Speaker 1: Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is not.
Speaker 2: Intended for all audiences.
Speaker 3: Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 1: My arms always up almost litterly.
Speaker 4: Bellevue, Washington is a clean suburb just outside Seattle, where
Speaker 4: tech wealth keeps the housing costs high and the lawns
Speaker 4: neatly trimmed. This is how I like them. It's a
Speaker 4: family oriented town, filled with gorgeous parks and trails, a
Speaker 4: place of true Pacific Northwest tranquility. But on the morning
Speaker 4: of light tenth, twenty twenty, that tranquility was broken. As
Speaker 4: the sun shone over the neat hedges and parked cars.
Speaker 4: Gunshots rang out in an apartment parking lot. There was
Speaker 4: a man down, gasping for air.
Speaker 5: We just turned sego gunshots and we came screaming right there.
Speaker 6: It sounds like it's right outside.
Speaker 5: I lived in any residence in Lakemont behind the apartments.
Speaker 3: About five or six shots.
Speaker 5: It sounded like a a light. Helder Ribbon, I think
Speaker 5: I just turned seven gunshots. Someone screaming outside helped.
Speaker 7: It sounds like it's out a building sixteen and we
Speaker 7: can hear the screaming.
Speaker 6: I'm just d seven shots and it looks like somebody
Speaker 6: has been shot, I mean the overlook at this month.
Speaker 4: The calls were all coming from the same complex. Neighbors
Speaker 4: peered through blinds, clutching their phones, straining to make sense
Speaker 4: of it all by the sound alone, then, amidst the
Speaker 4: beeping dispatch board, the most crucial nine when one call
Speaker 4: finally got through.
Speaker 1: Okay, is this so.
Speaker 6: Overlake at Lakeland?
Speaker 8: Yes?
Speaker 1: Okay? And what's going on there?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 1: My husband's that shot? Okay?
Speaker 4: It's your husband?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: The woman on the phone was d D Foe Moon.
Speaker 4: Her husband, forty eight year old Baron Lee, was the
Speaker 4: one bleeding out on the pavement.
Speaker 6: And is it possible for me to speak to him?
Speaker 1: Is he away?
Speaker 6: Yes?
Speaker 5: Once?
Speaker 4: Okay, reluctantly did passed the phones. Who her bloody husband
Speaker 4: as other neighbors rushed over to help Hi?
Speaker 6: And where he shot her?
Speaker 1: Can you hear me?
Speaker 5: More than three moments?
Speaker 1: Are okay? Need? Okay? I hardy cure my arms?
Speaker 4: A literally my shirt?
Speaker 1: Okay, sir, okay?
Speaker 9: Where is the gun? The gun?
Speaker 6: With the gun?
Speaker 9: It's fun here.
Speaker 6: Hurry can you.
Speaker 1: Hit a hurry?
Speaker 10: I can't hit the.
Speaker 2: Deed.
Speaker 4: He took the phone back after Baron dropped it on
Speaker 4: the ground in agony because yes hi hi, hi, yes, okay?
Speaker 1: Who shot him? Okay? So the person is no longer there,
Speaker 1: no o in there, ma'am.
Speaker 6: I need you to get a clean where I crossed
Speaker 6: in a plye pressure over the wound. Okay, well boon them, okay.
Speaker 6: I need you to get some clear I lost in
Speaker 6: a prie pressure okay.
Speaker 4: Even in the harsh unforgiving some light. It took a
Speaker 4: moment to realize Baron's black shirt was drenched. Three shots
Speaker 4: had torn through his chest. Did he fought to stay calm?
Speaker 4: Her hands trembled as she tried to help. Then out
Speaker 4: of nowhere, a female neighbor appeared, clutching a first aid
Speaker 4: kit and reaching for the phone.
Speaker 10: Hi, I knew hi bet Hello?
Speaker 4: Oh here, yes, hello?
Speaker 1: Can you hear me? Yes? I can hear you. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I don't want to find pressure right now. Yes,
Speaker 1: my name is CHRISA.
Speaker 11: I mus find pressure to the chest room.
Speaker 6: Okay. Did you see which way that person white you
Speaker 6: said he left on foot? Did you see which.
Speaker 1: Way it was? Okay?
Speaker 6: So where's.
Speaker 8: I hear?
Speaker 1: I hear okay? And is it just his chester is
Speaker 1: but also his arm arm okay, we have it's okay,
Speaker 1: I'm okay.
Speaker 6: I want to verify with the one person or multiple ye.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 4: Finally the chaos cracked open with a wall of sirens.
Speaker 4: The crowd parted as police cars tore into the complex.
Speaker 4: No one knew yet if the gunman was a man
Speaker 4: or a woman. All anyone could say was this. The
Speaker 4: assailant and the green hoodie vanished under the bridge towards
Speaker 4: the shopping center across the road.
Speaker 6: What is the person still there with?
Speaker 2: Did you just hear this?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 5: So I just heard this, and I looked up my
Speaker 5: back window and I watched someone run away, the person
Speaker 5: that shopped them. They had a great hoodie with their
Speaker 5: heard up green kitchen gloves and they pissed up their
Speaker 5: shell case students as.
Speaker 2: They ran off.
Speaker 4: As the caller walked outside to see if he could help,
Speaker 4: he noticed a clue abandoned on the pavement and.
Speaker 5: They had picking up their Then he's out there, he
Speaker 5: picked up.
Speaker 4: The shooter had chosen to attack Baron at eight thirty am,
Speaker 4: just as he was heading out to his car to
Speaker 4: go to work. Baron hadn't been robbed. His car was
Speaker 4: left with the keys right beside it, and his wallet
Speaker 4: was on his person. This was a personal attack. The
Speaker 4: gunman had targeted Baron, stalked him, and chosen the perfect
Speaker 4: time to strike. But who could harbor such a deep
Speaker 4: grudge against Baron Lee? A middle aged car salesman with
Speaker 4: a wife three kids in a quiet, uneventful life. Baron
Speaker 4: and his wife Didi had blended their families and had
Speaker 4: been together for years. They had two teenage kids from
Speaker 4: Dede's first marriage and one son from Baron's first marriage.
Speaker 4: As Baron lay in surgery fighting for his life, police
Speaker 4: started piecing together the few clues left behind. The good
Speaker 4: thing was that witnesses were everywhere. This was a large
Speaker 4: apartment complex, and people all looked outside when they heard
Speaker 4: the gun going off.
Speaker 12: So I just walked out to the window in my
Speaker 12: master bedroom and I saw an individual sprinting down the
Speaker 12: stairs toward the street.
Speaker 10: Okay, And then did he go to the building across
Speaker 10: the parking lot from you, or the carports or where?
Speaker 2: Did he go?
Speaker 12: Right along the carports down the stairs?
Speaker 10: Okay, so right between the building and the car ports.
Speaker 12: Yeah, But I heard the footsteps on the concrete as
Speaker 12: I was walking to the window, and then I saw
Speaker 12: the individual jump up on the curb there and then
Speaker 12: run down the stairs.
Speaker 4: Okay. Using canines, the police tracked the scent of the
Speaker 4: shooter all across the complex, under a bridge, and into
Speaker 4: the parking lot across the street. But then the dogs stopped.
Speaker 4: This indicated that whoever did this got into a and fled.
Speaker 4: The suspect was at large.
Speaker 10: What kind of stature did that person have?
Speaker 12: It looks slim, bill, That's why I thought at first
Speaker 12: it might have been fireworks, because it looked like it
Speaker 12: could have been a kid almost probably five four or
Speaker 12: five six.
Speaker 2: Somewhere that range.
Speaker 12: It's hard to tell looking down, but definitely not taller
Speaker 12: than me based off of running next to the car,
Speaker 12: real quickly, gray hoodie fully over it. Could not see
Speaker 12: skin color, long pants on. I can't remember if they
Speaker 12: were bluer, right. It's weird how some things you remember
Speaker 12: so vividly and other things are just a blur. Yeah,
Speaker 12: and then holding something. I thought it would look like
Speaker 12: a bag in the right hands, like a football as
Speaker 12: the person was running down. Okay, and like I said,
Speaker 12: I couldn't see skin color anything else. Okay, so no
Speaker 12: skin color? Can you tell gender? It was either a
Speaker 12: teenage boy most likely, or could have been a woman.
