Speaker 1: Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is
not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2: I've come back picking Leonard opened the latch on the
left side driver's side of the truck.
Speaker 3: The mold. He comes around the front of the truck
and says, there's a dead body of that.
Speaker 1: What is wrong with this fascist bide asshole anyway? Why
does he keep putting out episodes? Hi, it's me again,
putting the fries firmly in the bag. Would you like
some ketchup with that? My staff is gonna fucking kill
me for putting out so many episodes. I should really
spread them out. But you know what, I doubled the
pricing this year, kind of oh you want, don't I?
Or maybe two or three. So it's gonna be a
little bit of a fun White Boys summer here at
Sword and Scale Enterprises. And then we're probably gonna take
a little time off in the fall, just letting you know,
so you don't freak the fuck out. Everybody needs a vaca,
you know. But uh, we're gonna try to put out
as much as we can here because why not. Why not?
It's not like I'm doing this for the money. Anyway,
I'm doing it to piss off liberals. It's the summer
of twenty twenty four and Lisa Sheridan's concerns are growing
with each unanswered call. She can't reach her daughter, Rachel,
who she speaks with every day. Lisa tries to calm
her nerves by telling herself that she's fine, but it's
not working. Sure, Rachel's busy a lot, she works full time.
Even so, the twenty four year old always found time
to call her mother. Call you mother, guys, she misses
you well. Last time Lisa heard from Rachel was three
days ago, on Saturday, June twenty ninth. Now it's July second,
and Lisa picks up the phone again to call Rachel's work.
After just one ring, the manager at Love's Travel Stop
gas station in North Canton, Ohio answers the phone. Lisa
asks if Rachel is scheduled to work that day. The
manager says she is, but she hasn't shown up. Lisa's
stomach drops, realizing just how uncharacteristic this was of her daughter.
It's at this point when Lisa and her fiance decide
to drive over to her apartment see what's going on.
When they arrive, they see one of Rachel's cats sitting
on the basement unit's windowsill as it pokes its white
head past a blanket covering the large pane of glass.
Lisa wonders what happened to the curtains she bought her
daughter that were once there. She and her fiance then
enter the building and walk down the small set of
steps that lead to Rachel's apartment. Immediately, Lisa's fiance starts
banging on the door, but there's no answer. Lisa then
reaches into her purse, grabs her phone, and calls the
sheriff's apartment.
Speaker 4: Hi, I was wondering if I can speak with the
police officer?
Speaker 5: Okay, reference to what, ma'am?
Speaker 4: My daughter? I'm I haven't spoke with her for three days,
and then I find out that she called. She was
a no call, no show at her job, and her
car is gone, and we're at her apartment right now
looking for her. What's the address and forty one oh
seven Orchard Deal. The police have been out here more
than once, but all of a sudden, now she's nowhere
to be found. She's not answering my text.
Speaker 5: Okay, what farm.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure. I know it's downstairs to the left.
Speaker 5: Either a car is not there.
Speaker 4: No, it's not. Okay, it's not it's not here.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 4: She has not been answering me on my text, which
she usually she usually does. And then for some reason
I called her job and they called Rachel our a
y C H E L Sheridan s H E r
I D A N.
Speaker 1: Well, Lisa's on the phone with dispatch. Her fiance yells
from the background after hearing a noise coming from inside
Rachel's apartment.
Speaker 4: Would you do you didn't break that?
Speaker 6: Did you know?
Speaker 4: I'm banging on the door.
Speaker 7: There's somebody in there?
Speaker 5: Okay, he's so he didn't make contact with anyone, Is
that right? No, he hasn't.
Speaker 4: He was banging on the door and he said, it's
like nobody's in there, and oh god, thinks.
Speaker 6: It sounded like somebody was in there.
Speaker 5: Oh, I sounded like So he didn't talk to anybody,
He said, it just sounded like no.
Speaker 4: So who was a yelling as probably trying to get
trying to get somebody answer the damn door.
Speaker 5: Okay, do you hear anything? Do you hear anything at
this time? Like somebody doesn't know.
Speaker 4: All I heard I listen. All I heard was my
fiance a screaming. He was banging on the door trying
to see if somebody was going to come to the door.
All I heard was him yelling now that to all
I heard, Yeah, and no hold on all the pat
all do what.
Speaker 2: They had a computer or something going on in there,
and then they quit who at stirred knocking.
Speaker 1: The dispatcher instructs Lisa and her fiance to get away
from the door and step outside until the police arrive.
Speaker 5: I want you to well to come out of there
and come on the property, come to the parking lone
and stand by your musick.
Speaker 4: Okay, yep, not a problem.
Speaker 5: All right, I have the offices on the way. Okay,
thank you, so you welcome man.
Speaker 1: At around one pm, deputies are dispatched to the apartment
on Orchard Dale Drive to conduct a welfare check. Upon
entering the unit, deputies are met with a scene that
is nothing short of a health hazard. Clothes, cigarette butts,
dirty dishes, and several neglected litter boxes are just some
of the items contributing to this mess. A deputy then
looks down to find one of Rachel's several cats purring
and nuzzling against his boot. According to Lisa, she would
never leave her animals unattended like this, especially for days
on end. I'm sure we have a lot of cat
lovers in the audience that feel the same way. After
a quick look around, authorities decide it's probably best they
step outside, mindful of not contaminating any potential evidence.
Speaker 8: When they went in the apartment, they felt that something
wasn't quite right. When they determined that nobody was at
the apartment, They then determined to get a search warrant
so they could investigate further.
Speaker 1: While outside, one of the deputies returns to his patrol
car to issue a BOLO alert for Rachel's Red twenty
ten Jeep Liberty. At two fifteen pm, the jeep or
yeep as so jeep enthusiasts like to call it, is
spotted less than half a mile away traveling along Guildford
Avenue in Stark County, Ohio. After tailing the vehicle for
a few blocks, the officer initiates a traffic stop. The
jeep then slowly pulls into a nearby parking lot. As
the officer approaches the driver's side of the vehicle, she's
greeted by the sole occupant, a white male appearing to
be in his mid twenties.
Speaker 9: Go and stop all the vehicle for me, give me
weapons on you and face off.
Speaker 4: Wayman, patch you down real quick.
