four to seven.
You can ask for other kids.
Speaker 13: You can ask my inlaws.
Speaker 5: We have her.
Speaker 1: Valerie said that when Randy confided in her that he
was seeing another girl and had gotten her pregnant, she
knew it was the beginning of the end, but she
didn't want to lose her granddaughter. She didn't want Whitney
and the baby to go, especially the baby.
Speaker 6: Though I said, we'll.
Speaker 5: Make Granby leave. She's like, I'm not staying here.
Speaker 27: She's like, wells he leaves, I'm not staying.
Speaker 13: I said, we will make him leave.
Speaker 27: I said, as long as she says, and you.
Speaker 13: Know, we can take care of her while you do whatever.
Speaker 8: I said, then we'll do that.
Speaker 27: And she was sitting there on the bed and she
was crying and everything, and I mean, they fight and
she tricks him like shit, and he is an asshole,
you know, he does stupid shit. But I think that
she was still kind of expecting him to be there,
you know.
Speaker 13: I mean, she told him that.
Speaker 27: This was her apartment, and you know, she was gonna
she was getting a job and everything.
Speaker 13: But I think she was still expecting him to be
there and help and help with the baby and all that.
Speaker 17: And he told her flat out that she wasn't his responsibility, Whitney,
not the baby Jay.
Speaker 5: He told Whitney.
Speaker 13: When did he tell her that?
Speaker 6: When morning?
Speaker 11: Yeah?
Speaker 13: Yeah, And I mean he told me that he flied out.
Speaker 27: That was one of the reasons why he's been staying
away is to piss her off so that she would
get the hell out.
Speaker 13: Okay, And I'm like, Raby your daughter.
Speaker 27: He's like, well, she's going to take her for a
month and then she's going to bring her back to me.
I said, she just stood there and screamed at you
and said that she's taking.
Speaker 13: Her baby, that you are not getting her.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I don't know what you're thinking his mind. Yeah, Now
what he thinks and what's reality is way two different things.
Speaker 1: Valerie and Rodney stuck to the same story. Yeah, the
fight happened, but then some friend of Whitney's came and
picked her up and they never saw her again. But
the cops looked into that friend. It was the same
one that Randy said as mother was trying to text
from Whitney's phone. He never showed up, he never came over.
Whitney's mother told him not to. Allegedly, Plus, everyone has
a ring camera these days, even in rural Ohio, a
place where UFO sightings are common.
Speaker 13: So what happened to Whitney, mister opportunity?
Speaker 23: She left?
Speaker 5: We know she left.
Speaker 13: She took her stuff outside on port. She had her bag,
she had her jacket. I've been since.
Speaker 20: Lee fifty yesterday morning. Okay, I've worked all day. We've
all worked all day on this. I know she ain't
get in the car sway and leave. You happen to
look around at your neighborhood, Maybe see the surveillance cameras
in the ring doorbells.
Speaker 13: I mean, here's the thing. I know she ain't in
a burkendy car. I'm a room car in your dragway,
at the end of your dragway. I'm telling you, I'm
a straight shooter. I'm in a bullshit Yet it didn't happen.
Speaker 1: That's when the cops pulled out pictures of Whitney's decomposing
body and slammed them on the table in front of Valerie.
She winced and turned away, her chubby arms wrapped tightly
around her body.
Speaker 24: Do you see these marks? Does her fingerprints? Do you
know what we can get from fingerprints? First of all,
we can take fingerprints off human skin, and we're working
on that right now. We can get DNA.
Speaker 13: Off human skin and off clothing.
Speaker 5: That is.
Speaker 7: Hurt.
Speaker 5: That is hurt.
Speaker 11: Is Whitney.
Speaker 26: Fast is Whitney.
Speaker 13: Whitney's laying dead at the bottom of a goddamn vine.
Do you think that I spent my entire day saying,
with my thumb and my ass tracking every spot where
you said you were at, checking for cameras, looking at cameras.
Speaker 5: I know.
Speaker 13: The car that passed you slowed down and passed you.
Speaker 17: When you were doing this.
Speaker 13: Guess what, I'm not stupid. Don't treat me like I'm stupid.
Speaker 1: The cops had more evidence than Valerie expected, and she
was starting to crumble under the weight of it all,
under the guilt. That's how they get you, with your
own guilt.
Speaker 13: I want to be able to tell the judge or
to tell the prosecutor this is what happened.
Speaker 5: Did you target her?
Speaker 13: Would you plan it out? Or was this the heat
of the moment? Thing you just lost the control? Was
it an accident?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 17: Okay, how did the accident happen?