Speaker 10: If you were to think about things that have happened
Speaker 10: in the last twenty four hours forty eight hours over
Speaker 10: the last week, do any incidents or concerns send out
Speaker 10: in your mind in this complex here that would have
Speaker 10: resulted in a situation like that.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 12: I mean, as far as I know the family, wonderful family.
Speaker 12: I think they have a special needs kid and they've
Speaker 12: never done anything but smile and be polite, along with
Speaker 12: everybody else in the area.
Speaker 2: So it just was a complete shock.
Speaker 4: It was a complete shock. Baron Lee was a kind
Speaker 4: hearted car salesman. We smiled at every person he met.
Speaker 4: Now he was at Harbor View Medical Center full of
Speaker 4: bullet holes. Baron had been shot nine times all over
Speaker 4: his body, from his legs to his arms and chest.
Speaker 4: At Harbor View Medical Center, surgeons worked fast, pulling bullets,
Speaker 4: tying off limbs, fighting to keep him from slipping away.
Speaker 4: The cops were already writing it up as a homicide.
Speaker 4: Inside the o R, no one gave up. After hours
Speaker 4: of surgery, Baron opened his eyes. He didn't just live,
Speaker 4: he remembered everything.
Speaker 1: Hi, my name is Baron Lee. Originally from Hawaii and
Speaker 1: now reside here in Istaklau, Washington.
Speaker 4: Baron's survival was a miracle. There was no way he
Speaker 4: should have lived, but he did.
Speaker 1: Total nine shots, I took two to the arm, to
Speaker 1: the right arm, to the left leg, I believe, one
Speaker 1: on the one on the right leg, two on the
Speaker 1: left arm, one in the chest, and one in my hip.
Speaker 2: I believe.
Speaker 4: Baron said that the morning was like every other except
Speaker 4: that his step children were in Florida visiting their grandparents,
Speaker 4: so it was just his wife, Didi, and his son Eric.
Speaker 4: Baron his wife and child goodbye, then headed down the
Speaker 4: stairs towards his car.
Speaker 1: And I come out of the house and I'm probably
Speaker 1: about twenty five thirty feet from my car and I
Speaker 1: just unlocked it with my fob and I hear pop.
Speaker 1: So this is July tenth, twenty twenty. So I'm thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: someone's still firing fireworks. Right, So I looked to my left,
Speaker 1: I didn't see anything. As soon as I look to
Speaker 1: my right, the second shot goes off, and that's the
Speaker 1: one that hits my right arm and shatters my right
Speaker 1: arm completely, ends up dropping my keys and my fob,
Speaker 1: and I see this person with green gloves and a mask,
Speaker 1: aiming a revolver, I mean, just shooting at me.
Speaker 4: Baron's first instinct was to use his car as a shield,
Speaker 4: so he moved as quickly as he could while the
Speaker 4: rounds kept coming.
Speaker 1: So I run to the car. He's still firing at me.
Speaker 1: As I open my car door with my left hand,
Speaker 1: I take a shot into the back of my leg,
Speaker 1: and then another shot in the back of my leg,
Speaker 1: and I end up falling to the ground. I end
Speaker 1: up pulling myself behind the car door while the person's
Speaker 1: firing at my car, lilding it with bullets. And then
Speaker 1: a few seconds later, it seems like instantaneously that person
Speaker 1: standing over me. He comes around to the car door
Speaker 1: and he's standing over me. First shot goes right through
Speaker 1: my chest and out, and I'm thinking, oh shit, I'm
Speaker 1: going to die, Like what am I going to do?
Speaker 4: That's when it all hit him, the reality of what
Speaker 4: was happening, But nothing compared to the pain.
Speaker 1: It's like, initially it feels like you're getting punched and
Speaker 1: pierced at the same time, so like you feel that
Speaker 1: searing pain that goes through from the bullet, but the
Speaker 1: impact feels like someone just punched the crap on it,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 4: It's like that's when Baron made a quick decision that
Speaker 4: probably saved his life.
Speaker 1: So I decide, I'm going to throw my head and
Speaker 1: body under the wheelwell of my steering wheel. The steering
Speaker 1: will call them and protect at least that part. So
Speaker 1: if they're gonna shoot me, they got to shoot my
Speaker 1: body or my legs or whatever, and not any fatal parts, hopefully, right.
Speaker 1: So I dive in and he unloads the rest about
Speaker 1: I think six more shots on the left side and
Speaker 1: then runs out of ammunition. I see him bend down
Speaker 1: pick up some shellcasings, and then I hear him run off.
Speaker 4: That's when neighbors arrived and started tending the baron. He
Speaker 4: screamed for them to get his wife, afraid he was
Speaker 4: going to die right then and there, right in that
Speaker 4: parking lot.
Speaker 1: They do that. She comes out. My wife's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you'll be okay, you'll make it. You're strong, don't worry
Speaker 1: about it. And I remember having a full blown conversation
Speaker 1: where they're asking her to to take care of the
Speaker 1: kids that I love them.
Speaker 4: When officers arrive, they tied tourniquets on Baron's limbs. He
Speaker 4: was losing his vision. The pain was overwhelming as they
Speaker 4: lifted him into the stretcher.
Speaker 1: As the adroning start wearing off. And I'm taking a breath.
Speaker 1: What's going through my head? Every time I'm breathing? Is
Speaker 1: this my last breath? You know? I felt like I'm
Speaker 1: dying right, Like I was in so much pain, and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, am I going to
Speaker 1: end up? Stop breathing, you know, because I know people
Speaker 1: get shot. You see it on TV. Right, They're slowly
Speaker 1: fading out, And I'm thinking, oh my god, I'm going
Speaker 1: to be you know, this is my last breath. This
Speaker 1: is my last breath. Am I dead? Now? You know?
Speaker 1: That type of thing.
Speaker 4: As a strength started to fade. Baron's racing thoughts about
Speaker 4: who would care for his family faded into something different.
Speaker 4: The ambulance raced across town while the paramedics ripped off
Speaker 4: Baron's clothes, desperately trying to locate all the bullet ones.
Speaker 4: That's when he felt himself slipping away.
Speaker 1: And I remember I felt at ease. At one point.
Speaker 1: I was I was imagining myself in a metal or pasture,
Speaker 1: very calm, serene, and I was tired and I just
Speaker 1: wanted to go to sleep, and the paramedic basically shook
Speaker 1: me and said, hey, you got to stay awake. You
Speaker 1: gotta stay awake, and I'm like okay, okay, And then
Speaker 1: I remember I was like almost gone. I was like
Speaker 1: my eyes had closed and all I felt was this
Speaker 1: searing pain. He stuck his finger in my wound to
Speaker 1: wake me up, and I was like, oh, fuck, don't
Speaker 1: do that. I'm up.
Speaker 2: I'm up.
Speaker 1: I won't I won't go to sleep right And from
Speaker 1: then on I was up until surgery.
Speaker 4: When Baron finally woke up from surgery, he was bewildered,
Speaker 4: but his first concern was his children. Did He assured
Speaker 4: him that everyone was safe, and then detectives arrived.
Speaker 1: And actually the investigation started right away. I remember Detective
Speaker 1: Parrot and the Detective Grandness both showed up at Harbor View.
Speaker 1: They had told me that I was under protection media.
Speaker 1: No one was allowed into the hospital to come visit.
Speaker 1: The only person allowed was Dede. Dedey was the only
Speaker 1: one that was authorized to come up and see me.
Speaker 4: The detectives wanted the obvious answers, like oh, I don't
Speaker 4: know the hell would do this.
Speaker 1: When they interviewed me the first time, I basically said
Speaker 1: that it was Sharon without adult it was her.