Speaker 2: K it's gonna sticker poke me.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 3: Don't grab anything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no needles, nothing like that, no, ma'am.
Speaker 10: Okay.
Speaker 1: The man is seen on bodycam wearing a purple T
shirt and red basketball shorts, says. The deputy continues to
search him.
Speaker 2: Where's your girlfriend at dinner?
Speaker 9: Because she's missing right now?
Speaker 4: All right, I'm putting your money back after she drenks, well.
Speaker 3: She's not home.
Speaker 1: As the officer reaches to grab her handcuffs, she turns
her head for just a split second too long, and
the suspect takes off running. These lady cops, am I right,
Calm down, Calm down, it's a joke. Lacks her hormones.
Speaker 11: One six seven.
Speaker 9: He's running for me.
Speaker 12: Get on the ground.
Speaker 1: After out running the officer, the man disappears into a
densely wooded area. The out of breath deputy immediately radios
her location along with the name and description of the suspect.
Speaker 4: My fiance, I know how he feels about all of
this because her boyfriend has got want out for him. Okay,
And yeah, it's not this is not a good thing.
Speaker 5: Okay, ma'am. Yeah, what is the boyfriend's name?
Speaker 4: Sean Go Sea and ge Oh my god, Oh my god.
Speaker 1: When Rachel shared and abruptly stopped responding to calls and
texts in late June of twenty twenty four, her mother
was the first one to sense something was wrong. Deputy
has conducted a welfare check at her apartment, but there
was no sign of her. By July second, her absence
had escalated into a full blown panic in search of
a missing twenty four year old. That afternoon, the situation
took a turn, let's say, when Rachel's red Jeep Liberty
was seen driven not by her but by her boyfriend,
a twenty six year old named Sean Go. Officers attempted
a traffic stop on Guilford Avenue in Canton, but Sean fled,
ultimately leaving Rachel's vehicle behind. As the man hunt for
Sean and the search for Rachel intensified, investigators spoke with witnesses, friends,
and family members to learn what led up to Rachel's
sudden disappearance before she mysteriously vanished, Rachel Sheridan was described
as a hard working woman with a resilient spirit. At
age twenty four, she forged her own path, living independently
in a modest basement apartment in Canton, Ohio. If you've
ever been to Canton, or Ohio for that matter, it's
probably for the best. Put it that way. Aside from
the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the city doesn't exactly
scream opportunity or fun, probably because the crime rate is
almost two hundred percent higher than the national average. And
you thought Chicago was pad but for Rachel, it was home,
you know, the place she'd known her entire life. She
didn't come from money by any means, but she was disciplined.
Rachel had saved up enough funds working overnight shifts at
a Love's gas station to afford a jeep and her
own place. It's a lot more than I could say
about a lot of people. The neighbors over at her
complex described her as an extremely friendly neighbor, even if
it was a quick hello when passing through the halls, I.
Speaker 9: Were like to be taken out the trash, I'd say
hi to where she'd say un to me. It was
really friendly brief conversations.
Speaker 1: When she wasn't working, which was almost never, Rachel found
time to nurture her creative side. She loved poetry and journaling,
filling its pages with her thoughts, dreams, and observations of
the world around her. In terms of looks, Rachel also
happened to be very attractive. She was petite, with dirty
blonde hair that curled and draped over the flower tattoo
on her left shoulder.
Speaker 10: You can see in the picture of the sunlight when
it hit her, her skin glowed.
Speaker 1: She just was gorgeous. What truly stood out about Rachel
more than her physical appearance was her personality. She was
just as goofy and loud as she was kind, the
type of person to stick up for the underdog, much
like the time she noticed a female coworker at a
BP gas station behind the counter with a black eye.
Speaker 11: Okay, mama, so what's your name, Amanda? I'm with the
at the thirty ace VP and the owner, for whatever reason,
has failed to do his job. Miss Amanda was assaulted
by not only an ex coworker, but three to four
other men and women that decided to throw alcohol bottles
at her face and other things around the corner and
just being very disrespectful. She's asked the boss to take
the proper, the proper steps in doing what they need
to do for her, and they've failed to do so.
She's contacted attorneys and all of that. But I'm just
letting it be known that thirty eighth VP is clearly
managed by somebody very very disrespectful.
Speaker 1: The last video Rachel posted to Snapchat wasn't anything groundbreaking,
just a moment in her day, but it said a
lot about who she was. Kind, empathetic, especially when it
came to women dealing with abusive relationships. She cared, she
paid attention, She gave a damn Then came Sean Go.
It was twenty twenty two and Rachel was behind the
counter at a Love's gas station stacking cigarettes like she
did every week. When a skinny guy with a shaved
head strolled in and asked if they were hiring. Rachel
recognized him instantly. Sean Go, a few years older, same hometown.
He had that kind of reputation, the kind where you
don't have to know all the details, you just know
it wasn't good. He filled out an application. She said
she'd put in a word for him, and just like that,
despite a resume that was thinner than his hairline, Sean
landed the job. Working side by side, they started to
click sharing jokes, friendly banter. It wasn't long before those
interactions turned into something a little more. And while people
who knew Rachel would probably say Sean was punching way
above his weight, she didn't seem to care. She was,
after all, a kind, decent, good person.
Speaker 6: She liked him.
Speaker 1: Maybe she saw something in him that the rest of
us didn't. Maybe she was captured by that idea that
she could change him, you know, fix them in some way.
Soon Facebook got the memo selfies, hugging, kissing, that sort
of thing. One particular memorable shot showed a shirtless Sean
in the passenger seat of Rachel's jeep, flashing a tattoo
across his collarbone that read born Sinner. But if you've
been listening to us long enough, you know social media
is a lie, and behind every curated love story is
a thing. I don't even know how to describe it,
a truth that people don't want you to see. Within months,
Sean had moved in. Then he quit his job, Rachel,
now working forty plus hours a week, was paying all
the bills, playing chauffeur and supporting her new full time HouseGuest, who,
instead of finding work, chose to sleep in, blaze up
and chase SoundCloud fame. Nothing like a little clout, you know.
It's addictive, more addictive than a lot of hard drugs, actually,
And that's what Sean did, because of course he did.