Speaker 27: She pushed me, She shoved me back into the door
because I asked her to leave the baby with us. Yeah,
I mean we've had her twenty four to seven.
Speaker 3: We understand that.
Speaker 5: She said no, she said she's taking her.
Speaker 11: Yeah she did.
Speaker 3: She said she wasn't.
Speaker 21: We weren't going to see her anymore, especially since Randy
got the other one pregnant.
Speaker 27: She shoved me into the door.
Speaker 6: She hit me because I kept telling her we have been.
Speaker 5: Taking care of her.
Speaker 13: She doesn't like to go anywhere else. She just kept
screaming she didn't care.
Speaker 3: She was hers, she wasn't.
Speaker 5: She wasn't giving her a She hasn't taken care of
her at all.
Speaker 1: So there it was a confession. Valerie killed Whitney because
she didn't want to lose her granddaughter.
Speaker 11: Smart.
Speaker 1: Then again, what do you expect in rural Ohio.
Speaker 13: She was laying on the bed, okay, and I was
holding her, and yeah, I had I put my arm
around her and it went up because she moved and
she tried.
Speaker 24: To hit me off and everything.
Speaker 13: And that was I mean, I must have.
Speaker 10: Squeeze too hard or something because I heard her.
Speaker 6: I don't know. It wasn't a gag or call or whatever.
Speaker 2: It was just like a.
Speaker 5: I don't even know.
Speaker 13: It wasn't a what would you consider natural sound right, Yeah,
it was like like almost like a growl or something.
Speaker 1: Valerie confessed that while Rodney and the baby slept in
the other room, she fought with Whitney and strangled her
with her arms until she growled and died.
Speaker 27: I was sitting there shaking at first because I was
freaking out.
Speaker 13: And where's Rodney Senior?
Speaker 5: During this time?
Speaker 23: He was in the bedroom with the baby.
Speaker 13: Sleep or waiting. I think he was asleep.
Speaker 27: And I went and woking up because I tried like
shaking her and everything.
Speaker 13: And did you call nine one one and asked for help?
Speaker 8: I was freaking out. I had grabbed her.
Speaker 6: I did that.
Speaker 13: So what point did you put the plastic bag over?
And scurriled the ductee? It was before Rodney came in,
wasn't it? Why put the plastic bag over?
Speaker 17: Did she not want to see her face anymore?
Speaker 1: Thatn After she killed Whitney, Valerie panicked and put a
dark plastic bag over her head, securing it tightly with
duct tape. Then she went and got her husband. She
said that she kept thinking about her granddaughter. She didn't
want to call nine one one because she didn't want
to lose the baby.
Speaker 13: He was fruked.
Speaker 19: He actually was passed out.
Speaker 13: What did he say when he saw it?
Speaker 19: Him?
Speaker 13: And he's like, what did you do?
Speaker 19: What happened?
Speaker 5: What did you tell him?
Speaker 27: I told him, I said she started screaming at me,
trying to get past me.
Speaker 23: She was going for the baby.
Speaker 5: She was laming.
Speaker 1: Valerie said that she had Rodney pulled the truck around.
They stuffed Whitney into a large Duffel bag and threw
her into the bed of the truck. Then Valerie and
Rodney's other son came home. They made him some food
and acted like everything was normal. And that night they
packed up their granddaughter in the truck and tried to
find a place to dump Whitney. They struggled for a
while until they remembered the Kaiser Lake ravine.
Speaker 13: So whose idea was it to dump her down the ravine?
How did you get her out of the packet? Did
Rodney help you do that?
Speaker 5: I just pulled her out.
Speaker 8: I went down.
Speaker 17: Who helped you get her out of the truck?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 13: You did it by yourself?
Speaker 10: Was in the truck?
Speaker 13: Okay, I'm can I ask you a question? Okay, this
wound that's on the bottom of the chin there's a
there's a laceration under there that looks like seepings of blood.
Speaker 18: You see it.
Speaker 13: Did you drag when she came out? Was she face down?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 13: And I knew you dragged her across the lawn to
roll her over. There's a law there, Remember that I
got stuck. She shove her word of the ravine. How
far did she go? Maybe halfway?
Speaker 5: So?
Speaker 13: Did you climbed down it?
Speaker 6: I had to go down.
Speaker 13: That's a elvastin ravine. Did you have any trouble getting down?
Speaker 3: Her?
Speaker 5: Down?
Speaker 3: Now? Up?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 13: So she goes halfway down? You climbed down? Did you
drag her? Did your carry her from there?