Speaker 4: Sharon Kelly was Baron's first wife. I know, I know
Speaker 4: Sharon and Baron. Let's just be adults here and try
Speaker 4: to move past it. Okay, But Baron's wife, Dede shook
Speaker 4: her head. Sharon was Eric's mother, She would never do
Speaker 4: something so horrible to the father of her son. Was
Speaker 4: this just Baron's trauma talking?
Speaker 1: And Dedey had told them, oh, no, it could be
Speaker 1: disgruntable worker at his job. You know, he works in
Speaker 1: the car business. Maybe they're mad or I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe her ex husband sent you know, Dedie's ex husband
Speaker 1: sent somebody. And you know, they said, there's all kinds
Speaker 1: of possibilities, and in my mind there was no other possibility.
Speaker 4: It was easy to dismiss a man shot nine times, confused,
Speaker 4: scared and searching for answers. His divorce from Sharon had
Speaker 4: been nasty, but now they barely talked unless it was
Speaker 4: a drop off when they exchanged care of Eric. And
Speaker 4: yet what if he wasn't wrong? Dede said Baron was crazy,
Speaker 4: Sharon was not responsible. Still, the cops promised they'd look
Speaker 4: into it. They had to, but first they chased the leads.
Speaker 4: They did have CCTV footage from nearby businesses and traffic
Speaker 4: lights around Baron's apartment complex, and on those tapes something
Speaker 4: stuck a red Ford truck idling on the other side
Speaker 4: the bridge just after the attack. Then the shooter ran
Speaker 4: up and climbed in. This vehicle was distinct. It was
Speaker 4: a Ford F series single cab with diamond plate, bedcap
Speaker 4: and tinted headlight covers. Using traffic cameras across Bellevue, police
Speaker 4: tracked the truck. Thank goodness for twenty four to seven
Speaker 4: government surveillance. Eh well, it worked because they got lucky.
Speaker 4: One frame had the plate. They ran it and discovered
Speaker 4: that the red Ford was registered to a middle aged
Speaker 4: man named Arthur Mendez. And just like that, the case
Speaker 4: had a new name, a new direction, and a very
Speaker 4: unexpected turn. In July of twenty twenty, forty eight year
Speaker 4: old Baron Lee was on his way to work that
Speaker 4: the car dealership when he was ambushed outside his apartment
Speaker 4: by a stranger, shot nine times in the legs, chests,
Speaker 4: and arms, and left for dead. But somehow Baron survived,
Speaker 4: while detectives were stalking out a house in Mount Vernon,
Speaker 4: tracking the red Ford pickup that helped the shooter. Vanish
Speaker 4: Baron was facing something else entirely, a long, brutal recovery
Speaker 4: without the use of his legs or his left arm.
Speaker 1: The first three months I was in a wheelchair. I
Speaker 1: couldn't walk, I couldn't do anything other than go in
Speaker 1: a wheelchair. When I was in the hospital, they wanted,
Speaker 1: because it was the middle of COVID, they wanted to
Speaker 1: send me home immediately. So they basically said, every day
Speaker 1: we're going to have you try and walk a little bit.
Speaker 1: And since you have two steps at home, your goal
Speaker 1: is to walk down two steps. If you can walk
Speaker 1: down two steps, we're sending you home. So I ended
Speaker 1: up going home in seven days. But when I was
Speaker 1: at home, you know, obviously I wasn't walking around.
Speaker 4: I was still in a wheelchair with Baron immobilized. DDE,
Speaker 4: his wife, was the glue that held the family together.
Speaker 1: D D's amazing, an amazing woman, and I owe a
Speaker 1: lot to her, not for just a shooting, but but
Speaker 1: she went through while I was going through rehab, was
Speaker 1: amazing emotionally, Physically, I don't know how she did it.
Speaker 2: Every day.
Speaker 1: I had to have my wounds dressed twice a day,
Speaker 1: so she had to go through all the bullet wounds
Speaker 1: and take out the gauze and put in new gauze
Speaker 1: and you know, clean it all out every single day,
Speaker 1: on top of taking care of Eric, feeding medications, all that,
Speaker 1: and then taking care of Sophia and Nathan, cooking, cleaning, laundry,
Speaker 1: all of that by herself with no help and still smiling,
Speaker 1: still being positive, still being supportive, still encouraging, and not
Speaker 1: asking for anything back at.
Speaker 4: The time, because that's the thing. Not only did Dedie
Speaker 4: have to take care of Baron and her two teenage children,
Speaker 4: but Baron's son from his first marriage, Eric, is special needs.
Speaker 4: Eric has dystonia and hernictorus. These are two very serious
Speaker 4: conditions which means it will require twenty four to seven
Speaker 4: care for the rest of his life. Dystonia is a
Speaker 4: developmental disorder that causes a person to have awkward posture
Speaker 4: and move with twisted, repetitive motions. Crenicterus is a condition
Speaker 4: developed at birth when billy rubin builds up in the
Speaker 4: baby's brain. I think I said all those things correctly,
Speaker 4: but I'm sure, you'll let me know anyway in the comments. Anyway,
Speaker 4: this results in cerebral palsy, learning disabilities, and hearing loss.
Speaker 4: But the reason this all happened to Eric was not
Speaker 4: an act of God, but instead it was due to
Speaker 4: negligence from the medical system. When Eric was born, you see,
Speaker 4: Sharon decided at the last minute to change from her
Speaker 4: obgyn to a midwife at a birthing center after her
Speaker 4: obgyn told her she had to watch her wait during pregnancy.
Speaker 4: Guess she didn't like that. Anyway. Eric was born safely
Speaker 4: at the birthing center and then the new family returned home.
Speaker 4: But after a few days, Baron noticed something was off.
Speaker 1: After they sent us home. The very next day, the
Speaker 1: birthing center sends a home nurse to get Eric's he'll
Speaker 1: proc test, which is a genetic testing, and so they
Speaker 1: come over and then they leave, and then over the
Speaker 1: next few days, I start noticing that Eric is severely jaundice.
Speaker 1: He looks yellow. So I call the birthing center and
Speaker 1: tell him, hey, you know, Eric's Eric's getting yellow and
Speaker 1: little concerned, and they're like, oh, yeah, that's normal, babies
Speaker 1: usually are a little jaundice. Just put him in some
Speaker 1: sunlight and he should be okay. So I did that.
Speaker 1: Next day, he's not getting better, and so I called
Speaker 1: him up again. They're like, oh, no, no, that's normal.
Speaker 1: He's you know, he's the Asian. Of course he's going
Speaker 1: to be a little yellow, you know, like that's normal.
Speaker 1: I was like, that's that's a weird you know, it
Speaker 1: seemed weird, but as a first time parent, I wasn't
Speaker 1: completely sure. So it wasn't till day seven, or the
Speaker 1: evening of day seven. My son was just crying and
Speaker 1: wouldn't stop crying. And he had been pretty even keel,
Speaker 1: I mean, it was the demeanor was really quiet, you know,
Speaker 1: he smiled, but he didn't cry, cry or do anything.
Speaker 1: So this was concerning that he kept crying. So the
Speaker 1: very next morning, this day eight, I go to my
Speaker 1: normal doctor and I take him there and my doctor says, hey,
Speaker 1: you need to take him to the emergency room.
Speaker 4: So Baron rushed his eight year old son to the
Speaker 4: emergency room, praying that everything would be all right.
Speaker 1: I'm headed to the er with Sharon and basically she's like, no, no,
Speaker 1: we need to stop with the birthing center, telling that
Speaker 1: they all know what's wrong. With him, and so, you know,
Speaker 1: against my better judgment, I listened to her. It took
Speaker 1: her to the to the birthing center. We get to
Speaker 1: the birthing center, they're like, oh, yeah, he's john this.
Speaker 1: We need to probably give him some milk. So they
Speaker 1: get bottled milk and they start feeding my son, and
Speaker 1: about an hour later they realized that his temperature is
Speaker 1: going up. It's spiking and he's not getting better, and
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, you need to get to the hospital.
Speaker 4: Baron was beside himself, a million thoughts rushing through his
Speaker 4: head as he packed up Eric and Sharon in the
Speaker 4: car to go to the place he originally wanted to go,
Speaker 4: the emergency room.