Sean didn't have a license, he didn't have any ambition,
probably not much of a personality either. He didn't have
much of anything really, except a history and a girlfriend.
What Rachel probably didn't know, or didn't want to believe,
was that Sean's past wasn't just sketchy, it was violent.
In twenty sixteen, he broke into a home in Jackson
Township and walked off with twenty four thousand dollars in
stolen jewelry. Not long after that, he was caught, pleaded
guilty to burglary and heroin possession, and was sentenced to
four years behind bars. On it's out, he went right
back to the usual drugs, theft, and aggression. Soon the
neighbors knew who Sean was, and so did the local cops,
and that's so called love story. It was beginning to
look more like a countdown.
Speaker 13: Oh yeah, I live in that building, right on the
third floor. I see and I hear it all.
Speaker 1: So I've seen the nights she comes up.
Speaker 3: Screaming in the parking lot. I've heard her call him
a dumpeeda shit. I've called him call her a dump
pizza shit.
Speaker 1: But things only got worse from there. On April second,
twenty twenty four, Sean broke into another apartment in North Canton,
where he stole a handgun. The following month, he threatened
to shoot his girlfriend Rachel, before putting a knife through
the tires of her beloved Jeep.
Speaker 14: I walked out of our door and her tires were slashed.
Speaker 1: Like, I said, what happened to your tires? She said,
Sean happened to my tires. As a result of his
prior offenses, Sean was hit with charges related to burglary,
grand theft of a fire arm, domestic violence, and more.
Shawn never showed up to court for any of them,
of course, resulting in five active warrants. I missed those
days when we used to put criminals in prison. Thankfully,
they seemed to be coming back. It was around this
time when Rachel's friend started to notice the bruises on
her neck and arms. An employee at the BP gas
station that Rachel frequented would later tell police that she
often confided in him, especially about her abusive boyfriend.
Speaker 3: Every time she would come in.
Speaker 13: She you know, if she was alone or whatever, she
would you know, I need to get rid of them.
I can't. I guess the courts weren't doing anything for
any eviction, so you know, she would be like, I
can't do nothing, and I'm stuck. She said, I wanted
to get away from him.
Speaker 1: Days before her disappearance, Rachel visited the store by herself,
but according to the witness, he knew things had gotten
worse after noticing an injury to her face, and.
Speaker 13: She had already came in like a few days earlier.
She already came in with a black eye.
Speaker 1: The clerk explained to the police that around one pm
the day before she disappeared, he saw Rachel's jeep pull
into the gas station, but according to his statement, he
was surprised when he saw her boyfriend Sean behind the
wheel and enter the store alone.
Speaker 13: But it was just odd, like again because he don't
go nowhere. He's not driving her car ever. You know,
you get no suspicious movements or like he was looking
around or nothing like that. He just came in like
a regular day and he lived was inside maybe.
Speaker 6: Two three minutes.
Speaker 1: Despite realizing that she was in an abusive relationship, The
shiner witnessed on Rachel's face unknowingly paled in comparison to
the violence that lay ahead, which is why if your
boyfriend ever hits you, even just once, you need to
call it quits right then and there. It always escalates
well after.
Speaker 13: That day, that's when all hill broke loose.
Speaker 3: That will have morning actually was when all.
Speaker 6: Hell broke loose.
Speaker 1: After Sean fled on foot following the traffic stop, canines
were deployed into the woods and drones flew overhead. Despite
the swift response of law enforcement, the dogs eventually lost
track of them. While the search for Sean remained ongoing,
Rachel's jeep was impounded and processed for evidence. One of
the first things that investigators noticed was the exterior damage
to the rear passenger side, as a large section of
plastic paneling was missing. Investigators also noticed that the cargo
area of the jeep was empty, bearing only the imprint
of a plastic floor mat that was all so missing
from the vehicle.
Speaker 6: Everything that appeared to have been in the back cargo
area of that jeep was now in the back seat.
It was a bunch of blankets, it was a bunch
of spare tires, and one thing that really stuck out
was there was a shovel with dirt on it.
Speaker 1: In addition to the shovel, a gray, grass stained blanket
was located, along with a trash bag filled with freshly
washed blankets. To the right of the driver's seat was
Rachel's cell phone wedged between the center console. Her wallet
and journal were found on the passenger seat, which contained
several recent handwritten entries. A few hours later, authorities received
a tip that a man matching the suspect's description had
attempted to rip a woman out of her vehicle at
a body shop and Canton. After failing to obtain a
getaway car, the suspect took off again on foot. The
incident was captured on surveillance, but by the time the
cops got there, Sean had gotten away again.
Speaker 10: Sheriff's deputies searching Star County looking for twenty four year
old Rachel share it In. She was reported missing on
Tuesday by her mother after she didn't show up for work.
Speaker 1: Investigators then started to pull surveillance video from other local
businesses in the area. Less than twenty four hours after
Sean ran from police, CCTV cameras captured him at a
McDonald's in Canton just before seven thirty pm on the
evening of July first. Sean was seen wearing a white
T shirt behind the wheel of Rachel's red jeet. He
appeared to be alone while waiting in the drive through lane.
After grabbing his burger or Happy Meal through the window,
Surveillance showed him pull around to the opposite side of
the building, where he proceeds to enjoy his meal delicious.
You just love McDonald's. I like the Fialleo fish. I
think I'm one of the only people. Almost around an
hour later, the red jeep backs out of the parking
spot before exiting the camera's frame. Despite all of this
digital evidence that the investigators were actively gathering, Rachel was
still missing and her boyfriend Sean was still at large.
Speaker 9: Right now. Sheriff's office are searching for him, they say
if you have any information about either Go or Sheridan,
or where either of them might be located, they ask
you to contact the Star County Sheriff's office.
Speaker 1: For a while, Sean Gough managed to stay ahead of
the game, ducking cameras, dodging cops, and laying low. But
it doesn't matter how many times you've watched the Fugitive.
That sort of thing doesn't last forever. And on the
night of July third, his time ran out. A call
came into the Canton PD from the Higher Upset Refuge
of Hope, a local homeless shelter. The guy in the
line was the shelter's director, and he sounded a little panicked.
One of his employees had just called him saying that
a man had walked through the front door who looked
exactly like the guy flooding everyone's feed from the recent
BOLO alerts, you know, the one that police were actively hunting.