Speaker 5: I pulled her.
Speaker 3: Up?
Speaker 13: And you thought she was far enough in to be
secluded or what? It was dark.
Speaker 1: That's when a car drove by. Valerie saw the lights
and Rodney yelled at her. She got scared and stayed put,
breathing heavily. Then she waddled herself back into the truck
and they left. As they pulled into their driveway, the
sheriff pulled up behind them. Valerie's heart stopped. You see,
during the time they had been dumping Whitney down the ravine,
Rodney had made that call to the police and reported
Whitney missing. Ironic, isn't it?
Speaker 5: There wasn't I mean, because he pulled in and the
sheriff pulled in behind us.
Speaker 23: I told him it was my fault.
Speaker 17: I should have stayed away from her, because.
Speaker 13: It was your fault. You should have stayed away from him.
Speaker 5: What I told him, I was sorry.
Speaker 1: After two separate trials, Valerie was found guilty of murder,
felonious assault, tampering with evidence, gross abuse of a corpse,
and three counts of possession of criminal tools. That's a
new one. I haven't heard that one before. Possession of
criminal tools. So to me, that says you can't own cutlery.
What a weird law?
Speaker 3: Ohio?
Speaker 1: Can you own a flashlight? What about a crowbar? They
got to title that one a little better anyway. Valerie
is now serving twenty one years in prison. Her husband, Rodney,
was sentenced to thirty six months in prison and parole
for three years. Their son, Randy, for some reason, was
never charged or held responsible for Whitney's death, even though
if you step back and look at the whole thing,
it's mostly his fault the entire scenario. He didn't do
anything to protect his own child from the mother he's
known his entire life. He knew what they had done
and kept quiet about it, at least for a while.
But I guess he was the most moral person in
the story, and apart from, you know, protecting his own
child from the mother that he's known his entire life.
According to his girlfriend Eliza's Facebook page, they are still
happily together today and have a few more kids. The
whereabouts of the daughter he shared with Whitney, whom Valerie
was so determined to keep in her care that she
turned to murder is unknown. Valerie will be seventy three
when she gets out of jail, and she'll still be
a grandmother. She'll get her life back, but she'll never
get to see that baby girl ever again, the one
whose mother she murdered. That's over. You did that, Valerie.
Speaker 6: No one else.
Speaker 1: Babies having babies. That's where we're at in society in
twenty twenty four, and that's what this all boils down to, reactive,
emotional idiots putting their own feelings above all else. Maybe
Whitney wasn't ready to be a mother, Maybe she shouldn't
have been, and maybe Randy wasn't ready to be a
father either. Maybe he should have quit while he was
ahead instead of looking for more strange As they say,
Valerie and Rodney thought they were helping by taking care
of their granddaughter, But what they were doing was enabling
the terrible choices that their son had made, the choices
that he made, I might add, after they raised him
in a way, they were enabling their own bad behavior.
They were meddling, and really what choice did they have
in the matter. But that child became a contentious pawn
in the Writer household instead of the innocent human being
that she is. Whitney was never given a chance to
prove that she could mother her baby without Valerie and
Rodney enabling her to still act like a child. Maybe
if she had moved out on her own with her daughter,
all the stresses of life and all the consequences that
come with it. Maybe if she was alone under her
own roof and forced to grow up, to mature in
the real world and do what she needed to do
to raise her daughter. Because when you have no choice,
you gotta do what you gotta do. You got to
grow the fuck up. If you're never given the chance,
you never do. I think this is pretty common sense,
is it not? Am I the crazy one? Perhaps? Perhaps?
But Whitney never got the opportunity to find out because
Valerie Writer thought she was the Mama Bear, the one
with all the answers, the virtuous mom, the one we
all celebrate with greeting cards every year and all the
propaganda that comes with it. Despite all this, did not
respect Whitney as a woman. She saw her as a child,
and when the situation became unbearable, Valerie did the unthinkable
and over corrected for her failure as a mother. So
that's gonna do it for another Sword and Scale thank
you so much for joining us once again. If you're
in the market for more true crime, I highly highly
suggest checking out Sword and Scale Daily, our morning news
show five days of week. We also have a little
show called Sword and Scale Nightmares, which a lot of
you enjoy.
Speaker 19: Well.
Speaker 1: That's available just about everywhere. And also do not forget
the latest episode of Sword and Scale Television with the
story of a young man named Jordan DeMay. This is
a pretty awful story because it's a clear example of
how evil looks everywhere, especially in your pocket. So definitely
a good one to check out parents anyway, enjoy stay safe,