Speaker 1: As soon as we get into the er, a whole
Speaker 1: team comes into the room, grabs him, puts them on
Speaker 1: the stretcher, and takes them up to the newborn ICU
Speaker 1: and like, we don't even know what's going on, and
Speaker 1: so they're like, we'll have someone meet with you, and
Speaker 1: they end up putting us into this room and about
Speaker 1: a few minutes later, there's like ten or eleven doctors
Speaker 1: and nurses come in and they're like, you know, we
Speaker 1: got to you have some things to discuss with you
Speaker 1: about Eric, and they tell us that he has a
Speaker 1: severe case of hyper bilerub and he said there. They
Speaker 1: say that most children, when their bill Erubin levels are
Speaker 1: at fifteen or so, they'll put them under the blue
Speaker 1: light and that usually brings them down. And they said
Speaker 1: it goes over twenty. Typically they have to do a
Speaker 1: blood transfusion, taking out the bad blood and putting in
Speaker 1: new blood. They said my son was a forty seven.
Speaker 4: Eric's billy Ruben levels were astronomical. Baron knew that this
Speaker 4: was serious, but he had no idea why it happened.
Speaker 4: Why had Eric's levels spiked so severely.
Speaker 1: Apparently the person that did his genetic testing didn't submit
Speaker 1: it right away, and so my son had a genetic
Speaker 1: disorder called galactysimia where he can't break down galactos. And
Speaker 1: galactos is one of the components in lactose. Lactose breaks
Speaker 1: down into two parts, glucose and galactos, and the glucose
Speaker 1: gets burned up as few and galactose usually gets passed
Speaker 1: through the body through your urine. But the person that
Speaker 1: has galactysimia is not able to break that down, and
Speaker 1: that galactos will flow through the bloodstream and get trapped
Speaker 1: up inside the and that's what happened to my son.
Speaker 4: The nurse from the birthing center had neglected to send
Speaker 4: Eric's genetic testing oft in time, this very serious and
Speaker 4: life threatening condition went unchecked, and then Eric was given
Speaker 4: milk by the birthing center, which was essentially like giving
Speaker 4: him poison.
Speaker 1: So the doctors are telling me all these scenarios about
Speaker 1: how he could die. If he does survive, he's going
Speaker 1: to be a vegetable, or best case scenario, if he
Speaker 1: does survive, he'll have no motor skills, so he won't
Speaker 1: be able to talk or walk. And fortunately he did survive.
Speaker 1: But they were correct.
Speaker 4: Eric was six years old when Baron was shot, and
Speaker 4: though he was not a vegetable by any means, he
Speaker 4: did require constant help as a medically fragile kid. So
Speaker 4: not only was Deeed tending to a frustrated and traumatized
Speaker 4: husband in a wheelchair, she also had a son in
Speaker 4: the same condition, plus two teenagers who were terrified that
Speaker 4: there was a crazed psycho on the loose wanting to
Speaker 4: kill their stepfather. It was absolute hell for DDI, but
Speaker 4: She kept a smile on her face the entire time.
Speaker 4: Just goes to show some women are truly fantastic. She
Speaker 4: was the rock in this situation as Baron struggled.
Speaker 1: I wasn't easy to deal with as well. You know,
Speaker 1: through that rehab I had, you know, emotional issues, I
Speaker 1: had physical issues, so you know, I had temperaments. You know,
Speaker 1: obviously with what I went through, my patience was very low,
Speaker 1: and she had She was the water to my fire,
Speaker 1: you know, and she made sure that she got me
Speaker 1: balanced and told me things were going to be okay
Speaker 1: and we're going to make it. And we had financial
Speaker 1: issues that we were stressing about and a lot of
Speaker 1: other things that you know, we had to deal with them.
Speaker 1: Most people don't understand, you know.
Speaker 4: Well, Baron worked on his physical rehabilitation. The police were
Speaker 4: setting their sights on the investigation. They checked out dde's
Speaker 4: ex husband as well as Sharon. D d's X was
Speaker 4: out of the state at the time of the shooting,
Speaker 4: and then he admitted to having some beef with Baron.
Speaker 4: He claimed he had nothing to do with it. He
Speaker 4: checked out. Sharon said the same thing. In fact, she
Speaker 4: told cops the only person I know in Bellevue is
Speaker 4: my ex husband and we rarely talk. The exes were
Speaker 4: checked off the list for now, and police narrowed their
Speaker 4: focus on the owner of the shooter's getaway car, Arthur Mendez.
Speaker 4: Arthur was about the same age as Baron, and he
Speaker 4: lived in Mount Vernon, a town about an hour and
Speaker 4: a half away from Baron's house in Bellevue. Instead of
Speaker 4: just going right up to the door and knocking, police
Speaker 4: decided to stake out the Mendes house to see if
Speaker 4: they could get some activity on the truck. The red
Speaker 4: F one fifty was the key. Detectives had pulled even
Speaker 4: more footage from the day of the shooting and now
Speaker 4: confirmed that the truck had arrived at Baron's apartment two
Speaker 4: hours before the attack, circled back and exited. They were
Speaker 4: also able to secure traffic light footage that showed a
Speaker 4: clear shot of the passenger in the truck, a slender
Speaker 4: person wearing a distinctive gold chain. This person, the alleged shooter,
Speaker 4: also had a habit of tucking the seat belt under
Speaker 4: his arm rather than across his chest. They were certain
Speaker 4: that this truck was the key to finding Baron's killer,
Speaker 4: as a group of officers staked out Arthur's house. Another
Speaker 4: team investigated his life on social media. Arthur was fifty
Speaker 4: six years old. He had a couple of kids, loved Jesus,
Speaker 4: and was a big football guy, but he had no
Speaker 4: known ties to Baron Lee. In fact, Arthur wasn't the
Speaker 4: one who drove the red F one fifty. It belonged
Speaker 4: to his son, seventeen year old Quincy Mendez. Quincy was
Speaker 4: your typical high schooler who flexed on social media by
Speaker 4: posing for bathroom selfies. He also devoted his life to
Speaker 4: wrestling and had dreams of joining the military. He worked
Speaker 4: at a tire shop and drove his F one to
Speaker 4: fifty there for every shift, so the cops tracked him
Speaker 4: one afternoon. They hit the jackpot when they noticed a
Speaker 4: friend in the car with him. This friend wore a
Speaker 4: gold chain and he tucked his seat belt under his arm,
Speaker 4: just like the passenger on the surveillance video had BINGO.
Speaker 4: But the detectives had to keep Baron and his family
Speaker 4: in the dark. Chasing down Quincy was a covert operation
Speaker 4: and they couldn't risk any gossip.
Speaker 1: I worked with the detectives. They kept asking me stuff
Speaker 1: you know here and there, but they wouldn't disclose anything
Speaker 1: that they found. They told me that they wouldn't because
Speaker 1: they wanted to keep the integrity of the investigation in place.
Speaker 1: And he said, I understand that. I said, I'm not
Speaker 1: in aarage. I said, just do what you gotta do
Speaker 1: to make sure you can get a conviction. That's all
Speaker 1: I care about.
Speaker 4: The detectives found out that Quincy Mendez went to Mount
Speaker 4: Vernon High School, and when they visited the schools administrators,
Speaker 4: they were able to identify the alleged shooter as Joseph Good.
Speaker 4: The school administrators confirmed that both Quincy and Joseph were
Speaker 4: good kids, they never caused any trouble, and they had
Speaker 4: zero criminal records. Still, it was time to talk with
Speaker 4: Quincy and Joseph and find out what the hell was
Speaker 4: going on at the station. Joseph folded his hands and
Speaker 4: listened to the detectives.
Speaker 13: So before you decide on that, okay, we have some
Speaker 13: informing that we're willing to share with you at this point. Okay,
Speaker 13: So if you want, before we get into that, you
Speaker 13: can hear us out about what we have to say
Speaker 13: and then make a decision about that.
Speaker 2: Okay. Does that make sense? Yeah, that sounds so pretty.