That man was, of course, Sean Go. The employee had
recognized him immediately. She kept her cool, stepped into a
nearby office and called her boss. He called the cops,
and just like that, the clock started ticking. Meanwhile, Sean
either bold or desperate or dumb or all three was
at the front desk asking for help getting out of town.
He said he needed a bus ticket to Zanesville, wherever
the hell that is just an hour and a half away,
but far enough. You must have figured the staff. They
played it cool. They put on an Oscar worthy performance acting.
They call it smiling, nodding, offering to help, pretending like
they weren't stalling for time while the police sirens got closer.
An assistant director brought Sean into a private office, offering
to help search for tickets. He typed, slowly, clicked even slower,
buying every second that he could try to do that
without looking awkward. Then the moment finally came. The door
burst open. Officers rushed in, and Sean Go was taken
into custody without a fight, no theatrics, no last ditch
attempt to run. He had been caught, just handcuffs, silence,
and a one way ride to the Canton police station.
Because when you live the kind of life that Sean
Go lived, eventually the door does get kicked in.
Speaker 10: After an extensive searge, Go is now in co City
Deputies say Go has active warrants for burglary, grand theft
of a firearm and domestic violence.
Speaker 1: Upon entering the interrogation room, Little Sean was thirsty.
Speaker 12: Very we get water.
Speaker 1: He's then padded down for contraband.
Speaker 6: I gotta check you in.
Speaker 7: Yes, sir, I know they probably did, and they probably
did a bunch of times, but I'm going.
Speaker 9: That's all right.
Speaker 6: Start your own comfortable, right, no offend to anybody else.
Put even our own.
Speaker 7: People want to take it from my spring with them?
Did you have to see Imburbia Walter appreciating.
Speaker 13: You, bro.
Speaker 1: With the detective out of the room, Sean looked up
to see the surveillance camera pointed directly at him. Seemingly unfazed,
he starts analyzing the cuts on his hands. When the
detective returns, he's provided his cold bottle of water and
proceeds to chug the whole thing down. All that run
and makes you thirsty, all right?
Speaker 12: I need that.
Speaker 1: After intros were made and Miranda writes read, the investigator
asked Sean if he knew why he had been arrested.
Speaker 7: You know why I need to talk to Sean. But worse, Yeah,
you're talking about Rachel. Yeah, yeah, they asked me about that,
and I do not know who asked you cop?
Speaker 1: Hah Yeah, this entire ordeal is so fucking funny.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: The detective then cuts to the chase by essentially telling
Sean that you're fuck buddy, Sean.
Speaker 6: You don't really right.
Speaker 4: I don't really right this.
Speaker 7: I've never mentioned I don't believe I have right. I'm
very poor to coming in. I'm pretty bar right, Yes, sir, Okay,
we did a search warn in your house. You did
a search warn on the car. I don't believe you're
a monster. I don't want to believe that. I don't
want anybody else to believe that. But you know what happened,
and you know where she's at.
Speaker 10: You need to know.
Speaker 7: I think I might need an attorney.
Speaker 1: Then, well, so much for an interrogation. Once Sewn asks
for an attorney, that's it. Interview over.
Speaker 7: I'm Sergeant Johnson. If you would like to talk to me,
please reach out. Okay, guy, you have or oh should
if I don't.
Speaker 1: Er huan, Yeah, well, legally he couldn't be questioned further
without a lawyer present. The detective couldn't help but notice
the condition of Sean's hands and feet. They were dirty,
covered with cuts and scrapes, some of which didn't look
like they were from running through the woods. Shawn's fingernails
also looked trimmed painfully low, almost intentionally. These observations prompted
DNA samples, fingernails, scrapings, and processing of his clothes choices
that weren't shot to make at this state in the game.
While he was being held on charges related to his
outstanding warrants. The Stark County Sheriff held a press conference
that same evening. During the televised briefing, a sigh of
relief was shared among the public after it was announced
that their only suspect was in custody. Any semblance of
hope was then shattered when law enforcement revealed that this
was no longer a missing person's case.
Speaker 8: As a result of the search warrant that was executed
the apartment Rachel, Sheridan, and Shangoh, evidence of foul play
was discovered. Detectives determined that Sheridan was murdered inside the apartment.
Speaker 1: It's unclear what Lisa's fiance heard when they first showed
up at Rachel's apartment, but police later confirmed that no
one was inside at the time. Maybe it was one
of those Amazon alexes just going off on its own.
They do that now, sometimes in the middle of the night,
and it's fuck terrifying. But what they did find once
the search warrant was signed by a judge was much
more alarming. Upon entering Rachel's bedroom, a damaged flat screen
TV was found on a dresser. The entire right side
of the glass had been smashed out by some sort
of blunt object. Located in the right corner of the room,
near the foot of the bed was an overfilled black
trash bag. On top of it was a blood soaked pillow.
Inside the plastic bag where latex gloves, a sponge, blood
soaked paper towels, and a bloody comforter. As they approached
the bed, investigators witnessed a bottle of oxy clean, a
box of Latex gloves, and additional cleaning sprays found on
and around the mattress. Thing about lazy pieces of shit
is they can't even clean up their own murder scenes properly.
On the bed itself was a massive bloodstain on the
top right corner, where someone's head would typically rest. After
lifting the mattress, the extent of the blood became apparent
it had soaked entirely through the foam and onto the
box spring, forming a small pool on the carpet below.
Aside from three small blood droplets trailing downward on the wall,
minimal blood spatter was present. Crime scene texts then applied
luminol to the back wall, which ultimately revealed just how
vicious the attack actually was. The black light chemical produced
stains that virtually lit up the entire wall, suggesting that
even if Rachel tried to defend herself, there was little
to no chance of her making it out alive, which
was consistent with another discovery they had already made roughly
four miles across town. Rachel Sheridan's disappearance in the summer
of twenty twenty four quickly evolved from a missing person's
case to something much more sinister. A well for a
check at her apartment revealed a disturbing scene, and her
red jeep Liberty spotted later that day led officers to
her boyfriend, Sean Go. When authorities attempted to stop him,
Sean made a run for it. As investigators worked to
locate both Rachel and Sean, the search ended when he
was finally arrested after walking into a local homeless shelter
asking for help obtaining a bus ticket out of the city.
Following his arrest, Sean was transported to the Canton Police
Department for questioning. With their suspect and custody, Investigators finally
had the opportunity to confront Sean face to face, while
he invoked his right to retain counsel and remained silent.
Authorities didn't need him to say anything, really, they already
knew what he'd done to Rachel. On the morning of
July third, just hours before Sean was arrested, the two
man sanitation crew was busy collecting garbage cans at an
abandoned amusement park once known as Mother Goose Land in Canton, Ohio.
Speaker 2: We were on our normal trash route and we just
finished the left side of Waterworks. We pulled across Tusk
because usually if the draftics player, we'll go straight.
Speaker 3: From Nara to Hear. If not, we go around the
other side of water Works.
Speaker 2: So today we just happened to find a clear spot
thraft to come across the street.
Speaker 3: Before you've been to the bar.
Speaker 1: The only remnant of this once lively children's park was
a statue of Willie the Whale, a local character that
brought joy to the youth of northeast Ohio dating back
to the nineteen fifties. As the park shut down in
the eighties, the crumbling Whale sculpture was left to rot
and now serves as a temporary shelter for Canton's growing
homeless population. What a shithole. I'm not sure what kind
of emotionally stable adult would actually choose to live in Ohio.
Let me know in the comments, though, and send me
hate mail. You know the kind I get every day.
Better yet, write it on a scrap of paper and
throw it away because it'll serve the same purpose. By
nine point thirty am, the humid summer had already exaggerated
the sour smell emanating through a series of trash cans
neatly aligned by a concrete wall.
Speaker 2: Hold up next to the can, passenger got out on
his side to operate the wall lift, and he put
the can dumps.
Speaker 3: I got out of that reside and I.
Speaker 2: Went along the graffiti wall to the left to start
picking up litter.
Speaker 3: Because he told me the last part he can handle
the can on this side, not the help.
Speaker 1: As the driver adjusts the control levers. The mechanical arm
clamped down on one of the last barrels. It felt
noticeably heavier than usual, but he didn't give it much thought.
As the barrel hoisted into the air, the driver watched
the can slowly tip and empty its debris into the
truck's compactor.
Speaker 2: When I put the the can up to the lift,
it lifted it and everything fell out, And then it
fell out.
Speaker 1: Whatever it was fell into the steel bed of the truck,
producing an audible thud on impact, loud enough to peak
their curiosity.
Speaker 2: I've come back picking Linard, opened the latch on the
left side driver's side of the truck, dumped my bucket
in there, put that into my box for storage.
Speaker 3: Well, he comes around the front of the truck and says, there's.
Speaker 1: A dead body in that, wrapped in a black, blood
soaked bed sheet that was covered in flies. A human
limb was seen exposed from the fabric.
Speaker 3: And then when I was letting it down, that's.
Speaker 6: When the lake came out.
Speaker 1: The men immediately stopped what they were doing before stepping
away from the truck and calling nine to one one.
Within minutes the scene was secured.
Speaker 15: All you can see right now is the left leg
and down by the foot. It's like a little it's
down on the left side of the calf lower calf.
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm down to mother goose stand.
Speaker 15: They found a body in the trash candle.
Speaker 1: After removing the sheet, the corpse was seen with all
its slims intact. As for the victim's face, though, there
wasn't much there.
Speaker 6: Okay, we'll layer out right here and we're not working
out ripper and she's going to go straight to Cleveland
for autopsy. So what it is? A female?
Speaker 3: He gets out steel.
Speaker 6: It has the appearance, but as soon as Hunter gets
as soon as their idea is dounged perfectly.
Speaker 1: While investigators were able to determine that the victim was female,
she'd been bludgeoned so severely that any indication beyond that
was pretty much impossible preliminarily. That is, when investigators spoke
to the sanitation crew, they got their first real window
into the timeline. The driver told him that his team
had emptied the parked trash binds the day before in
the afternoon. That meant someone dumped the body between two
pm on July second and nine thirty am the next morning,
when it was finally discovered that narrowed it down, not much,
but enough to get started. Officers began hanvassing the area,
hoping someone, anyone, might have seen something, and that's when
someone mentioned Willie the Whale. Locals knew the statue well
meant to be whimsical, had become something else entirely. Over
the years, kids climbed on it, teenagers tagged it, and
at night, the city's most forgotten residence sometimes used it
as a shelter. So officers went to check. Peering into
the small, shadowy tunnel of the whale's mouth, one of
them spotted movement, just a faint silhouette curled up inside.
A few tense moments passed before a figure stirred, then
crawled out of the darkness. It was a woman, homeless, disoriented,
and somehow still asleep. Through the sirens, the flashing lights,
the discovery of a corpse just yards away. Some people
sleep really well. I envy that anyway. She had no
idea what happened, but she was about to find app
After speaking to her, police learned she'd arrived at the
property roughly fifteen minutes before they got there. When asked
if she'd seen anything, suspicious. She said that she hadn't
right before crawling back into the concrete whale and resuming
her nap like nothing happened. Meanwhile, back at the trash truck,
crime scene units met with homicide detectives to establish their
next steps.
Speaker 8: What I'm gonna do.
Speaker 6: We'll get her out, We'll photograph everything. We'll get her out,
We'll photograph every square inch of for Did they do
a missing person report?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 16: Did they document tattoos in that?
Speaker 15: That's what he's looking at right now?
Speaker 12: Her though, if they can run it down here, any
photos or anything they've got.
Speaker 1: Upon taking a closer look at the body, authorities noticed
three distinct tattoos, one on the victim's calf, a dainty
flower located on the victim's shoulder, and an infinity symbol
on her right wrist. That's sure, yes it is. It's
also a little ironic if you have a dark sense
of humor. Once the barrel was brought down from the
arm of the garbage truck, investigators located a large cargo
mat that was still stuck inside.
Speaker 6: There is a floormat to a Jeep Liberty that had
been dumped in the dumpster with Rachel and that format
had a pattern on the bottom that matched the pattern
in the carpet of Rachel's jeep Liberty.