Speaker 14: So you're okay with talking to us at this point?
Speaker 14: Do you have to like answer questions and stuff? That's
Speaker 14: up to you you, Like you said, you've read your
Speaker 14: rights to Yeah, the right to answer questions. You don't
Speaker 14: have to answer questions at any time.
Speaker 11: If you want to fill uncomfortable, you can just say, yeah,
Speaker 11: I've heard what you wanted to say.
Speaker 14: I don't want to answer that, so I just rather
Speaker 14: have like because I don't want to get about any
Speaker 14: of the stuff.
Speaker 2: So I'm had to have so And that's fine. You're
Speaker 2: you're more than entitled to that.
Speaker 11: What we like to do is just have you give
Speaker 11: us opportunity to to share with you what we have
Speaker 11: and then you can make a decision.
Speaker 2: Does that make sense? Yeah? Yeah.
Speaker 4: Joseph didn't seem to really grasp what was happening, but
Speaker 4: like a good alleged hit man, you wanted to seem agreeable,
Speaker 4: so he nodded along as the cops told him about
Speaker 4: the attempted murder they were investigating in Bellevue.
Speaker 2: So when, like I said, we had that shitting in Bellevue.
Speaker 11: After we went back, we found this this vehicle point
Speaker 11: into a gas station, don bellgue. You recognize that pickup
Speaker 11: at all them? Yeah, kind of, I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 11: I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sure, you've never seen that pickup before. I know
Speaker 2: a few people who've on those. Anybody that you know
Speaker 2: that owns a pickup like that?
Speaker 4: Joseph said his friend Quincy had a truck like that,
Speaker 4: but they didn't hang out that much anymore. In fact,
Speaker 4: the last he heard the clutch went out on Quincy's truck.
Speaker 2: Because you said the clutch has been out for a
Speaker 2: long time. I was just trying to put a reference
Speaker 2: on six five, six months. I don't know, five or
Speaker 2: six months clutches, I don't I don't know. I'm not
Speaker 2: exactly se So there's that picture.
Speaker 14: Therefore I answer all the questions.
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm doing it.
Speaker 4: And just like that, Joseph shut up, smart boy. Because
Speaker 4: the cops weren't done with them, not even close. They
Speaker 4: started churning out warrants, pulling everything they could from Joseph
Speaker 4: and Quincy's iCloud accounts, Instagram, snapchat, emails, text you know,
Speaker 4: the entire profile of your life you put online. At first,
Speaker 4: it was just teenage noise, selfies, memes, dumb jokes all useless,
Speaker 4: But two months in, buried in the noise of selfies
Speaker 4: and memes, a detective spotted it. An email receipt from
Speaker 4: brick House Security, a company that sells GPS trackers. Why
Speaker 4: would a teenager need a GPS tracker in the's car
Speaker 4: was still in evidence. Investigators checked under the tailgate and
Speaker 4: lo and behold, there it was, the GPS tracker, still
Speaker 4: clinging to the frame with a strip of cheap duct tape.
Speaker 4: The detectives contacted brick House, pulling every record they had
Speaker 4: related to the serial number on the device, and it
Speaker 4: was registered to none other than Sharon Kelly Baron's ex wife.
Speaker 6: Yes, I purchased a GPS tracker from you guys about
Speaker 6: five years ago, and it's the subscription, of course is
Speaker 6: no longer asked? Is I am able to log in?
Speaker 6: But it looks like you guys may have changed the website.
Speaker 7: Or service or whatever that you've used. I want to
Speaker 7: reactivate that device, and then I'm not sure how. I'm
Speaker 7: not sure how I can if it's like track you
Speaker 7: or what.
Speaker 1: Warser devices are, it still looks the same.
Speaker 10: So would you like to reactivate your service or your tracker?
Speaker 7: I would like to reactivate it.
Speaker 4: Baron was right. This was all Sharon, and apparently she'd
Speaker 4: been plotting this for five years.
Speaker 7: Now.
Speaker 4: The cops had to figure out how thirty year old
Speaker 4: Sharon got two teenage boys to shoot her ex husband.
Speaker 4: I'll tell you what, Some women out there are pure shit. Anyway,
Speaker 4: Joseph lawyered up when they took him into custody, but Quincy.
Speaker 4: Quincy wasn't quite as smart.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, we had an incident in Bellevie, and that's
Speaker 3: what we're here to talk to you about.
Speaker 13: They told you what you were arrested for.
Speaker 2: They did.
Speaker 8: I was asking and they were just like, shut up
Speaker 8: and just leaver these typetives.
Speaker 2: That's all right, That's all I told me in honest Okay.
Speaker 9: Yeah, So like we said, it was, it's a pretty
Speaker 9: serious thing. But as we said, who right now? Who
Speaker 9: think you're more minimal? But I think you've a minimal
Speaker 9: and you're.
Speaker 11: Involvement in it, Like I think there's other people that
Speaker 11: are more.
Speaker 2: I don't know, let's explain it.
Speaker 11: So there's other people that obviously haven't played a greater
Speaker 11: role in what happened.
Speaker 2: I'm not catching him up. I think as we talk
Speaker 2: about it and probably make more sense.
Speaker 13: But okay, So to be clear, you're under rest for.
Speaker 3: An assaults salt and assault, yes, uh, and it's a
Speaker 3: pretty serious one.
Speaker 2: What salt you're want to solve this? Well, you don't
Speaker 2: like beating up someone, harming another human being? Yeah, harming
Speaker 2: another human being.
Speaker 3: We also know that there is another person involves that
Speaker 3: needs to be held accountable for a much larger role
Speaker 3: in this and than you seem to have played. Okay,
Speaker 3: and that's the big part of what we're interested in.
Speaker 11: Today, right, there's a reason we're talking to you, so
Speaker 11: we know there's more to what you guys did when
Speaker 11: you're in Belfield your time, because we've already talked with him.
Speaker 4: The detectives told Quincy they already knew what happened, which
Speaker 4: was of course a lie, and now they needed his
Speaker 4: side of the story. Who falls for that shit? Oh right, right, right?
Speaker 4: Dumb people which are usually you know, criminals. Quincy said
Speaker 4: that when Joseph approached him about driving to Bellevue, he
Speaker 4: wasn't in his right mind.
Speaker 2: I can't rather remember.
Speaker 14: Because I was on shrooms and I was on shrom
Speaker 14: you know, you and Jada were smoking strings.
Speaker 4: For the first time smoking shrooms.
Speaker 9: Huh.
Speaker 4: To be fair, this Cops drug education probably came from
Speaker 4: a Vhess tape. Quincy admitted that he was at Joseph's
Speaker 4: house tripping on shrooms with Joseph's sister when Joseph came
Speaker 4: home and said they were going to Bellevue the next day.
Speaker 4: Joseph said he had something big to do and there'd
Speaker 4: be money in it too.
Speaker 2: He told you told me at the end, like do
Speaker 2: you want do you want five grand? I was? I
Speaker 2: pretty much came in then option okay, I said, yeah.
Speaker 2: How much did he say he was getting? I don't know.
Speaker 2: I did. That's the standard question negotiating one on one.
Speaker 2: He said, well, you give me a god, I mean
Speaker 2: that's a lot of money. Five grand?
Speaker 9: Yeah, I just find how much does he get in?
Speaker 2: Well? I think he said like probably thirteen His cut
Speaker 2: was thirteen years was five? So eighteen total? Or was
Speaker 2: there another person in there just getting a cut of
Speaker 2: that that? I don't know?
Speaker 8: He just told me for me said it was just
Speaker 8: he's game pained on game paid as it does it.
Speaker 15: So the question becomes, where did that money come from?
Speaker 2: Right? Because I haven't gotten any money, but.
Speaker 15: What I'm saying, is he didn't have that money to
Speaker 15: pay you, Right, He's getting thirteen from somebody, right, yeah,
Speaker 15: So what does that lead you to believe is just
Speaker 15: happening here? Someone told him to do it, right, Yeah,
Speaker 15: he's he's being paid. He's breaking you off a piece
Speaker 15: for being a driver.