Speaker 1: Not only was it a match, but the floormat contained
a vast amount of blood. Luckily for investigators, the sanitation
workers had not pulled the trash compactor's lever before they arrived,
ultimately saving several pieces of evidence from being crushed. Inside
the trash compactor were articles of blood soak, clothing, additional bedding,
and house curt In addition, a damaged red side panel
of the jeep Liberty was located, along with a smashed
Samsung phone. By now, a large crowd had already formed
around the perimeter. A privacy panel was quickly set up
as the local ems hesitated to help load the body
onto a stretcher.
Speaker 15: Where you step in, grab dumb feet and move it
on that sheet.
Speaker 4: The curship for that part.
Speaker 3: It's not the visual, it's the smell.
Speaker 6: I still have your nose. I did that.
Speaker 1: While investigators were fairly certain who the deceased was, it
wouldn't be until the autopsy came back that DNA and
dental records confirmed that the victim found inside the garbage
was in fact twenty four year old Rachel Sheridan. The
medical examiner found that she suffered upwards of ten fatal
blows to the head, leaving a three by two inch
hole on the top of her skull. The upper and
lower jaw were reduced to small fragments. In short, Rachel's
face had been crushed with such force that her orbital
bones and teeth were pushed into the skull to the
point of puncturing her frontal lobe.
Speaker 6: The coroner described that that crushing blow actually drove pieces
of her skull into her brain.
Speaker 1: Per the medical examiner his own words, her cranium literally exploded,
an obvious indication that Rachel had been savagely beaten with
an instrument much heavier than a human fist.
Speaker 6: I've tried a lot of homicides, and i will say
that the injuries inflicted upon Rachel Sheridan were some of
the most horrific injuries I've ever seen in my almost
forty years as a prosecutor, and I've seen very few
murders that were so vicious and brutal.
Speaker 1: Despite that fact, the instrument used to cause such damage
remained unclear, as a weapon had yet to be discovered.
Dennis Barr, the lead prosecutor in the case, was kind
enough to sit down with us for an interview. During
our conversation, he informed us of two major discoveries that
came the day after Sean's arrest, and they weren't made
by the police.
Speaker 6: On July fourth of twenty twenty four, the Star County
Sheriff's Office was contacted by an individual who was a
neighbor of Rachel and Shawan. This individual was aware that
Rachel and Seawan had two cats in that apartment, and
after the apartment had been released on July third, because
the Sheriff's office had conducted their search and done everything
they wanted to do with the apartment, they locked it up.
This neighbor got permission from the landlord to enter that
apartment and go in there and take care of the cats,
to feed them, to make sure they had water. They
were also in the process of trying to find somebody
to take these cats to their home because obviously Sean
wasn't there and Rachel wasn't there to take care of them.
And during that time he stumbled upon a shirt that
appeared to have blood on it, and he also stumbled
upon a paper bag that had inside a hammer and
some nails.
Speaker 1: After returning to Rachel's apartment for a second search, the
newly discovered items were photographed and processed as evidence.
Speaker 6: The shirt ended up being tested for DNA, and that
DNA turned out to be Rachel Sheridan's blood.
Speaker 1: Obviously, the shirt was a crucial discovery. Not only did
it have Rachel's blood on it, but it was the
same shirt Sean was seen wearing at the McDonald's drive
through hours after the murder. As for the authorities were
convinced they'd found their smoking gun.
Speaker 4: I e.
Speaker 1: The murder weapon, but as it turns out, the hammer
wasn't as valuable as they thought.
Speaker 6: The hammer was tested, but there was absolutely nothing that
linked this hammer to the crime. There was no DNA
on the hammer. There was no blood on the hammer.
Now that's not to say that Sean could not have
cleaned it all, because there were obvious signs that Sean
tried to clean up the bedroom after he murdered Rachel.
But even the coroner could not say definitively that these
wounds could have been caused by that hammer. So we
could never prove that that hammer was the murder weapon.
Speaker 1: Local journalists ran rampant with unsubstantiated headlines fake news claiming
Sean beat his girlfriend to death with a hammer as
soon as the rumor leaked to the media. They just
love doing that, don't they fucking creeps. Naturally, this only
complicated things as the prosecution was actively building their case.
Speaker 6: Our local newspaper did have an article in the paper
that seemed to imply that the hammer that we located
was in fact the murder weapon. However, I am here
to say that we never alleged that that was the
murder weapon. Obviously, based upon the injuries to Rachel, when
we find a hammer in that room, we're going to
have it tested. However, there was nothing in the evidence
to indicate that that hammer was used to cause Rachel's death.
And I'm not really sure where the reporter for our
local paper got that information, but it was certainly not
something that we put forth to the jury.
Speaker 1: Don't you just love the media. They're just so damn
good at their jobs.
Speaker 6: They do their job, and we do our job. It's
just sometimes they don't hear things accurate lee in the courtroom,
and sometimes things don't get accurately reported. But I think
that's something that happens with every news media in the country.
Speaker 1: Spoken like a true aspiring politician. I mean that is
the career track you're on as a prosecutor. Anyway. It's
a nice way of saying fake news, and fake news
is everywhere these days because morality has gone out the window.
Ethics no longer exists. They're just a course you'd take
in college and forget about thanks to money and greed
and the pursuit of it. What y'all told me about.
That's what we have to look forward to here in
this world. Human nature. Gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme. Now, one
might think that the lack of a murder weapon might
pose as an issue come trial. After all, any reasonable
doubt suggesting that Sean wasn't the guy is an advantage
to the defense.
Speaker 6: The bigger challenge was that we had no eyewitnesses. That
we had, nobody that could say they saw Sean carrying
a body out of the apartment, that they saw Sean
driving around with the body in the apartment, that Sean
told them that he did this. Nobody that was credible
that at least came forward that could have testified for us.
Speaker 1: Even without eyewitnesses or a murder weapon. There was still
so much evidence leaning in the other direction, particularly the
cell phone data.
Speaker 6: In this case, we obtained cell phone records from Rachel's phone.
Speaker 1: After murdering his girlfriend, Sean forgot to turn off Rachel's phone.
Can you believe that? What a fucking moron. He proceeded
to drive around with it in the jeep with Rachel's
body in the trunk.