Speaker 2: Basically, right, Okay.
Speaker 4: Quincy swore he had no idea who the money was
Speaker 4: coming from, but he was high, and five thousand dollars
Speaker 4: sounded pretty good. Money was coming from, but he was high,
Speaker 4: and five thousand dollars sounded pretty good for a drive
Speaker 4: to Bellevue, even if it was some sketchy shit like oh,
Speaker 4: I don't know emptying a clip? Oh, before you say,
Speaker 4: it's a magazine not a clip. Just shit the fuck up?
Speaker 2: What does it mean to take a whole clip? Or
Speaker 2: someone shoot someone? So, you know, but yeah, but in
Speaker 2: my head, it's just like.
Speaker 8: I thought it was just fluffy, honestly, like.
Speaker 2: He who does you know that could have put him
Speaker 2: onto a job like that? Put him on a job
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 15: You know, Like, who's gonna say I need somebody to
Speaker 15: get shut I.
Speaker 2: Know, I'll call you.
Speaker 1: That.
Speaker 2: Not anyone I would know of all my phraser. I see.
Speaker 4: The more they talk, the more it really did seem
Speaker 4: like Quincy was just the tag along who got roped
Speaker 4: into something too big for his warped little mind to handle.
Speaker 4: We are only showing you about two percent. This excruciating
Speaker 4: interrogation went on for nearly four hours.
Speaker 2: So is it some scrapp you're supposed to go knock
Speaker 2: off or what? No, you're know what kind of person? No?
Speaker 2: Did you ever find out what kind of person it was?
Speaker 2: He ever talk about it?
Speaker 11: Just it could have been just a normal Joe Moo
Speaker 11: citizen who's walking down the street.
Speaker 2: Or was there a game banger or what? Who was
Speaker 2: the person I was supposed to be taken out? Oh No,
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 8: He just talk about the dude that that that this
Speaker 8: dude that was it.
Speaker 2: He did say anything. It was just like this dude
Speaker 2: right here. I was like, what about him?
Speaker 10: He's like, we need he, we need the club.
Speaker 2: So yeah, he told me we need to do what
Speaker 2: he said Again, I didn't the clip the club? The clip?
Speaker 2: What does that mean to you? He was gonna cap him? Yeah?
Speaker 8: Get I'm telling you guys straight up, I'm being honest.
Speaker 8: I mean everything I am right now, to be helpful
Speaker 8: to you guys right now. I do not know who
Speaker 8: he's connected with. I do not know who his big
Speaker 8: homies are. He told me I did it. It was
Speaker 8: fun that I did it. I regret it. I shouldn't
Speaker 8: have it just for money or any But I don't
Speaker 8: know whose his connections are.
Speaker 4: But the cops didn't need Quincy to confirm what they
Speaker 4: already knew. Sharon Kelly was behind it. They had the
Speaker 4: brickhouse GPS data, they had the emails to Joseph. They
Speaker 4: also had the texts between Sharon and the boys solidifying
Speaker 4: their guilt.
Speaker 1: And the conversation between Sharon and Joseph was that the
Speaker 1: job wasn't done, that they'll need to go back, and
Speaker 1: Joseph will say, well, we need money up front because
Speaker 1: you didn't pay the same thing yet, so we need
Speaker 1: some of that money, or at least half upfront. And
Speaker 1: apparently Quincy said he didn't want to take part of
Speaker 1: any of it. They didn't want to participate or help
Speaker 1: or have anything to do with it anymore.
Speaker 4: So when the cops showed up at Sharon's door with handcuffs,
Speaker 4: she didn't ask what is this all about? She didn't
Speaker 4: feign ignorance. She dropped her coffee cup and screamed inside
Speaker 4: to her brother, call my lawyer. But what still haunted
Speaker 4: detectives was the question no evidence could answer. Why Why
Speaker 4: would the mother of a special needs child who saw
Speaker 4: him every weekend hire teenage boys to kill her ex husband.
Speaker 4: Sharon wasn't going to talk, but the cops didn't need
Speaker 4: her to because Baron was alive and willing to tell
Speaker 4: them everything. In early July of twenty twenty, Baron Lee
Speaker 4: was shot nine times by a teenage hitman. He should
Speaker 4: have died, but somehow he didn't. Now his ex wife,
Speaker 4: Sharon Kelly, sat behind bars, the mastermind of it all.
Speaker 4: She wasn't talking, but to her dismay, Baron was alive
Speaker 4: and he remembered everything. Because what no one knew then
Speaker 4: was that Sharon hadn't just tried to kill him once.
Speaker 4: She'd been laying the groundwork for years.
Speaker 1: She had tried to run me over twice prior once
Speaker 1: in twenty fifteen. This is before I ended up fleeing
Speaker 1: the state of Washington because I wasn't getting help. She
Speaker 1: actually had me on her hood and she was She
Speaker 1: actually tried to hit me. I ended up jumping up
Speaker 1: and ended up on her hood and she drove, you know,
Speaker 1: couple hundred yards before I was able to roll off
Speaker 1: the car and get away from her. The second time
Speaker 1: was in front of the Kirkland Police Department during a
Speaker 1: cussy chanceror and they said that basically it was a
Speaker 1: themistic issue and that we would have to deal with
Speaker 1: it in family court, which just boggled my mind. So
Speaker 1: someone tries to kill me, but it's a family issue.
Speaker 1: So I ended up going to family court and I'm
Speaker 1: told in family court that we just need to learn
Speaker 1: to co parent better.
Speaker 4: Sharon and Baron's amicable phase was short lived. They met
Speaker 4: online in two thousand and five. Baron was working in
Speaker 4: Nevada at the time, and Sharon was young, pretty and
Speaker 4: looking for someone to take care of her. Though they
Speaker 4: were over a decade apart, they pursued a relationship through
Speaker 4: phone calls and texts, and before long, Sharon left Washington
Speaker 4: to meet Baron in Nevada.
Speaker 1: And she wanted to come down to Vegas and she
Speaker 1: asked if it was okay to bring her to younger
Speaker 1: brother with her to meet me, and you know, stay
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks, and so I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, if you want to come down and visit,
Speaker 1: no problem. You know, I was single at the time,
Speaker 1: nobody lived with me and you know, at space. So
Speaker 1: she came down to Vegas and she brought her her
Speaker 1: brother Timmy and her brother Joshua, who were like five
Speaker 1: and I want to say five and seven or five
Speaker 1: and eight at the time.
Speaker 4: With her young brothers and toe, Sharon showed up in
Speaker 4: Las Vegas, and surprisingly, Baron welcomed them with open arms.
Speaker 4: Being a product of the foster care system himself, Baron
Speaker 4: just couldn't turn anyone away.
Speaker 1: We hit it off, and then, you know, the interaction
Speaker 1: I had with her brothers surprised her as well. Her
Speaker 1: brothers were so used to just doing whatever they wanted
Speaker 1: and having you know, no discipline, and so when they
Speaker 1: came to stay with me, you know, set some ground
Speaker 1: rules and basically the way they treated her was not
Speaker 1: very good, and I, you know, I told him that
Speaker 1: that's not you know, allowed, you know, and that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff, and started parenting them. And the two weeks
Speaker 1: that they were going to stay ended up turning into
Speaker 1: like four months thying with me.
Speaker 4: Their relationship moved quickly. They decided to move back to
Speaker 4: Washington so Sharon could be closer to the family. Baron
Speaker 4: agreed without hesitation. After settling in, they got married. Baron
Speaker 4: believed they shared the same ambitions, a driven, adventurous future.
Speaker 4: Sharon had away with words. Soon they decided to start
Speaker 4: a family. Then Eric was born. His birth was traumatic,
Speaker 4: leaving him severely medically fragile. Baron stepped up. Sharon did not.
Speaker 1: I worked in the car in the street at the time.
Speaker 1: I worked for Toyota, and I worked twelve hour days
Speaker 1: to get up in the morning at six, and I'd
Speaker 1: come home about six and I would find Eric so
Speaker 1: looking with in his walker or you know, his little
Speaker 1: walker thing, and he'd be crying and screaming, and Sharon
Speaker 1: would be sitting on the couch watching Korean dramas or
Speaker 1: whatever it is that she was watching, and she would say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's been like that all day. And I'm like, then,
Speaker 1: why aren't you changing him? Why aren't you doing anything.
Speaker 1: It would take me, you know, three four hours to
Speaker 1: calm him down, you know, because he had been, you know,
Speaker 1: in that high emotional state for so long.
Speaker 4: Whether she was depressed, overwhelmed or just playing lazy. Sharon's
Speaker 4: mothering went from bad to worse. Barn new things were unmanageable.
Speaker 4: He tried to get help for his wife, but she
Speaker 4: insisted she was fine, and so was Eric.
Speaker 1: So the last job for me was that I found
Speaker 1: out that she was having Eric. Someone babysit Eric, like
Speaker 1: they're not medically trained to babysit him, but they were
Speaker 1: babysitting him while she was going out and having an affair.
Speaker 4: Baron had enough, not out of anger but fear. His son.
Speaker 4: Eric's health was on the line with estonia and her nictorus.
Speaker 4: Every day required constant specialized care, and Sharon couldn't handle it.
Speaker 4: She wasn't just failing as a mother, she couldn't even
Speaker 4: be trusted as his nurse.
Speaker 1: And so I was like, okay, I'm done, you know,
Speaker 1: like this is it. So I came home one day
Speaker 1: and I picked up Eric and I was trying to
Speaker 1: leave the house and she's asking what you're doing, and
Speaker 1: I'm saying, I'm leaving him, taking Eric with me, and
Speaker 1: she got mad and started pulling on Eric, and I
Speaker 1: was afraid he was gonna get hurt, so I gave
Speaker 1: him to her and she starts screaming, you know, like
Speaker 1: like she's being abused or something, and just at the
Speaker 1: top of her boys screaming, and the neighbors end up
Speaker 1: calling the police. When the police come, and she says, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that I'm abusing her and abusing my son, breaking furniture
Speaker 1: and doing all this stuff. And I'm like, I haven't
Speaker 1: even touched her, I haven't done anything to her, and
Speaker 1: I haven't broken anything. And so the police do their
Speaker 1: investigation and they realize that none of what she's saying
Speaker 1: is true, but they advised that one of us leave,
Speaker 1: and I said, well, she has my son. If she
Speaker 1: wants to go and leave with him, then go ahead.
Speaker 1: I'll just deal with it in court. And so she
Speaker 1: takes off.
Speaker 4: It was the point of no return. Two weeks later,
Speaker 4: Sharon filed the restraining order and the state put Eric
Speaker 4: in her care. That's what the state does. Favors women
Speaker 4: in situations like this. It happens all the time. Must
Speaker 4: be that male privilege I keep hearing about. That's when
Speaker 4: the war started. For the next five years, Baron fought
Speaker 4: for custody while Sharon played the system, demanding support and
Speaker 4: collecting benefits. Her son wasn't a child doer anymore. He
Speaker 4: was a paycheck. At least that's what her family convinced
Speaker 4: her of. The woman Baron had fallen in love with
Speaker 4: had transformed into a bitter, entitled mother who expected sympathy
Speaker 4: from the world because she had a special needs child.
Speaker 4: A lot of that going around these days.
Speaker 1: Her her family are you know what we call them
Speaker 1: career welfare cases, you know. And then her mom basically
Speaker 1: lives off welfare, uses welfare because she has multiple kids,
Speaker 1: so she uses welfare to survive. And their mentality and
Speaker 1: I saw this in text where like, you know, oh
Speaker 1: you can do this? Is this you don't have to work,
Speaker 1: you know, you can get welfare, you can live off
Speaker 1: his child support. So it was more of like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't have to do anything anymore, and
Speaker 1: I can, you know, abuse the system and that type
Speaker 1: of stuff.
Speaker 4: It became clear that Sharon wanted sole custody Eric, not
Speaker 4: to care for him, but because there was a million
Speaker 4: dollar settlement tied to his birth injury. Though they could
Speaker 4: not sue the birthing center directly, the insurance paid them
Speaker 4: for what happened to Eric.
Speaker 1: I took that money and I put into a special
Speaker 1: needs trust so later on, when Eric's eighteen, hopefully that
Speaker 1: money will grow and help you take care of him
Speaker 1: when we're not there anymore. One of the things that
Speaker 1: I found when we broke up because I access to
Speaker 1: all of her phone records as well, and so there
Speaker 1: was text messages where she had planned, you know, to
Speaker 1: siphon money out of our accounts. Also when we break up,
Speaker 1: that they were going to utilize the courts to force
Speaker 1: me to pay child support, and that eventually she's wanting
Speaker 1: to get access to the trust fund money.
Speaker 4: Sharon had custody of Eric until he was three years old,
Speaker 4: and during that time she did her best to put
Speaker 4: him in a more medically fragile state, demanding a feeding tube,
Speaker 4: a tracheotomy, and a do not Resuscitate order, all things
Speaker 4: doctor said he didn't need. So she hospital shopped until
Speaker 4: she got the feeding tube and the DNR. What a bitch.
Speaker 1: During this time, I expressed a ton of concerns because
Speaker 1: he was being hospitalized, he was being sick, she was
Speaker 1: trying to do things that didn't seem appropriate. But because
Speaker 1: I didn't have medical medical making decisions, she was able
Speaker 1: to go to the hospitals and convey what she wanted.
Speaker 4: That's when CPS stepped in. Sharon was diagnosed with Munchausen
Speaker 4: by proxy and deemed unfit. Eric was placed in foster
Speaker 4: care pending a parenting plan. For Baron. It was a nightmare,
Speaker 4: a legal disaster. His life narrowed to one goal, bringing
Speaker 4: Eric home, but the courts leaned towards Sharon. I wonder why, oh, right, right? Female?
Speaker 4: This was despite her erratic behavior and her obvious lack
Speaker 4: of concern for her own child's well being. Then came
Speaker 4: twenty seventeen, a custody exchange at the Kirkland police station.
Speaker 4: Sharon didn't just lose control. She threw Eric on the
Speaker 4: floor instead of placing him in a wheelchair. That changed everything.
Speaker 4: For the first time, someone besides Baron saw her rage firsthand.
Speaker 4: Baron and Dedi took Eric home. He stayed with him
Speaker 4: full time, but legally, Sharon was still considered the primary caregiver.
Speaker 4: Let's face it, the family court system is more than broken,
Speaker 4: it's pure shit. Anyway, Baron didn't water to have contact
Speaker 4: with Eric for obvious reasons. Shared custody was just not
Speaker 4: an option for him.
Speaker 1: She was after Eric. Was the way that Eric was
Speaker 1: being hospitalized or the things that she was doing. It
Speaker 1: looked to me like she wanted him to die, but
Speaker 1: in a way that no one was going to question
Speaker 1: her and say that he's it's because he's medically fragile,
Speaker 1: or this is you know, this is the cause of
Speaker 1: his death is because he had complications.
Speaker 4: There was one incident where Eric's home nurse aid found
Speaker 4: him nearly dead at Sharon's house and he had to
Speaker 4: be rushed to the hospital. Things like this just kept happening.
Speaker 1: And here's the thing is the family court system ignored
Speaker 1: it all. Like the GL was saying, hey, this this
Speaker 1: boy is not safe around her. He needs you know,
Speaker 1: and they ignored it all. They when it came to
Speaker 1: whatever she did, it doesn't matter who spoke on my behalf,
Speaker 1: whether it's me was, whether it was a GL, whether
Speaker 1: it was a social work, it didn't matter. The courts
Speaker 1: never listened.
Speaker 4: Baron, Indeedie cared for Eric while Sharon had visitation. What
Speaker 4: she really wanted was money. If Baron was gone and
Speaker 4: Eric returned to her care, she thought she could get it.