Speaker 6: We were able to take those records and establish a
path that Sean followed because Rachel's phone was in the
jeep that he was driving contained Rachel's body. We corroborated
those phone pings with videos that we obtained of Sean
driving here in certain areas. One of those areas was
Stadium Park, which if you enter the north side of
Stadium Park and you drive for about it's not even
a mile, it might be three quarters of a mile,
maybe a mile, you will end up at the entrance
of Mother goose Land. On July second, at one oh four,
we had a video of Sean crossing Twelfth Street, which
is on the south end of Stadium Park. He went
straight across the road, and that road that he traveled
south on leads right to Mother, goose Land. It's less
than a half a mile away from there. At that time,
we had a ping from Rachel's phone that showed his
phone there.
Speaker 1: According to the prosecutor, Sean first went to Stadium Park
and was in that location for nearly two hours before
dumping Rachel's body across the street. So why is this relevant, Well,
remember the dirt covered shovel.
Speaker 6: In that area of Stadium Park. There's a rather secluded
little picnic area that has a couple of picnic shelters
that people can rent and have family reunions and picnics
and things. And Sean was in there from ten ten
to twelve or nine pm. My theory always was, and
I never got the sheriff's deputies out there to check
this out, but was that he was trying to dig
a hole that he could put Rachel in, because I
know Rachel was in the back of the j jeep
at that point in time. However, this past summer, we
were in the middle of one of the worst droughts
we've ever had, and the ground was very hard, and
I think Sean found out very quickly that there's no
way at this time of year, under these conditions that
he's going to be able to dig a hole. So
we had to come up with a plan B as
to how to dispose of Rachel's body due.
Speaker 1: To the fact that this location was never searched, much
like the the shovel was omitted as evidence and was
never used in court.
Speaker 6: At the time that it kind of clicked in my mind.
It was a month or two after the case had
been filed and shortly before trial, and there was really
no way to say if we would have found a hole,
that it was a hole that Sean dug. That was
just one of my theories as to why he was
sitting in that park for two hours, but it never
panned out.
Speaker 1: An interesting aspect of this case, nonetheless, But what was
more valuable was the surveillance foot It's recovered from Mother Gooseland,
where Willie the Whale still lives. It showed Sean walking
by the trash cans at seven fifty six pm on
July second. Another foolish misstep was when Sean threw away
both his phone and the side panel of Rachel's jeep
in the same trash as her body. I mean, does
this guy even watch forensic files? This suggests that not
only was he a shitty rapper but also a pretty
bad criminal as well?
Speaker 6: Well. That was another thing that linked Rachel's jeep to
being the one that deposited her body at the trash
can and Mother goose Land, because not only did we
find the back cargo floor mat, we also found a
damaged portion of the fender that had been I think
came off in an earlier accident that she had had
and had been they had been just keeping it in
the jeep. Why he threw that in there, I don't know.
When we retrieved it from the trash can, the deputy
or the detective that was in charge of the case
took it back to the Star County Sharer's office and
actually showed how it fit right on the jeep in
the area where it was missing.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're throwing things away, including a human corpse,
what's the difference, right? Well, the prosecution had more than
enough evidence to convict sean murder. You can't help but
wonder what was the instrument used to kill Rachel? Was
it the lead pipe in the conservatory or the candlestick
in the library. Well, Prosecutor Dennis Barr provided us with
yet another theory that wasn't picked up by the media.
Speaker 6: While mister Goh was incarcerated at the Star County Jail
pending the trial. In this case, there was a detective
that was approached by an inmate who was in the
same pod as Sean, awaiting his own trial. This inmate
was charged with the rape of a young child and
facing a significant sentence. But he came forward and indicated
that Sean had confessed to him that he had in
fact murdered Rachel, and that he did so using a
large wrench. He went on to tell the deputies that
Sean had indicated some places where he may have gotten
rid of this wrench. We went out and tried to
corroborate that and tried to find this wrench. We were
not successful in finding the wrench in any of the
places that the wrench was supposedly disposed of, nor did
we use this individual a trial, because in our job,
when we get these jailhouse confessions, we have to look
at where's the source, who's this coming from, what charges
do they have pending? In more importantly, what do they
want in exchange for this? And based upon the charge
that this gentleman was facing, based upon what we would
have had to do with him. We did not feel
that he had credibility and would have had credibility in
front of a jury that would have assisted our case.
Speaker 1: While awaiting trial, Sean was held on a one million
dollar bond, ensuring he remained in custody until he saw
his day in court. In the weeks that followed, a
grand jury indicted him on charges including aggravated murder, abuse
of a corpse, in evidence, tampering. After months of preparation
and legal maneuvering, Sean Goh's trial started in early November
of twenty twenty four. During opening arguments, the state established
that Sean Goh murdered Rachel on June thirtieth while she
slept in her bed, three days before she was reported missing.
Although a motive in the crime remained unclear, the prosecution
didn't need one during the trial. The defendant's blatant digital
footprint became the foundation of this case. While Shawn attempted
to destroy evidence by tossing his phone in the trash,
all investigators had to do was pop a new battery
in the Samsung to learn what he'd been up to
before and after the murder. Forensic analysts testified to some
of these findings, including a Google search Sean made at
one twenty am on Sunday, June thirtieth, breathing chemicals that cause.
Sean intentionally failed to finish the last sentence of this
very telling Google search. Maybe it just hit him all
of a sudden that what he was doing was extremely stupid,
an obvious attempt to cover his ass once authority's inevitably
dug through his phone. A few hours after researching ways
to render his girlfriend unconscious via chemicals, Sean decided to
type this little note into his phone at seven ten am,
almost like someone was listening, and not who you think.
Speaker 16: Thank you, God of the highest truth and compassion for
writing through me. Thank you for being with me. I
am seeking transportation and assistance in my journey and in life.
I will be walking through the park. I am asking
for your assistance.
Speaker 1: Imagine thinking cops are that dumb, and not just cops everyone.
Imagine thinking everyone's that stupid that they're going to buy that.
That's Sean right there calling you stupid, you right now,
and he thinks you're dumb. Despite having just clabbered his
girlfriend to death. Sean continued to write these little notes
on his phone, including one where he asked God for
five hundred thousand dollars to fund his pursuit as a musician. Now,
I'm not much of a religious person, never have been,
but I'm pretty sure that's not how it works. It's
unclear where Sean came up with the magic number of
half a million dollars, but it would be difficult to
gain any sympathy from a jury knowing that he valued
a non existent hip hop career more than his girlfriend's life.
This is one of the reasons I hate rap and
hip hop culture. The glorification of getting money and hoes
isn't something that your kids should be consuming regularly, even
if that track is a banger. This sentiment became even
more apparent when the prosecution presented a specific piece of evidence,
Rachel's journal. When police first discovered the notebook inside Rachel's vehicle,
they immediately recognized its significance. The handwritten pages provided a
personal glimpse into her private world, including her struggles, her dreams,
and the alarming details surrounding her relationship with Sean. Go
that wrapper piece of shit, but one entry stood out,
ultimately revealing a secret that deepened not only the tragedy
of Rachel's death, but the loss of another life as well.
This is a recreation from Rachel's journal.
Speaker 17: Well, I'm newly pregnant. Shawn's of course, four days now,
and we haven't spoken. I'm going to my second ultrasound
appointment today in less than an hour. I hope you're
a boy. Your dad does too, Malachi David.
Speaker 1: Lee, Go Malachi Ugh. The entry was dated April seventeenth,
twenty twenty four, indicating that Rachel was two months and
nearly two weeks a long in her pregnancy at the
time that she was murdered. Despite the shocking revelation, the
defense portrayed Sean as a misguided young man shaped by
a troubled upbringing. Everybody's a victim. His adoptive mother eventually
spoke in court and support of the killer before he.
Speaker 6: Came into her family.
Speaker 14: My son endured an incredibly difficult in traumatic childhood. He
spent time in multiple foster homes, far more than any
child should have to endure in such a short period.
The instability, the uncertainty, and the emotional toil of being
moved around so frequently had a profound impact on him.
Speaker 6: In addition to the upheaval.
Speaker 14: Of those constant moves, he also faced abuse and neglect
in some of those homes, experiences no child should have
to go through. These early years left deep scars on
his spirit, and though we tried to provide him with
a loving, stable environment after his adoption, the trauma he
experienced before coming to us was something that would take
years to heal. His birth parents struggled with addiction and
mental health issues, and the pain of those experiences only
compounded what he had already been through.
Speaker 1: Boooo, Jesus Christ, talk about listing your l's as a mom,
Maybe try parenting instead. A lot of these problems can
be attributed to lazy parenting, and everyone knows it. You're
not fooling anyone, lady, well, maybe a few fellow Ohioans
with the missing brain cells. At the end of a
four day trial, the jury returned with their unanimous verdict.
On November eight, twenty twenty four, Sean Gough was found
guilty of all charges. Weeks later came as sentencing, but
not before Rachel's mother had one last chance to confront
her daughter's killer in court.
Speaker 18: Sean, to begin, I would just like to say that
You have hurt us more than anyone else could have.
You have taken one of the greatest joys in our lives.
She was a two sunflower. You have murdered our baby girl.
My question is why would you do this to someone
that loved you, who wanted to help you through your
own personal battles. She stood by you regardless of what
you did to her when you had no one else.
She truly loved you, and just thinking of this makes
me sick to my stomach. There is no greater bond
than that of a parent and a child. You brutally
stole that from us. You have crushed all of our hearts.
What you have done to us is truly evil. I
hope that you spend the rest of your miserable life
in prison.
Speaker 1: Before the final ruling was handed down, the judge offered
these parting words to the defendant, the monster.
Speaker 12: I've been on this bend seventeen years, and I agree
with mister Barr. This is, without a doubt, the most
brutal murder that I've seen.
Speaker 6: It was difficult up you're even listening is appalling. It's heartbreaking.
Speaker 12: Rachel Sheardan was beaten so severely did the sheriff deputy
who saw her body couldn't IDENTI by her based on
her own photo. The senseless of this murder tells me
not only you morally bankrupt, but you have no fiber
of decency. This is the person at one point you
claim that you were in love with. Instead you threw
her in a trash like a piece of garbage. The
only thing that stopped you getting away from this crime
you almost pulled it off, was excellent work by the
Camp Police Department in Star County. Shri as in your
own one fatal flaw keeping Rachel's phone in your possession.
I'm tired of people trying to blame everyone else for
their problems in life. Everybody's had a difficult life in
one way or another. If I don't find the ear
childhood excludes anything. We seem to live in an entitlement
world for some reason. But I want to make sure
you understand soon, Sun it.
Speaker 19: Is my job to protect this community and I will
do so. I will do everything I can to lock
you up for a long long time, mister go He
soldiers soul, I can't help you.
Speaker 1: And with that, Sean Goh was sentenced to twenty nine
years to life in prison, exactly where he belongs.
Speaker 4: Rachel's mom, Lisa, called what Go did truly evil.
Speaker 19: A judge agreed and handed down the maximum sentence because
he said it was the worst form of his crime.
Speaker 1: In the end, there's no twist, no redemption arc, just
another good person swallowed whole by someone who never deserved
to be in her orbit. Rachel saw the good in people,
maybe too much of it, and for that she paid
the ultimate price. She gave her time, her energy, her
heart to someone who only knew how to take Sean
Goh wasn't some criminal mastermind. He was ordinary in the
worst way. Selfish, lazy, entitled, violent, the kind of man
whose legacy is measured in damage, not worth. What he
took from this world can't be replaced. Rachel was kind, hopeful, loved.
She was building a life, one that now exists only
in memories and what ifs, and the child she carried.
That child never had a chance to see any of it.
That life was extinguished as well. It's a brutal truth,
but one worth remembering. Monsters don't always look like monsters.
Sometimes they just show up at your job, fill out
an application and smile. So I just finished episode eighteen
of Sword and Scale television that comes out in September,
and I almost threw up. So there's that. Maybe head
on over there and check out what we've done so far.
It's pretty good. You might like it if you like
Dateline and forensic files and all that other shit. It's
a little edgier and a little more artistic, but I
think it's pretty damn good, to be honest with you.
I think some of you might agree as well if
you're a fan of the genre. So go and download
the app and head on over to Sword and Scale
dot com. Until next time, Les stay sick and Manage
Back and Thennegy
Speaker 3: Nanega by Tack and Thennega