Speaker 4: So she went through her little brother, the same one
Speaker 4: Baron once looked after in Vegas, and she found Joseph Good,
Speaker 4: setting in motion her final plot to get rid of
Speaker 4: her ex husband. Sharon's little brother put the word out
Speaker 4: amongst his friends at high school, and Joseph took the bait.
Speaker 4: It was that easy. With Baron dead, the money would
Speaker 4: be all hers money, money, money, money, or so she thought.
Speaker 1: But what Sharon didn't realize is the way the trust
Speaker 1: is set up, unless it's needed for medical reasons, that
Speaker 1: money will never be pulled out, and he can't be
Speaker 1: pulled out. It's cash. It's going to be pulled out
Speaker 1: to pay for medical reasons only. So in other words,
Speaker 1: if there's a medical bill, then it goes directly to
Speaker 1: the medical company, not to us, and then we pay
Speaker 1: them the medical company. But that wasn't what she thought.
Speaker 1: She thought she would have access to it.
Speaker 4: For years, Sharon had threatened Baron and worse, their son,
Speaker 4: but what she did was so outrageous, so unhinged, that
Speaker 4: when Baron spoke up, he sounded like a man describing
Speaker 4: the plot of a bad movie. No one believed him,
Speaker 4: and the family courts only emboldened her. Every time Eric
Speaker 4: landed in the hospital or CPS got involved, she was
Speaker 4: given a pass because she's the mom years of getting
Speaker 4: away with it convinced her of one thing she could
Speaker 4: get away with murder.
Speaker 1: As horrible as you may think that the shooting was
Speaker 1: shooting was the best thing that happened to me. The
Speaker 1: shooting gave me a voice. A lot of men go
Speaker 1: through this, and this is one of the hardest things
Speaker 1: as a man sitting on an island by yourself. I
Speaker 1: was telling people what was going on at work, my
Speaker 1: personal life, my family, and I would always get that
Speaker 1: eye roll, you know, not you know, not blatant, but
Speaker 1: you could tell like, yeah, he's full of shit type
Speaker 1: of look right, like, oh, he's not telling all the
Speaker 1: truth or he's exaggerating. But the shooting a lot of
Speaker 1: people to see that, now what I say is true, right,
Speaker 1: Like what I've been saying all my life is true.
Speaker 4: Joseph Good was charged with attempted murder and unlawful possession
Speaker 4: of a firearm, then sentenced to thirteen years in prison.
Speaker 4: Quincy Mendez received eight years for the assault on Baron
Speaker 4: and was sent to a juvenile detention center. Baron has
Speaker 4: since forgiven both of the boys. Sharon, on the other hand,
Speaker 4: was eventually offered a plea deal, taking her charge down
Speaker 4: to solicitation of attempted murder in the second degree, she'd
Speaker 4: be looking at thirteen years, not twenty five. Then for
Speaker 4: shits and giggles, they lowered her charge a smidge more,
Speaker 4: probably because of the tits and puss, you know.
Speaker 1: But in the plea deal, the prosecutor offered her one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty months, And my argument to the courts
Speaker 1: was that the fact that they were reducing this the plea,
Speaker 1: she should have got the maximum of the reduction plea,
Speaker 1: not an agreed average of that plea. And so the
Speaker 1: reason I wanted that was one, at one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty months, she would get out when Erik is seventeen.
Speaker 1: And my concern is that I'd have to deal with
Speaker 1: this family court bullshit again on top of having to
Speaker 1: deal with her trying to kill me. So I told
Speaker 1: the court that one, she shouldn't get less time than
Speaker 1: the shooter or the driver, So she should get one
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty the maximum hundred and sixty five months,
Speaker 1: which will allow me to set up guardianship and do
Speaker 1: everything that's needed before she gets out, so Eric will
Speaker 1: already be eighteen by the time she gets out.
Speaker 4: It was abysmal. It was outrageous. How could Sharon receive
Speaker 4: a lighter sentence than the teenagers she hired to shoot Baron?
Speaker 4: Without her, none of this would have ever happened.
Speaker 1: That's what appalled me. Them all is like I even
Speaker 1: stated that in court, you know the fact that she
Speaker 1: not just ruined my life, in my son's life, but
Speaker 1: she ruined two teenagers as well. You know, I s
Speaker 1: They're like, you know, she deserves a lot more than
Speaker 1: what she was given.
Speaker 4: Sharon is behind bars, and she'll be there until her
Speaker 4: son turns eighteen. But for now, one legal problem remains
Speaker 4: that Baron is still trying to fight.
Speaker 1: Technically, Sharon still has custody. I wanted to go to
Speaker 1: trial and get custody, but she was in county for
Speaker 1: three years, and during that time they wouldn't allow me
Speaker 1: to move forward with the family court case, saying that
Speaker 1: she had a right to be there and that I
Speaker 1: couldn't move forward. So this whole time, I've been waiting
Speaker 1: to get custody, and because it took so long, they
Speaker 1: closed the case and I had to petition to reopen
Speaker 1: the family court case so I can still fight for custody.
Speaker 1: I still don't have custody.
Speaker 4: It's unbelievable, But barn is still fighting for custody, for control,
Speaker 4: for peace. Sharon is behind bars for literal murder, but
Speaker 4: not forever. One day she'll walk free, and as co parents,
Speaker 4: their paths will cross again. Can you imagine they share
Speaker 4: a child? Not just any child, but Eric, a nonverbal,
Speaker 4: vulnerable boy, will need care for the rest of his life.
Speaker 4: Will he ever say he wants to see his mother?
Speaker 4: Will she even care now that the money's gone? Sharon
Speaker 4: Kelly was evil, not misguided, just plain evil, munch housing
Speaker 4: by proxy, delusions of grandeur, abusing a medically fragile child.
Speaker 4: She was dangerous and calculated, and for years she had
Speaker 4: Eric all to herself. Baron still lies awake, wondering what
Speaker 4: she did during that time, the early years shape a
Speaker 4: child forever, and if she left him in filth when
Speaker 4: they were married, through him on the police station floor
Speaker 4: in front of strangers, then what actually happened behind closed
Speaker 4: doors when she was alone, when she could get away
Speaker 4: with anything. But Baron can't live in those shadows, not anymore.
Speaker 4: This isn't just about Sharon's twisted plan to kill Baron.
Speaker 4: It's about the man who survived it to be a father.
Speaker 4: That should have been the end of it, but it wasn't.
Speaker 4: It was the start of something bigger, a second chance
Speaker 4: for Baron. Now he's on the advisory board of a
Speaker 4: nonprofit organization for foster children called Root twenty one, and
Speaker 4: he's fighting to change the system, pushing laws to protect
Speaker 4: fathers and family court, including one bill in the House
Speaker 4: and another in the Senate. And at home with his
Speaker 4: wife died and his kids, he's building the life Sharon
Speaker 4: tried to destroy. Baron didn't just survive by luck. He
Speaker 4: survived for a reason. For Eric. Everything he does is
Speaker 4: for his son. What a great dad. The shooting didn't
Speaker 4: ruin him, It revealed the truth. Sharon is a threat,
Speaker 4: and in twenty thirty six, she'll be out, free to Rome,
Speaker 4: free to plot. Baron knows she's not done after thirteen
Speaker 4: years in a cell to stew on vengeance. So maybe
Speaker 4: he'll move to another state, to another country, whatever it takes,
Speaker 4: because in thirteen years he'll need to disappear before she
Speaker 4: finds him again and does even worse. Who knows what
Speaker 4: that bitch is capable of.
Speaker 7: Well.
Speaker 16: That episode was produced by Mish Barber way, one of
Speaker 16: our one of our long time producers. We've had producers
Speaker 16: here for I don't know what, six, seven, eight years now,
Speaker 16: so try to keep track of how long they put around.
Speaker 4: She's very talented. Though very talented lady always puts that
Speaker 4: great stuff. I'm your host, Mike Boudet. In case you're lost,
Speaker 4: just browsing through the Apple catalog. If you like this show,
Speaker 4: you can help support it. You can go find a
Speaker 4: lot more of it at Swordskaille dot com or download
Speaker 4: our app on iOS and Android.
Speaker 11: Its s